Coinage Act of 1873 - Political Results

Political Results

As countries abandoned silver and bimetallic standards in favor of gold, the supply of silver not being used for coinage increased. Coupled with the fact that more silver was being discovered, this caused the world's gold-to-silver price ratio to rise. By 1908, the ratio had reached 40:1.

The U.S. government finally capitulated to the pressure from the western mining states and agreed to the Bland-Allison Act of 1878, which directed the Treasury to purchase silver at a high price. It was replaced in 1890 by the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. The Bland-Allison Act (named for Richard P. Bland, D–Mo., and William Allison, R–Iowa) required the U.S. Treasury to buy between $2 million to $4 million of silver per month at about double the market value, with a ratio of silver to gold at 16:1. President Grover Cleveland forced the repeal of these laws in 1893, which ruined his popularity among many Democrats. After 1893 Western miners and wheat and cotton farmers rallied to the silver cause with the slogan the "Crime of '73", and the movement became known as Free Silver. The silverite movement took control of the Democratic party in 1896 under William Jennings Bryan. The 1896 and 1900 presidential elections focused on silver and gold, but both times, William McKinley, advocate of gold, won the election. This period is best remembered by the cross of gold speech that was made by William Jennings Bryan at the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 6, 1896, in which he expressed his hope that mankind would not be crucified upon a cross of gold.