Part 2 of our series on William Jennings Bryan’s famous 1896 Cross of Gold Speech provides background on the issue at the heart of that momentous address to the Democratic National Convention.
When gold was discovered in California in 1848, there was a Gold Rush that opened the west and changed the nation. When silver was discovered in the west in the 1860s, however, there was no Silver Rush. For decades the federal government had valued silver at 16:1 against gold—that is, it took 16 ounces of silver to equal 1 ounce of gold in value. It was much more lucrative to find gold than silver.
But the U.S. was not on the gold standard. Anyone could turn in gold or silver in any form—jewelry, bars, coins, etc.—to a U.S. Mint and receive dollars for their metal. Gold and silver could both be turned in for dollars, and this is called bi-metallism. Our currency was backed by silver and gold.
This system was threatened, however, by the Gold Rush. Gold flooded the market, making silver relatively scarce. While the Mint still offered the 16:1 ratio, silver could be sold privately for more—12:1, 10:1, etc. People stopped taking their silver to the Mint and began hoarding it or selling to it private or foreign buyers.
Such was the situation when silver was discovered in Nevada in the 1860s. While there was no Silver Rush, silver did begin to flood the market, and those private buyers and great 12:1 deals for silver dried up. Now you had to take 20:1 or 25:1 deals. But the U.S. Mint was still offering 16:1, and people who found themselves with too much silver on their hands flocked back to the Mint to turn it in for dollars. As a result, more silver dollars were minted.
All of this silver being turned in for dollars was good news for westerners, rural farmers, and the poor because it put more dollars into circulation. You can’t spend your silver jewelry, but you’ll spend the dollars you get for it. More money in circulation means there’s less of a need for people to borrow money, and that drives down interest rates. Farmers who needed to buy the new farm equipment that the Industrial Revolution was making necessary could buy it without going into debt with a loan. Poor people could buy more goods. These were the Silverites, who welcomed the liquidity of bi-metallism during a silver boom.
But not everyone was happy. The heart of business in the U.S. was in the east, on Wall Street and in the big industrial cities, and eastern banks had made fortunes loaning money to westerners, especially farmers, and charging high interest rates. With the boom in silver, that was diminished, and big business cried foul to the government through its lobbyists. These were the Goldbugs, who wanted to make dollars scarce by stopping the conversion of silver to dollars.
The situation came to a head in 1873. All that basically worthless silver pouring into the federal government for a decade had caused an economic crisis. The dollar was being backed more and more by silver, and less and less by gold. And since silver had lost so much value, the dollar might lose its value abroad. If a European won’t buy your silver, they’re not going to accept your silver-backed dollars. So Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1873, which stated that the dollar would no longer be backed by silver, eliminated the silver dollar, and severely limited how much silver Mints were allowed to accept from the public. Bi-metallism was over.
Silverites called it the “Crime of ’73,” and claimed that justice was thwarted by rich businessmen. Goldbugs celebrated this embrace of the gold standard and claimed it was “sound money” policy.
Now you see what Bryan is driving at. He was from Nebraska, a western farming state whose people were hurting from the clampdown on silver. In his speech he is saying that he will not let the U.S. crucify the common man on a cross of gold—he will not let the government stay on the gold standard at the expense of the poor, the farmer, the western rancher or small businessman. If elected president, he will bring back bi-metallism, the dollar will be backed by gold and silver, and there will be more dollars in circulation, reducing debt.