WELLS, DAVID AMES

born June 17, 1828, Springfield, Mass., U.S. died Nov. 5, 1898, Norwich, Conn. popular American writer on science and economics who as chairman of the National Revenue Commission was largely responsible for the creation of the U.S. Bureau of Statistics and for laying a basis for scientific taxation in the United States. A graduate of Williams College (1847), Wells later studied under Louis Agassiz at the Lawrence Scientific School, Cambridge, Mass. From 1850 through 1866 he published with George Bliss The Annual of Scientific Discovery. Wells's essay on the national debt, Our Burden and Our Strength (1864), did much to restore confidence in the ability of the United States to pay off the large debt incurred during the Civil War. This work, his first on economics, prompted his appointment in 1865 as chairman of the National Revenue Commission. In opposition to the Populists in the post-Civil War period, Wells was a strong advocate of conservative monetary policies. Throughout his career he defended the doctrines of free trade and laissez-faire. His emphasis on the high rate of contemporary technological development led him to the position that economic crises were usually caused by an excessive capacity to produce. Wells's most important economic works included Reports of the Special Commissioner of the Revenue (1866-69), which contained an analysis of indirect taxation, and Recent Economic Changes (1889) and the posthumous Theory and Practice of Taxation (1900), both of which demonstrated Wells's ability as an empirical investigator.