THE STUDY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 607 



question, " Which is heavier, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers ? " 

 you would doubtless be offended ; and were I seriously to ask you, 

 Which is the most valuable, a dollar's worth of gold or a dollar's worth 

 of anything else ? you might also feel that I had insulted your intelli- 

 gence. Yet the belief that a dollar's worth of gold is more valuable 

 than a dollar's worth of anything else is widespread and persistent. It 

 has molded the policy of great nations, dictated treaties, marched 

 armies, launched fleets, fought battles, constructed and enforced elab- 

 orate and vexatious systems of taxation, and sent men by thousands to 

 jail and to the gallows. Certainly a large portion, probably a large 

 majority, of the people of the United States — including many college 

 graduates, members of what are styled the learned professions, sena- 

 tors, representatives, authors, and editors — seem to-day utterly unable 

 to get it fully through their heads that a dollar's worth of anything 

 else is as valuable as a dollar's worth of the precious metals, and are 

 constantly reasoning, arguing, and legislating on the assumption that 

 the community which exchanges gold for goods is suffering a loss, and 

 that it is the part of wisdom, by preventing such exchange, to " keep 

 money in the country." On this absurd assumption the revenue sys- 

 tem of the United States is based to-day, and, if you will notice, you 

 will find it cropping out of current discussions in all sorts of forms. 

 Even here, where the precious metals form one of our staples, and for 

 a long time constituted our only staple, you may see the power of the 

 same notion. The anti-cooly clubs complain of the *' drain of money 

 to China," but never think of complaining of the drain of flour, wheat, 

 quicksilver, or shrimps. And the leading journals of San Francisco, 

 who hold themselves on an immeasurably higher intellectual level than 

 the anti-cooly clubs, never, I think, let a week pass without congratu- 

 lating their readers that we have ceased to import this or that article, 

 and are thereby keeping so much money that we used to send abroad, 

 or lamenting that we still send money away to pay for this or that 

 which might be made here. Yet that we send away wine or wool, 

 fruit or honey, is never thought of as a matter of lament, but quite 

 the contrary. What is all this but the assumption that a dollar's 

 worth of gold is worth more than a dollar's worth of anything 

 else? 



This fallacy is transparently absurd when we come to reduce it to 

 a general proposition. But, nevertheless, the habit of jumping at 

 conclusions, of which I have spoken, makes it seem very natural to 

 people who do not stop to think. Money is our standard, or measure 

 of values, in which we express all other values. When we speak of 

 gaining wealth, we speak of "making money"; when we speak of 

 losing wealth, we speak of "losing money" ; when we speak of a 

 rich man, we speak of him as possessed of much money, though as a 

 matter of fact he may, and probably has, very little actual money. 

 Then, again, as money is the common medium of exchange, in the 



