Preface to the Fourth Edition

In the second edition, published in 1888, additions were made to the appendices; but no revision of the body of the text was made until 1896.

The demand for this volume in the summer of 1896, when the revision was going on, was such that the publishers issued a third edition with the appendices revised to this year, and a new chapter at the end of Part II (Chapter XIII). The chapters in Part III, relating to the bimetallic history of the United States in the third edition, ended with the year 1886. Additional chapters, covering the story of our silver experiment to its legislative end in 1893, are now presented in this fourth edition (Chapters XV, XVI, and XVII); and the status of our metallic currency is shown, so that the reader may be able to judge intelligently of the wisdom of future proposals in regard to gold and silver. Three new Charts (XVIII, XIX, and XX), illustrative of our monetary history since 1878, are also added to this edition.

It may not be necessary to inform readers again that I have aimed in this book to present only the facts bearing on the experiments of the United States with metallic money. No special attention, therefore, has been devoted to the theory of bimetallism or to the larger principles of money involved in current discussions. In a historical study, such as this aims to be, there is neither space nor propriety for an extended treatment of principles. Hence I do not wish to be regarded as having tried to "settle the money question" merely by this book, even though the facts given must necessarily have an important bearing on the acceptance or rejection of current schemes. In due time I hope to present a careful discussion of the principles of money, and also an examination of the logic and theory of bimetallism.