Free silver

Free silver became increasingly associated with populism, unions, and the perceived struggle of ordinary Americans against the bankers, monopolists, and robber barons of the Gilded Age.

[2] The "free silver" debate pitted the pro-gold financial establishment of the Northeast, along with railroads, factories, and businessmen, who were creditors deriving benefit from deflation and repayment of loans with valuable gold dollars, against farmers who would benefit from higher prices for their crops and an easing of credit burdens.

Less a nominal seigniorage to cover processing costs, the coins would then be paid to the depositor; this was free coinage of gold by definition.

[3] Many populist organizations favored an inflationary monetary policy because it would enable debtors (often farmers who had mortgages on their land) to pay their debts off with cheaper, more readily available dollars.

[3] Outside the mining states of the West, the Republican Party steadfastly opposed free silver,[3] arguing that the best road to national prosperity was "sound money", or gold, which was central to international trade.

They argued that inflation meant guaranteed higher prices for everyone, and real gains chiefly for the silver interests.

Once he regained power, and after the Panic of 1893 had begun, Grover Cleveland engineered the repeal of the act, setting the stage for the key issue of the next presidential election.

[15]Free silver became increasingly associated with populism, unions, and the fight of ordinary Americans against the bankers, railroad monopolists, and the robber barons of the Gilded Age capitalism era and was referred to as the "People's Money" (as opposed to the gold-based currency, which was portrayed by the Populists as the money of "exploitation" and "oppression").

William H. Harvey's popular pamphlet Coin's Financial School, issued in the aftermath of the Panic of 1893, illustrated the "restorative" properties of silver; through the devaluation of the currency, closed factories would reopen, darkened furnaces would be relit, and the like.

But progressive activist Henry Demarest Lloyd held a harshly critical view, writing: "The free silver movement is a fake.

It waited until the nest had been built by the sacrifices and labor of others, and then it lay its own eggs in it, pushing out the others which lie smashed on the ground.