occupied the most conspicuous site. The Administration Building was
a reproduction of portions of Blarney Castle, the Tower of London,
Warwick Castle, the Rheinstein in Germany, and St. Michael’s, on the
coast of Brittany. On a considerable elevation was the Auditorium, a
four-story building with a dome surmounted by a statue of Music. The
largest building was that devoted to Manufactures and Liberal Arts, and
the most original of all in design was the one set apart for Minerals
and Forestry, which was constructed entirely of wood from the different
Southern States in its natural condition, with the bark on. The Fine
Arts and the Woman’s Buildings were the showiest, and the Negro
Building was made attractive by specimens of the industry of negroes in
fourteen States. The exposition was closed December 31, and cost about
$2,000,000.
The international exposition at Nashville, open from May 1 to October
30, 1897, was a commemoration of the one-hundredth anniversary of
the admission of Tennessee into the Union, and had for its special
attraction a reproduction of a number of notable buildings of
antiquity. The original plan provided for an exposition in 1896, the
true centennial year, but the projectors encountered unusual opposition
in their efforts to procure the necessary funds, and it was not till
early in 1897 that the incorporators were able to begin the creation of
the Centennial City.
[Illustration: GRAND COURT, OMAHA EXHIBITION, 1898.
(Night view.)]
West Side Park, a former race-course in the suburbs of Nashville, with
many natural attractions in running water and forest growths, was
selected as the site, and Centennial City was made for the brief time
of the exposition a full-fledged municipality, with a mayor, board of
aldermen, and a combined police and fire department. The reproduction
of notable buildings showed on a reduced scale the Parthenon, the
Pyramid of Cheops, the Alamo of Texas, the Blue Grotto of Capri, a
glimpse of the Rialto of Venice, and, in the beautiful main entrance, a
type of early Egyptian architecture. A flagstaff 250 feet high, cotton
and tobacco fields, Venetian gondolas, Vanity Fair, a typical Chinese
farm, an abundance of statues of classical and mythological subjects,
waterfall and old-time wheel at work, Lake Katherine, Ellen Island,
the umbrella fountain, and a large field for athletic sports, were
among the pleasurable features. The State made a strong showing of its
industrial development and of its riches yet in reserve.
In all 190 acres of ground were occupied. The total receipts were
$1,087,227, and the expenditures balanced to a cent. A unique expense
feature was that, excluding the preliminary work, the women raised the
money and paid the entire running cost of the Woman’s Department. The
turnstiles registered 1,886,714 entrances.
This exposition was succeeded in 1898 by the Trans-Mississippi and
International Exposition at Omaha, an undertaking designed to show what
had been accomplished by the pioneers and their children in the great
Trans-Mississippi Valley, and especially in a State that forty-three
years before was an unorganized territory in the vast tract known
as the Louisiana Purchase. The site was a plateau just north of the
city, and in planning the display every consideration was given to
originality. Excepting that the grounds constituted a second White
City, from the use of “staff,” as at Chicago, every feature of design
and construction possessed striking elements of difference from all
similar efforts in the past.
The management was under the presidency of Gurdon W. Wattles, and the
exposition was formally opened by President McKinley, who, in the White
House at Washington, pressed an electric button that started the great
engine. The United States Government erected a building of the classic
style, following the Ionic order. It was surmounted by a colossal dome
supporting a copy of Bartholdi’s statue of “Liberty Enlightening the
World,” and had a floor space for exhibits of about 50,000 square feet.
The Government also recognized the importance of the event by issuing
a special set of commemorative postage stamps. Fine arts was exhibited
in a twin-domed building, a structure in two parts, with an elaborate
peristyle between them, and all under one great roof.
What afforded the masses the greatest delight were the ethnological
exhibits and the instructive and amusing scenes on the Midway Reserve.
These included an Indian village, with representatives from every
tribe between Alaska and Florida, a Chinese village, an Arabian
encampment, a Moorish town, a Swiss village, a Cairo street, the
entertaining Egyptian Pyramid, and the gigantic passenger-carrying
Sherman Umbrella—a mechanical marvel operated by electricity, and one
hundred feet higher than the Ferris Wheel of Chicago. There was also a
picturesque lagoon or canal, half a mile long and 150 feet wide at its
narrowest part, terminating in an artificial lake trefoil in shape and
400 feet across.
The exposition was opened on June 1 and was closed on October 31. In
that time it was visited by more than 2,600,000 people, the largest
single-day attendance being 98,785. The total receipts were not quite
$2,000,000, and the expenditures were about $1,500,000.
[Illustration: MAIN BUILDING, NATIONAL EXPORT EXPOSITION, PHILADELPHIA,
SEPT. 14 TO NOV. 30, 1899.]
This completes the record of the most notable expositions and the
incidental history of their development, from the commercial fair of
the previous century up to near the close of 1899.
There remains to note a form of permanent exhibition that has been
purposely reserved for this point. The Commercial Museum, of which
Philadelphia has the two most effective examples in existence, is a
purely commercial development, yet an educational text-book of unique
and extraordinary compass. Though the Philadelphia Commercial Museum
and the similar department of the Philadelphia Bourse were both
projected before the foreign trade of the United States had reached the
enormous volume that caused wonder and alarm alike all over the world,
both have had a powerful, direct, and immediate influence in bringing
about a greater appreciation abroad of American products.
The commercial museums stand between the American producer and the
foreign factor. They inform the former where special articles are
needed and the latter of reputable firms who can supply their needs. By
a large corps of traveling agents, an enormous correspondence, and a
direct coöperation with the State Department and its representatives,
these museums keep in the closest possible touch with the commercial
interests of the world. All this is independent of the exhibition
feature, a vast department in which the principal economic productions,
first of the United States and then correspondingly of the world, are
spread before the eye of the visitor. In this connection should also be
noted the fact that many of our commercial representatives abroad have
established at their headquarters collections of American products that
are particularly needed in their respective localities.
In all of the foregoing a single text has been kept in mind: What has
been the influence of the fair, the exhibition, the international
exposition? Ready answers have been suggested by the several items of
cost and attendance. Another answer may be divined in their frequency
and universality. And at the close of this survey of more than a
hundred years, probably the best answer of all is to be found in the
efforts in this line with which one century is closed and another
opened.
These include the Greater American Exposition at Omaha, July-November,
1899, a commercial success, and a revelation of trans-Mississippi
pioneering enterprise. This was supplemented by the Export Exposition
and World’s Commercial Congress, the first of the kind ever held under
the joint auspices of the Commercial Museum and the Franklin Institute
of Philadelphia, in that city, in September-November, 1899. Then
followed the Universal Exposition in Paris, in 1900. It was regarded as
especially elaborate and successful. It beautified the Champ de Mars
and Place des Invalides with handsome industrial palaces, brought into
permanent existence the two Palaces of Fine Arts and the Alexander III.
Bridge, lined the banks of the Seine with the “Street of Nations,” and
swarmed the Trocadero with the world’s colonization. Over 50,000,000
witnessed its panoramic scenes. Its expense was largely provided for
by prior sales of tickets on a bonded plan. The century turned with a
prospective of the Pan American Exposition at Buffalo and International
at Glasgow in 1901; the Ohio Centennial and International at Toledo in
1902; the International at Liege, Belgium, in 1903; and the Louisiana
Purchase Centennial at St. Louis in 1904.
THE CENTURY’S PROGRESS IN COINAGE, CURRENCY, AND BANKING
BY HON. BRADFORD RHODES,
_Editor of “Banker’s Magazine.”_
I. BANKS AND BANKING RESOURCES.
The history of nation building contains no parallel to the progress and
development of the United States in the past one hundred years, and the
most accurate and striking indication of this remarkable growth may
be seen in the evolution of our currency and banking systems. As the
variations in temperature and the changes in atmospheric pressure are
measured by the thermometer and barometer, so are the fluctuations in a
country’s wealth gauged by the banks and other financial institutions.
Likewise the degree of civilization to which a country has attained is
reflected by the perfection of its monetary machinery. After having
tried nearly every unwise experiment condemned by the teachings of
history, the United States has finally reached a position where its
currency meets the two fundamental requirements of sound finance,
namely, (1) the standard of value is that in use among the great
commercial states of the world; (2) all of the currency is either
directly or indirectly convertible into the standard coin.
Despite some minor faults in our financial system which make the
maintenance of the parity of the several kinds of currency a cumbersome
and expensive operation, and prevent the banks from rendering that
full degree of assistance to commerce and industry which they would
afford under laws that did not unnecessarily restrict their rightful
functions, all our money responds to the two essential tests—safety
and convertibility; while the banks have been among the most powerful
factors in placing the United States in the front rank of the nations
of the earth.
Our finances may be likened to a triangle, of which the base—the gold
standard—has been in actual existence since 1879 (much longer than
that in law), and the other side—safety—also assured, wanting but
another addition—elasticity—to complete the symmetrical and perfect
figure. That this last requisite of a sound currency will be supplied
by the wisdom and ingenuity of our people, is not to be doubted.
There are two respects in which the financial policy of the United
States is unique in comparison with most other great commercial
countries; first, its gold reserve is unprotected by the devices in
use elsewhere, as it does not charge a premium on gold as the Bank of
France does when gold is wanted for export, nor can it protect the gold
reserve by raising the rate of discount as the great banks of Europe
may do; second, banking is practically free and anti-monopolistic.
Under these conditions we have reached a place that may well excite the
astonishment of the old-world countries. Our stock of metallic money,
as estimated by the Director of the Mint, in 1898, was $925,000,000 in
gold and $638,000,000 in silver. No other nation owned so much gold.
Only one—China—owned as much silver, but it had no gold, and the per
capita of silver in China is only $1.96 against $8.56 in the United
States. Our stock of gold is more than double that of Great Britain,
greater by a hundred millions than that of France, and also exceeds
that of Germany and Russia. Of our silver stock, $561,500,000 is a full
legal tender, and $76,700,000 a limited legal tender, the latter sum
representing the subsidiary coins.
In our banking power the situation is equally fortunate. Mulhall
defines banking power as the paid-up capital of banks, the deposits
exclusive of savings banks, and the amount of convertible paper money.
He shows the growth of this form of wealth to have been as follows,
from 1840 to 1894:—
MILLIONS POUNDS STERLING.
----+----------+--------+---------+----------+--------+-------
| Great | United | France. | Germany. | Other | Total.
| Britain. | States | | | States |
----+----------+--------+---------+----------+--------+-------
1840| 132 | 90 | 16 | 12 | 58 | 308
1894| 960 | 1,030 | 356 | 231 | 760 | 3,337
----+----------+--------+---------+----------+--------+-------
In the two great essentials of financial strength—the quantity of
metallic money and banking power—we have far outstripped every other
nation. This is an unfailing sign of our advance toward a position of
commercial and industrial supremacy. The sceptre of financial power has
crossed the Atlantic from Europe to the New World. We are gradually
acquiring command of the world’s markets, and in time we shall see
our banks—ever the handmaids of commerce—extending their operations
to the most distant quarters of the earth and carrying everywhere the
beneficent influences of modern civilization.
New York as a financial centre has been growing with astonishing
rapidity in recent years. From 1879 to 1899 the banks belonging to
the New York Clearing-House Association increased their deposits from
$254,700,000 to $910,500,000, and their specie—chiefly gold—from
$54,700,000 to $202,600,000, the latter item having about doubled in
the past two years, being $104,700,000 in 1897, and $202,600,000,
as above stated, in 1899. The aggregate of banking institutions in
the city—national banks, state banks, trust companies, and savings
banks, exclusive of private banking firms—had, about January 1, 1899,
capital, surplus, and profits amounting to $311,600,000; deposits of
$2,047,800,000; and total resources of nearly $2,500,000,000. One
bank—the National City—with over $144,000,000 of deposits, is the
largest in the United States; while the Bowery Savings Bank, with
121,000 depositors and $67,000,000 of deposits, is the largest of its
kind in the country.
The present status of the different classes of banks in the United
States is fairly shown by the following table compiled from the Annual
Report of the Comptroller of the Currency, for the year 1898:—
PRINCIPAL ITEMS OF RESOURCES AND LIABILITIES OF ALL CLASSES OF BANKS IN
THE UNITED STATES, JULY 14, 1898.
--------------------+--------------+-------------+------------+-
| National | State Banks.|Loan & Trust|
| Banks. | | Companies. |
--------------------+--------------+-------------+------------+-
Loans |$2,151,757,655| $813,749,803|$539,162,445|
United States bonds | 285,356,900| 4,185,304| 34,186,440|
Other bonds | 250,689,375| 127,500,484| 159,791,312|
Cash | 492,882,724| 133,877,133| 22,250,862|
Capital | 622,016,745| 233,587,353| 101,228,555|
Surplus and profits | 332,971,643| 109,554,519| 97,643,666|
Deposits | 2,076,226,576| 912,365,406| 662,138,397|
Total resources | 3,977,675,445|1,356,084,800| 942,462,179|
--------------------+--------------+-------------+------------+-
--------------------+--------------+-----------+--------------
| Savings | Private | Total.
| Banks. | Banks. |
--------------------+--------------+-----------+--------------
Loans |$1,070,775,293|$57,206,819|$4,632,632,015
United States bonds | 140,029,726| 927,473| 464,685,843
Other bonds | 834,670,491| 3,599,092| 1,376,250,754
Cash | 32,928,323| 5,857,132| 687,796,174
Capital | 18,536,130| 16,721,750| 992,090,533
Surplus and profits | 187,475,971| 5,092,341| 732,738,140
Deposits | 2,028,208,409| 62,085,084| 5,741,023,872
Total resources | 2,241,344,991| 91,436,387| 8,609,003,802
--------------------+--------------+-----------+--------------
There were 3582 national banks that reported, and 5903 other banks, a
total of 9485. The total banking funds, that is, capital, surplus and
profits, and individual deposits, of all banks reporting, amounted to
$7,416,355,568.
We cannot get a correct understanding of these figures without going
back to earlier dates and making comparisons. In 1798 there were
twenty-five state banks in the country, against 3965 reporting to the
Comptroller of the Currency in 1898, which is perhaps about 90 per cent
of the total of such institutions now existing.
A hundred years ago the capital of the state banks was less than twenty
millions, compared with $233,971,643 now reported. They had, all told,
but $14,000,000 of specie—half as much as is now held by one New York
city bank alone. Their circulation was only $9,000,000, compared with
more than $200,000,000 of national bank circulation now outstanding.
The national banks also show a remarkable growth. In 1869 there were
1620 banks in operation, reporting $420,800,000 capital, $547,900,000
individual deposits, $17,500,000 specie, and $1,517,700,000 total
resources. Thirty years later the number of banks had increased to
3590, while the capital was $608,300,000, the individual deposits
$2,232,100,000, and specie $371,843,400, while the total resources had
increased to $4,403,800,000.
The total wealth of the United States in 1895 was estimated at more
than $80,000,000,000,—far exceeding in the aggregate that of any other
country in the world. It is expected that the census of 1900 will show
our total wealth to be more than $100,000,000,000, or probably double
that of Great Britain, the next richest nation.
But while the nation is piling up wealth at an unexampled rate, it
cannot be said that this is a land “where wealth accumulates and
men decay.” Great in its material resources, the country was never
before stronger in those elements which constitute the chief reliance
of national power. A united citizenship, possessing an honesty that
adversity cannot sully and an intelligence that when once aroused
penetrates the most cunningly concealed economic sophistries, working
out the problems of the future under laws and conditions assuring to
the individual the largest opportunities, points to a development in
the twentieth century in no wise inferior to that of the hundred years
preceding.
II. COINAGE AND PRODUCTION OF PRECIOUS METALS.
The prevailing systems of coinage in this country and among all great
commercial nations are the result of development and growth. Gold and
silver have become the principal money metals by a process of natural
selection, which has chosen the instruments best suited to the purpose.
In recent years, and under the laws of development, nearly all the
great trading countries of the world have selected gold as the standard
of value. In the future, gold itself may give way to something better,
for it only relatively meets the essentials of a perfect standard.
Among Greeks, Romans, and Oriental peoples, cattle were generally used
as a standard of value. The modern rupee of India is the old Sanscrit
word _roupa_, a herd. Capital is but the estimate of Roman riches in
cattle. The Latin _pecus_, cattle, is the root of _pecunia_, riches,
and the origin of our word pecuniary. The Icelanders measured values
in dried fish; the Hudson Bay country in skins; the early Virginians
in tobacco; the Indians of the United States and Canada in wampum; the
Chinese, even in recent times, in squares of pressed tea; the Africans
in bars of salt and slaves.
These primitive devices gradually gave way, under the demands of
international trade, to the use of metals as standards of value. Tin,
copper, gold, silver, and iron all were used, and, at first, passed by
weight. Government coinage of money is thought to date from the seventh
century B. C., and is credited to the Lydians and to Pheidon of Argos,
the official stamp being a guarantee of the honesty, weight, and purity
of the coins.
Modern coinage dates from the reformation of the coinage of Rome under
Constantine, who introduced the gold _solidus_ of $3.02 in value,
and a silver coin of like weight but of relative value. After the
time of Julian, this silver piece, called _siliqua_, was given such
value as that twenty-four of them equaled a gold _solidus_. In the
Frankish Empire, under the Merovingian kings, the relative values of
the _solidus_ and _siliqua_ fluctuated greatly. In the eighth century,
on account of the scarcity of gold, there was a gradual transition
to the silver standard, and a silver unit, also called a _solidus_,
was substituted for the gold _solidus_, the former being divided into
twelve pence. This silver _solidus_ afterwards became the shilling of
England and Germany. At first 300 pence were coined out of a pound of
silver; but under Pepin the number was reduced to twenty-two _solidi_
of twelve pence each—264 pence—out of a pound of silver. Under
Charlemagne it was provided that only 240 pence, or twenty _solidi_ of
account, should be stamped out of a pound of silver, and this system
was introduced, with more or less success, in what is now France and
Germany. As to form, it has remained, up to the most recent period, the
basis not only of the countries of Charlemagne’s Empire but of England.
After the time of Henry VIII. came a period of coinage debasement
which culminated in 1551. A thorough coinage reform was effected under
Elizabeth in 1560. The first large coinages of gold in England were
made under James I. These continued until the death of William III.,
in 1701. Still, silver continued to be the standard metal, and in
1695 another attempt was made to reform the currency by a recoinage
of the silver pieces, most of which had been clipped or worn, into a
new full-weight silver coin. These, however, were soon exported, in
spite of a reduction of the current value of the guinea, in 1717. The
gold standard in England gained a nearly complete victory by act of
Parliament in 1774, which provided that silver coins not of full weight
(there were hardly any others) need not be accepted in payments of
more than twenty-five pounds, except by weight. This provision, after
several renewals, became permanent in 1798. In 1797 coinage of silver
was suspended, and the single gold standard practically introduced,
though its operation was somewhat interfered with by the existence
of a paper currency. In 1816 the present English monetary system was
introduced. It held fast to the gold standard, by the provision that
silver pieces should be used only as divisional coins, and with a
legal-tender power limited to forty shillings.
[Illustration: OLD UNITED STATES MINT, PHILADELPHIA.]
Properly speaking, there was no coinage in the United States during the
colonial period. Maryland had a mint at one time, and one or two of the
other States, but they practically amounted to nothing. In the early
colonial period the substitutes for coins were wampum and bullets,
as in Massachusetts; skins and furs, as in New York; tobacco, as in
Maryland and Virginia. The coins in use before the Revolution were,
to some extent, those of England, but more largely those of Spain,
circulated in South America and traveling up to the United States.
The unit of account was the Spanish milled dollar or piece-of-eight,
though, up to 1775, accounts were kept in pounds, shillings, and pence,
a pound consisting, then as now, of twenty shillings, and a shilling
of twelve pence “colonial” or “pound” currency. Four pounds of this
“colonial currency” were reckoned as equal to three pounds sterling.