William Elder
William Elder (1806-1885) was viewed by Henry Charles Carey as one of the two most competent economic thinkers and expounders of the American Protectionist doctrine. Of the very limited scholarship on Elder, however, his reputation is that of a mere popularizer of the Carey doctrine. This does a grave disservice to this important thinker. For one thing, Elder did not follow Carey blindly. He drew extensively from a range of protectionist thinkers, and his approach, more than any other in the Carey circle, can be viewed as a synthesis of the leading American Protectionist theories. His harmonizing of the ideas of Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich List, and Henry Carey, in particular, would leave an impressionable mark on the School.
William Elder was born on July 23, 1806, in the small town of Somerset in Pennsylvania. His family owned a farm outside of town where William was to spend his childhood years. His early education was apparently quite ordinary. He attended a local public school of substandard quality. Elder later recalled that his teachers were qualified only by the fact that their laziness precluded them from other employments. The only real educational opportunity offered to him was the use of his family’s private library, and we must assume by his later literary output that Elder was an astute learner in his private capacity. Prior to turning twenty, Elder would go on to study medicine at a medical practice located in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, but would later relocate to Philadelphia to attend formal medical training at Jefferson College. He would graduate in 1833. In 1834, he would return to Chambersburg, where he would establish a joint medical practice. He would remain there for two years, before moving to Pittsburgh, where he would establish an independent practice. It was around this time that Elder began to take more of an interest in politics. Among the issues which aroused Elder’s interest was the cause of abolition and the anti-masonic movement, and by 1839, Elder ran successfully on a Whig and Anti-Masonic ticket for the Recorder of Deeds for Allegheny County. Elder’s medical practice apparently suffered due to his involvement in politics, which led Elder to cease medicine and pursue a legal career instead. He would be admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in August of 1842. He would then establish a practice in Pittsburgh later that year. In 1845, Elder would then relocate to Philadelphia. In the period following, Elder would also commence his career in journalism, and in 1854, a series of essays on assorted political and social topics would be published under the title Periscopics.
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It would be in 1852, after Elder became personally acquainted with Henry Carey that he began to take more of an interest in political economy, a subject which would occupy the rest of his life. His first efforts in the cause of protection was actually assisting Carey in the preparation of his Principles of Social Science. In the period following, Elder began writing newspaper articles in defense of the ideas of Hamilton, List, and Carey. These would appear in the North American, the Philadelphia Press, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the New York Tribune. In 1860, these articles would be compiled and published as a pamphlet entitled The Doctrine and Policy of Protection. Having demonstrated a grasp of economics, a year later, Elder gained employment in the United States Treasury. It was in this capacity that Elder published his 1863 work entitled Debt and Resources of the United States, a topic which was followed up on in 1865 with the work How Our National Debt can be Paid.
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In 1866, Elder decided to resign from the Treasury Department, and return to Philadelphia to focus more on his career in journalism. During this time, Elder also lectured on economic matters and continued to produce pamphlets on protection. In 1877, Elder’s first major treatise, Questions of the Day: Economic and Social, appeared. As the title suggests, this work was a general treatment of the major economic and social questions of the time delivered from a distinctly American Protectionist perspective. In 1873, Elder decided to return to the Treasury Department, where he would remain for the rest of his life. While at the Treasury, Elder would continue to write on economic questions. In 1882, his Conversations on the Principal Subjects of Political Economy would appear. This publication would represent the culmination of his literary efforts and would mark his last major work on the subject. Elder passed away three years later on April 5, 1885.
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