Reviews of Books lends the book one of its strongest qualities. The author takes pains to show exactly what the causes and significance of money strin gency are, and he is commendably cautious about reaching an accurate diagnosis before suggesting a remedy. The currency ques tion, he says, is simply a question of bank credits and bank reserves. The problem is— "(1) to avert a depletion of bank reserves and a consequent large reduction of bank credits in times when lawful money is with drawn to pay taxes and is locked up by the Government, or when lawful money is largely withdrawn for use as a circulating medium to move the crops or to be hoarded; and, on the other hand, (2) to enable the banks in times of great business activity to expand their deposit liabilities, together with their loans and discounts, and also adequately to in crease their reserves of lawful money." Mr. Morawetz discusses the experience of European countries, then he outlines his own plan for a central agency provided for by an act of Congress, in the form of a joint asso ciation with no capital, having power when banks having an aggregate capital stock of not less than $250,000,000 have become members, to increase from time to time, ratably as to all banks, the authorized amount of their note issues with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, each bank having taken out notes being required to keep on deposit with the association a sum equal to twenty per cent at least of such notes. This agency would have power to control the volume of uncovered bank-note currency without the creation of a central bank having a monopoly of the financial situation. Mr. Morawetz is not devoted to his project with an enthusiasm which prevents him from analyzing its features dispassionately and from setting forth its practical operation with reference to the smallest particulars. Per sons at all interested in the subject should read this book at first hand, as its clearness of treatment and moderateness of length entail no sacrifice of the time of the busiest man. It is surprising what a vast amount of pregnant matter has been compressed within this little volume. Scarcely a sen tence could have been dispensed with. The author avoids prolixity and technicality and covers a field of astonishing breadth. No student of the monetary problem in the United States, no patriotic banker, no public officer whose official duty may force him to
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deal with this question, can rightfully neglect to make himself familiar with Mr. Morawetz's important contribution. AN AMERICAN ON AMERICA The American as He is. By Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University. The Macmillan Co., N. Y. Pp. 97. ($1 net.) THIS book gives in three chapters lectures delivered before the University of Co penhagen in September, 1908. President Butler says that a familiarity with the writ ings and speeches of Hamilton, Lincoln, and Emerson is necessary to a general understand ing of the intellectual and moral temper of the American people. In consonance with this sentiment he takes an extract from each of them for the text of one chapter; Hamilton suggesting consideration of the American as a political type, Lincoln the American apart from his government, and Emerson the American and the intellectual life. The book is marked by a sane optimism which sees in the American state a worthy expression of that democratic impulse which first exerted itself in northern Europe between the Vistula and the Rhine. "Democracy," President Butler quotes Pasteur, "is that order of the state which permits every indi vidual to put forth his utmost effort." This impulse found expression in the Mayflower compact of 1620, the Declaration of Rights of 1765, the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms of 1775, the Declaration of Independence of 1776, the Ordinance for the Government of the North west Territory of 1787, and finally the Con stitution of the United States. The out come has been that we have a popular gov ernment in the fullest sense of the word. It was the theory of the Constitution that the Electoral Colleges should deliberate and nomi nate the President and Vice-President, and the great national party conventions are wholly unknown to the Constitution and laws, but after Jackson's time the system of national conventions was instituted, and popular con trol of nominations began coincidently with the more commanding position of the Presi dency. When the choice was exercised by the Electoral Colleges, the controlling groups in Congress really chose the President, but since Jackson's time he has been regarded as a direct representative of the people. It is probable that before many years the people will come likewise to control the nomination
