Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1913.djvu/541

Money and Credit.

The monetary system is monometallic, and has been so since 1873, gold being the standard.

The Act of February 28, 1878, commonly known as the Bland- Allison Act, required the purchase by the Secretary of the Treasury of silver bullion at the market price of silver of not less than 2,000,000 dollars or more than 4,000,000 dollars worth per month, the same to be coined as fast as so pur- chased into silver dollars. 378,166,793 silver dollars were coined under the Bland- Alison Act. The Act of July 14, 1890, known as the Sherman Act, required the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of hue silver monthly, which was paid for in Treasury notes issued as the silver was purchased. The total amount of silver purchased under this Act from August 13, 1890, to November 1, 1893, date of repeal of the purchasing clause, was 168,674, 682 five ounces, costing 155,931,002 dollars, the coinage value of which was 218,084,438 in silver dollars. From the bullion purchased under the Act of July 14, 1890, there were coined to December 31, 1901, 149,710,163 silver dollars. Under the Act of March 3, 1891, for re-coinage of trade dollars, 5,078,472 silver dollars were coined, making a total of 532,955,428 standard silver dollars coined from March 1, 1878, to December 31, 1901.

The following metallic and paper money was in the United States on December 2, 1912 : —

Description of money In the United States In Treasury In Circulation

Dollars Dollars Dollars

Gold coin (including bullion in Treasury) . 1,867,348,261 177,795,980 621,206,112

Gold certificates (law of March 3, 1863) — 126,588,360 971,757,809

Standard silver dollars 565,465,020 1,696,226 74,190,794

Silver certificates (Bland Act, February 28, 1878) — 9,572,337 480,035,663

Subsidiary silver 173,340,756 19,300,084 154,040,672

Treasury notes (Sherman Act of July 14, 1890) 2,813,000 8,440 2,804,560

U.S. notes ("Greenbacks" of 1862 and 1863) 346,681,016 5,824,179 340,856,837

National bank notes 750,185,776 27,800,403 722,385,373

Total 3,705,833,829 368,556,009 3,337,277,820

The coinage of the United States mints in six calendar years wa.s as follows, in dollars : —

— 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912

Gold . 131,907,490 131,638,632 88,776,908 104,723,735 56,176,822 17,498,522

Silver. 13,178,436 12,391,777 8,087,852 3,740,468 6,457,301 7,340,995

Minor. 3,042,126 1,468,739 1,756,389 3,036,929 3,156,726 2,577,386 Total 148,128,052 145,499,148 98,621,149 111,501,132 65,790,849 27,416,903

The note issue of each of the national banks is by law more than covered by United States interest-bearing bonds deposited with the Treasurer of the United States. The amount of the bonds thus deposited was, on Ncs ember 30, 1908, 715,560,170 dollars. The aggregate resources and liabilities of the national banks, 7,397 in number, September 4, 1912, were : —

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