The New International Encyclopædia/Walker, Francis Amasa

WALKER, Francis Amasa (1840-97). A distinguished American economist, born in Boston. He was the son of Amasa Walker (q.v.). He graduated at Amherst in 1860 and entered upon the study of law. Soon after the outbreak of the Civil War he enlisted, and he served until near the close of the war. During the greater part of the war he held the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and at the end of the war was brevetted a brigadier-general. From 1865 to 1868 he taught Latin and Greek at Williston Seminary; in 1868 he was on the staff of the Springfield Republican. In 1869 he was placed in charge of the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department; in 1870 he became superintendent of the Ninth Census, and in 1872 Commissioner of Indian Affairs. In 1873-81 he occupied the chair of political economy and history at the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale, and in 1877-79 he was lecturer at Johns Hopkins University. In 1878 he represented the United States at the Monetary Conference in Paris. He was appointed superintendent of the Tenth United States Census in 1880, and in 1881 became president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1882 to 1897 he was president of the American Statistical Association, and in 1885-92 was president of the American Economic Association. He was a member of many other learned societies, both of America and Europe. He was a prolific writer, especially on economic topics, and was one of the foremost advocates of international bimetallism. In economic theory he is regarded as an original and powerful thinker, and his treatment of wages and profits has had a profound influence upon economic theory. The development of interest in economics in America is in a large measure the result of Walker's work. His principal writings are The Indian Question (1874); The Wages Question (1876); Money (1878); Money in Its Relation to Trade and Industry (1879); Political Economy (1883); Land and Its Rent (1883); History of the Second Army Corps (1886); Life of General Hancock (1894); The Making of the Nation (1895); and International Bimetallism (1896). For biographical notices and an extended bibliography of Walker's works, consult Publications of the American Statistical Association, vol. v. (Boston, 1896-97).