My two predecessors assure me that our association is too young to possess any precedents or traditions. In the matter of themes for presidential addresses the only foreshadow of a tradition seems to be the cult of variety and free choice. My own choice of subject is therefore influenced by the fact that during the past year I have been writing a biography of our first president and America's first native-born thoroughly trained economic historian, Edwin F. Gay. As I followed the career of one member of our guild in the making, comparisons with others would persist in cropping up, and the question took shape: “What are economic historians made of?”

What happened to the standard of life of the British working classes in the late decades of the eighteenth and the early decades of the nineteenth centuries ? Was the introduction of the factory system beneficial or harmful in its effect on the workers? These, though related, are distinct questions. For it is possible that employment in factories conduced to an increase of real wages but that the tendency was more than offset by other influences, such as the rapid increase of population, the immigration of Irishmen, the destruction of wealth by long years of warfare, ill-devised tariffs, and misconceived measures for the relief of distress. Both questions have a bearing on some political and economic disputes of our own day, and this makes it difficult to consider them with complete objectivity. An American scholar (so it is said) once produced a book entitled An Impartial History of the Civil War: From the Southern Point of View. If I seek to emulate his impartiality I ought also to strive to equal his candor. Let me confess, therefore, at the start that I am of those who believe that, all in all, conditions of labor were becoming better, at least after 1820, and that the spread of the factory played a not inconsiderable part in the improvement.

In 1914 I was a student in college and according to our textbooks the nature and operation of the gold standard was a subject that presented few difficulties. Countries, we learned, were on the gold standard if they selected as a unit of account a certain weight of gold of a certain fineness and made their currencies convertible into gold at the rate fixed by this definition. If, in addition, such countries placed no restrictions on the export or import of gold they were on an international gold standard. When the major trading countries of the world simultaneously adopted arrangements of this kind, we had what was, in effect, a sort of international convention concerning the treatment of gold which we described as the international gold-standard system.

The political history of gold in the United States is inseparable from X that of silver. In large measure it is simply the obverse of the history of silver. Looked at positively, the case for silver was an attack on gold monometallism; looked at negatively, the case against silver was a defense of the single gold standard. Another and very practical reason for relating the history of gold to that of silver is that the story of what has happened to silver affords an enlightening parallel to what is happening, and conceivably may happen, to gold.

The development of American agricultural techniques in the period JL prior to 1800 may be thought of as occurring through the amalgamation of the techniques and resources of the Old World and the New. The first half of the nineteenth century, though dominated by the changes imposed by agricultural expansion on the frontier and by a growing urban population, featured also careful evaluation of the differences between American and European agriculture, a process that resulted in extensive but selected borrowings. The middle of the century witnessed declarations of American technical independence on the basis of equality and indeed superiority over Europe in some areas and the dominance of the idea that henceforth agricultural progress would depend on America's own exploration and experimentation.

IN recent years much has been said and written about milk as the most nearly perfect of all modern foods, but it is important to realize that it is also the most venerable of human nutriments. Its use began long before recorded history, and it has continued throughout the ages to be a staple part of the human diet. Man's making friends with the lactating animals, such as the cow and the goat, was a significant step in the advancement of human nutrition and therefore of civilization as well. Butter and cheese proved to be important ways of preserving the food values of milk, and their invention, though probably accidental in both instances, was an important contribution to human nutrition. In the long history of dairying, custom and accidental discovery have probably been more important than conscious experimentation and innovation.

It is my purpose in this paper to sketch briefly one heretofore ignored facet in American economic history: the influence of British capital, knowledge, and livestock in the growth, development, and eventual decline of the Western range-cattle industry during that colorful, though all too frequently disastrous, period between the American Civil War and the end of the century. Although the locale of this story would seem to confine its interest and importance largely to the West, it was, in fact, an incident of profound national and international importance. It filled the press of the United States with glowing descriptions of great baronial estates teeming with hundreds of thousands of head of cattle; it brought about long articles of analysis, praise, sharp criticism, and denunciation in the British press; it resulted in an internationalbattle of words involving at least three American secretaries of agriculture, presidents of the Board of Trade, ministers of agriculture, and chancellors of the exchequer. There were rude questions in the House of Commons and pointed inquiries in Lords. There were even letters to The Times!

This topic was discussed by a panel consisting of D. L. Kemmerer, JL University of Illinois; William B. Gates, Jr., Williams College; Broadus Mitchell, Rutgers University; and Thomas C. Cochran, New York University. The chairman was Edward C. Kirkland, Bowdoin College. In essence, the discussion was a criticism and evaluation of a paper by Mr. Kemmerer, the only formal presentation in the proceedings.