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| | This became the Panic of 1893, and the Silver Purchase Act was repealed in order to stop the run on gold. An immensely wealth Wall Street banker, J.P. Morgan, arranged for more gold to be imported from Europe to protect the government reserves. The "run" on the government's gold reserves then stopped. | | This became the Panic of 1893, and the Silver Purchase Act was repealed in order to stop the run on gold. An immensely wealth Wall Street banker, J.P. Morgan, arranged for more gold to be imported from Europe to protect the government reserves. The "run" on the government's gold reserves then stopped. |
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| − | There was a bestselling and influential pamphlet called "Coin's Financial School" which was published just after the panic and economic depression of 1893. In this fictional work, professor Coin lectures gold-standard advocates on the benefits of monetizing silver at a 16:1 ratio. The pamphlet swept the country, much as Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" had been so influential over a century earlier. Coin's pamphlet laid the foundation for William Jennings Bryan's "Free Silver" presidential campaign in 1896 against pro-gold Republican William McKinley. Bryan, one of the greatest orators in history, delivered his famous "Cross of Gold" speech to the Democratic nominating convention in 1896: | + | There was a bestselling and influential pamphlet called "Coin's Financial School" which was published just after the panic and economic depression of 1893. In this fictional work, professor Coin lectures gold-standard advocates on the benefits of monetizing silver at a 16:1 ratio. The pamphlet swept the country, much as Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" had been so influential over a century earlier. Coin's pamphlet laid the foundation for William Jennings Bryan's "Free Silver" presidential campaign in 1896 against pro-gold Republican William McKinley. Bryan, one of the greatest orators in history, delivered his famous "Cross of Gold" speech to the Democratic National Convention in 1896:<ref name="Cross of Gold">http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354/</ref> |
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| | :There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it. ... | | :There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it. ... |
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| − | :If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." | + | :If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. |
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| | + | One reporter wrote that Bryan's remarkable speaking style for this speech "came like one great burst of artillery" and that "some, like demented things, divested themselves of their coats and flung them high in the air." Bryan was then selected by the delegates who heard this speech as the Democratic nominee for president on the next day.<ref name="Cross of Gold/> |
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| | == Unions and Immigrant Workers == | | == Unions and Immigrant Workers == |