Silver miner working inside the Comstock Lode , Virginia City , Nevada . Massive production of silver at the Comstock resulted in the price drop of silver beginning in 1873 . This was a contributing factor to the advent of the Free Silver movement .
and contractionists ; greenbackers and anti-greenbackers . Among them were numerous groups of farmers , businessmen and bankers , as well as politicians , publishers and publicists . This diverse mix of Americans shared a general hostility towards the new industrialized society , which modernized older economic activities . This included the demonetization of silver and the elimination of the silver dollar itself . Weinstein writes , “ The drive to restore silver as a monetary standard derived this broad appeal not from economics alone , but from its compelling moral symbolism .”
Slogans employed by the Free Silver movement referred to the restoration of the bimetallic double standard as “ an act of justice ”: restore legal bimetallism , remonetize the dollar of the daddies , redress the “ Crime of 1873 .” It became an ideology , at times resembling a religion . This affection for silver coinage served as a symbolic link for Americans from different classes , regions and political beliefs who marched together to support silver remonetization during the late 1870s . This movement had broad popular appeal in every region except New England .
The Opening Salvo of Free Silver
On March 2 , 1876 , the Boston Globe published a letter written by George M . Weston . His letter sparked the Free Silver movement . Irwin Unger , author of The Greenback Era : A Social and Political History of American Finance , writes ,
“ Weston ’ s most arresting — and ultimately most fertile — idea was the notion that the 1873 demonetization of silver was a plot to defraud the American people for the sake of the creditor interests .” Despite the fact that bimetallism had never worked in America , Weston asserted that the double standard had prevailed until the Coinage Act of 1873 .
Weston writes that the 1873 Coinage Act and the later 1874 law that formally demonetized silver , “ was as selfish in its origin as it was surreptitious in the manner of its introduction .” It was “ the most flagrant and audacious of the manifestations of the control exercised by foreign and domestic bankers over national legislation in the recent and evil days .”
His conspiracy theory was baseless . Nothing was conniving about the demonetization of silver . Weston was on the right track , however , when he pointed out that removing silver coin from the legal tender deprived Americans of an important means of relief from the difficult burden of public debt . “ The people who are to pay this debt , and who received nothing for it but depreciated paper , are entitled to the benefit resulting from the richness and abundance of newly discovered silver mines .”
Weston ’ s March 2 letter was the opening salvo in public debate on the silver issue . Within weeks after it had been published , his comments had been reprinted , praised and criticized in newspapers in Boston , New York , Chicago and San Francisco . Over a dozen articles by Weston were published during 1876 in prominent dailies and periodicals . Weinstein writes , “ Weston , more than any other single individual , helped stimulate public interest in the silver question through his writings .”
The “ Sole Western Apostle of Bimetallism ”
Senator John Percival Jones of Nevada was the lone mining state legislator in Congress who vigorously supported remonetization during the Free Silver drive of 1876 to 1878 . Weinstein writes , “ Jones served as the sole western apostle of bimetallism in the congressional struggle which opened in April 1876 , helping to propagate doctrines later identified with the entire mining West .” The silver question first emerged as a national issue and debate with Jones ’ s initial fiery speech on the issue in April 1876 .
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