In Article 10 of the International Trade Union Conference at Berne, February, 1919, it was resolved that:
"the contracting States shall call as soon as possible an international conference instructed to take effective measures to prevent the depreciation of the purchasing power of wages and to insure their payment in a non-depreciated money."
The American Federation of Labor resolved:
"That the Executive Council be and is hereby instructed to make a study of the problem of establishing a dollar of stabilized purchasing power as it may be presented through legislative effort, or otherwise during the year, and to submit a report upon the subject at the 1920 convention."
Mr. Husted of New York introduced a bill in the House of Representatives on Oct. 6, 1919, to create a National Monetary Commission:
"...to inquire into and report to Congress at the earliest date practicable what changes are necessary or desirable in the monetary system of the United States or in the laws relating to banking and currency, and especially to the end that the purchasing power of the dollar may be stabilized...."
In short, a considerable sentiment for stabilizing the dollar already exists, and there is much more, latent or in solution, which is ready to be precipitated.
I place emphasis on the fact that so many able and practical men have already expressed emphatic approval of the plan because it will be through the leadership of such men that public sentiment for stabilizing the dollar will grow and the great and only obstacle of inertia be overcome.
Inertia is a dangerous state of mind when effective and far-reaching action is sorely needed, as at present.
If the question of stabilization is not faced and solved in an impartial and scientific spirit, we ought not to be surprised if it should become the bone of contention of special interests or if specious but unsound monetary schemes should again find a hearing.
