Henry Carey Baird

Background

He was born on September 10, 1825 in United States Arsenal, Bridesburg, the son of Eliza Carey and Captain Thomas Baird. His grandfathers, Henry Baird and Mathew Carey, were both Irish political refugees to America, and the Celtic love of contest and vigor in debate were prominent characteristics through his long life.

Education

He was educated in private schools until the age of sixteen, when he entered the publishing house of Carey & Hart in Philadelphia, which had been founded by his grandfather and was carried on by his uncles.

Career

Soon the old firm was dissolved, and Baird established a new enterprise under the style Henry Carey Baird & Company, which in 1849 became the first publishing house in America to make a specialty of books on technical and industrial subjects.

The principal interest in Baird is as an expositor and popularizer of the economic teachings of his uncle Henry C. Carey, and in a wider sense of the "Pennsylvania school" of "national economists, " which had received its original impulse from Mathew Carey. Baird was not an original thinker, rarely departing from the conclusions of his preceptors. He was, however, thoroughly convinced of the revolutionary importance of the doctrines which he inherited, and made himself an ideal disciple. The happenings of the time confirmed him in his views, and afforded a stage on which he could play an active part. His writings were controversial rather than systematic, consisting chiefly of a large number of newspaper and periodical articles. He preferred the bayonet rather than long-range artillery.

To Baird it seemed that the old teachers of political economy had seriously erred in extending their doctrines and making them applicable to the dealings of the whole world, for in so doing the fact was lost sight of that the nation, as the unit of economic activity, interposed itself between the individual and the universe of people, modifying most of the principles which had been laid down. He held that association is the central requirement in producing wealth and utilizing resources. This association, being by national units, naturally leads to the encouragement of a diversity of employments within every country, and this in turn calls for protective tariffs and a denial of free trade as a hurtful fetish. He contended that money (which he held to be a standard of payment rather than of value) should be a thing of a country, not of the whole world, and that the currency of a nation "should in no wise be based upon the precious metals, " which were liable to export beyond the control of the authorities of a state. He thus advocated permitting the circulating medium to be regulated in amount by the business demands of the community.

Particularly he was eager to break industrial and financial tyrannies by a liberal issue of notes as opposed to bank loans which open the way to concentration of economic power. In common with all the members of his school, Baird was an optimist. He was not impressed with the importance of conserving wealth in goods and gold, but pleaded for the augmenting of economic capacity in the people and in their instruments of production and means of enjoyment. A freeflowing circulation of money, he held, had a fructifying influence on this capacity.

By Greenback party he was nominated for treasurer of Pennsylvania (which nomination he declined) and for mayor of Philadelphia. In 1876 before the Committee on Ways and Means of the House he successfully argued against the issue of $500, 000, 000 of 30-year 41/2 percent gold bonds, and in the same year gave testimony before the United States Monetary Commission supporting the remonetization of silver. Two years later, before the House Committee on Banking and Currency, he opposed the resumption of specie payments. In 1884 he supported Blaine as a protectionist but had no political affiliations thereafter. In his last years, illness compelled him to give up active attention to his business.

He died at his home at Wayne. Most of Baird's two score of papers, the vast majority of them on economic subjects, were published or republished by his firm; among them may be mentioned, as typical, Protection of Home Labor (1860); "Money and Its Substitutes, " in Atlantic Monthly, March 1876; The Necessary Foundations of Individual and National Well-Being (1883); "Of Money, the Instrument of Association, " in National Review, May 10, 1890; Money and Bank Credit in the United States, France and Great Britain (1891); and "Carey and Two of His Recent Critics, " in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 1891, vol. XXIX. Baird contributed three articles -

"Bank, " "Money, " and "Political Economy" - to the American Cyclopedia; these are less partisan than his other writings, and the last is particularly detailed and informing.

Achievements

• Henry Carey Baird is remembered mostly for his publications on economic subjects, such as "Money and Its Substitutes" and "Political Economy".

Works

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  • The British Credit System: Inflated Bank Credit As A Substitute For "current Money Of The Realm". The Way "to Pay Debts Without Moneys" And To Make "the Rich Richer And The Poor Poorer"

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Political Economy

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The necessary foundations of individual and national well-being, and of civilization: a lecture deli

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

Politics

At first a Whig, he became a Republican, but left that party after the Civil War and was one of the organizers (1874 - 76) of the Greenback party.

Personality

His whole appearance and manner were alert and forceful, his reasoning was quick and bold, and he had an unusual aptitude for turning an occasion to his uses.

Connections

In September 1850 he married Elizabeth Davis Pennington of Philadelphia.

Father:

Captain Thomas Baird

Mother:

Eliza Carey Baird

Wife:

Elizabeth Davis Pennington