Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/292

238 cause of the purely mythical wisdom of those who unconsciously and accidentally handed it down to us is only an appeal to that curious and baneful prejudice against progress which every hoary tradition creates.

Our present standard, or lack of standard, is due to an historical accident and yet we go on traditionally using it simply because we got started in that groove, just as Boston still uses its crooked streets, never originally chosen with any reference to modern traffic; or just as we still use the original railway gauge, set by the horse carriage; or just as we left our National banking system virtually undisturbed for two generations after the passing of the Civil War conditions which gave it birth; or just as until May 19, 1828, we had no standard weight for determining the contents of coins; or just as until after 1832 we had no standard units of length, weight, or volume for the use of the custom-houses.

All our customary units of length, weight, and volume were changed on April 5, 1893, by order of the Superintendent of Weights and Measures, under authority of an international agreement. Acts to standardize measures of fruits and vegetables (the standard barrel and box) have been very recently passed by Congress. The National Food Administration has lately ordered that potatoes be sold by the pound (which is uniform in all the states) instead of by the bushel, which varies in weight. The long-pending bills to substitute the metric for the customary standards are still pending. No standard unit has any sacredness of age. We have changed and perfected them throughout our history, and we are still busy with changing and perfecting them. Physicists are now beginning to suggest that our standard of length should be the wave length of light at a certain