Re: My mind is not easily boggled, but...
- From: "mazorj" <mazorj@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:45:02 GMT
Ugh. The line breaks were bad, here's the editorial
commentary in more readable form:
"mazorj" <mazorj@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:FUavl.263$6%.130@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
....
Remember, this is in 1877:"Why is it that we have the ugliest money of all civilized
nations? For such undoubtedly our silver coinage is. The
design is poor,commonplace, tasteless, characterless,
and the execution is like thereunto. Our silver coins do
not even look like money. They have rather the
appearance of tokens or mean medals. One
reason of this is that the design is so inartistic and so
insignificant. That young woman sitting on nothing in
particular, wearing nothing to speak of, looking over
her shoulder at nothing imaginable, and
bearing in her left hand something that looks like a
broomstick with a woolen nightcap on it what is she doing
there? What is the meaning of her? She is Liberty, we are
told, and there is a label to that effect across a shield at
her right, her need of which is not in any way manifest. But
she might as well be anything else as Liberty; and at the
first glance she looks much more like a spinster in her
smock, with a distaff in her hand.
"Such a figure has no proper place upon a coin. On the
reverse the eagle has the contrary fault of being too
natural, too much like a real eagle. In numismatic art
animals have conventional forms, which are far more pleasing
and effective than the most careful and exact imitation of
nature can be. Compare one of our silver coins with those of
Great Britain, France or Germany, and see how mean, slight,
flimsy, inartistic and unmoneylike it looks. Our coins of
forty or fifty years ago were much better in every respect,
and looked much more like money, the reason being that they
bore a head of Liberty which was bold, clear, and well
defined in comparison with the weak thing that the Mint has
given us for the last thirty years or so. The eagle too,
although erring on the side of naturalness, was more suited
in design to coinage.
"But still better were the coins struck at the end of the
last century and the beginning of this one. The eagle was a
real heraldic eagle, the head of Liberty had more character,
and the whole work was bolder and better in every way. But
even they had the great defect of being without significance
in design. What is a head of Liberty? What distinctive
character can be given to a head upon a coin which will make
it more like Liberty than anything else? ...
"The coins of the French republic bear a head supposed to
typify the Republic. It has in its features and in its
decorations some character and significance, and it is bold
and stands out in good relief, as it should. But we can do
better than to use such mere abstractions, no matter how
bold the design, how high the relief, or how fine the
workmanship. From this utterly unmeaning and uninteresting
condition our coin might be lifted by the substitution, in
place of this so-called Liberty, of two heads, the
appropriateness of which upon our coins and indeed almost
their right to be there would be felt by every American, and
not only so, but recognized by the whole world. It is hardly
necessary to say that the heads we mean are those of
Washington and Franklin.
"And fortune, nature, Providence, what you will so ordered
it that neither of them left descendants of their own name
to be elevated by the appearance of their ancestors' head
upon a nation's coinage. There are no Washingtons, no
Franklins to say, 'This is the image and superscription of
the head of our family.' All democratic fear of the
elevation and glorification of individuals or of families is
therefore to be set aside at once as having no occasion. It
so happens also that these two men represent the two
elements of our population, the two great divisions of our
country. One was a Virginia planter; the other, a
Philadelphia printer, born in Boston, grew from a printer
into a philosopher and a statesman. The proper place for
Washington's head would be upon the gold pieces; for no one
would dispute the appropriateness of placing that of the
author of ' Poor Richard's Almanac,' and of the adage, 'A
penny saved is a penny earned,' upon the silver coins
representing fractional parts of a dollar, and upon the
cents. Thus our gold and silver coins would be distinguished
from each other in design, not as they now are by the mere
difference between a meaningless head and a meaningless
sitting figure, but by two noble portrait busts of which an
American might be prouder than any European ever was of the
effigy of king or kaiser.
"With this change and with a return to the old breadth of
piece, and the heraldic eagle used in the beginning of this
century (the two examples now before us are dated 1803 and
1805), we should have a coinage which instead of being as
now the meanest in appearance and most insignificant of all
that is known, would be the most beautiful and the most
fraught with associations of historic interest and national
pride. We commend the subject to the attention of the House,
and hope that some member may be found who will take it up
and bring it before the people."
.
- References:
- My mind is not easily boggled, but...
- From: Mr. Jaggers
- Re: My mind is not easily boggled, but...
- From: mazorj
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