838 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



PEE9ENTED TO 



Hon. DAVID A. WELLS, 



ON III3 KETIREMENT FlIOM THE OFFICE OF 



SPECIAL COMMISSIONER OF THE EEVENUE, 



BY CITIZENS OF NEW YORK AND NEW. ENGLAND, 



A3 A TOKEN OF ESTEEM FOR HIS UNSULLIED INTEGRITY 



AND HlOn PERSONAL CHARACTER; AND AS A SLIGHT 



RECOGNITION OF HIS INESTIMABLE SERVICE TO HIS COUNTRYMEN. 



Commenting on the discontinuance of the office of Special Com- 

 missioner of Revenue, the " North American Review" used at the 

 time the following language : " The system of taxation, by which the 

 Government has been in receipt of its enormous income, was estab- 

 lished during the war ; and the man who deserves the most credit for 

 its reform is Mr. David A. Wells, whom General Grant and Secretary 

 Boutwell united in bowing coldly out of the public service. It was 

 he who proved the capacity of the country to stand an enormous 

 taxation, and pointed out the most convenient and legitimate sources 

 of revenue ; and the most continuous changes and improvements in 

 our revenue system, including even those under the Administration 

 that dismissed him, were but the following out of the suggestions and 

 the line of argument which he had presented while in the Treasury 

 Department. To him and to Congress, and to a generous and patriotic 

 people, does the country owe the proud exhibition of debt and tax 

 reduction." 



General Garfield, in a debate in the House of Representatives, July 

 13, 18G8, also paid the following handsome tribute to the work of Mr. 

 Wells as Revenue Commissioner, saying : " I do not believe that any 

 man appointed by the Government in the civil service has done for 

 this country more work, and more valuable work, than David A. 

 Wells. Into the financial chaos resulting, from the war he threw the 

 whole weight of a strong, clear mind, guided by an honest heart, and 

 during the last three years he has done more, in ray judgment, to 

 bring order out of chaos than any one man in the United States." 



As soon as it was known that Mr. Wells was to retire from his 

 office at Washington, the appointment as chairman of a State com- 

 mission for investigating the subject and the laws relating to local 

 taxation was tendered him by the Governor (lion. John T. Hoffman) 

 of the State of New York and accepted ; and in this new position Mr. 

 Wells prepared and submitted to the Legislature two reports (in 1872 

 and 1873) and a draft of a code of laws. Both of these reports were 

 subsequently reprinted in the United States and in Europe ; and one 

 of the first acts of the French Minister of Finance (M. Wolowski), after 

 the conclusion of the Franco-German War, was to order the translation 

 and official publication of Mr. Wells's report as Special Commissioner 

 of Revenue for 18G9. This compliment was further supplemented in 

 the spring of 1874 by the election of Mr. Wells, by the French Acad- 



