David Ames Wells

David Ames Wells (June 17, 1828 – November 5, 1898) was an American engineer, textbook author, economist and advocate of low tariffs.

Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, he graduated from Williams College in 1847. In 1848 he joined the staff of the Springfield Republican newspaper, where he invented a device to fold papers. He graduated from the Lawrence Scientific School at Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1851, where he worked with Louis Agassiz. Also in 1851, he was appointed assistant professor at the Lawrence Scientific School, and was lecturer on chemistry and physics at Groton Academy. He edited ''The Annual of Scientific Discovery'' from 1850 to 1866. He invented devices for textile mills, and wrote ''The Science of Common Things'' (1857) and ''Wells's Principles and Applications of Chemistry'' (1858); ''Wells's First Principles of Geology'' (1861) and ''Wells's Natural Philosophy'' (1863), which went through fifteen editions as a college textbook.

He was a strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War, writing pamphlets that reassured investors of the soundness of Lincoln's financial policies. He first attained reputation as a political economist by an address on “Our Burden and Our Strength,” read before a literary society of Troy in 1864. It discussed the resources of the United States in regard to the nation's debt-paying ability, and attracted the attention of President Lincoln, who appointed him in 1865 chairman of a three-member National Revenue Commission. In this capacity Wells was the first to collect economic and financial statistics for government use. The Commission's recommendations became law in 1866.

President Andrew Johnson made him a special commissioner of the revenue. The ''Reports of the Special Commissioner of the Revenue, 1866-69'' recommended the use of stamps in the collection of revenue on liquor and tobacco. Wells was instrumental in abolishing the many petty taxes which had been imposed during the Civil War, and originated most of the important forms and methods of internal revenue taxation adopted from 1866 to 1870.

In 1867, Wells studies the costs of production in Europe. He started as a high-tariff supporter, but finding that high wages in America made for efficiency as compared with the backward methods of competing countries, he was converted to free trade, and became a leading advocate of abolition of the tariff. He was an advisor to his close friend, Congressman James Garfield, on tariff matters, and later to Grover Cleveland. As chairman of the New York state tax commission, his ''Local Taxation'' (1871) was a highly influential analysis. The problem was New York was losing business to neighboring states with lower taxes. He was an active consultant to the railroad industry.

He served as delegate to the Democratic National Conventions, and ran unsuccessfully for Congress from Connecticut in 1876 and 1890, and he made many speeches in each of Cleveland's campaigns.

Wells died at Norwich, Connecticut, which had been his residence since 1870. He was married, May 9, 1860, to Mary Sanford Dwight, by whom he had one son; a second wife and a son survived him. Provided by Wikipedia