Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/176

122 and secure again stable pars of exchange, will follow our example. After gold and silver fell apart in 1873, the nations, one after another, adopted the common standard of gold; and now, after the falling asunder of all the pars of international exchange from the World War, the new order will probably be set by whatever nation first seizes the opportunity and takes the lead.

14. If We Miss the Opportunity

If we do not do this; if we do not provide a really scientific remedy; if we take the ground that we must drift with the tides of gold and credit, that we are helpless to rectify or prevent in the future the great social injustices which history warns us will surely come, as between creditor and debtor, wage earner and employer, salaried man and profit-taker, we shall be simply fertilizing the soil of public opinion for a crop of dangerous radicalism. Then surely some demagogue will flourish, and offer some ill-considered remedy which will sweep everything before it. Then shall we see, not a scientific study of a technical problem with all parties ready for an equitable settlement, but outraged justice calling for a revengeful policy and a great selfish class struggle. Discontent, unrest, suspicion, class hatred, violence, charlatanism,—all these will follow. And even if out of such unpromising soil a fairly satisfactory settlement should eventually grow, bitterness would remain; and it would remain so deeply and so tenaciously embedded in the soil that we would not be quit of it for generations.

Even if our shifting dollar were guiltless of most of the offenses charged, even if the high cost of living had