Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/318

264 and adds a little to the education of the people on the money problem, although, unfortunately, the lesson is largely forgotten by the time it is next needed and the old costly way of learning to lock the door only after the horse is stolen, goes on.

It is surprising how often a forgetful public will repeat its old mistakes. The exigencies of war finance again bring a tremendous pressure toward inflation which again brushes aside the feeble scruples left from a dimly remembered past.

And sometimes these faint traditions are made to count for much less by changing the form of inflation. The public will often condone the new and disguised form of inflation even when they would turn their backs on the old forms. For instance, many business men, while having a healthy dread of irredeemable paper money, yet did not object to the laws of 1878 and 1890 providing for inflating our currency with silver, and they nearly yielded to the "free silver" sirens in 1896. In recent years we have had much gold inflation. Yet even to-day, only a small minority of people will admit the possibility that there could be any such inflation.

Credit inflation is even more subtle and enticing. Many will remember the fallacies current when the United States entered the war. One orator told his audience they need make no effort at all in order to subscribe to Liberty Loans. "All you need to do," he said, "is to go to a bank and borrow the money which you are to lend to the Government, agreeing to let the bank have the bond you buy with that money as collateral security. It's just perpetual motion!"

Even to-day there are those who will deny that there has been inflation of any kind during the Great War. Such denial is always found as a mental "defense" whenever there has been inflation.

But sooner or later the truth is admitted and the temper of the people and their statesmen becomes one of "good resolutions."