Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/13

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PREFACE
ix

Professor Alfred Marshall, Cambridge, 1887; Aneurin Williams, M.P., 1892; Professor J. Allen Smith, now Dean, University of Washington, 1896; D.J. Tinnes, Hunter, North Dakota, 1896; William C. Foster, Boston, Mass., 1909; Professor Harry G. Brown, University of Missouri, 1911; Henry Heaton, Atlantic, Iowa, 1911.

This list could be lengthened considerably if the authors of plans radically different, but having the same purpose in view, were to be included. Among these authors is the late Alfred Russel Wallace, the naturalist.

The only essential feature of the plan in which, apparently, I have not been anticipated is the provision (mentioned at the end of Chapter IV and described, in detail, in Appendix I, §2) regarding speculation in gold.

The fact that the plan has been worked out independently in so many cases and by men so able and clear-headed is, I venture to think, strong evidence of the soundness of the proposal. It also affords me the opportunity to promote the plan the more impersonally and, I hope, with more chance of success than if it were merely one man's idea.

My thanks are due to the large number of persons who, through many years, by criticisms and suggestions, have helped me gradually develop the present formulation of the plan. I wish especially to express my thanks to Prof. Wm. H. Taft and Mr. Morison R. Waite, who supplied important legal data bearing on the problems of Appendix I, §6; to Dr. Royal Meeker, Prof. Wesley Clair Mitchell, Dr. B. M. Anderson, Jr., and Prof. Percy W. Bidwell, who supplied