SELECTIONS AND DOCUMENTS IN ECONOMICS

SELECTED READINGS IN ECONOMICS

By Charles J. Bullock, Ph. D., Professor of Economics, Harvard University SELECTED READINGS IN PUBLIC FINANCE (Third Edition)

By Charles J. Bullock, Ph. D., Professor of Economics, Harvard University ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 1765-1860

By Guy Stevens Callendar, late Professor of Political Economy,
Yale University

SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL PROGRESS

By Thomas N. Carver, Ph. D., Professor of Political Economy,
Harvard University

TRADE UNIONISM AND LABOR PROBLEMS (Second Series)

By John R. Commons, Professor of Political Economy, University of Wisconsin SOCIAL PROBLEMS AND SOCIAL POLICY

By James Ford, Ph. D., Associate Professor of Social Ethics,
Harvard University

RAILWAY PROBLEMS (Revised Edition)

By William Z. Ripley, Ph. D., Professor of Political Economy,
Harvard University

TRUSTS, POOLS AND CORPORATIONS (Revised Edition)

By William Z. Ripley, Ph. D., Professor of Political Economy,
Harvard University

SELECTED READINGS IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND TARIFF

PROBLEMS

By Frank W. Taussig, Henry Lee Professor of Economics, Harvard University READINGS IN SOCIAL PROBLEMS

By Albert Benedict Wolfe, Professor of Economics, Ohio State University

SELECTED READINGS IN MUNICIPAL PROBLEMS

By Joseph Wright, Superintendent of the Library for Municipal Research,
Harvard University

PREFACE

This book is the result of an effort to provide a manageable body of reading for college and university classes in American economic history. It was prepared in connection with a course of lectures on that subject by the editor giving an outline of our economic development and discussing the more important economic questions which the American people have had to consider. It is intended to be used as reading to supplement such a course of lectures, or in connection with a brief text-book serving the same purpose. The short essays at the beginning of each chapter, together with the footnotes and the headings under which the selections are arranged, will make their significance and bearing tolerably clear. Some effort has been made to render it useful also in those general courses in American history which give considerable attention to the economic and social as well as to the political side of our national development. It is not designed to be a collection of documents and sources, although it is made up largely of such materials. It is rather an account of economic affairs by persons who, for various reasons, were in a position to understand them. Travelers and other contemporary observers, statesmen and publicists who took part in the discussion of economic questions, a few economists who have been interested in American history, and still fewer historians who have given attention to economics are the sources from which most of the extracts are taken. Some compilation of this sort is greatly needed by teachers in order to make available such treatment of our economic history as exists, scattered through a great number of volumes and quite impossible of use by any considerable number of students. This is an attempt to bring together a portion of these scattered fragments and to indicate by their grouping