WELLS, DAVID AMES (1828-1898), American econo mist, was born in Springfield, Mass., on June 17, 1828. He gradu ated at Williams college in 1847 and at the Lawrence Scientific school, becoming assistant professor, in 1851. In 1850-65 he published with George Bliss an Annual of Scientific Discovery. His essay on the national debt, Our Burden and Our Strength (1864), secured him the appointment in 1865 as chairman of the national revenue commission, which laid the basis of scientific taxation in the United States. In 1866-7o he was special commis sioner of revenue and published important annual reports; during these years he became an advocate of free trade. The creation of a Federal bureau of statistics in the department of the Treasury was largely due to his influence. In 1871 he was chairman of the
New York State Commission on local taxation. He did good work in the reorganization of the Erie and the Alabama and Chattanooga railroads and on the board of arbitration for railroads. In 1877 he was president of the American Social Science Association. He died in Norwich, Conn., on Nov. 5, 1898. He edited many scien tific text-books, and wrote Robinson Crusoe's Money (1876), Our Merchant Marine (1882), A Primer of Tariff Reform (1884), Practical Economics (1885), Recent Economic Changes (1889), The Relation of the Tariff to Wages (1888) and The Theory and Practice of Taxation (I 000), edited by W. C. Ford.