Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/168

114 instrument to the improvement of our crude dollar is belated, not centuries, but, at most, only a couple of decades.

9. What Is to Hinder

The plan really has had less important arguments against its adoption than any other practical proposal in the realm of money and banking of which I know. In most other proposals there are many valid pros and cons. This proposal is simply to make our monetary unit less variable. It is as unobjectionable as is a sealer of weights and measures.

The greatest obstacle, as is emphasized more fully in Appendix II, §3, is the same as that which has held back every other reform in the world's history: namely, sheer conservatism, the "stand pat" frame of mind, the temperamental prejudice against innovation. This filibusterer may appear in many striking costumes and embellishments; but always it will be the same psychological personality. Usually, the opponents of perfectly obvious reforms are unconscious of this, the real source of their ingenious objections. And, once the composite standard has become an accomplished fact, the standpatters will be its staunchest defenders; for they are simply the friends of what is and the enemies of what is not.

We can put such people to the test (or they can put themselves to the test if they will) by a simple direct question: Instead of being asked to choose between the present gold standard and the composite standard, the former of which is in use and the latter not, let them be asked to choose between a copper standard and a composite standard, neither of which is in use. If a