Remarks Prepared for Delivery by
Chairman James A. Leach
Committee on Banking and Financial Services
On the Introduction of the
Leif Ericson Millennium Commemorative Coin
Of Which He Was the Sponsor
The program we are introducing here is a significant numismatic event: a 1000-year anniversary, two countries jointly issuing coins commemorating the same event, a limited boxed edition of both coins being issued by the Mint, and the surcharge proceeds going to promote scholarship and student exchange between the two countries. The unique aspect of this program cannot be understated: It is my understanding that this is the first such simultaneous dual-country issuance of commemorative coins. If it is as successful as I anticipate it will be, Congress may want to consider whether similar programs with other countries might be developed.
As a model, this coin has many attributes, not the least of which is the first class artistry and craftsmanship of the design. Commemorative coins imply value and are in part judged by their historical and artistic merit. This one meets well the test of history and asceticism.
In a sense, issuing this commemorative U.S. silver dollar and a silver 1000-Kronor Icelandic coin, both produced by the U.S. Mint and both celebrating the voyage of Leif Ericson is also a voyage of discovery.
Interestingly, the Icelandic coin depicts Leif Ericson as he appears on a statue that stands today in Reykjavik. This statue of the great explorer was created by the sculptor Stirling Calder -- father of Alexander Calder -- and was presented by the United States Congress to the Althing, the parliament of Iceland, on its 1000th anniversary in 1930. It is appropriate that our relatively young society take this opportunity to commemorate a one-thousand-year link to Europe and implicitly honor, as well, later Scandinavian immigrants to our shores.
This year marks the 1000th anniversary of the voyage of discovery by Leif Ericson, son of Eric the Red, who in approximately 1000 A.D., left to explore lands to the West, beyond Greenland.
Recent archeological research has confirmed evidence of contemporaneous European settlement on Newfoundland as a result of this voyage and its successors, and there are strong hints that eleventh-century Viking explorers visited coastal and interior areas considerably to the south of the Newfoundland site.
In any regard, the exhibit here at the Smithsonian traces how the Nordic sagas recording Ericson’s and later voyages, describing a fertile land far to the west, entered European consciousness.
We began the last decade celebrating the 500th anniversary of Columbus coming to the New World. We begin this one celebrating the 1000th anniversary of Leif Ericson’s voyage to the Americas. We know a little about Columbus; less about Ericson.
Columbus had come to believe the world was round and that by voyaging west spices from India could be brought back to Spain cheaper than by sailing to the Eastern Mediterranean and dealing with Muslim traders in Istanbul. Columbus was an entrepreneur. He wanted to eliminate the middleman. He also may have been America’s first liberal. After all, when he took off, he didn’t know where he was going; when he got there he didn’t know where he was; when he returned, he didn’t know where he’d been; and he did it all on someone else’s money.
Ericson, on the other hand, appears to have been an adventurer, a conservative more intent on settling than trading with a New World. He may have been the first American with a salesmanship mentality. He called a rather frigid Arctic island "Greenland" and a coast of North America with anything but a Mediterranean climate "Vin- or Vine-land," perhaps hoping to lure followers with the imagery that wine could be produced in abundance in the area we now call Nova Scotia and New England.
Anyway, research and scholarship funded by this coin program may well add to our slender knowledge of Leif Ericson and contribute to a better understanding of Icelanders, their Scandinavian brethren, and our mutual Northern Hemisphere heritage.
Finally, on a personal level, let me add that Olafur Grimsson, the President of Iceland, who was once co-president with me of Parliamentarians for Global Action, an international legislators’ association, is one of the most decent and thoughtful leaders in the Western world. It is a privilege as an American Congressman to be able to respond to an inspirational request from such a fine friend, the head of state of such a loyal ally.
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