Willam+Jennings+Bryan

ARS: In the late eighteen hundreds there was much debate over whether the United States currency should be based on silver or gold. William Jennings Bryan, being “The Great Commoner”, was a free-silver man. Bryan said the controversy over coinage was a struggle between good and evil, not just a struggle between men of conflicting points of view. Farmers, such as Bryan, debtors, and silver mine owners urged the expansion of the amount of money in circulation in the United States. They argued that if there was more money in circulation then the economy would get better because the money supply would expand, instead of shrink as a result of using gold. Bryan agreed with the belief that the wealthy benefited at the expense of the poor when money was scarce. Supporters argued that the Federal Government should buy large quantities of silver, issue currency based on silver, and put more silver in a silver dollar than the amount of gold in a gold dollar. The exact amount free silver advocates wanted to be put into a silver dollar was sixteen to every one gold dollar. Bryan made this rally cry of “sixteen to one” his own. The agricultural depression of the 1880s and 1890s caused these farmers to be such advocates of the silver campaign. They truly believed in the Silver Campaign of 1896 because to them it looked as though it would revive the economy. Educated and substantiated men, economists in the universities, preachers, and writers of editorials were against the silver campaign. The logic of the silver inflations was seen by these educated men. The gold standard was a needed currency reform in 1896.

nicely done -- concise yet thorough