Page:History of Hudson County and of the Old Village of Bergen.djvu/59

Rh Today wampum seems a ludicrously worthless currency; but centuries after wampum had vanished, governments and peoples continued to dream that government edicts and laws could establish values. There are no doubt many Bergen families that still possess, as historical souvenirs, such currency as the "shin-plasters" that were issued by Jersey City in 1862. Such money, issued by Federal, State and local governments, was, after all, simply a paper form of wampum; for, though it may have had more or less tangible value behind it, its chief characteristic was the value that had been given it by edict.

It was left for our own era to establish a financial system founded on a sound basis. How sound that basis is was proved when the great war broke on the world. This, the greatest economic catastrophe that the modern human structure has known, immeasurably more calamitous than any other that ever occurred, was borne by the financial system of the United States almost without a tremor.

Integrity of asset values is the one and only thing which made this extraordinary strength. The shock has been so tremendous that it tested the foundations of everything that man has devised, and only absolute soundness could resist it. But even had there been no catastrophe of war, the integrity of our modern American financial system has been tested in our time in a manner equally searching.

During the past quarter century we have had a growth of commerce that has led us from terms of thousands of dollars to terms of millions, and from terms of millions to terms of many millions until we have learned to contemplate even such gigantic sums as billions. There could be no better illustration