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Free Silver
Free silver was a major economic policy issue in the United States in the late 19th-century. Its advocates were in favor of an expansionary monetary policy featuring the unlimited coinage of silver into money on-demand, as opposed to strict adherence to the more carefully fixed money supply implicit in the gold standard. Free silver became increasingly associated with populism, unions, and the fight of ordinary Americans against the bankers and monopolists, and the robber baron (industrialist), robber barons of the Gilded Age capitalism era and was referred to as the "People's Money". Supporters of an important place for silver in a bimetallism, bimetallic money system making use of both silver and gold, called "Silverites", sought coinage of silver dollars at a fixed weight ratio of 16-to-1 against dollar coins made of gold. Because the actual price ratio of the two metals was substantially higher in favor of gold at the time, most economists warned that the less valuable silver ...
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1896 United States Presidential Election
The 1896 United States presidential election was the 28th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1896. Former Governor William McKinley, the Republican candidate, defeated former Representative William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic candidate. The 1896 campaign, which took place during an economic depression known as the Panic of 1893, was a political realignment that ended the old Third Party System and began the Fourth Party System. Incumbent Democratic President Grover Cleveland did not seek election to a second consecutive term (which would have been his third overall), leaving the Democratic nomination open. Bryan, an attorney and former Congressman, galvanized support with his Cross of Gold speech, which called for a reform of the monetary system and attacked business leaders as the cause of ongoing economic depression. The 1896 Democratic National Convention repudiated the Cleveland administration and nominated Bryan on the fifth presidential ball ...
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Western United States
The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the West'' changed. Before about 1800, the crest of the Appalachian Mountains was seen as the western frontier. The frontier moved westward and eventually the lands west of the Mississippi River were considered the West. The U.S. Census Bureau's definition of the 13 westernmost states includes the Rocky Mountains and the Great Basin to the Pacific Coast, and the mid-Pacific islands state, Hawaii. To the east of the Western United States is the Midwestern United States and the Southern United States, with Canada to the north, and Mexico to the south. The West contains several major biomes, including arid and semi-arid plateaus and plains, particularly in the American Southwest; forested mountains, including three major ranges, the Sierra Neva ...
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William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 with Mitchell Trubitt after being given control of ''The San Francisco Examiner'' by his wealthy father, Senator George Hearst. After moving to New York City, Hearst acquired the '' New York Journal'' and fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's '' New York World''. Hearst sold papers by printing giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, sex, and innuendos. Hearst acquired more newspapers and created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest ne ...
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Fiat Currency
Fiat money (from la, fiat, "let it be done") is a type of currency that is not backed by any commodity such as gold or silver. It is typically designated by the issuing government to be legal tender. Throughout history, fiat money was sometimes issued by local banks and other institutions. In modern times, fiat money is generally authorized by government regulation. Fiat money generally does not have intrinsic value and does not have use value. It has value only because the individuals who use it as a unit of account or, in the case of currency, a medium of exchange agree on its value. They trust that it will be accepted by merchants and other people. Fiat money is an alternative to commodity money, which is a currency that has intrinsic value because it contains, for example, a precious metal such as gold or silver which is embedded in the coin. Fiat also differs from representative money, which is money that has intrinsic value because it is backed by and can be converted in ...
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Seigniorage
Seigniorage , also spelled seignorage or seigneurage (from the Old French ''seigneuriage'', "right of the lord (''seigneur'') to mint money"), is the difference between the value of money and the cost to produce and distribute it. The term can be applied in two ways: * Seigniorage derived from specie (metal coins) is a tax added to the total cost of a coin (metal content and production costs) that a customer of the mint had to pay, and which was sent to the sovereign of the political region. * Seigniorage derived from notes is more indirect; it is the difference between interest earned on securities acquired in exchange for banknotes and the cost of printing and distributing the notes. "Monetary seigniorage" is where sovereign-issued securities are exchanged for newly printed banknotes by a central bank, allowing the sovereign to "borrow" without needing to repay. Monetary seigniorage is sovereign revenue obtained through routine debt monetization, including expansion of the money ...
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The Free Silver Highwayman At It Again - Keppler
''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the Most common words in English, most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant s ...
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Executive Order 11110
Executive Order 11110 was issued by U.S. President John F. Kennedy on June 4, 1963. This executive order amended Executive Order 10289 (dated September 17, 1951) by delegating to the Secretary of the Treasury the president's authority to issue silver certificates under the Thomas Amendment of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, as amended by the Gold Reserve Act. The order allowed the Secretary to issue silver certificates, if any were needed, during the transition period under President Kennedy's plan to eliminate Silver Certificates and use Federal Reserve Notes. Background On November 28, 1961, President Kennedy halted sales of silver by the Treasury Department. Increasing demand for silver as an industrial metal had led to an increase in the market price of silver above the United States government's fixed price. This led to a decline in the government's excess silver reserves by over 80% during 1961. Kennedy also called upon Congress to phase out silver certificates in favor of F ...
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Silver Purchase Act Of 1934
Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. The metal is found in the Earth's crust in the pure, free elemental form ("native silver"), as an alloy with gold and other metals, and in minerals such as argentite and chlorargyrite. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, and zinc refining. Silver has long been valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many bullion coins, sometimes alongside gold: while it is more abundant than gold, it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is typically measured on a per-mille basis; a 94%-pure alloy is described as "0.940 fine". As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had an enduring role in most human cultures. Other than in curre ...
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Coinage Act Of 1873
The Coinage Act of 1873 or Mint Act of 1873, was a general revision of laws relating to the Mint of the United States. By ending the right of holders of silver bullion to have it coined into standard silver dollars, while allowing holders of gold to continue to have their bullion made into money, the act created a gold standard by default. It also authorized a Trade dollar, with limited legal tender, intended for export, mainly to Asia, and abolished three small-denomination coins. The act led to controversial results and was denounced by critics as the "Crime of '73". By 1869, the Mint Act of 1837, enacted before the California gold rush or the American Civil War affected the monetary system of the United States, was deemed outdated. Treasury Secretary George Boutwell had Deputy Comptroller of the Currency John Jay Knox draft a revised law, introduced into Congress by Ohio Senator John Sherman. Silver's market price then exceeded the value at which the Mint would purchase the ...
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People's Party (United States)
The People's Party, also known as the Populist Party or simply the Populists, was a left-wing Agrarianism, agrarian populist political party in the United States in the late 19th century. The Populist Party emerged in the early 1890s as an important force in the Southern and Western United States, but collapsed after it nominated Democratic Party (United States), Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 United States presidential election. A Rump party, rump faction of the party continued to operate into the first decade of the 20th century, but never matched the popularity of the party in the early 1890s. The Populist Party's roots lay in the Farmers' Alliance, an agrarian movement that promoted economic action during the Gilded Age, as well as the Greenback Party, an earlier third party that had advocated fiat money. The success of Farmers' Alliance candidates in the 1890 United States elections, 1890 elections, along with the conservatism of both major parties, encouraged Fa ...
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