BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Leslie Mortier Shaw was born in Morristown, Vermont, on November 2, 1848. During boyhood he lived on a farm. In 1869 he came to Iowa. Here he worked on a farm, taught school, sold fruit trees, and found time to attend college.

Mr. Shaw graduated from Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa, in 1874. Then he attended the Iowa College of Law, in 1876 graduated therefrom and began the practice of law at Denison, Iowa. Later he became president of the Bank of Denison. The only office which he held before his election to the office of Governor of Iowa was that of School Director.

In 1897 Mr. Shaw was elected to the office of Governor of Iowa by the Republican party. Two years later he was reëlected, doubling his plurality and multiplying his majority by four. At the close of his second term in 1902 he was appointed by President Roosevelt to fill the office of Secretary of the United States Treasury, which position he occupies at this time.

FIRST INAUGURAL

JANUARY 13, 1898

From Pamphlet Edition of Address-in the Library of the State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City

Senators and Representatives, and Fellow-Citizens:

In assuming the duties of the office to which the suffrages of a great commonwealth have called me, I am not unmindful of the honor conferred, nor of the responsibility imposed. The people of Iowa have been kind without measure, and it remains for me faithfully to observe the oath just taken in your presence. As I approach the task I can but ask your kind consideration and your prayers that He, on whom I must rely, will vouchsafe both grace and wisdom to avoid the more serious mistakes and save the people from the unhappy consequences of such errors as I may commit.

It is a matter worthy of note that our industrial and financial skies are brightening. After the experience of unrest, distrust, doubt, fear, disaster, and much of ruin, through which we have passed, no thoughtful mind questions the truth of the proposition that we are entering upon a period of improved conditions.

STANDARD OF VALUE

The human family learns slowly. It required thousands of years to teach monotheism to one nation. The lids above the seething pots of earth had rattled for centuries

before man even discovered steam power, and for many years thereafter the world remained in comparative ignorance of the power of steam. Both earth and sky have been charged with electricity from the dawn of creation. Men stood conscious of its existence, in dread of its manifestations, but in ignorance of its nature. With equally laggard steps the world has moved toward, but has hesitated to embrace, a single standard of value. Nearly everythingcattle, tobacco, iron, leather, shells, copper, silver, goldhas been tried as standards, but not until recent years has the subject been given that careful and scientific investigation necessary to the establishment of a national and international uniformity of standard, so essential to the highest and best financial condition. Gradually, but irretraceably, has civilization advanced, and the time is not far distant when no one, in my judgment, will so much as consider a double standard.

The family was originally the unit of civilization. Each man was more or less an Ishmaelite. He moved whither he liked, lived as he pleased, and defended himself as far as he was able. He had little, if any, intercourse with those about him, and needed no standard of value. What little trafficking he may have found convenient was effected by the exchange of commodities. Subsequently several fam

ilies joined together for mutual convenience and protection, fortified a castle, defended it, but remained isolated and independent.

By degrees, through epochs more or less defined, we have advanced past the clan, the tribe, the feudal system, the state, to the federation of states, and are possibly nearing

the time when the nations of earth shall be bound together, not by treaties terminating at fixed periods, but by perpetual union. Whatever may be our dream, or our hope, or our fear, we have reached the time when international commerce is of recognized importance. We have learned by experience the convenience and practical necessity of the same standard of value in all countries. We have learned

that the laws of trade and the laws of convenience are, in

matters temporal, supreme. Seldom has the law-making power assumed the initiative with favorable results, and every attempt to circumvent commercial necessity has precipitated disaster. The great body of English and American civil law is not the result of the inventive genius of statesmen, but it stands a monument to the adaptive versatility of the Anglo-Saxon business mind. That which trade and commerce have found necessary, or most convenient, has been perpetuated by legislative enactment and judicial decision. It has been found necessary to guard against harmful tendencies, and to erect many safeguards against the encroachments of business and financial enterprise, "lest one good custom should corrupt the world," but business. necessity has become the test of expediency. Any proposed violation of principles and conditions which experience has proven needful, has ever wrought sad havoc along all industrial lines. Recent history furnishes the best proof of this statement. It would seem, from the sufferings through which we have so lately passed, that no one able to commiserate the homeless, the helpless, the friendless, and the destitute will again attempt to revolutionize the single gold standard, the beneficent effects of which have been enjoyed since January, 1879.