[From The Johns Hopkins University Circulars, January, 1899.] 
 
 DAVID AMES WELLS. 
 
 1827-1898. 
 
 Report of a Memorial Meeting of the Economic Conference 
 of the Johns Hopkins University, November 22, 1898. 
 
 A special meeting of the Economic Conference was held in the Bluntschli 
 Library on November 22, 1898, to commemorate the life and services of the 
 late David Ames Wells, the distinguished American economist and publicist. 
 The meeting was largely attended by the teachers and graduate students of 
 the departments of history, economics, and politics. Dr. Sidney Sherwood, 
 Associate Professor of Economics, presided. A signed photograph of Mr. 
 Wells, the gift of his son, Mr. David Dwight Wells, and a collection of 
 Mr. Wells’s important writings were exhibited at the meeting. 
 
 The first speaker was President Gilman, who had been asked to give 
 his personal recollections of the distinguished economist. After referring 
 to the significance of individual characters in the study of historical and 
 political science, as illustrated by the numerous portraits which adorned the 
 walls of the Seminary, he pointed to the portrait of Mr. Wells, and then 
 endeavored by words to give color to the photograph. He spoke of the 
 looks, manners, voice, and ways of the economist, of his long continued 
 home in Norwich, Conn.,—an abode of culture and refinement,—of his 
 fondness for the open air and his delight in long drives over the hills of 
 Mohegan, and in the valleys of the Yantic and Quinebaug rivers. He 
 spoke of his abiding interest in every thing that pertained to the prosperity 
 of the United States, of his readiness in accumulating knowledge and of 
 his equal readiness in sharing it with other people; of the vast stores of his 
 information and the fertility of his suggestions. He referred briefly to a 
 personal friendship which began in 1872, when Mr. Wells was invited to 
 New Haven, and continued through life, his last interview having been a 
 few weeks ago, when Mr. Wells left his sick room to receive a call from 
 his Baltimore friend. 
 
 Dr. Gilman briefly referred to the investigations and publications which 
 have given renown to the name of David A. Wells, and to the distinguished 
 honors that came to him, in the United States, in England, and in France. 
 He then dwelt upon the infelicitous working of American institutions 
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which exclude from public life men whose parties are not in the ascendant. 
 Whatever might be his political affinities, a man like Wells ought always 
 to be retained in the service of the government. His knowledge, his ex¬ 
 perience, his acumen, and his patriotism were too valuable to be hid under 
 a bushel. Such a candle should always be upon a candlestick. The light 
 of the writings of such a man may indeed become of world-wide signifi¬ 
 cance; but the country loses the illumination which might be thrown upon 
 perplexing questions of finance and taxation, if powers so rare were con¬ 
 centrated, by official responsibility, upon the questions of the day. 
 
 Mr. T. S. Adams, Fellow in Economics, spoke of “The Economic Con¬ 
 tributions of David A. Wells,” as follows: 
 
 Mr. Wells’ contributions to economics are various. He has written upon 
 a host of subjects ranging from the industrial condition of Mexico to the 
 decay of our merchant marine. It would not be unjust, notwithstanding 
 this diversity, to say that he almost invariably approached a subject from 
 one of three standpoints, and we may group his work into three correspond¬ 
 ing classes: contributions (1) to the tariff controversy, (2) to the monetary 
 discussion, (3) to the subject of taxation. 
 
 The remarkable conversion of Mr. Wells to the theory of free trade is 
 well known. It is doubtful, however, whether this was a conversion as 
 much as a sudden realization of what he conceived to be the paternalism of 
 protection, tie was essentially a democrat—using that word in its literal 
 sense and it was as an advocate of liberty, personal and commercial, that 
 he was led to renounce protection. He has been denounced as an economic 
 anglo-maniac, but this criticism is unjust. He was an apostle of industrial 
 freedom; he went with the English school so long as it cleaved to the 
 doctrine of industrial liberty, but when that school departed from its 
 cardinal doctrine, Mr. Wells abandoned the school. He adopted the Eng¬ 
 lish idea of free trade, but he denounced the income-tax. 
 
 The principal contributions of Mr. Wells to the tariff question are to be 
 found in the Report of the National Revenue Commission and in the 
 reports which he made as Special Commissioner of Internal Revenue. 
 These reports have become integral parts of the economic history of the 
 United States, but they are too circumstantial for description here. With 
 the exception of these reports the most extensive treatment of the tariff 
 question coming from his pen is to be found in the five “ Essays on Tariff 
 Questions ” published in his “ Practical Economics.” In general, Mr. Wells’ 
 work in this line has been critical and controversial, rather than constructive. 
 Of his occasional papers on this subject hardly too much can be said. He 
 is the American Bastiat. I know of no happier illustration in the American 
 literature of occasional economic writing than his “ True Story of the Leaden 
 Statuary,” or his satire upon the Rev. Thos. K. Beecher’s ‘ closed circles 
 of exchange,’ published in The Nation. 
 
 The most ambitious work which Mr. Wells finished is his “Recent 
 Economic Changes,” which has been used as a text-book here for several 
 years. Primes Jacie this book seems to have been written with the purely 
 
scientific motive of recording and explaining the industrial depressions 
 which have swept over the western civilized world since the civil war. 
 Incidentally it became necessary to prove beyond doubt that these depres¬ 
 sions are not due to scarcity of money and cannot be cured by financial 
 legislation. The rationale of the latter argument is so illustrative of Mr. 
 Wells’ habits of inductive reasoning that it will justify a short notice. 
 
 The first chapter is devoted to a precise description of the depressions 
 which are to be accounted for. The author then proceeds to show that 
 these depressions have been accompanied by an extraordinary multiplication 
 of food, clothing, fuel, machinery, railroads and modes of communication. 
 The great majority of commodities have been ‘ multiplied with unexampled 
 rapidity and offered for sale at prices unprecedented for cheapness.’ Such 
 are the undisputed facts of the case; what is the explanation ? 
 
 Several popular explanations, e. g., over-production, falling prices, etc., 
 are then examined and shown to be merely different presentations of the 
 phenomenon under investigation, not the causes of the phenomenon. The 
 number of explanations is then narrowed down to two: scarcity of money 
 and improvement in the conditions of production. Of these, the latter is 
 declared to be the true explanation. 
 
 With a mastery of detail and an insight into diverse industrial interests 
 that is marvellous, Mr. Wells took up the proof seriatim , showing the 
 precise changes which permit more goods to be manufactured now than 
 formerly with the same amount of labor and capital. The phenomenon 
 which the bimetallists claim can only be accounted for by postulating a 
 scarcity of money, is fully explained by the march of invention. The 
 patient investigation is Darwinian in its thoroughness. We must not look 
 for complicated theory or long-spun deduction: the facts are the book. 
 The theory, like the plot of a good novel, can be described in a few words, 
 though this does not mean that keen logical insight is wanting On the 
 contrary, Mr. Wells demonstrates his logical power by a single chapter on 
 Indian produce, etc., in which he goes to the heart of the currency problem. 
 If scarcity of money is the cause of falling prices, all goods would be 
 affected. The influence of contraction, wrote Mr. Wells, “ would have 
 been all-pervasive, synchronous, irresistible and constant as the influence 
 of gravitation.” If then there are certain classes of prices which have 
 not been affected, and these refer to those goods whose conditions of pro¬ 
 duction have not improved in the interval under consideration, it is con¬ 
 clusive proof that scarcity of currency is not the explanation desired. In 
 the chapter mentioned above, such a group of prices is shown to exist. 
 
 Mr. Wells’ economic career began with his paper on “Our Burden and 
 Our Strength,” which led to his appointment as Chairman of the National 
 Revenue Commission Taxation was thus the first economic subject with 
 which he was occupied, and the publication of his “ Principles of Taxation,” 
 still going on in The Popular Science Monthly, shows that this was the last 
 subject with which his mind was busied. In the two other subjects noted, 
 Mr. Wells appears as an advocate, a powerful pleader for the economic 
 philosophy to which he had been converted. But in the “ Principles of 
 Taxation ” he appears as the constructive scientist with an original system 
 
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of his own. When we consider the tangled confusion of the subject of 
 finance, in connection with the abilities and opportunities which Mr. Wells 
 possessed, we must be struck with the peculiar untimeliness of the advent 
 of the malady which prevented the perfection, and possibly the completion, 
 of this system of taxation. If order was not wrought from the chaos, our 
 scientific faith is at least strengthened by Mr. Wells’ trust in the existence 
 of such an order. I know of no more hopeful note in the recent literature 
 of economics, than that which Mr. Wells sounded with almost passionate 
 reiterance throughout these papers, in behalf of the science of finance. 
 These are strange and welcome words from one who was always practical. 
 “Are these assumptions of economists that there is no science of taxation 
 and no general laws regulating its exercise and effects—assumptions gen¬ 
 erally concurred in by jurists and popular sentiment—correct ? If they 
 are, then there are no principles of taxation to discuss, and a consideration 
 of the subject must be limited mainly to a recital of the world’s experiments 
 and experiences and an exposition of legislative enactments and court 
 decisions. To admit their correctness, furthermore, is equivalent to con¬ 
 fessing that human knowledge, in at least one department, has reached its 
 extreme limit and that a class of transactions which, more than almost any 
 other, are determinate of the distribution of wealth, the forms in which 
 industry shall be exerted and the sphere of personal liberty, are best 
 directed by accident or caprice.” 
 
 The positive system of taxation which Mr. Wells would have proposed, 
 is suggested rather than described, in the papers already published in the 
 Popular Science Monthly. Until now the treatment has been mainly his¬ 
 torical and critical. As these papers have never been formally reviewed in 
 this Conference, it would seem proper to note here a few of the leading 
 principles established. 
 
 In the first place Mr. Wells has performed a public service in emphasizing 
 a thought which prominent authorities seem striving hard to forget, viz.: 
 that, whatever the advantages of the faculty theory of taxation, it is un¬ 
 recognized in our highest courts, and inconsistent with American democracy. 
 The faculty theory may be correct, and socialism may be the ideal towards 
 which we should strive; but the two go together, and if one is dangerous, 
 the other is also dangerous. We are teaching a dubious lesson when we 
 lead a large mass of the people to expect the services of the state to be 
 furnished gratuitously. It is a matter of congratulation to find Mr. Wells 
 deploring, to use his own words, “ the almost universal disassociation in the 
 minds of the masses between the payment of taxes and the benefit or pro¬ 
 fitable return consequent upon such payment.” 
 
 Mr. Wells has also done good work in protesting against what he calls 
 the “ Monarchical ” theory of taxation, the theory that taxation is inherently 
 evil, and that our best plan is to pluck the goose—as Colbert put it—so as 
 to get the maximum amount of feathers with the minimum amount of 
 squawk. This doctrine has found much recognition in our courts and has 
 had an immense influence. Mr. Wells cites one case in which a judge 
 decided that the evidence of a witness could not be debarred merely be¬ 
 cause he had been found guilty of perjury in making out his tax lists 
 
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His antipathy to protective duties, income taxes, and progressive taxation 
 in general, is too well known to require any comment. The most distinctive 
 principle of his system relates to immaterial wealth, securities, evidences 
 of indebtedness, etc., which he distinguishes from property as shadow from 
 substance. Taxation, he claimed, should be upon'things; not upon persons 
 and not upon the shadows of things. In accordance with his views he 
 offered the following definition of property, which is, I think, unique: 
 “ Property, at least for the purpose of taxation, is always a physical actu¬ 
 ality, with inhering rights or titles, the product solely of labor, and is 
 always measured in respect to value and for exchange by labor.” Mr. 
 Wells is thus a positive advocate of the Labor theory of value, and I may 
 take occasion here to point out, that his money argument in the “ Recent 
 Economic Changes ” is valid only on the assumption of the validity of the 
 Labor Standard. 
 
 Remembering that he believed in the diffusion of taxation and keeping 
 in mind the few principles which I have noted, it is easy to see the result 
 towards which his reasoning tends. That result had been enunciated as far 
 back as 1874. “The general conclusion,” he then wrote, “to which all 
 investigation seems to lead is, that the rational principle of taxation is to 
 tax but comparatively few articles, namely: visible, tangible property and 
 fixed signs of property—for in this way only can taxes be assessed equitably, 
 uniformly and economically—and then leave them to diffuse, adjust and 
 apportion themselves by the inflexible laws of trade and political economy.” 
 
 The manner of Mr. Wells’ introduction to economics is well known. His 
 interest was first kindled by a living question: the capabilities of federal 
 taxation. He may or may not have studied political economy at Williams, 
 but however this may be he has always been regarded—and rightly—as a 
 practical economist. More than any other writer, perhaps, he understood 
 the actual industrial conditions of the country, and derived his theory from 
 the immense mass of detail which he knew so intimately and handled with 
 such mastery. His work is marked by a maximum quantity of proof per 
 unit of theory; and this statement will, perhaps, sum up as briefly as is 
 possible the predominant characteristic of his scientific style. 
 
 As a public administrator Mr. Wells was marked by unflinching courage 
 and unfailing, enthusiastic industry; as a pamphleteer his work was char¬ 
 acterized by unusual literary and persuasive power; as a scientific economist, 
 he will be remembered for his encouragement and utilization of govern¬ 
 mental statistical publications, for his exaltation of fact without depreciation 
 of theory, for his consistent devotion to the doctrine of industrial and com¬ 
 mercial liberty. 
 
 Mr. L. F. Schmeckebier, Fellow in History, spoke of “The Public 
 Services of David A. Wells,” as follows: 
 
 Mr. Wells first came prominently into public notice in 1864, in which 
 year he wrote an essay, entitled “ Our Burden and Our Strength,” on the 
 resources and debt-paying abilities of the United States. Mr. Wells was 
 at this time residing in Troy, New York, and the essay was first read at a 
 
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literary and social club in that city. It was at first privately printed, and 
 was then published by the Loyal Publication Society of New York ; and it 
 became one of the most noted publications of the war period, having a 
 circulation in excess of two hundred thousand copies, and being translated 
 into French and German. The essay came at a time when confidence in 
 the government was at a very low ebb. The greenback was quoted in gold 
 at less than half its face value, and the United States bonds had sunk nearly 
 as low. The prospect of further issues of paper and of enormous loans, 
 and the apprehension of a crushing burden of taxation, threatened to close 
 all sources of funds to the government and to force it into hopeless bank¬ 
 ruptcy. It was at this crisis that Mr. Wells undertook to show why the 
 nation’s credit was still unimpaired and why the national economy was not 
 only able to make good the losses already suffered, but also to be further 
 drawn upon without injury. 
 
 This little work made a great impression on President Lincoln, and in 
 January, 1865, he sent for Mr. Wells to come to Washington, to confer 
 with him and Mr. Fessenden, the Secretary of the Treasury, as to the best 
 means of dealing with the debt and the great mass of taxation that the 
 burden of the war had entailed on the country. In March, 1865, Mr. Wells 
 was appointed on the National Revenue Commission together with Stephen 
 Colwell, of Pennsylvania, and S. S. Hayes, of Illinois, Mr. Wells being 
 chairman. The object of the Commission was to inquire into and report 
 on the subject of the best and most effectual way of raising by taxation such 
 revenue as was necessary to supply the wants of the government. The 
 Commission travelled from city to city, and in January, 1866, it presented 
 its investigations to Congress in a valuable and voluminous report, which 
 was subsequently made the basis of the later modifications in the customs 
 and the excise. 
 
 For the first time a full and exact statement was made of the curious 
 and complex system of internal and customs taxation which had grown up 
 during the war. During the last six months we have experienced some of 
 the inconveniences of taxation for war purposes, but it is hard to realize 
 the extent of excise taxation at the end of the Civil War. Taxation was, 
 as Mr. Wells said, on the Donnybrook Fair principle of “whenever you see 
 a head hit it; whenever you see a commodity, tax it.” Mr. Wells estimated 
 that the government collected between 8 and 15 per cent, on every finished 
 product.. Diffuseness was the all-pervading evil of the system, and the 
 Commission recommended “the abolition or speedy reduction of all taxes 
 which tend to check development, and the retention of all those which, 
 like the income tax, fall chiefly upon realized wealth.” The report further 
 arraigned the appointment of incapable and dishonest oflicials, and em¬ 
 phasized the futility of ever hoping for an efficient and economical admin¬ 
 istration of the system while this method continued. It also contained 
 valuable reports on sugars, tea, coffee, cotton, spices, proprietary articles 
 petroleum, fermented liquors and distilled spirits as sources of revenue’ 
 with estimates of the amount of revenue which the Treasury might expect 
 if taxation on them at various rates was continued. Congress, however, 
 took no direct action on these recommendations; but within three years of 
 
the close of the war the most important of them had been substantially 
 adopted, and the most discriminating and oppressive taxes repealed. 
 
 At the next session of Congress the office of Special Commissioner of 
 Revenue was created, and Mr. Wells was appointed to this office in recog¬ 
 nition of his valuable services as Chairman of the National Revenue Com¬ 
 mission. He at once applied himself with great energy to the task of 
 reconstructing and reforming the revenue system. His first report was 
 made in December, 1866. A great deal of valuable statistical material was 
 presented in this report in addition to his analysis of the revenue duties. 
 One of the most important recommendations was that the tax of two dollars 
 a gallon on distilled spirits should be reduced to fifty cents. Not until the 
 session of 1867-68, however, did Congress make this reduction, and the 
 result was one of the most remarkable in all fiscal experience. The total 
 collections rose from eighteen million dollars in the last year of the two 
 dollar tax to forty-five million in the first year of the fifty cent tax, and 
 fifty-five million in the second year. 
 
 In 1867 Mr. Wells drew up a bill for the revision of the tariff, which 
 received the hearty endorsement of Secretary McCulloch. Duties on raw 
 materials were reduced and a careful rearrangement was made all along 
 the line. The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 27 to 10. In the House 
 it was necessary to suspend the rules to put the bill on its passage, and the 
 motion to do this was defeated by a vote of 106 to 64, a two-third vote 
 being necessary. 
 
 In the same year Congress instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to 
 present at the next session a draft of a new tariff. The task of preparing 
 this bill was turned over to Mr. Wells, as Special Commissioner, and he 
 visited Europe under a government commission for the purpose of studying 
 industry in Great Britain and on the Continent. Up to this time Mr. Wells 
 had been an ardent advocate of the policy of protection. But his investi¬ 
 gations in Europe completely changed his views, and led Mr. Wells to an 
 abandonment of his original position, and to his adoption of the belief 
 that free trade, made subordinate to revenue, and tentatively entered upon, 
 was the best policy for the country. It is characteristic of the man, that 
 while he rejected his old protection ideas, yet he realized that free trade 
 must be made subservient to the great fiscal demands upon the government, 
 and also that it must proceed by a gradual process, and that the entire 
 protection fabric could not be swept away at one blow. These views were 
 embodied in his report for 1869, and attracted great attention, both in the 
 United States and in Europe. One of the first acts of M. Wolowski, the 
 French Minister of Finance, after the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian 
 war, was to order the translation and official publication of Mr. Wells’ 
 report as Special Commissioner of Revenue for 1869. 
 
 In 1870 Mr. Wells retired from his office of Special Commissioner of 
 Revenue. All the important revenue reforms that were adopted by Con¬ 
 gress down to 1870 originated with Mr. Wells. These reforms included the 
 redrafting of the entire system of internal revenue laws, the reduction and 
 final abolition of the cotton tax and taxes on manufactures and crude 
 petroleum; the creation of supervisory districts; and the application of 
 
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stamps for the collection of taxes on tobacco, fermented liquors, and dis¬ 
 tilled spirits. Mr. Wells also created the Bureau of Statistics, and to the 
 head of this Bureau he called General Francis A. Walker, the assistant 
 editor of the Springfield Republican. 
 
 On the retirement of Mr. Wells from the office of Special Commissioner, 
 in July, 1870, a large number of members of both Houses of Congress 
 united in a letter to Mr. Wells, of which the following is an extract: “ The 
 undersigned, members of the 41st Congress, who have been cognizant of 
 your labor as Special Commissioner of Revenue, take the occasion of your 
 retirement from public duties to express to you their appreciation of the 
 work you have accomplished, and the great ability with which you have 
 discharged the duties of your office. How much soever they may perhaps 
 have differed with you touching the matter of your conclusions on par¬ 
 ticular points, they desire, nevertheless, to bear testimony to the great 
 value of your work, and to the honesty and the faithful and untiring zeal 
 which have characterized your whole public career.” This letter was 
 headed by such Republicans as Sumner, Blaine, Banks, and Edmunds, and 
 such Democrats as Bayard, Thurman, and Randall. 
 
 President Garfield, then a member of the House of Representatives, on 
 July 13, 1868, spoke as follows concerning Mr. Wells: “Into the financial 
 chaos resulting from the war Mr. Wells threw the whole weight of a strong, 
 clear mind, guided by an honest heart, and during the last three years he has 
 done more, in my judgment, to bring order out of chaos than any one man 
 in the United States. He has furnished us what we most needed—classified 
 knowledge of the subjects of financial legislation.” 
 
 Hugh McCulloch, in his autobiography, also paid the following tribute 
 to Mr. Wells: “ There are few of my official acts,” he says, “ that I look 
 upon with more satisfaction than the appointment of David A. Wells to be 
 a Revenue Commissioner. ... All the reports which were made by Mr. 
 Wells exhibited the most careful, painstaking and intelligent investigation. 
 In clearness and accuracy of statement, and in logical form they have not 
 been surpassed on either side of the Atlantic.” 
 
 When it became known that Mr. Wells was to retire from his office at 
 Washington, Governor Hoffman, of New York, offered him the chairman¬ 
 ship of the New York State Tax Commission which had been authorized 
 for investigating the subject of local taxation. The other members of this 
 commission were Edwin Dodge and George W. Cuyler. The commission 
 made a most thorough investigation and submitted two reports, together 
 with a code of laws relating to assessment and taxation. 
 
 The most important recommendations were that the listing system and 
 the oath which accompanies it should not be used, because of its demor¬ 
 alizing influence, and that intangible personal property should be exempted 
 from taxation, as simply a sign of existing visible property. The commis¬ 
 sion further recommended a unique experiment in American taxation in 
 that the occupier of every building used as a dwelling or for any other 
 purpose should be taxed, whether the occupier be owner or tenant, on a 
 valuation of three times the rental value of the premises occupied. ’None 
 of the recommendations of the commission were adopted 
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In 1885 Mr. Wells made a trip to Mexico for health and recreation, 
 and as a result there appeared in the Popular Science Monthly a series of 
 articles entitled, “A Study of Mexico,” which were afterwards amplified 
 and republished in book form. In a little volume of about two hundred 
 pages, Mr. Wells has presented, in an attractive and readable form, the 
 social, economic and political conditions, and the general aspect of Mexico 
 and its relations with the United States. He has done in a small way for 
 our sister republic on the South what Mr. Bryce has done for our own 
 country. Concerning this work, M. Romero, the Mexican minister to the 
 United States, wrote Mr. Wells as follows: “Although I differ with you 
 on several points, and in respect to some of your conclusions, it is sur¬ 
 prising to me how well you have understood the condition of Mexico and 
 its difficult problems, especially so far as its relations to the United States 
 are concerned.” Rev. George B. Hyde, one of the leading and oldest 
 missionaries of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Mexico, spoke of the 
 “Study” as being the only work “that has not either looked with eyes 
 that saw a paradise or a desert.” 
 
 Mr. Wells was also successful as a railroad financier and manager, being 
 one of the receivers of the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad, and one of 
 the reorganizers of the New York and Erie Railroad, and a member of the 
 board of arbitrators of the associated railways of the United States. 
 
 Such, in brief, were the main points of what we might call Mr. Wells’ 
 public work. Mr. Wells represented the noblest type of American citizen¬ 
 ship. A scholarly, painstaking, and conscientious public official; fearless 
 and honest, never pandering to prejudices, nor truckling to obtain the good 
 will of others for selfish ends; dignified and self-constrained even under 
 abuse and calumny, he presents a type of character which should be an 
 inspiration to those who are entrusted with solving the difficult problems of 
 the present and the future. 
 
 Brief remarks were also made by Dr. Sidney Sherwood and Dr. J. H. 
 Hollander. 
 
 J. H. H. 
 
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