Tag: Laughlin

Chicago Ph.D. alumnus and Columbia Professor of Banking, Henry Parker Willis

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-10-07

Columbia University’s professor of banking (1917-37), Henry Parker Willis was an early economics Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, a student of J. Laurence Laughlin. He played an important role in the founding and early years of the Federal Reserve System and later as a expert consultant on banking affairs for the U.S. Congress. Besides all this he served over a dozen years editing the N. Y. Journal of Commerce.
This posting begins with a biographical note I found at FRASER, goes on with the Journal of Commerce’s account of his work there, and concludes with the Columbia School of Political Science Memorial minute entered into its recorded minutes in 1938.

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Henry Parker Willis
Biographical Note

1874, Aug. 14	Born, Weymouth, Massachusetts
1894 1897	A.B., University of Chicago Ph.D., University of Chicago
1897-98	Assistant, Monetary Commission
1898-1905	Washington and Lee University, successively adjunct professor, full professor, Wilson professor of economics and political science
1903, Dec. 24	Married Rosa Johnston Brooke (4 children—1 with FRB of Boston, 1 with FRB of New York)
1901-12	Leader writer, New York Evening Post
1902-03	Washington correspondent, N. Y. Journal of Commerce
1905-13	Washington correspondent, Engineering and Mining Journal
1905-06 1907-12	Professor of finance, George Washington Univ.; and Dean, College of Political Sciences, 1910-12
1909-10	Editor, U. S. Immigration Commission
1911-13	Expert, Ways and Means Committee, House of Representatives
1912-13	Expert, Banking and Currency Committee, House of Representatives (drafting Federal Reserve Act)
1912-14 1919-31	Associate editor, N. Y. Journal of Commerce Editor in chief, N. Y. Journal of Commerce
1913-14 1917-	Lecturer, Columbia University Professor of banking, Columbia University
1914-18 1918-221922	Secretary, Federal Reserve Board, Washington Director of Research, Federal Reserve Board (moved office to New York for this period) Consulting economist, Federal Reserve Board
1916-17	President, Philippine National Bank
1919	Special commissioner in Australasia for Chase National Bank and Central Union Trust Company
1926-27	Chairman, Banking Commission of Irish Free State
1930-32	Technical adviser to U. S. Senate Banking and Currency Committee (drafting Banking Act of 1933)
1932-35	American representative to Le Temps, Paris
1937, July 18	Died

Author of:

Report of the Monetary Commission. 1898. (Joint author)
History of the Latin Monetary Union. 1901.
Reciprocity (with Prof. J. L. Laughlin). 1903.
Our Philippine Problem. 1905.
Principles and Problems of Modern Banking. 1910.
Principles of Accounting. 1910.
Life of Stephen A. Douglas. 1911.
The Federal Reserve. 1915.
American Banking. 1916.
The Modern Trust Company (with Kirkbride and Sterrett). 1919.
Banking and Business (with Geo. W. Edwards). 1922.
[Supplementary chapter “Federal Reserve Banks” in the fourth edition of Charles F. Dunbar and Oliver M. W. Sprague The Theory and History of Banking. 1922.]
The Federal Reserve System. 1923.
Federal Reserve Banking Practice (with W. H. Steiner). 1925.
Foreign Banking Systems (with B. H. Beckhart). 1929.
Investment Banking (with J. I. Bogen). 1929.
Contemporary Banking (with J. M. Chapman and R. W. Robey). 1933.
The Banking Situation (with J. M. Chapman). 1933.
Economics of Inflation (with J. M. Chapman). 1934.

Contributor to:

Economic and other journals.

See: Who Was Who in America, 1897-1942, vol. I, Marguis

Source: FRASER. Committee on the History of the Federal Reserve System. Register of Papers: Willis, Henry Parker. Entry 176a, Box 1, Folder 2, Item 50.

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The double life of H. Parker Willis

H. Parker Willis stayed busy. During his 29 years at The Journal of Commerce [JOC], there was rarely a moment when he was not also involved in shaping U.S. economic and banking institutions. The results of his efforts are still seen today.

Willis’ extracurricular work while a JoC employee would lead to the creation of the Philippine Central Bank and later the Philippine American Chamber of Commerce. Most important, his research and his brilliant insights led to the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve System.

When he joined the JoC in 1902 at the age of 28, he had already been a star professor of economics and political science at Washington and Lee University. He took an academic leave to travel to the Far East in 1903-05 as a correspondent for the JoC and the Engineering and Mining Journal.

In between his dispatches, Willis began a study that led to the creation of the Philippine National Bank. Willis would become the first head of the bank, which served as the nation’s central bank, while still on the staff of the JoC.

But he was just warming up. Returning to the U.S. in the fall of 1906, he became the first head of Washington and Lee’s School of Commerce, while still writing for the JoC. He also became the economic adviser to Rep. Carter Glass, D-Va. His work for the JoC and Glass took him to the nation’s capital so frequently that the university’s president complained, resulting in Willis’ resignation. The school’s student body sent the university’s board a vigorous declaration of support for the popular professor.

Willis continued to write for the JoC, and in 1912 he became executive director of the National Monetary Commission. The commission had been created at the behest of Glass, who had been elected to the Senate. Under Willis’ direction, the commission issued a study recommending creation of a U.S. central bank. After Woodrow Wilson was elected president, he asked Glass to begin working on legislation.

Together with Glass, Willis drafted the enabling legislation. The measure was opposed by big banks, which wanted no central authority over them. Willis came up with a solution – a Federal Reserve System consisting of regional Federal Reserve banks owned by member banks but run as “corporations operated for public service.”

The regional Fed directors would come from banking and industry, along with citizens appointed by the Federal Reserve Board in Washington. The president would appoint the Fed’s seven-member board of governors, with the Treasury secretary and comptroller of the currency as ex-officio members.

“Willis took the best of the existing proposals, together with a brilliant balance of public-private ownership and leadership, to fashion a unique central banking institution,” said Robert Bremner, who is writing a biography of William McChesney Martin Jr., the Fed’s chairman from 1951 to 1970.

Another of Willis’ innovations was to have the 12 regional banks serve as clearinghouses for checks written by the depositors of member banks. Willis reasoned that this would give the Fed a practical purpose, in addition to replacing the patchwork of inefficient regional systems with a unified national framework for check collection.

Without check-clearing duties, he later said, the Fed banks would have become “merely the holders of dead balances carried for the member banks without any service for them; and since the business public abhors any idle or unnecessary institution…it would not submit long to the needless burden created by such emergency institutions designed to put out financial fire.”

After the Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913, Willis became the Federal Reserve Board’s first secretary from 1914-18. He became its director of research from 1918-22, which meant he was chief economist, although the position was not called that yet. “These two staff positions first held by Dr. Willis remain the most influential at the Fed today,” Bremner said.

All through this time, Willis was writing for the JoC as its Washington economic correspondent. As if that wasn’t enough, he also became a professor of economics at George Washington University and later dean of its college of political science. He also lectured at Columbia University and became a full professor of economics there in 1919.

Willis also became editor- in-chief of the JoC in 1919. He steered the paper’s coverage in a new direction. With his profound grounding in economics and political science, he believed the paper should place the coverage of business and commerce within the context of economics and government.

As he stated in the paper’s centennial issue in 1927: “Business (and) economic life as a whole is a unit essentially and hence demands a unified treatment, which is impossible where attention is solely concentrated on finance or upon some specialized branch of industry.”

It was this vision of business and economic coverage that would differentiate the JoC from other business papers with its broad coverage of the nation’s business activities within the context of what was going on in the economy.

Willis resigned as editor of the JoC in 1931, but he continued to teach at Columbia. He wrote a series of five books on his passion – banking and monetary policy. They were The Federal Reserve System (1923), Federal Reserve Banking Practice (1926), The Theory and Practice of Central Banking (1936), The Banking Situation, Post-War Problems and Developments (1934), and The Federal Funds Market (republished in 1970).

Willis’ contributions to economic and monetary theory and policy, the establishment of the Fed and the growth of the JoC are still remembered. In a speech at Washington and Lee last March, Roger W. Ferguson Jr., the Fed’s current vice chairman, paid tribute to Willis as “a leader in teaching economics and political science and a major contributor to the establishment of the Federal Reserve.”

Source: Journal of Commerce website, A Proud History since 1827: The Journal of Commerce, page 11.

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FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
Memorial minute for Prof. H. Parker Willis
April 22, 1938

H. Parker Willis

Professor H. Parker Willis died on July 18^th, 1937, in the 63^rd year of his life.

Willis first became associated with us in the years immediately preceding the war when the first tentative steps were being taken in the formulation of a group of courses which was to become the offering of the School of Business. Although in only his 39^th year, he brought to Columbia an equipment of training and experience that contributed richly to the success of that school and to the development of the field of money and banking. His foundations in the economic discipline had been firmly laid in his years of graduate work at Chicago, during the regime of Laughlin, and in his studies at Leipzig and Vienna. His remarkable skill as a teacher and administrator had been matured during fourteen years in professorial positions at other institutions, culminating in the deanship of the College of Political Sciences of George Washington University. His fluent pen had already produced a half-dozen scholarly volumes as well as an impressive output of more ephemeral writing which had established him as a brilliant economic journalist and editor. Finally, his capacity to analyze technical problems of public policy had been demonstrated in his service with the Monetary Commission and with the Congressional committee that drafted the Federal Reserve Act.

At Columbia Willis found an environment well suited to his particular talents and an opportunity commensurate with his capacity. Here there existed a firmly established tradition that the University should enlighten public opinion and apply its special skills to the solution of problems of public policy. Possessed of a fund of energy that was constantly a source of envious amazement to all who knew him, he came to us at the height of his powers and devoted twenty-four years of his life to investigation, instruction, and public service. His activities as an editor and a correspondent for financial journals, as director of research and consultant of the Federal Reserve Board, and as adviser to governments at home and abroad served not only to advance the public good but also to enrich and vivify his teaching and research.

By his contributions to science and polity Willis built for himself an imposing monument, the specifications of which we need not here detail. It stands for the world to see and admire. At the same time, he constructed, without conscious plan, an even more impressive and inspiring memorial in the hearts of his friends. We who knew him through long association will best remember him for the quality of his personal character.

There are those who take pride in the possession of a conscience which forbids them to shirk a duty. For Willis there seemed to be no duties, to be performed or shirked, but only opportunities, to be embraced with enthusiasm. In the academic round there was no one more faithful and dependable, no one more generous and unselfish. He stimulated each student to achieve the best of which he was capable and his interest and patience in guiding and molding even the least promising of them was the occasion for frequent remark. His attitude toward all his academic associates was one of kindliness and tolerance and the standards he used in judging himself were always more strict than those he applied to others.

One of his most appealing personal characteristics was his capacity for righteous indignation. He coupled an intense loyalty to those persons and principles in whose trustworthiness he had faith with an old-fashioned sense of individual obligation to defend the true and the good without counting costs or consequences. Incompetence, especially when linked with pretentiousness, and ignorance, especially when displayed by those who exercised arbitrary authority, were to Willis moral crimes which it was his personal duty to expose. His reaction in such cases was exactly that which he exhibited when, one evening, a misguided goot-pad [“good-bad” in a German-Jewish accent?] stopped him at the point of a pistol as he was hurrying toward the Staten Island Ferry. To comply with the demand that he surrender his valuables did not enter his mind as a possibility. Here was an enemy of society whose career should be expeditiously and firmly discouraged; and Willis proceeded to accomplish this end, instinctively and without hesitation, with the aid of a briefcase heavily loaded with financial documents. Truly he was a battler for the Lord, skillful but fair in the use of his weapons, and entirely without fear. Of him one could say, as Lord Bryce said of Dean Stanley, “You might think him right or wrong but you never doubted that he was striving after the truth.” And his joy in the strife was an inspiration to all who knew him.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science, 1920-1939. Bound, typed manuscript. Pages 827-8.

Image Source: Passport application of August 4, 1916 of Henry Parker Willis

Tags HP Willis, Laughlin

Curriculum Harvard

Harvard. Economics Education of Theodore Roosevelt, 1878-80

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-09-26

The founding head of the University of Chicago’s Department of Political Economy, James Laurence Laughlin, was originally trained at Harvard where he taught for five years. He moved on to Cornell for two years before going to Chicago. During Laughlin’s early years at Harvard, one of his economics students was Theodore Roosevelt (Harvard Class of 1880, better known as the 26^th President of the United States of America). Roosevelt was eight years younger than Laughlin and died in 1919. Five years later Laughlin published an essay on “Roosevelt at Harvard”. An original typed draft of the essay can be found in his papers at the Library of Congress. While Laughlin spends much of the essay going through Roosevelt’s transcript with interesting comments and observations on Harvard personalities of the late 1870’s, I have only included those parts that deal with the economic education of the future President.

I have not yet compared this draft to the published version, but I have corrected obvious typing errors and inserted some material from what appears to be an earlier draft of page 9 of the typed manuscript.

________________________________

From “Roosevelt’s College Days”
by James Laurence Laughlin

…As a freshman Roosevelt entered the university in 1876 just as a new régime inaugurated by President Eliot had got fairly into working order. The new captain had already introduced the elective system and had enlisted some forward-looking members of his faculty such as C. C. Langdell, Charles F. Dunbar, and Henry Adams. The potentialities of this situation are so interesting that one might be tempted to linger too long on them. They involved epoch-making changes for the nation in education for law, economics, and history. The appointment of Dean Langdell in the Law School brought in the case-system, revolutionized the teaching of law throughout the country, and attracted the attention of foreign jurists. With the creation of the first professorship in economics at Harvard for Dunbar in 1871 there then began the modern teaching in economics which has had so remarkable a development for the last thirty years in all the universities of the country. While Gurney and Torrey were princes of the blood in History, Henry Adams came as the paladin of new adventure. He had the dash and spirit of the crusader. He held the first seminar for research in history in this country. He tied up American history not only with British institutions but also with those of our Teutonic forebears. Such men as these added a new touch to the temple of learning by which Harvard had already won distinction an on which she is till receiving credit….

…For the first time [Roosevelt’s] mind turned from the languages and natural history to those of public interest with which his future was to be so much occupied [during his junior year, 1878-79]. He selected a course in Political Economy then known as Philosophy 6. Although Professor Dunbar had been appointed in 1871, there was no separate department of Political Economy until 1879-80. Previously economics had been briefly taught by Francis Bowen, the professor of philosophy, and for a time the new subject found shelter in his department. Roosevelt’s first introduction to that field was announced in the catalogue as: “Political Economy. –J. S. Mill’s Political Economy.—Financial Legislation of the United States. Prof. Dunbar and Dr. Laughlin.” Professor Dunbar gave lectures on the public finance of the Civil War in which he was a master. To me fell the duty of conducting recitation and discussions on Mill’s original two-volume treatise. [Laughlin’s own Abridged version of Mill’s Principles] Inasmuch as the work was exacting, Roosevelt’s mark for the year of 89 was high.…

[In his senior year, 1879-80…] In Political Economy he studied with Professor Dunbar Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy, McLeod’s Elements of Banking, and Bastiat’s Harmonies Économiques in which he got 78.

During his junior year, in order to widen the interest of my students in applying economics to public questions, I suggested to a group of them the advantage of forming a Finance Club for the purpose of inviting outside economists to speak at the university. Besides Roosevelt there were George Hoadley, J. G.Thorp, A. B. Hart, F. J. Ranlett, W. H. Rhett, Josiah Quincy and Charles G. Washburn. The plan evidently appealed to Roosevelt, for he writes to his sister in the autumn of 1878 as follows:

‘I have begun studying fairly hard now, and shall keep it up until Christmas. I am afraid I shall not be able to come home for Thanksgiving; I really have my hands full, especially now that my Political Economy Professor wishes me to start a Finance Club, which would be very interesting indeed, and would do us all a great deal would of good, but which will also take up a great deal of time”.

The President of the club was J. G. Thorp (of 1879) and the Secretary was A. B. Hart. The meetings were held in the rooms of the department on the first floor of University Hall, on the window sills of which along side the wide front steps was placed the “shingle” of the club as a means of announcing a meeting to members. That “shingle” is now hanging on the wall of Professor Hart’s office in the Widener Library.

The lecturers invited by the club stirred up a wide interest in economics. Few of us had known William G. Sumner personally. The vigor of his writing had given us the impression of a very austere personality. At Yale a student who had been invited to supper with Sumner’s family came bursting into his chum’s room late on a wintry night, shouting: “Fellows, Billy Sumner is kind to his family.” Any such impression was dispelled by a very interesting lecture [on “The Relation of Legislation to Money”] marked by Sumner’s usual felicity of style. It was a pleasure, also, to come into contact with the unusually agreeable personality of Gen. Francis A. Walker, another lecturer [on “The Principles of Taxation”]. His experience in the army with Hancock, his administrative ability, his work on the census, and his suggestive economic mind created a desire to know him. Likewise, in the case of Edward Atkinson we came to know an active business man who without academic training had attempted to formulate economic theory. [He had a genius for lucid exposition, so that his lectures on “American Competition with Europe”, “Capital and Labor”, “Railways”, and “The National Banking System”, attracted many students. Later, the one lecture which stirred up the most permanent interest was that by Col. T. W. Higginson on “Young Men in Politics”, which led to the formation of a Harvard Union after the example of the one at Oxford. Another result of the new interest in economics was the action of the university authorities in bringing Hugh McCulloch and Simon Newcomb each to give a course of three lectures.]

[Of especial value was the writing and discussion of papers by the members themselves. Early in the first year five papers had been read. In February, 1879, one of them was by Robert Bacon and Theodore Roosevelt on “Taxation.”]

There was an interesting meeting of the Finance Club on the occasion of the presence of Henry George. I can recall the small group of members gathered in University Hall to whom George spoke informally. After his talk there was a general discussion, in which the students freely exchanged arguments with the speaker. They had had a fairly good grind in the fundamental principles of economics. As a consequence, George did not show to advantage in the give-and-take. It is an interesting coincidence that only seven years after (in 1886) Theodore Roosevelt was the Republican candidate for Mayor of new York city against Henry George, the Labor candidate, and Abram S. Hewitt, the candidate of the United Democracy.

There was a reason why George did not fare well in this discussion. It is a curious fact that George’s system was almost always regarded as a problem in taxation, and in the discussion of it attention was only directed to the matter of so taxing land value that there would be no object in holding land in private property ownership. Strangely enough, the course of the arguments by which he reached this conclusion, the very supports on which his system of taxation rested, were generally disregarded, or what is more likely were little understood. To this day there is no adequate study of the logic of “Progress and Poverty”. It does not seem to be realized that his plan of taxation depended on the dictum that payment of rent was a subtraction from wages, and that abolition of rent for land would remove the existence of low wages and wipe out poverty. Such an outcome was reached only by granting as proved that payment of interest on capital could be eliminated. This part of this theorizing was extremely weak. if his reasoning was wrong, his system of taxation had no supports.

In the copy of the first edition of “Progress and Poverty” [Link to Fourth Edition, 1881] now lying on my table, I find a request for a review of it from the editor of the International Review as follows:

Jan. 11., 1880

“My dear Laughlin:

About 2pp. on this book, please. I should suppose from glancing at it that it was rubbish. But there may be ideas in it.

Truly yrs.

H.C-Lodge.”

Senator Lodge had ceased to be an instructor in history after 1878-79, and when Roosevelt was a senior he had become editor of the International Review….

…In his junior year I had an interesting conference with [Roosevelt]. He came to me to discuss whether it would be better for him to specialize on natural history or to take more economics. He gave no indication that he was thinking of a public career. My advice was that the country at that time especially needed men trained to think correctly on public questions and that these questions were nine-tenths economic. I can no say, of course, that my advice influenced him, but he did continue his economics in his senior year. Nor could one say that in after life he always thought correctly on economics. in public office, in order to get things done, it is too often supposed that economic considerations must be sacrificed to political expediency. Yet he did not forget his college courses in economics. After he had left the presidency and was contributing editor on the Outlook, when I was in charge of the campaign of education for the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, I had an interview with him in order to secure his support of the measure. On sending in my card, he appeared at the other end of the open floor entirely covered with desks, holding up my card at arm’s length, and shouting: “Where’s the fellow that taught me Political Economy”. In conference, after explaining the measure and asking him for advice how to proceed, he said “Have it associated as little as possible with Aldrich’s name. Have it come up from the small bankers of Florida or Oregon.” Then, as we finished, he added: “I will do all I can to help you. I wish I could do more. I could make a speech on the free coinage of silver; but when you get me into compound differentials and finance”—here his voice rose into his characteristic falsetto—“I am all up in the air.” To which I replied “That does not speak well for your teaching at the university”. “On the contrary, Mr. Laughlin, patting me cordially on the knee, “that was the best course I had at the university”. It was a bit of kindly good fellowship…

Source: Library of Congress, The Papers of James Laurence Laughlin. Box 7, Folder “Roosevelt at Harvard Oct/24” published as J. L. Laughlin, “Roosevelt’s College Days,” American Review of Reviews, October, 1924.

Image Source: Library of Congress, The Papers of James Laurence Laughlin. Box 7, Folder “Roosevelt at Harvard Oct/24”.

Tags Dunbar, GeorgeH, Laughlin

Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Laughlin’s 310 Examination Questions, 1884

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-07-31

J. Laurence Laughlin published an abridged version of John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Economics in 1884 after five years of using Mill’s Principles as his political economy textbook at Harvard. He added “critical, bibliographical, and explanatory notes, and a sketch of the history of political economy”. Given Laughlin’s important role as founding head of the department of political economy at the University of Chicago, his selection of 310 examination questions provides us a convenient list of economic concepts and ideas that were taught in a first course in economics at a leading American university in the 1880s.

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APPENDIX II.
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS.

The following problems and questions have been arranged to indicate to the reader the character of examinations set by English [See Milnes’s “Problems in Political Economy.”] and American universities. They have been taken in each case from papers actually given. It is hardly necessary to state, perhaps, that these questions do not exhaust the subject, and are only some of a kind of which many more might be added:

Definitions.

Define briefly, Fixed Capital; Unproductive Consumption; Law of Diminishing Returns; Effective Desire of Accumulation; Law of Increase of Labor; Communism; Wages Fund; “Wages of Superintendence; Real Wages; Value; Price; Demand; Medium of Exchange; Gresham’s Law.
Explain carefully the following terms: Productive Consumption, Effectual Demand, Margin of Cultivation, Cost of Production, Value of Money, Cost of Labor, Wealth, and Abstinence.
Explain the following term: Real Wages, Fixed Capital, Allowance System, Margin of Cultivation, Price, Demand, Medium of Exchange, Seignorage, Value of Money, and Bill of Exchange.
Define Supply, Value of Money, Productive Consumption, Cost of Production, Cost of Labor, Exchange Value, Law of Production from Land, Rate of Profit, Capital, and Gresham’s Law.
Define Political Economy: State the parts into which it may be divided, and show how they are mutually related.

Labor.

Distinguish between direct and indirect labor, and give an illustration of the distinction.
Apply the distinction between productive and unproductive labor, and productive and unproductive consumption, respectively, to each of the following persons: a tailor, an architect, an annuitant, a sailor, and a brick-layer.
Is an actor to he classed as a productive laborer? The inventor of a machine? A confectioner?
In which of the two classes of laborers, productive and unproductive, would you place the following?

(1.) The officers of our Government.
(2.) The maker of an organ.
(3.) An organist.
(4.) A schoolmaster.
(5.) An artist.
(6.) He who makes an article for which there is no use.

Classify as productive or unproductive the following laborers: a clergyman, musical-instrument maker, actor, soldier, and lace-maker.

Capital.

Explain fully what you understand by capital, and what function it discharges in production. Consider whether or not the following ought to be included in capital: (1) the original and acquired powers of the laborer, (2) the original properties of the soil, (3) improvements on land, (4) credit, (5) unsold stock in the hands of a merchant, (6) articles purchased but still in the consumer’s hands.
Does a national loan add to the capital of a country?
Inquire how far, or in what cases, or in what sense, it may be said that a common dwelling-house, an hotel, a school-house, a police-station, a theatre, and a fortification, constitute part of the capital of the country.
Discuss carefully the question whether money lying in a bank (or corn lying in a granary) is always capital, or whether its economic nature depends upon the intentions of the owner.
Are railway-shares, stocks of wine, wheat, munitions of war, and land, to be considered capital, or not?
Explain fully whether you consider that United States bonds are capital or not.
Is an investment in government funds capital, or not? Give your reasons.
In what manner does a large expenditure for military purposes affect the operations of capital and labor?
Distinguish between wealth and capital. Show that there is no assignable limit to the employment of capital in bettering the condition of the members of a community.
“If there are human beings capable of work, and food to feed them, they may always be employed in producing something.” Explain the meaning of this fully.
What is meant by saying wealth can only perform the functions of capital by being wholly or partially consumed?
Explain and illustrate the statement that demand for commodities is not demand for labor.
Show that expenditure of money does not necessarily increase the demand for labor.
In what way would a general demand for luxuries affect productive laborers and the wealth of the community?
In a community where capital is all employed, what would be the effect if one employer gradually withdrew some of his capital, and spent this for personal luxuries?
It is contended that “the demand for commodities, which can only be got by labor, is as much a demand for labor as a demand for beef is a demand for bullocks.” Criticise this position.
“It is often said that, though employment is withdrawn from labor in one department, an exactly equivalent employment is opened for it in others, because what the consumers save in the increased cheapness of one particular article enables them to augment their consumption of others, thereby increasing the demand for other kinds of labor.” Point out the fallacy.
A college undergraduate, with the applause of shopkeepers, bought twenty waistcoats, under the plea that he was doing good to trade. Examine the economical soundness of his act.
A man invested a portion of his capital in a loan to a state which subsequently repudiated its debts. The man thereupon gave up his carriage, discharged superfluous gardeners, and reduced the number of his domestic servants. Examine the effect of these changes on the employment of labor in the district where he resides.
In the sixteenth century a great change in the mode of expenditure took place. Retainers were dismissed, households were reduced and a demand for commodities was substituted for a demand for labor. How would this change affect wages, and why?
It is supposed by some persons that expenditure by the rich in costly entertainments is good for trade. What is your opinion on the subject?
A is an absentee who spends his income abroad. B spends his income chiefly on American pictures and other works of art. C spends most of his income on American servants. D saves and buys United States bonds. E employs most of his income in the production of manufactures. Explain the various effects of these different modes of expenditure on the amount of wealth in the United States, and on the working-classes of the country.
Compare the economic effects of defraying war expenditure (1) by loans, (2) by increased taxation.
Define the term capital, and distinguish between fixed and circulating capital, giving instances of each.
Distinguish between fixed and circulating capital, and point out how far, or in what manner, each of the following articles belongs to one kind or the other: a dwelling-house, a crop of corn, a wagon, a load of coal, an ingot of gold, a railway-engine, a bale of cotton goods.
Of the following, which would you class under fixed and which under circulating capital: cash in the hands of a merchant, a cotton-mill, a plow, diamonds in a jeweler’s shop, a locomotive, a nursery-gardener’s seeds, greenhouses, manures; a carpenter’s tools, woods, nails?
If in a country like this a large amount of capital becomes fixed in the building of railroads, what effect will this change taken by itself have upon the laboring-class, supposing the capital to be (1) domestic, or (2) borrowed wholly or in part from abroad?
“What conclusion is reached by Mr. Mill respecting the objections to the use of labor-saving machinery?
Is the extension of machinery beneficial to laborers?
What is “the conclusive answer to the objections against machinery”?

Efficiency of Production.

Explain briefly the chief causes on which the productiveness of labor depends.
What are the principal ways in which advantage arises from the division of labor?
What are the principal advantages of division of labor? In what cases and why is it better to carry on a productive enterprise on a large scale?
Under what circumstances, and in what callings, can the division of employment be carried out to the fullest extent?
Show how the amount of available capital and the extent of the market for products limit division of labor.

Population.

Give a brief statement of Malthus’s theory of population, explaining the different checks on population in different stages of civilization.
Enunciate Malthus’s law of population, and give an outline of the reasoning by which he established it. Give an account of any objections that have been brought against Malthus’s position, and criticise those objections.
When the growth of population outstrips the progress of improvements, what are the means of relief for the laborer?
Does the increased facility of emigration nullify the Malthusian law of population in your opinion or not, and why?
Explain the law of diminishing return and the Malthusian doctrine of population; and trace the connection between them.

Increase of Production.

Compare the motives to saving in the case of savages, and of a country like the United States. State the causes of diversity in the strength of the effective desire of accumulation.
Capital is said to be accumulated by saving; what is saving? Is hoarded money a saving while hoarded?
How far does the increasing productiveness of manufacturing industry tend to neutralize the effect on profits of the diminishing productiveness of agricultural industry?
“What conclusion as to the limit to the increase of production does Mr. Mill deduce from his investigation of the laws of the various requisites of production?

Property.

“What are the essential elements of property? Are the grounds of property in land the same as those of property in movables?
Give what you conceive to be the chief arguments in favor of the institution of private property, as opposed to common ownership.
What arguments does Mr. Mill suggest in favor of some redistribution of landed property?
What are the economic arguments for and against Communism?
In what way, and by what means, do Socialists want to alter the present distribution of wealth?
Sketch the principal forms of Communistic and Non-communistic Socialism.
Should the power of bequest be limited?

Wages.

On what, according to Mill, does the rate of wages depend? Hence, show the fallacy of the popularly proposed remedies for low wages.
State and examine the principal theories which have been put forward as to the circumstances which regulate the general rate of wages, saying which you deem to be correct, and why so.
Mr. Thornton argues that the wages-fund is neither “determined” nor “limited”: not “determined,” because there is no “law” to compel capitalists to devote any portion of their wealth to the payment of labor, nor are they morally “bound” to do so; and not “limited,” because there is nothing to prevent them from adding to the portion of their wealth so applied. Criticise this argument, and, if you dissent from Mr. Thornton’s view, state the causes which “determine” and “limit” the fund in question.
State precisely what you mean by the “wages-fund,” and explain the conditions on which its growth depends.
Explain generally the circumstances which determine the rate of wages. Mention some of the reasons why wages should be higher in one occupation than in another.
In what way does dearness or cheapness of food affect money wages?
What determines —

(1.) The general rate of wages in a country?
(2.) The relative rates of wages in different employments?

What causes different rates of wages in different employments, and by what methods might wages be raised?
How do you explain the fact that some of the most disagreeable kinds of labor are the most badly paid?
What, according to Mr. Mill, are the most promising means for the improvement of the laboring-classes?
In the Island of Laputa a law was passed compelling each workman to work with his left hand tied behind his back, and the law was justified on the ground that the demand for labor was more than doubled by it. Examine this argument.
Some coal-workers are calling for a diminution of the output of coal, so as to keep up their wages. Examine how far, if at all, this result would follow from their proposed action.
Discuss any remedies for low wages that have been or might be suggested.
Why are the wages of women habitually lower than those of men?

Profits.

What is the cause of the existence of profits? And what, according to Mr. Mill, are the circumstances which determine the respective shares of the laborer and the capitalist?
(1.) What is the lowest rate of profit which can permanently exist? (2.) Why is this minimum variable?
Analyze the remuneration received by any of the following: (1) the proprietor of a cotton-mill managing his own mill; (2) a merchant conducting his own business; (3) a railway shareholder; (4) a holder of government funds.
Into what portions may we divide the return which is usually called profit? Which of these portions would he received by a merchant carrying on business with borrowed capital?
Analyze the payment called profits into its various elements. Point out in what respects the earnings of the employer differ from or resemble the wages paid to other classes of laborers.
It is asserted that “profits tend to an equality.” What conditions must be satisfied before this position can be maintained?
How is the alleged tendency of profits to equivalence in different employments to be reconciled with the notorious difference in the profit of different individuals?
“Which one of the elements in profit has the greatest effect on its amount? Explain by comparing the causes which regulate each element.
How does Mill reconcile the high wages in America with Ricardo’s law of profits?
Explain the proposition that the rate of profits depends on the cost of labor, stating carefully what elements are included in cost of labor.
Explain what connection there may be between an increase of population and any of the elements entering into cost of labor.
What effect would an increase or diminution of population have upon cost of labor?
Explain Mill’s view as to the cost of labor being a function of three variables, considering the passages in which he says, 1. “If without labor becoming less efficient its remuneration fell, no increase taking place in the cost of the articles composing that remuneration;” 2. “If the laborer obtained a higher remuneration, without any increased cheapness in the things composing it; or if, without his obtaining more, that which he did obtain would become more costly”: profits in all these cases would suffer a diminution; and discussing — Firstly, if the remuneration of labor falls, what can the cost of the articles composing that remuneration signify to the capitalist? Secondly, if the laborer gets a higher remuneration, what can the increased cheapness of the things composing it signify to the capitalist?
Is the contest between capital and labor permanent and fundamental? If not, give your reasons for your answer.
What is the effect on wages and profits of the introduction of machinery?

Rent.

“What connection exists between the law of Malthus and Ricardo’s doctrine of rent?
“What is the reason why land-owners can demand rent?
Explain and illustrate the distinction between rent and profits. In what cases are they nearly indistinguishable?
It has often been observed that in America land is much less highly cultivated than in England. Explain the economic reasons for this.
How does the theory of rent apply in a country like the United States, where the farmer owns his land instead of hiring it?
How is it that some agricultural capital pays rent, even if resort is not had to different grades of land?
Give a brief description of the theory of rent, and point out to what payments not usually called rent the theory may be applied.
State briefly Ricardo’s theory of rent, and show that, if it be true, the following statements of Adam Smith must be false:

“The most fertile coal-mine regulates the price of coals at all the other mines in the neighborhood.”
“In the price of corn one part pays the rent of the landlord, another pays the wages, and another the profit of the farmer.”

Why does the farming business pay rent, and the cotton business (ground-rent excluded) pay none? Define rent.
“As population increases, rents estimated in corn increase, and the price of corn rises; rents, therefore, doubly tend to increase.” Prove this.
Professor Rogers adduces, in refutation of the common theory of rent, the fact that land near New York pays a high rent, while land of the same natural fertility in the Western States pays no rent. How far do you admit the force of this objection?
Examine the following doctrine:

“If invention and improvement still go on, the efficiency of labor will be further increased, and the amount of labor and capital necessary to produce a given result further diminished. The same causes will lead to the utilization of this new gain in productive power for the production of more wealth; the margin of cultivation will be again extended, and rent will increase, both in proportion and amount, without any increase in wages and interest. And so, . . . will . . . rent constantly increase, though population should remain stationary.” — Henry George, “Progress and Poverty” (p. 226).

What answer is made to Mr. Carey’s objection to Ricardo’s theory of rent, that in point of fact the poorer, not the richer, lands are first brought under cultivation?
Explain how land, “even apart from differences of situation, . . . would all of it, on a certain supposition, pay rent.”
Explain clearly how it is possible for the land of a country which is all of uniform fertility to pay rent.
“If the earth had a perfectly smooth surface the same everywhere, and if it were all tilled and cultivated in exactly the same way, there would be no such thing as rent.” Examine this proposition.
Show that rent does not increase the price of bread.
How is it shown that “rent does not really form any part of the expenses of production or of the advances of the capitalist?”
(1.) What connection exists between the price of agricultural products and the amount of rent paid? (2.) Can rent affect the price?
“Rent is the effect and not the cause of price.” Prove this.
Does rent enter into the cost of production of the following commodities or not, and why: Corn, cloth, the wine of the best vineyards?
“Rent arises from the difference between the least fertile and the most fertile soils, and from the fact that the former have been taken into cultivation. . . . Rent is the difference between the market price of produce and the cost of production.” Harmonize these statements.
In order that the actual payments made by farmers to landlords should generally correspond with “economic rent,” what conditions must be observed?
“What is assumed, as to competition, in all Mr. Mill’s reasoning on wages, profits, and rent? Explain its action in each case.

Value.

Enumerate, compare, and criticise any opinions known to you which have been held concerning the nature, origin, or measure of value in exchange.
Define precisely what it is which gives value to objects, and point out the causes which vary the value of the same object under differing circumstances.
Do men dive to the bottom of the sea to get pearls because they are valuable; or are pearls valuable because men must dive to the bottom of the sea to get them?
There are three forms of difficulty of attainment. State the law of value applicable to each.
Explain the exact economic meaning of the words supply and demand.
When it is said that the value of certain commodities depends upon supply and demand, what is meant by demand?
If the supply of all commodities were suddenly doubled, would any changes in their relative values ensue or not, and why?
State the laws which regulate the permanent and temporary values of agricultural products.
How far does the value of commodities depend on the quantity of labor required for their production?
Has the term exchange value any precise meaning when we are comparing times or places very remote from one another?
What is meant by the natural (or normal) price and the market price of commodities? To what extent can they differ?
Does a general rise of wages raise the prices of commodities in general or not, and why? Does it tend to cause any change in the relative prices of commodities or not, and why?
Suppose that wages were double, would the values of commodities be affected? What would be the effect on prices and profits of such an increase of wages?
Are wages and profits influenced by prices?
Can employers recoup themselves by a rise of prices for a rise of—

(a.) Wages in particular employments?
(b.) General wages? How does this question bear on the efficacy of trades-unionism?

Do values depend on wages?
Explain the following statement: “It is true the absolute wages paid have no effect upon values; but neither has the absolute quantity of labor.”
Explain the statement that “high general profits can not, any more than high general wages, be a cause of high values. … In so far as profits enter into the cost of production of all things, they can not affect the value of any.”
Explain fully why it is that capitalists can not compensate themselves for a general high cost of labor through any action on values and prices.
“The value of a commodity depends on its cost of production.” Under what conditions is this true, and what causes interfere with it?
Describe the hindrances which impede the free movement of capital to those fields which apparently offer the highest return for its employment.
Give J. S. Mill’s analysis of the “cost of production,” and also Professor Cairnes’s, with the arguments for and against each.
Analyze cost of production. What is its connection with cost of labor?
Give an analysis of cost of production of any commodity.
Show carefully the distinction between wages, cost of labor, and cost of production.
Define clearly value, price, real wages, and cost of production.
Define real wages, money wages, cost of labor.

Money.

Point out the difference between the scientific and popular conceptions implied in the terms wealth and money.
Show the fallacy of confounding capital with money. Can there be a glut of capital?
“What is money? To what sort of necessity does it owe its existence? What articles have been used for money? Enumerate the qualities which render a commodity fit to serve as money.
“What are the qualities requisite in any commodity in order that it may serve as money?
Distinguish accurately between the functions of money.
How far is a fixed standard of value possible?
“What effect does the great durability of gold and silver have upon the value of money?
How far does the law of demand and supply govern the value of money?
Explain fully how it is that the value of the precious metals is affected by “questions of quantity only, with little reference to cost of production.”
What is to be said to the following: “Some political economists have objected altogether to the statement that the value of money depends on its quantity combined with the rapidity of circulation; which, they think, is assuming a law for money that does not exist for any other commodity”?
Under what conditions is it true that the “value of money is inversely as its quantity”?
Explain carefully the following: “The average value of gold is made to conform to its natural value in the same manner as the values of other things are made to conform to their natural value.”
In what various meanings is the phrase “the value of money” used? How far does the value of money in each of these meanings depend on (1) the cost of production, (2) supply and demand?
Are the values of gold and silver subject to exactly the same natural laws as other commodities?
Give the explanations and qualifications required to render the following proposition true: “The quantity of coin in every country is regulated by the value of the commodities which are to be circulated by it.”
“Would the world be richer if every individual in it suddenly found the quantity of money in his possession doubled?
How far, or in what way, do you consider it correct to say that the general level of prices in a country depends upon the quantity of gold coin existing in that country?
A single good harvest causes a considerable fall in the value of wheat; but a great addition to the year’s supply of gold from the mines produces little effect on its general value. How do you account for the difference?
Show the effect of establishing a double standard.
Show how Gresham’s law is illustrated by the history of the currency in the United States between 1834 and 1873.
What effect had the discovery of gold in this century upon the coinage of the United States?
What is the system upon which the small silver currency of the United States is coined and issued?
State briefly the aim of the United States coinage act of 1853.

Credit.

How do you define credit? Form a classification of credit documents.
It has been said that “credit is capital.” Is this so or not?
Define capital, and examine the meaning of the term in the following statements:

(a.) Demand for commodities can not create capital.
(b.) Credit is not a creation, but a transfer of capital.
(c.) Wages depend upon the proportion between population and capital.

State the law of the value of money which governs general prices. What change is to be made in the statement, if credit is to be taken into consideration?
What is the part which instruments of credit, other than banknotes, play in the exchange of commodities?
Mention some of the principal features of a credit crisis.
What are inconvertible notes? What objections are thereto currency of this description?
Can an inconvertible currency be made to maintain the same value as a convertible currency, and, if so, how? Supposing that it can, what objections are there, nevertheless, to it?
“Nothing is subject to more variation than paper money, even when it is limited, and has no guarantees; for this simple reason, that, having no value of its own, it depends on the idea that each person forms of those guarantees.” Comment on this passage.
How is it that a bad dollar does the work of buying as well as a good one until it is found out? Is it that it makes no difference whether it is made of gold or not?
To what extent is a government capable of giving fictitious value to a paper or a metallic currency?
In a country with an inconvertible paper currency, how can it be determined whether the issues are excessive or not, and why?
What will be the effect if the circulating medium of a country is increased beyond its natural amount —

(1) when the medium is coin?
(2) when it is coin and convertible paper?
(3) when it is inconvertible paper?

What is the error involved in the assumption, frequently made by writers and public speakers, that the currency of a country ought to increase in like ratio with its wealth and population?
On what does the desire to use credit depend? What connection exists between the amount of notes and coin in circulation and the use of credit?
Compare the advantages and disadvantages of a metallic and paper currency.
A member of Congress advocated expansion of the paper currency by the following argument: “Our currency, as well as everything else, must keep pace with our growth as a nation. . . . France has a circulation per capita of thirty dollars; England, of twenty-five; and we, with our extent of territory and improvements, certainly require more than either.” State your opinion of this argument.
Trace the effects, immediate and ultimate, on general prices of (a) an extended system of credit, (b) an enlarged issue of paper money, and (c) an addition to the stock of precious metals, respectively.
What is the error in the common notion that “a paper currency can not be issued in excess so long as every note represents property, or has a foundation of actual property to rest on”?
Explain the action of the check and clearing-house system, and state what is meant by the restoration of barter.

Over-Production.

State the relation between supply and demand as aggregates, e. g., between the aggregate supply of commodities in a given community and the aggregate demand for them, and show the bearing of the principle involved on the doctrine of “general over-production.”
Prove that the increase of capital and the extension of industry can not lead to a general over-production of commodities.
What is the error of those who believe in the danger of overproduction?
Distinguish “excess of supply” from a “commercial crisis.”
Give the substance of Mill’s examination of the theories of excess of supply.
“When production is fully equal to consumption, every discovery in the arts, or in mechanics, is a calamity, because it only adds to the enjoyment of consumers the opportunity of obtaining commodities at a cheaper rate, while it deprives the producers of even life itself.” Discuss this opinion of Sismondi.
Explain the difference in the theories of Dr. Chalmers and Mr. Mill on over-production, and the excess of supply.

Peculiar Cases of Value.

It costs as much to produce straw as to produce grain; how, then, do you explain the comparatively low value of straw?
Suppose a considerable rise in the price of wool to be foreseen, how should farmers expect the prices of mutton to be affected, and why?
Explain the operation of the laws of value by which the relative prices of wool and mutton are regulated.

International Trade and Values.

What is the meaning of the statement that “it is not a difference in the absolute cost of production which determines the interchange [of commodities between countries], but a difference in the comparative cost”?
What are the advantages which a country derives from foreign trade?
Explain clearly the following passage: “We may often, by trading with foreigners, obtain their commodities at a smaller expense of labor and capital than they cost to the foreigners themselves.”
Is there any essential difference between trade between country and country, and trade between county and county, or even between man and man? What is the real nature of trade in all cases?
Why is it necessary to make any different statement of the laws of value for foreign than for domestic products? What is the cause for the existence of any international trade?
How would a serious decline in the efficiency of England, as compared with other countries, in the production of manufactures affect the scale of money incomes and prices in England, and why?
Mr. Mill refers the value of home products to the “cost of production “; of foreign products to the “cost of acquisition.” Examine the truth of this distinction.
It is said that in the home market the value of commodities depends on the cost of production, in the foreign market on the cost of acquisition. Comment on this distinction.
Is the cost of production the regulator of international values?
Discuss the following statement: “International value is regulated just as inter-provincial or inter-parishional value is. Coals and hops are exchanged between Northumberland and Kent on absolutely the same principles as iron and wine between Lancashire and Spain.” — Ruskin, “Munera Pulveris,” p. 84.
“What determines the value of imported commodities?
“Why does cost of production fail to determine the value of commodities brought from a foreign country? Does it also fail in the case of commodities brought from distant parts of the same country?
It is on the matter of fact that there is not much migration of capital and labor from country to country that Mr. Mill has based his whole doctrine of “international trade and international values.” Explain and comment on the above statement.
“What are the causes which determine for a nation the cost of its imports?
It follows from the theory of international values, as laid down by Mill, that the permanent residence of Americans in Europe may enhance the cost of foreign imports to Americans residing at home. Explain in what way.
Suppose two countries, A and B, isolated from the rest of the world, and a trade established between them. In consequence of the labor of A becoming less effective, the cost of production of every article which can be produced in that country is greatly increased, but so that the relation between the costs of any two articles remains the same. “What, if any, will be the effect of the change on the trade between A and B? Does your answer depend upon your using the phrase “cost of production” in a sense different from that given to it by some economists?
Show that every country gets its imports at less cost in proportion to the efficiency of its labor.

Foreign Exchanges.

“What is the ordinary limit to the premium on foreign bills of exchange, and why?
What are the chief effects on the foreign exchanges which are produced by the breaking out of a war? Account for the fact that in 1861 the exchanges on England in America fell considerably below specie point.
Suppose that the next harvest in England should be very defective, and extraordinary supplies of American grain needed, now would this probably affect the price of bills of exchange between England and America, and the profit on the exportation of English manufactures to the latter, and why?
Trace the process by which the precious metals spread from the mines over the world.
Suppose the exchange between England and the United States to be heavily against England, how will this fact affect the export and import trade between the two countries, and why?
“What is meant by exchanges being against a country?
Enumerate the principal circumstances which affect the rate of exchange between two countries. How is the par of exchange ascertained?
In what way are gold and silver distributed among the different trading countries? Between different parts of the same country?
Trace the effects of large and continuous issues of inconvertible paper currency on the prices of commodities, on importation and exportation, and on the foreign exchanges.
State the conditions under which international trade can permanently exist. “What will be the ultimate effect of a large movement of foreign gold upon prices, imports, and exports in the receiving country?
State the theory of the value of money (i. e., “metallic money”), and clear up any apparent inconsistencies between the following statements: (1.) The value of money depends on the cost of production at the worst mines; (2.) The value of money varies inversely as its quantity multiplied by its rapidity of circulation; (3.) The countries whose products are most in demand abroad and contain the greatest value in the smallest bulk, which are nearest the mines and have the least demand for foreign productions, are those in which money will be of lowest value.
The effects of the depreciation of the paper currency in the United States are thus described by Mr. Wells: “It renders it impossible to sell abroad the products which have cost too much at home, and invites from other countries the products of a cheaper labor paid for in a sounder currency. It exaggerates imports, while destroying our ability to pay in kind.” State how far you agree with the deductions here drawn, assigning your reasons where you differ.
“When the foreign exchanges are manifestly against a country, and a balance of indebtedness is the cause, the equilibrium can be restored in two ways. State and explain the operation of each.
What are the conditions which determine for a country a high range of general prices? How far is this advantageous?
“What is the effect of the imposition of a tribute by one country on another upon the course of trade between them, and the terms on which they exchange commodities; and why?
For what reasons may a nation’s exports habitually exceed or fall short of its imports?
Explain the real and nominal exchange.
Expound Mr. Mill’s theory of the influence which a convertible currency exercises on foreign trade.
“What is the effect of a depreciated currency on (1) foreign trade, and (2) the exchanges?

Interest.

How does the general rate of interest determine the selling price of stocks and land?
Is there any relation between the rate of interest and the value of money?
What are the relations of interest and profit? On what causes does the rate of interest depend?
“High interest means bad security.” Comment on this saying.
Is the rate of interest affected by the supply of the precious metals?
What determines the rate of interest on the loanable funds? Is the “current [or ordinary] rate of interest the measure of the relative abundance or scarcity of capital”?
What are the chief causes that determine the rate of interest?
If it be true that in America every man, however rich, is engaged in some business, but that in England many rich men have no trade or profession, how is the rate of interest in each country affected in consequence, and why?
How does a fall in the purchasing power of money tend to affect, if at all, and why, (1) the rate of interest, (2) the price of land, (3) the price of government bonds, (4) the price of gold and silver ornaments and plate?

Foreign Competition.

Explain the grounds of Mr. Mill’s proposition that general low wages never caused any country to undersell its rivals, nor did general high wages ever hinder it from doing so. If you think the proposition needs qualification, give your reason.
(1.) What is the true theory of one country underselling another in a foreign market? (2.) What weight should be attributed to the fact of generally higher or lower wages in one of the competing countries?
Discuss the question whether a high rate of wages necessarily lays the commerce of a country under a disadvantage with reference to a country where the rate of wages is lower.
What are the conditions under which one country can permanently undersell another in a foreign market?
Point out distinctly the connection between the money wages of laborers in the United States and the productiveness of the soil.
In the Eastern States iron-molders earn from fourteen to seventeen dollars a week; in California their wages run from twenty-one to twenty-seven dollars. Account for this variation.

Progress of Society.

What are the reasons for the change in the normal values of manufactured and of agricultural commodities, respectively, during the progress of society?
Wages and profits in different employments and neighborhoods are not uniformly proportional to the efforts of labor and abstinence of which they are the respective rewards. Classify the circumstances which prevent this correspondence, and show how far their effect is likely to be reduced (a) by general economical progress, and (b) by the extension of the division of labor.
What is the law of diminishing returns? Can you point out any connection between this law and the following phenomena? —

(a.) Density of population.
(b.) Rate of wages.
(c.) Rate of profits in different countries.

Sketch the influence on rents and profits of an increase of population and capital concurrently with a stationary state of the arts of production.
Is there reason to believe that Mr. Mill has underrated the powers possessed by man of extending the area of production and facilitating the market of food? If such a statement has been made, to what extent is his theory of population modified, and the risks he had indicated rendered distant?
Compare the effects on rent, profits, and wages, of a sudden improvement in the production (a) of food, (b) of some manufactured articles largely consumed by the working-classes.
Trace the connection between Ricardo’s theory of rent and the decline in the general rate of profits as a country increases in population. Explain clearly the connection which exists between wages and profits.
What effect is produced upon rents, profits, and wages, respectively, in a country like France, where population is stationary and capital advancing?
If capital continued to increase and population did not, explain the proposition that “the whole savings of each year would be exactly so much subtracted from the profits of the next and of every following year,” if improvements were stationary.
How does social and industrial progress tend to affect the prices of land, raw produce, and manufactures, respectively, and why?
The capitalized value of land rises, in the progress of society, from two causes — from one which affects land in common with all investments; from another which is peculiar to land.
“The tendency of improved communications is to lower existing rents.” How far is this true, and in what directions is it true?
What would be the effect on profits, wages, and rents of an improvement in a manufactured article consumed by the laboring-class?
Explain the doctrine of the tendency of profits to a minimum, the cause of that tendency, and the circumstances which counteract it.
What was Adam Smith’s doctrine as to the decline of profit in progressive communities? Criticise his argument.
Mention some of the principal causes which, in the ordinary progress of society, respectively tend to increase or to reduce the current rate of profits.
Why do profits tend to fall as population increases, and how may this result be retarded or prevented?
What is the effect of a general rise of money wages, apart from the consideration of a greater efficiency of labor, in prices, profits, and rent? Give reasons for your answer.
How does the general progress of society in wealth and industrial efficiency tend to affect the rate of wages, the rate of profit, and the rate of rent, respectively?
What is the general effect of the progress of society on the landowner, the capitalist, and the laborer?

Future of Laboring-Classes.

Examine the influences of machinery on the economic condition of the working-classes.
Mention and discuss some of the popular remedies for low wages, and especially the effect of the subdivision of landed property among peasant proprietors.
Explain briefly what is meant by co-operation, and indicate the more prominent forms assumed by the co-operative movement.
What is meant by the co-operative system of industry? Show ways in which this system may affect, for good or for evil, the productiveness of labor; and mention any moral benefits, or the opposite, in which it may be expected to issue.
What are the difficulties in the way of co-operation for the production of salable objects?
Explain the advantages of industrial partnership, in which the employés share, in proportion to the wages received, half the profits of the business beyond a certain fixed minimum which is assigned to the employers.

Taxation.

How is the state justified in undertaking any manufacture or service which might be performed by private enterprise?
Enumerate Adam Smith’s canons of taxation.
Examine the argument in favor of the resumption by the state of what is called the unearned increment in the value of land arising from the development of society.
A picture by Gainsborough and a house in Broadway are sold in the same year at the same price; at the end of fifty years each sells for five times its first cost. Is there any, and, if so, what, reason why the increase should be sequestrated for the public benefit in the one case and not in the other?
Explain the incidence of taxes laid on wages.
“Why should a tax on profits, if no improvements follow, fall on the laborer and capitalist?
Explain what effect, if any, will be produced on the price of corn by —

(1) a tax upon rent;
(2) a tithe;
(3) a tax of so much per acre, irrespective of value;
(4) a tax of so much per bushel.

On whom does a tax of a fixed proportion of agricultural produce fall?
Discuss the question whether the income-tax ought to be a tax upon income and property, or upon expenditure.
Discuss the expediency of a graduated income-tax.
State the arguments which you think strongest both for and against exempting savings from the income-tax.
Explain the conditions which should he observed in imposing taxes on commodities.
What taxes does a tradesman get back in the price of the articles he sells, and what does he not?
Test by Adam Smith’s four maxims of taxation the policy of indirect taxes on the necessaries of life.
All indirect taxation violates Adam Smith’s fourth canon.
Discuss the following:

“A man with $100,000 in United States bonds comes to Boston, hires a house . . .; thus he lives in luxury. … I am in favor of taxing idle investments such as this, and allowing manufacturing investments to go untaxed.”

Compare the advantages and disadvantages of direct and indirect taxation.
On what principles is this country now taxed?
Explain the arguments for and against the policy of maintaining a surplus for the purpose of redeeming a national debt.
In estimating the ability of the United States to pay its public debts, it is usual to include among the data of the question the increased productiveness of industry in that country. How far is this a pertinent consideration?

Protection.

Mention some of the principal arguments brought forward in favor of protective tariffs.
Connect the principle of the division of employments (or labor) with the policy of free trade and the functions of government.
Sketch the effects of discriminating duties, including the operation of the corn laws.
Examine the following argument, emending, if you think it necessary, the free-trader’s doctrine on the point raised: The free- trader’s belief is that a customs duty is added to the price of the article upon which it is imposed. If the article is imported, according to his theory, the increase of the price goes into the public treasury; if the article is made in the country, the increase of the price goes into the pocket of the producer. But in the former case there is no protection; and competition will prevent the latter. Therefore protection does not increase the price of the protected article. If a customs duty is imposed upon a commodity, and its price is not raised in consequence, what inference can you draw?
Under what circumstances did Mr. Mill think nascent states might be justified in adopting a policy of protection? Criticise his opinion, and, if you agree with it, give some examples of its application.
American protectionists allege that the high rate of wages prevailing in the United States disables them from competing with “the pauper labor”of Europe. Examine the grounds of this statement, and consider how far it forms a justification for protection to American industry.
A high rate of wages indicates, not a high, but a low cost of production for all commodities measured in which the rate of wages is high.
Explain and prove this proposition, and illustrate it from the circumstances of the United States.
State under what limitations the proposition is correct, that profits vary inversely with wages. Explain the circumstances which cause both a higher rate of wages and profits to prevail in a young country, such as the United States, than in England.
In America wages are much higher than in England, yet the general rate of profits is higher also, according to Mr. Mill. How do you reconcile the two facts?
Examine the following:

“It seems to me that protection is absolutely essential to the encouragement of capital, and equally necessary for the protection of the American laborer. … He must have good food, enough of it, good clothing, school-houses for his children, comforts for his home, and a fair chance to improve his condition. To this end I would protect him against competition with the half-paid laborers of European countries.” — Congressional Globe.

An American newspaper has said of the burning of Chicago: “The money to replace what has been burned will not be sent abroad to enrich foreign manufacturers; but, thanks to the wise policy of protection which has built up American industries, it will stimulate our own manufactures, set our mills running faster, and give employment to thousands of idle working-men.” Comment on this passage.
On whom does a tax on imports, if not prohibitory, fall?
In what cases would duties on imported commodities fall on the producers?
Are taxes on imports in any way paid by foreigners?
Discuss the effects of duties on exports.
Trace the effects of duties on the importation of raw materials, and distinguish, with examples, between duties that violate and duties which do not violate the principle of free trade.
Is it possible for any country by legislative enactments to engross a larger share of the advantages of foreign trade than it would naturally have? Discuss the question fully.
“Those are, therefore, in the right who maintain that taxes on imports are partly paid by foreigners; but they are mistaken when they say it is by the foreign producer. It is not on the person from whom we buy, but on all those who buy from us, that a portion of our customs duties spontaneously falls.” Explain and examine the reasons for this conclusion.
State the principle which determines the relation between the amount of a country’s imports and that of its exports, and show how this relation is affected by a system of protective duties.

Source: Appendix II in Principles of Political Economy by John Stuart Mill. Abridged, with Critical, Bibliographical, and Explanatory Notes, and a Sketch of the History of Political Economy by J. Laurence Laughlin (New York: Appleton, 1884), pp. 637-658.

Image Source: James Laurence Laughlin. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-03687, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Tags Laughlin

Bibliography Curator's Favorites ERVM Suggested Reading

ERVM. Curator’s Favorites from the Collection, first of a series.

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-05-31

The collection of artifacts here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has grown sufficiently large that part of my self-imposed curation duties now include adding postings to link back to some earlier postings that perhaps newer visitors and subscribers have yet to discover.

One such underused resource in my opinion is the list of items “Recommended Teacher’s Library of Economics” put together by J. Laurence Laughlin and published in 1887. To date, Laughlin’s List has received only 53 page visits since being posted in August, 2015. What makes the transcription a true resource for historians of economics is that nearly all the references given by Laughlin now have links. Thus in that single posting we have a virtual library of economics that would have been an economics professor’s pride at the dawn of graduate education in economics in the United States.

Tags Laughlin

Chicago Economists

Chicago. J.L. Laughlin Reminisces About Coming to Chicago, 1892

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-02-22

Another copy of the following brief memoir by the first head of the University of Chicago’s department of political economy is found in the Goodspeed papers at the University of Chicago Archives. The copy transcribed in this post comes from a copy in J. Laurence Laughlin’s papers at the Library of Congress. As persuasive a university president as Chicago’s Harper clearly was, it is pretty clear from below that the generous financial package offered to Laughlin was a necessary part of getting to yes.

___________________________

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE FOUNDING OF THE UNIVERSITY.
J. Laurence Laughlin.

I had left business in Philadelphia and accepted the professorship at Cornell University vacated by E. Benjamin Andrews who had just been elected President of Brown University. I went to Cornell in the Fall of 1890 and remained there during two academic years. In the Fall of 1891 President Harper made a visit to Cornell University, and I first met him at a little reception given at the house of Professor Hale. Later I had a walk with him about the campus, in which we discussed universities and men. Of course, there never entered my head at that time the idea of leaving Cornell. On this occasion I remember President Harper asked me what I thought of Edmond J. James. I happened to be able to sum up my judgment concisely in a number of adjectives which covered the whole case, and I recall President Harper’s interested surprise at the concise characterization.

Later, I think it was in the first week of December, 1891, the Baptist Social Union, of New York City, had a debate on “Silver”, in which Ex-secretary Fairchild and Horace White were on one side, and Senator Stewart, and Representative Newlands, of Nevada, were on the other side. A few days before the meeting I had a telegram saying Ex-secretary Fairchild was ill, and asking me to take his place in the debate. I agreed to do so, and very distinctly recall the occasion which was held at Delmonico’s. The debate evidently stirred up Senator Stewart. I did not know at the time that president Harper was seated at one of the tables below. At the end of the affair President Harper joined me and suggested a long walk before we should feel like retiring. To walk off the effects of my coffee, I agreed. We walked for several hours, bringing up, in the basement restaurant, I think, of the Murray Hill Hotel. While we were disposing of a little supper there the President proposed to me that I should come to Chicago in charge of the Department of Political Economy. It was, of course, a great surprise to me, but I agreed to take it under careful consideration.

A little later I found out that Professor Hale, at Cornell, had also been invited. Then I was urged by the President to come to Chicago and look the situation over. At that time no great endowment had been made for the University, and it might be supposed, as was said by Benjamin Ives Wheeler, that there would be “hard sledding ahead”. Or, as it was expressed by another, “We must have great faith, for it would be like hitching our fortunes to a star”. I recall the interest of Henry W. Sage, who expressed his admiration of Harper as “a man of great faith”, and later when he came to see me in Chicago he wanted to meet the President for that reason. In December, at some time before the Holidays, I came to Chicago, visiting the President at the Grand Pacific Hotel. I believe I also called upon him at the then offices of the University in the Chamber of Commerce building. I was placed in the charge of Frank Frost Abbott to be shown the site of the University. By an unfortunate fate he took me out on the Cottage Grove street cars when a partly melted snow on the ground, blackened by coal soot, gave an impression of Chicago more disagreeable than could now be imagined. Mentally I vowed that a team of wild horses could not drag me to live in such a city. When we reached the grounds the scene was, if possible, still more desolate. Cobb Hall and the Divinity dormitories were then built only to the top of the basement, and this was filled nearly to the brim with green, stagnant , swampy water. It was too swampy to pass eastward across the middle of the present campus. There was no drainage system then, and wide stretches of water extended in pools over the surface here and there. The present site of Haskell was a small pond. Another pond spread out in front of what is now Walker. The only way of getting eastward was to go into the Midway and jump from hummock to hummock. Abbbott had been instructed by the President to show me the progress on the building of the Fair; but the desolate external appearance of the University campus removed all interest in the Fair. I asked to be told the height of the level of this land above the surface of Lake Michigan. Abbott then conducted me to the house of Judge Shorey, who told me the land was eight feet above the level of the lake, and in general removed my depression.

President Harper made strenuous efforts to induce me to accept the appointment before I left Chicago. He brought every possible pressure to bear. I had, by the way, meanwhile lunched with him and Dr. Eri B. Hulburt. Finally I left Chicago without having made up my mind. Some differences arose in regard to what the salary of the head professor should be. After I returned to Ithaca, in consultation with Professor Hale, we felt that we would do a service to the professorial body by trying to put the salaries on a higher basis that had before existed. it was in this way that the salary was fixed at $7,000. I believe that this was not arrived at until we met Messrs. Ryerson and Hutchinson in New York City on their way to Europe. On condition that the salary should be $7,000 both Professor Hale and myself accepted.

In this connection I was consulted regarding Professor von Holst coming from Europe. It happened that I then knew very well Mr. and Mrs. Henry Villard. Mr. Villard was at that time at the height of his railway career. A short time before he had brought over a number of scholars and distinguished men from Europe at the driving the last spike on the Northern Pacific Railroad. Professor von Holst was one of this invited body. I soon discovered that Professor von Holst was getting Mr. Villard’s opinion as to the wisdom of accepting the Chicago position. Then Mr. Villard came to me to know what advice should be given to Professor von Holst. We then canvassed the situation, discussing all the advantages and disadvantages. I think some of these interviews went on before I had signified my own acceptance. One of the things which affected my decision was the policy of President Harper in trying to call the strongest men he could find, whether in Europe or America. This policy undoubtedly affected the acceptance by von Holst, as it did that of many others, no doubt. I was thereby thrown into terms of intimacy with Professor von Holst which continued with increasing ties of affection and friendship until his departure for Europe and his death.

During the following Winter some serious difficulties arose. The graduate bulletin had been put out and some of the proposed plans struck us as possibly undesirable from the point of view of the best development of the University. Of course, opinions must differ. Professor Hale and I might have been right or wrong. At any rate, some differences arose between us and President Harper. He then came to Ithaca at once, and we had long and serious conferences about the fundamental organization of the University. I can remember distinctly when sitting in Professor Hale’s house with him and President Harper, I said, “We have been deciding here very large questions of University policy. It is not right that these far-reaching conclusions should be arrived at on the judgment of two or three professors in consultation with the President. These matters ought to go properly to a body composed of the heads of all the departments of the University, and their opinions should be decisive in forming the University organization with which we should begin work.” I remember clearly how the President, sitting at the end of a sofa, looked up at me and in a flash said, “That’s right! It should be the Senate”. And the Senate was born then and there.

That evening, while sitting in my library until rather late, we found that our differences had been composed. At first they had seemed to us so serious that we had wished to withdraw our acceptances. I mention this because it brought out a special characteristic of the President. It was his open-mindedness. After the most thorough and frank discussion, he was willingly to make adjustment with others. Moreover, difficulties of that sort never left and scars.

In all the days after that, in Ithaca and after I came to Chicago in June, 1892, his enthusiasm and confidence in the future of the University was infectious. His dominating thought in those early days, often expressed to me, was, “Now we must all stand together.”

Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. Papers of J. Laurence Laughlin. Box 7, Folder “Recollections of the Founding of the University”.

Image Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-03687, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Tags Laughlin

Economists Harvard

Harvard. Memorial Minute for Professor Silas Marcus Macvane, 1914.

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-01-24

From this minute from the record of a meeting of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (February 17, 1914), the historian Silas Marcus Macvane (incidentally, a classmate of the first head of the Chicago Department of Political Economy, J. Laurence Laughlin), we see that his first academic appointment was as an Instructor in Political Economy in Harvard College, two years after receiving his B.A. in 1875. Five years later he was appointed Instructor in History and rose through the ranks in that field. He published nine articles in the Quarterly Journal of Economics up through its ninth volume in 1895.

Note: The copy of the Harvard Album of the Class of 1873 (its “yearbook”) in the Harvard Archives was the personal copy of J. Laurence Laughlin.

________________________

Minute on the Life and Services of Professor Silas Marcus Macvane

The following minute on the life and services of Professor Macvane was placed upon the records of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the meeting of February 17, 1914 : —

Silas Marcus Macvane, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History, Emeritus, died at Rome, Italy, January 19, 1914, in the seventy-second year of his age.

He was born at Bothwell, Prince Edward’s Island, June 4, 1842, of Scotch farming ancestry, and spent his boyhood in the rough but wholesome discipline of farm life. His natural taste for study led him to Acadia College, Nova Scotia, where he was graduated at the age of twenty-three. The six years following were spent in school teaching and in travel and study abroad.

In 1871 he entered the Junior Class in Harvard College, and was graduated here with the Class of 1873. While in College he came under the influence of Professor Henry Adams, to whom the later development of historical study at Harvard upon a scientific basis was largely due.

Immediately after graduation here Macvane married and began teaching in the Roxbury Latin School. There, as grateful pupils still bear witness, he developed that shrewd and sympathetic insight into young human nature which was to mark all his later dealing with more advanced pupils. Two years of teaching boys, however, sufficed to show that Macvane was, as his chief, Principal Collar, used to say, too large a man for that work, and in 1875 he was appointed Instructor in Political Economy in Harvard College. In 1878 he became Instructor in History, in 1883 Assistant Professor, and in 1886 Professor. In 1887 he was assigned to the McLean Professorship, and retained that title until his retirement in 1911, after thirty-six years of continuous service.

During that long period he was called upon by the demands of a rapid departmental expansion to teach at one time or another in every branch of Political Science, in History, Economics, International and Constitutional Law, Modern Government and Political Theory. In all these he showed himself adequately and evenly prepared, and his instruction in each was broadened and enriched by this many-sided preparation. For many years, however, he was especially identified with the instruction in Modern European History, a subject which he inherited directly from his favorite teacher, Henry Warren Torrey of happy memory. His method of teaching was deliberate, with cautious but incisive criticism, appealing to the better elements of his large classes and always commanding the respect of the rest by its obvious sincerity.

As a scholar he represented the older, wholesome tradition which dreaded a narrow specialization, abhorred the parade of curious learning, and shrank from hasty or ill-considered publication.

In the field of Economic Theory he was a recognized authority, and most of his published work was in that subject. He was a frequent contributor to the Quarterly Journal of Economics during the editorship of Professor Dunbar. In historical publication his most important work was a translation and revision of Seignobos’ Political History of Europe since 1814.

As a working member of this Faculty during the critical years in which the system of academic freedom was being worked out into practicable shape, he was a factor always to be reckoned with. His sympathy was with what in those days was rightly described as progressive, but he saw also the perils of too rapid progress. Never a quick debater, he followed carefully the course of discussion and invariably came in at the close with some shrewd comment which brought out the essential point and not infrequently turned the tide of opinion. His command of practical details led to his appointment on the Committee on the Tabular View, and for many years he was its responsible head, performing a thankless task with infinite patience and consideration for the wishes of his colleagues.

He was a sturdy fighter for the best things, a courteous opponent, a loyal friend and a devoted servant of the truth through loyalty to the College which he loved. Patient under prolonged trial, thinking no evil, he gave his life without complaint to the service of others, finding his sufficient reward in the sense of duty well done.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 22, February 21, 1914, p. 149-50 .

Economic Publications of Silas Marcus Macvane

Crocker, Uriel H., and S. M. Macvane. “General Overproduction.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 1, no. 3 (1887): 362-66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1882763.

Macvane, S. M. “The Theory of Business Profits.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 2, no. 1 (1887): 1-36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1879348.

__________. “Analysis of Cost of Production.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 1, no. 4 (1887): 481-87. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1879343.

__________. “Business Profits and Wages: A Rejoinder.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 2, no. 4 (1888): 453-68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1879389.

__________. The Working Principles of Political Economy in a New and Practical form: a Book for Beginners. New York: Effingham Maynard & Co., 1890. https://archive.org/details/workingprincipl02macvgoog

__________. “Boehm-Bawerk on Value and Wages.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 5, no. 1 (1890): 24-43. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1880831.

__________. “Capital and Interest.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 6, no. 2 (1892): 129-50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1882544.

__________. “Marginal Utility and Value.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics7, no. 3 (1893): 255-85. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1884004.

__________. “The Austrian Theory of Value.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 4 (1893): 12-41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1009036.

__________. “The Economists and the Public.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 9, no. 2 (1895): 132-50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1885596.

__________. Review of The Letters of John Stuart Mill by Hugh S. R. Eliot, Mary Taylor. The American Economic Review 1, no. 4 (1911): 800-02. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1806884.

Tags Dunbar, Laughlin, Macvane

Chicago Cornell Economists Harvard

Harvard and Chicago. Harvard Class of 1873 reports from J. Laurence Laughlin 1879-1913

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2016-12-31

James Laurence Laughlin (1850-1933) was the founding head of the Department of Political Economy at the University of Chicago. One earlier post provided a mid-career biographical sketch of Laughlin and another his proposal at Cornell to expand the economics course offerings. Also of interest is his list of suggested titles for a personal library of economics as of 1887.

When compared to the notes submitted to the respective Harvard Class Secretaries, Frank W. Taussig (Class of 1879) or Robert Franz Foerster (Class of 1909), Laughlin appears to have had a less intense filial attachment to his alma mater.

______________________________

1879

JAMES LAWRENCE [sic] LAUGHLIN.

Secretary has heard nothing from him. At last accounts he was teaching school in Boston

Source: The Second Triennial Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 of Harvard College. Boston, Geo. H. Ellis Press, Commencement 1879. Page 18.

_______________________________

1883

JAMES LAWRENCE [sic] LAUGHLIN.

Received degree of Ph. D. from Harvard in 1876 and was appointed instructor in Political Economy in 1878. Has been made Assistant Professor in the same department the current year. Has been a contributor to the “Atlantic,” “International,” etc. Was married September 9, 1875, to Alice McGuffey of Cincinnati. A daughter, Agatha, was born January 3, 1880, and his wife died January 11, 1880.

Source: The Third Triennial Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 of Harvard College. Newport, Davis & Pitman, Commencement 1883. Page 17.

_______________________________

1885

JAMES LAWRENCE [sic] LAUGHLIN.

Assistant professor of political economy at Cambridge. Has published ” Laughlin’s Mill’s Political Economy,” and written a few magazine articles. Was married to Miss H. M. Pitman, Sept. 4, 1883.

Source: The Fourth Triennial Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 of Harvard College. Boston, Rand, Avery, & Co., Commencement 1885. Page 14.

_______________________________

1888

JAMES LAURENCE LAUGHLIN.

626 Chestnut St., Philadelphia. “I have written a new book : ‘The Elements of Political Economy; with some applications to Questions of the Day,’ in 1887, and it has gone into a second edition. ‘Gold and Prices since 1873;’ a study on the so-called appreciation of gold, etc., etc. My ‘History of Bimetalism,’ has gone into its second edition; and my edition of ‘Mill,’ into its fourth or fifth. I have resigned my position in Cambridge, and

have come to Philadelphia to take the management of an Insurance Co., the ‘Philadelphia Manufacturers Mutual Fire Insurance Co.;’ but shall continue my economic writing.”

Source: The Fifth Triennial Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 of Harvard College. Boston, S. J. Parkhill & Co., Commencement 1888. Page 21.

_______________________________

1891

JAMES LAWRENCE [sic] LAUGHLIN.
“I am Professor of Political Economy and Finance at Cornell University and see Jack White every day. These are my two distinctions since last writing.”

[…]

HORATIO STEVENS WHITE.

“I have just finished my third year as Dean of the Faculty. This spring I was called to the chair of Germanic languages in the new Stanford University, Palo Alto, California. The trustees here meanwhile appointed me as head of the German department with an increase in salary. The California offer however remains open, and I shall visit the Pacific coast next winter and study the situation on the spot before coming to a final decision. Our Faculty baseball nine, which has been organized for several years, continues to win a majority of its games with various student clubs. The chair of Political Economy left vacant by the resignation of Professor E. B. Andrews, who was elected President of the Brown University, has been filled by the appointment of our classmate Laughlin, who has occupied the position this year with general acceptance. As a result of his efforts the trustees have decided to appoint an associate professor in the department, to establish two special fellowships in Political Economy, and to place at his disposal a generous publication fund. The University is to be congratulated upon this able contribution which ’73 has thus made to our Faculty.”

Source: The Sixth Triennial Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 of Harvard College. Boston, S. J. Parkhill & Co., Commencement 1891. Pp. 19, 39.

_______________________________

1898

JAMES LAWRENCE [sic] LAUGHLIN.

5747 Lexington Ave., Chicago, I11. Taught school in Boston, and took degree of Ph.D. at Cambridge in 1876. Was appointed instructor in Political Economy at Harvard in 1878 and Assistant Professor in 1883. In 1888 he was in Philadelphia, where he had the management of the Philadelphia Manufacturers’ Mutual Fire Insurance Co. Subsequently he was Professor of Political Economy and Finance at Cornell, and is now at Chicago University in a similar capacity. He has devoted much time to writing on political economy and finance, and has published some important books on those subjects.

Source: The Seventh Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 of Harvard College Issued upon the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of Graduation. Boston, S. J. Parkhill & Co., Commencement 1898. Page 23.

_______________________________

1905

JAMES LAWRENCE [sic] LAUGHLIN.

Since 1892 he has been Head Professor of the department of Political Economy in the University of Chicago. For some years he has been editor of the “Journal of Political Economy.” He served on the Monetary Commission appointed by the Indianapolis Convention of Boards of Trade, in 1898, and was entrusted with the preparation of the report which appeared in a volume of six hundred and eight pages. In 1894 he was invited to prepare a currency law for Santo Domingo. The visit to the island on a special steamer, the negotiations with the government, the enactment of the law and its provisions, were subsequently published in the “Journal of Political Economy.” In 1902 he published the first volume of a magnum opus on money. This volume, “The Principles of Money,” will be followed by five succeeding volumes “when time is granted to finish them.” In addition to this work he has written many books and articles treating of the various phases of his specialty in this and other countries.

Source: The Eight Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 Harvard. Boston, Rockwell and Churchill Press, Commencement 1905. Pp. 23-4.

_______________________________

1913

JAMES LAURENCE LAUGHLIN.

Is at the head of the Department of Political Economy at Chicago, and an authority on finance whose reputation is world-wide. At the Three Hundredth Jubilee of the University of Giessen, Germany, in 1907, he was given an Honorary Doctorate. He writes:

“Any modest member of the Class of 1873 does not feel that he has done anything worth reporting. In 1906 I was appointed by the German Kultus Ministerium an exchange professor from the University of Chicago to Berlin. I lectured in German before the Vereinigung für Staatswissenschaftliche Fortbildung, and also in Cologne, as well as at the University of Berlin. In the winter of 1908-09, I was one of two delegates (the other being Professor A. A. Michaelson, the recipient of a Nobel Prize) to the Scientific Congress of all American Republics in Santiago, Chile. I crossed the Andes, visiting Argentina, and came home by the east coast. In June, 1911, I was given leave of absence from the University in order to take charge of the nation-wide campaign to obtain a reconstruction of our currency and banking system. In this work I was chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Citizens’ League for the promotion of a sound banking system. The results of this campaign are now apparent. Not only is there an insistent and intelligent public opinion demanding reform, but the new administration is ready to put a satisfactory measure through Congress. It now looks as if the purpose of this campaign was certainly attained. Of course I have been guilty off and on of publishing some books and articles, but they are not as good as I should like to have them, and when I get to the next world I am going to revise them and make them just what they ought to be for an audience that I hope will not yet be made up very largely of the Class of 1873. For I hope that the surviving members of the class will long be here after I have departed.”

Source: The Ninth Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 Harvard. Boston, Rockwell and Churchill Press, Commencement 1913. Pp. 25-6.

Image Source: Clipped from printed speech given at the 78th meeting of The Sunset Club at the Grand Pacific Hotel, Chicago, December 6, 1894 found in Laughlin, James Laurence. Papers, [Box 1, Folder 17], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Tags Laughlin

Courses Curriculum Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Major Expansion of Economics Course Offerings. 1883

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2016-12-11

Harvard’s decision to significantly increase its course offerings in political economy in 1883 received some national press coverage (that story posted earlier in Economics in the Rear-View Mirror). Today we have the announcement published in the Harvard Crimson. The trio Charles F. Dunbar, J. Laurence Laughlin and Frank W. Taussig were on their way to launch the take-off into a full academic program of economic study.

______________________

POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Courses of Study for 1883-84.

Harvard Crimson
May 24, 1883

Arrangements recently completed have enabled the college to offer a more extended course of study in Political Economy than that which has been announced. A full statements to be substituted for that given on page 14 of the Elective Pamphlet, will be found below.

On page 15 of the pamphlet, line 13, for Course 6 read Course 7.

Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. – Lectures on Banking and the Financial Legislation of the United States. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Prof. Dunbar and Asst. Prof. Laughlin.

History of Economic Theory and a Critical Examination of Leading Writers. – Lectures. Mon., Wed. at 2 and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri. at 2. Prof. Dunbar.

Discussion of Practical Economic Questions. – Theses, Tu., Th., at 3, and a third hour to be appointed by the instructor. Assistant Professor Laughlin.

Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. – Lectures. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Professor Dunbar.
Course 4 requires no previous study of Political Economy.

Economic Effects of Land Tenures in England, Ireland, France and Germany. – Theses. Once a week, counting as a half course. Asst. Professor Laughlin.

History of Tariff Legislation in the United States. – Once a week, counting as a half course. Mr. Taussig.

Comparison of the Financial Systems of France, England, Germany and the United States. – Tu., at 2, counting as a half course. Professor Dunbar.

As a preparation for Courses 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7 it is necessary to have passed satisfactorily in Course 1.

Course 1 is in Examination Group I.; Course 2, in Group V.; Course 3, in Group XII.; Course 4, in Group III.; Course 7, in Group XI.

The first two courses are intended to present the principles of the science, while the remaining five treat the subject in its historical and practical aspects. No. 2 will take up the principal writers of the present day, as Cairns, Carey and George, together with the current literature of the science. No times of recitation have been assigned to courses 5 and 6, as this will be arranged between the instructors and the students choosing the course. The department intend issuing a full descriptive pamphlet describing the different courses, which can be had at the office in a few days.

Image Source: Charles F. Dunbar (left) and Frank W. Taussig (right) from E. H. Jackson and R. W. Hunter, Portraits of the Harvard Faculty (1892); J. Laurence Laughlin (middle) from Marion Talbot. More Than Lore: Reminiscences of Marion Talbot, Dean of Women, The University of Chicago, 1892-1925. Chicago: University of Chicago (1936).

Tags Dunbar, Laughlin, Taussig

Courses Curriculum Harvard

Harvard. Expansion of Economics Course Offerings. 1883.

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2016-09-30

_______________________

The tripling of regular economics course offerings at Harvard in the early 1880’s attracted medium (they only had newspapers then, so I suppose the singular form is appropriate) attention as seen in the following story from the New York Evening Post (October 11, 1883) that was picked up by the Chicago Tribune (October 15, 1883). The expansion in course offerings in political economy was announced in the Harvard Crimson on May 24, 1883.

Here are links to five earlier Harvard-related posts from this period at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror:

1874-77.
Three Economics Courses. Texts and exams
Courses in Political Economy

1881.
Economics. Two Course Reviews

1886.
Account of Graduate Department

1888-89.
Political Economy Courses

_______________________

POLITICAL ECONOMY AT HARVARD [1883].

Sketch of the Reorganized Department – Seven Courses of Study – Their Scope and Aim.
[Correspondence of the Evening Post.]

Cambridge, Mass., October 5. – The Department of Political Economy in Harvard College has undergone an enlargement and organization this year which marks a growing interest in the subject on the part of the students and a readiness on the part of the authorities to give encouragement and increased opportunity for its pursuit. For some years political economy was taught practically in two courses, an introductory one, which developed the principles of the English school, Mill being the author used, and an advanced course, which took up Cairnes’ Leading Principles of Political Economy, and discussed also banking and finance. Some years there were two introductory courses instead of one, but in that case they were alternative, and not supplementary. Last year the field treated was broadened by the addition of course, given by Dr. Laughlin, on the economic effects of land tenures in England, Ireland, France, Germany, and Russia; and this year the return of Professor Dunbar from his vacation in Europe, and the retention of both Dr. Laughlin, now assistant professor, and Mr. Taussig, has resulted in the expansion of the whole treatment into seven courses of study. A brief account of the scope and character of these courses is as follows:

First, there is one course intended to give familiarity with the leading principles of the science. Mill’s book is here used as a basis, but there are also lectures on banking and the critical review of the public finance of the United States, chiefly during and since the last war. The course aims to give that general knowledge which every educated man ought to have. For those, however, wish to attain a thorough mastery of the principles of economics, one course is not deemed sufficient. Consequently course 2 – a history of economic theory and a critical examination of leading writers – is given by Professor Dunbar. He will take up all the principal writers in England, France, Germany, and Italy, and will review other recent literature, including the work of Henry George. He intends us to develop a grasp upon the fundamental principles that will enable the student to do practical work of real value.

The other five subjects are designed to turn the attention of students to the historical and practical side, affording training in the use of books and sources, the collection of statistics, and the investigation of such public questions as constantly arise from year to year. They are as follows:

Course 3. Discussion of Practical Economic Questions. – The work will here be done in discussion of live questions of the day, and in written monographs upon subjects which most concern the economic interests of the United States, for example: The navigation laws and American shipping; bimetallism; reciprocity with Canada; advantages of Government issues of notes compared with those of national banks.

Course 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. This is in the form of lectures by Professor Dunbar, and will trace the economic effects of the great events in the history of the last 125 years.

Course 5. Economic Effects of Land Tenures in England, Ireland, France, and Germany; is the course which was introduced by Professor Laughlin last year, and which he gives again; the work is mostly in the form of written theses.

Course 6. History of Tariff Legislation in the United States, by Mr. Taussig; is a study of the tariff laws which the country has tried, and of the reasons for their passage or repeal. The scope of the course is best seen in the following useful syllabus:

I. 1789-1816: Tariff system adopted after the formation of the Constitution; Hamilton’s report; the state of the protective controversy before 1816; the beginnings of manufacturing industry.
II. 1816-1840: The American System; Henry Clay; the tariffs of 1824, 1828, 1832; the Compromise Tariff of 1833; the growth of manufactures; the economic effects of protection.
III. 1840-1860: The political tariffs of 1842 (protectionist); 1846 (free trade); the industrial progress of the country from 1846 to 1860.
IV. 1860-1883: The Civil War; the development of the existing tariff system; the revenue act of 1864; the tax-reducing acts of later years; the tariff revision of 1883.

Course 7. Comparison of the Financial Systems of France, England, Germany, and the United States; is conducted by Professor Dunbar. He will compare the systems adopted by these nations to provide themselves with revenues, and will direct the study to the economic principles underlying public finance and closely connected with the science of government.

Source: New York Evening Post, October 11, 1883, p. 2. Scan of the page at Historical Newspapers From The United States and Canada, Archives of the New York Evening Post Newspaper, pdf-page 0360.

Image Source: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “Sever Hall, Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Mass.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1898 – 1931.

Tags Dunbar, Laughlin, Taussig

Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Debate Briefs on Immigration, ca. 1886-96

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2016-09-01

A few posts ago I provided a short selection from Harvard Professor Thomas Nixon Carver’s autobiography that reminded me of the current Republican U.S. Presidential candidate’s immigration policy. I must still have had Donald Trump on the mind when I stumbled upon a book of model debate briefs for issues of the late 19th/early 20th century. One might want to first watch the speech Donald Trump gave on immigration policy last night (August 31, 2016) in Phoenix, Arizona and then examine the debate briefs below for the following three resolutions:

Resolved, That immigration should be further restricted by law.

Resolved, That a high tax should be laid on all immigrants to the United States.

Resolved, That the policy excluding Chinese laborers from the United States should be maintained and rigorously enforced.

Zombie ideas are everywhere.

_______________________

Briefs for Debate on Current Political, Economic, and Social Topics.

Edited by
W. Du Bois Brookings, A.B. of the Harvard Law School
And
Ralph Curtis Ringwalt, A.B.
Assistant in Rhetoric in Columbia University

With an introduction by Albert Bushnell Hart, Ph.D.
Professor of Harvard University.

[Rerpinted in 1908]

[From the Preface:]

“The basis of the work has been a collection of some two hundred briefs prepared during the past ten years [ca. 1886-96] by students in Harvard University, under the direction of instructors. Of these briefs the most useful and interesting have been selected; the material has been carefully worked over, and the bibliographies enlarged and verified….

…” the brief is a steady training in the most difficult part of reasoning; in putting together things that belong together; in discovering connections and relations; in subordinating the less important matters. The making of a brief is an intellectual exercise like the study of a disease by a physician, of a case by a lawyer, of a sermon by a minister, of a financial report by a president of a corporation. It is a bit of the practical work of life.

RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION.

Question: ‘Resolved, That immigration should be further restricted by law.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

New-York Tribune (May 17, 1891);
Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955 (February 19, 1891);
Political Science Quarterly, III., 46 (March, 1888), 197 (June, 1888); IV., 480-489 (September, 1889);
J. A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives;
Richmond Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration;
North American Review, Vol. 152, p. 27 (January, 1891);
Atlantic Monthly, LXXI., 646 (May, 1893);
Public Opinion, XVI., 122 (November 9, 1893);
F. L. Dingley on European Emigration, United States Special Consular Reports, 1890, II., 211.

I. There is no longer any necessity for immigration:

Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955.

II. Immigration has led to many bad effects.

(a) Political.

(1) Large proportion of adults gives too great voting power:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 79.

(2) Our degraded municipal administration due to it:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 87.

(b) Economic.

(1) Immigrants offset what they produce by remittances home.

(2) Nearly half the immigrants are without occupation and this ratio is still increasing:

Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955.

(3) There is already a large unemployed class of native laborers:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 127.

(4) Displacement of American labor:

Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955.

(5) By classes used to a lower standard of living.

(6) Introduction of the system:

How the Other Half Lives, pp. 121-123.

(c) Social effects.

(1) Our high rates of mortality, vice, and crime are due to immigration:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 150.

(2) Immigration the prevailing cause of illiteracy in the United States:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 161.

III. The present laws are insufficient.

(a) Diseased persons are allowed entrance:

Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955.

(b) Agents for steamship lines induce men to emigrate.

(c) Pauper laws admit immigrants possessing less than the average wealth of residents:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 101.

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

North American Review, Vol. 134, p. 347 (April, 1882); Vol. 154, p. 424 (April, 1892); Vol. 158, p. 494 (April, 1894);
Journal of Social Science, 1870, No. 2;
Forum, XIII., 360 (May, 1892).

I. The policy of the United States in regard to immigration has been successful and its continuance is necessary to develop the resources of the country:

Lalor’s Cyclopaedia, II., 85-94.

II. Immigration is an advantage to the country:

North American Review, Vol. 134, pp. 364-367.

(a) The prosperity brought by immigrants.

(b) The addition to the national power of production.

(c) The money value of the immigrants as laborers.

III. The interests of American labor do not suffer by immigration:

Westminster Review, Vol. 130, p. 474 (October, 1888);
J. L. Laughlin in International Review, XI., 88 (July, 1881).

(a) Immigrants form ‘non–competing groups.’

(b) Are ultimately Americanized.

IV. The present immigration laws are satisfactory:

Supplement to the Revised Statutes of the United States, 1874-1891, I., Chap. 551;
Nation, XLV., 518 (December 29, 1887).

(a) The worst class of immigrants is excluded.

(b) The interests of American labor are fully protected.

(c) More stringent regulations, even if desirable, could not be enforced.

_______________________

A TAX ON IMMIGRANTS.

Question: ‘Resolved, That a high tax should be laid on all immigrants to the United States.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

Richmond Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration;
Forum, XI., 635 (August, 1891); XIV., 110 (September, 1892);
Andover Review, IX., 251 (March, 1888);
Yale Review, I., 125 (August, 1892);
Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955 (February 19, 1891);
Political Science Quarterly, III., 46 (March, 1888), 197 (June, 1888); IV., 480-489 (September, 1889);
North American Review, Vol. 152, p. 27 (January, 1891);
J. A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives;
F. L. Dingley on European Emigration, in United States Special Consular Reports, 1890, II., 211;
House Miscellaneous Documents, 1887-1888, No. 572, part 2, Report on Importation of Contract Labor.

I. Immigration should be further restricted.

(a) On social grounds.

(1) The proportion of paupers, diseased, and criminal, is great.

(b) On economic grounds.

(1) No longer needed to develop the country:

Popular Science Monthly, XLI., 762 (October, 1892).

(2) The lower wages and the standard of living:

Forum, XIV., 113 (September, 1892).

(3) Unskilled occupations are already overcrowded:

Emigration and Immigration, pp. 117-122.

(c) On political grounds.

(1) The immigrants do not understand our institutions.

(2) They become tools of machine politicians:

Emigration and Immigration, pp. 79-88.

(3) They form communities by themselves.

(d) The dangers are increasing.

(1) The immigrants congregate in cities more than formerly:

Emigration and Immigration, pp. 69-70.

(2) The character of the immigrants is deteriorating:

Yale Review, I., 132.

II. A high tax would stop undesirable immigration.

(a) It would make impossible the sending of undesirable classes.

(1) Paupers.
(2) Convicts.
(3) Contract laborers.
(4) Shiftless and ignorant persons whom agents of steamship companies induce to come:

Yale Review, I., 132.

(b) The Italians and Slavs can barely raise the passage money, and they could not raise the tax.

(c) Tax would not keep out the desirable immigrants, such as Germans, Swedes, and Irish.

(1) They bring enough money to pay the tax.

III. A tax is the simplest effective restriction.

(a) It cannot be evaded.

(b) It is the surest practical guarantee of the qualities desired:

Yale Review, I., 141.

(c) It is a just means.

(1) One immigrant is worth to the country one hundred dollars:

Political Science Quarterly, III., 204-207 (June, 1888).

(2) Per capita wealth of the United States is one thousand dollars.

(3) The immigrant should pay to be admitted to the wealth and privileges of this country.

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

Westminster Review, Vol. 130, p. 474 (October, 1888);
North American Review, Vol. 134, p. 347 (April, 1882); Vol. 154, p. 424 (April, 1892); Vol. 156, p. 220 (February, 1893);
Forum, XIII., 360 (May, 1892);
Lalor’s Cyclopedia, II., 85;
Friedrich Kapp, ‘Immigration,’ in Journal of Social Science, 1870, No. 2, pp.21-30.

I. A continuance of immigration is desirable:

Forum, XIV., 601 (January, 1893);
Public Opinion, III., 251 (July 2, 1887); XIV., 297 (December 31, 1892).

(a) There is need of laborers in the South and West:

North American Review, Vol. 134, p. 350 (April, 1882).

(b) Voluntary immigrants are thrifty and active:

Political Science Quarterly, III., 61 (March, 1888).

(c) The troublesome and mischievous immigrants are a small part of the whole:

Nation. XLV., 519 (December 29, 1887);
Forum, XIV., 605-606.

II. The present immigration laws are sufficient:

Public Opinion, III., 249;
Supplement to the Revised Statutes of the United States, 1874-1891, I., Chap. 551.

(a) Laws now exclude paupers, criminals, insane people, and persons liable to become a public charge, as well as imported labor.

(b) Immigration is practically self-regulating:

Forum, XIV., 606.

III. The proposed measure of a high tax is undesirable.

(a) It would literally mean prohibition, which is a complete reversal of American policy.

(b) It would be unjust.

(1) It would debar families from emigrating.

(2) It would discriminate against the peasant class, women and the younger men, who are often the most desirable immigrants.

(c) It is impracticable:

Political Science Quarterly, III., 420.

(1) It would be difficult to collect the tax:

Forum, XIII., 366 (May, 1892).

(2) Our extensive frontiers would make the law perfectly useless.

(d) It would create an undesirable class of immigrants.

(1) Those who evaded the laws would be an adventurous, restless element.

(2) Those who paid the tax would be embittered by our narrow policy.

_______________________

THE EXCLUSION OF THE CHINESE.

Question: ‘Resolved, That the policy excluding Chinese laborers from the United States should be maintained and rigorously enforced.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

Forum, VI., 196 (October, 1888);
North American Review, Vol. 139, p. 256 (September, 1884); Vol. 157, p. 59 (July, 1893);
Overland Monthly, VII., 428 (April, 1886);
Scribner’s Monthly, XII., 862 (October, 1876);
J. A. Whitney, The Chinese and the Chinese Question.

I. The Chinese are a source of danger to American civilization.

(a) Morally.

(1) Barbarity of Chinese character:

The Chinese and the Chinese Question, p. 21.

(2) Inhuman treatment of women.

(3) Practice of gambling.

(4) Degraded religion:

Forum, VI., 201.

(5) Utter disregard for oaths.

(6) Criminality:

Scribner’s Monthly, XII., 862.

(b) Socially.

(1) Unhealthy mode of living.

(2) Impossibility of amalgamation:

Overland Monthly, VII., 429.

(3) Contamination through opium smoking, leprosy, and small-

pox.

(4) Dangers to American youth of both sexes.

(c) Politically.

(1) Inability and unwillingness to become citizens:

Senate Reports, 1876-1877, No. 689.

(2) Refusal to obey our laws.

(3) Secret system of slavery:

Scribner’s Monthly, XII., 860-865.

(d) Economically.

(1) Impossibility of competition with Chinese.

(2) Gradual encroachment on all occupations.

(3) Does away with the Middle class of artisans and results in the concentration of capital:

Forum, VI., 198;
North American Review, Vol. 139, pp. 257, 260-273.

II. Exclusion furnishes-the best remedy.

(a) It is constitutional under decision of Supreme Court:

Fong Yue Ting v. U. S., 149 U. S., 698.

(b) It will not materially affect our commercial relations with China.

(c) It is beneficial to the Chinamen who are legally in the United States.

(d) It is practicable.

(1) Rules are simple and can be readily complied with or enforced.

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

Nation, LVI., 358 (May 18, 1893);
Forum, XIV., 85 (September, 1892); XV., 407 (June, 1893);
North American Review, Vol. 148, p. 476 (April, 1889); Vol. 154, p. 596 (May, 1892); Vol. 157, p. 52 (July, 1893);
Nation, XXVIII., 145 (February 27, 1879);
Scribner’s Monthly, XIII., 687 (March, 1887);
Nation, XXXIV., 222 (March 16, 1882);
Overland Monthly, VII., 414 (April, 1886); XXIII., 518 (May, 1894);
Richmond Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration, Chap. xi.

I. The exclusion of the Chinese is at variance with fundamental American principles:

Nation, XXXIV., 222.

(a) It is contrary to the spirit of the Constitution:

Constitution of the United States, Amend. XV.

(b) It is founded on race prejudice.

Forum, XV., 407; XIV., 85-90.

II. Chinese immigration is no menace to American interests.

(a) The Chinese do not immigrate in large numbers.

(b) They do not multiply after their arrival.

(c) They take only money—and little of that—out of the country, and leave finished products.

(d) They compete with unskilled labor and do not affect the wages of skilled labor.

(e) They are honest, industrious, peaceable, and frugal.

(f) They form but a small element in political life, and the fact that they are not citizens makes them less dangerous than other immigrants.

III. The policy of exclusion is harmful.

(a) It injures good feeling between the two countries.

(b) It menaces commerce:

Forum, XIV., 87-88.

(1) China may retaliate any time.

(c) It discourages missionary work.

(d) It deprives the United States of effective labor suitable for large enterprises.

(1) Work on transcontinental railroads.

(2) In mines.

(3) Farming.

(4) Construction of irrigation works.

IV. The difficulty in enforcing the legislation makes it impracticable.

(a) The penalty for violation has no terrors for the Chinese immigrant:

Popular Science Monthly, XXXVI.,185 (December, 1889).

(b) Many citizens oppose the legislation.

(c) It has failed thus far.

Source: W. Du Bois Brookings and Ralph Curtis Ringwalt, eds., Briefs for Debate on Current Political, Economic, and Social Topics. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1908, pp. 68-75.

Image Source: F. Victor Gillam, “The immigrant. Is he an acquisition or a detriment?” Illustration in Judge (September 19, 1903). Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

Tags Laughlin, Mayo-Smith

Henry Parker Willis Biographical Note

The double life of H. Parker Willis

FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE Memorial minute for Prof. H. Parker Willis April 22, 1938

H. Parker Willis

From “Roosevelt’s College Days” by James Laurence Laughlin

APPENDIX II. EXAMINATION QUESTIONS.

Definitions.

Labor.

Capital.

Efficiency of Production.

Population.

Increase of Production.

Property.

Wages.

Profits.

Rent.

Value.

Money.

Credit.

Over-Production.

Peculiar Cases of Value.

International Trade and Values.

Foreign Exchanges.

Interest.

Foreign Competition.

Progress of Society.

Future of Laboring-Classes.

Taxation.

Protection.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE FOUNDING OF THE UNIVERSITY. J. Laurence Laughlin.

Minute on the Life and Services of Professor Silas Marcus Macvane

Economic Publications of Silas Marcus Macvane

1879

1883

1885

1888

1891

1898

1905

1913

POLITICAL ECONOMY. Courses of Study for 1883-84.

Harvard Crimson May 24, 1883

POLITICAL ECONOMY AT HARVARD [1883].

Sketch of the Reorganized Department – Seven Courses of Study – Their Scope and Aim. [Correspondence of the Evening Post.]

Briefs for Debate on Current Political, Economic, and Social Topics.

Edited by W. Du Bois Brookings, A.B. of the Harvard Law School And Ralph Curtis Ringwalt, A.B. Assistant in Rhetoric in Columbia University

With an introduction by Albert Bushnell Hart, Ph.D. Professor of Harvard University.

[Rerpinted in 1908]

[From the Preface:]

RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION.

Question: ‘Resolved, That immigration should be further restricted by law.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

I. There is no longer any necessity for immigration:

II. Immigration has led to many bad effects.

III. The present laws are insufficient.

Brief for the Negative.

I. The policy of the United States in regard to immigration has been successful and its continuance is necessary to develop the resources of the country:

II. Immigration is an advantage to the country:

III. The interests of American labor do not suffer by immigration:

IV. The present immigration laws are satisfactory:

A TAX ON IMMIGRANTS.

Question: ‘Resolved, That a high tax should be laid on all immigrants to the United States.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

I. Immigration should be further restricted.

II. A high tax would stop undesirable immigration.

III. A tax is the simplest effective restriction.

Brief for the Negative.

I. A continuance of immigration is desirable:

II. The present immigration laws are sufficient:

III. The proposed measure of a high tax is undesirable.

THE EXCLUSION OF THE CHINESE.

Question: ‘Resolved, That the policy excluding Chinese laborers from the United States should be maintained and rigorously enforced.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

I. The Chinese are a source of danger to American civilization.

II. Exclusion furnishes-the best remedy.

Brief for the Negative.

I. The exclusion of the Chinese is at variance with fundamental American principles:

II. Chinese immigration is no menace to American interests.

III. The policy of exclusion is harmful.

IV. The difficulty in enforcing the legislation makes it impracticable.

Henry Parker Willis
Biographical Note

FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
Memorial minute for Prof. H. Parker Willis
April 22, 1938

From “Roosevelt’s College Days”
by James Laurence Laughlin

APPENDIX II.
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE FOUNDING OF THE UNIVERSITY.
J. Laurence Laughlin.

POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Courses of Study for 1883-84.

Harvard Crimson
May 24, 1883

Sketch of the Reorganized Department – Seven Courses of Study – Their Scope and Aim.
[Correspondence of the Evening Post.]

Edited by
W. Du Bois Brookings, A.B. of the Harvard Law School
And
Ralph Curtis Ringwalt, A.B.
Assistant in Rhetoric in Columbia University

With an introduction by Albert Bushnell Hart, Ph.D.
Professor of Harvard University.