Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/12

viii Money in relation to the War, indorsed the principle of stabilization and commended the subject to the earnest attention of statesmen and economists.

By this time academic economists had been largely won over to the idea, it having run the gantlet [sic] of their criticism for several years. The general support of economists marks the first milestone in the progress of the idea.

Latterly a beginning has also been made toward arresting the attention of the business and industrial world, the interests of which are most at stake. Their general approval, if obtained, will mark the second milestone.

Until recently it has seemed premature to ask men in political life to press for the actual adoption of the plan. Their action, if taken, will mark the third and final milestone.

Appendix IV, §3, gives the names and comments of prominent leaders in all three fields—economics, business, politics—who have approved the idea.

When I first propounded the plan for stabilizing the dollar I supposed that I was the first to do so. It soon appeared, however, that the same thought had occurred independently to a number of others.

The bibliography in Appendix VI gives references to the published writings in which substantially the very plan here presented has been outlined by others.

There are a few anticipators who have never published their views but have kindly sent me copies of manuscripts or letters describing them. The following is a complete list in chronological order of anticipators, so far as known to me: John Rooke, 1824; the late Simon Newcomb, astronomer and economist, 1879;