Description:

Garfield James 1831 - 1881 James Garfield signed letter with excellent economic and financial content

Single page signed letter, 6" x 8", on lightly lined paper. Dated "January 17, 1878", and signed by James Garfield as "JA Garfield,"as a member of the House of Representatives from Ohio's 19thdistrict. Age toned along outer edge, else near fine with expected folds.


A revealing letter penned just 3 years before Garfield's Presidency, with fantastic economic content. Garfield was writing to Prof. F.A. Walker, who at the time had joined Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School as a professor of political economy (in 1872), and rose to international prominence serving as a chief member of the 1876 Philadelphia Exposition, as the American representative to the 1878 International Monetary Conference. Walker then became the President of the American Statistical Association in 1882 and inaugural President of the President of the American Economic Association in 1886.

Garfield held very strong views on the monetary policy and throughout his political career, Garfield favored the gold standard and decried attempts to increase the money supply through the issuance of paper money not backed by gold, and later, through the free and unlimited coinage of silver. In 1865, Garfield was placed on the House Ways and Means Committee, a long-awaited opportunity to focus on financial and economic issues. He reprised his opposition to the greenback, saying, "Any party which commits itself to paper money will go down amid the general disaster, covered with the curses of a ruined people." He was instrumental into the investigation of the Black Friday Gold Panic scandal in 1870 and always held a very conservative view for establishing and the need to create "sound money". In this letter to Professer Walker, Garfield laments:

"Washington, D.C

January 17 th, 1878

My Dear Friend:

Accept my thanks for your kind remembrance of me in sending me a copy of your work on money. I shall read it with great pleasure, the moment I have leizure to do so. The fight for sound money is I fear to be a losing one. I have never seen the financial sky look so dark as now.

With kindest regards

I am as ever yours,

JA Garfield

Prof F.A. Walker

New Haven Conn"

Within just over two years from the date of this letter, Garfield would be campaigning for the Presidency. His term began in March 1881, and regretfully only lasted 3 months. By July 2 he was shot, so it will forever remain unclear what monetary positions he would have been able to enforce. To his own disservice, because the assassination of Abraham Lincoln was deemed a fluke due to the Civil War, Garfield, like most people, saw no reason why the president should be guarded.

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June 14, 2017 10:30 AM EDT
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