PREFACE.
COLUMBUS DISCOVERING AMERICA. 1492.
At the Christian era the metallic money of the Roman empire amounted to $1,800,000,000. By the end of the fifteenth century it had shrunk to $200,000,000. (Dr. Adam Smith informs us that in 1455 the price of wheat in England was two pence per bushel.) Population dwindled, and commerce, arts, wealth and freedom all disappeared. The people were reduced by poverty and misery to the most degraded conditions of serfdom and slavery. The disintegration of society was almost complete. History records no such disastrous transition as that from the Roman empire to the dark ages. The discovery of the New World by Columbus, restored the volume of precious metals, brought with it rising prices, enabled society to reunite its shattered links, shake off the shackles of feudalism, and to relight and uplift the almost extinguished torch of civilization.—Report U. S. Monetary Commission of 1878.
STATUE OF COLUMBUS AT CHICAGO. 1893.
The New World in 1893 celebrated the discovery of America by Columbus, during a period of depression brought about by the destruction by law of one-half the precious metals as primary money. So blighting and destructive is the effect, the people are being reduced to poverty and misery; the conditions of life are so hard that individual selfishness is the only thing consistent with the instinct of self-preservation; all public spirit, all generous emotions, all the noble aspirations of man, are shriveling up and disappearing as the volume of primary money shrinks and as prices fall. Honest labor seeks employment it cannot find, and hungry and shelterless, our unemployed are seen daily around the Columbus statue, without hope and in despair.