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NARRATOR: The free silver movement was not only an attempt to change American monetary policy. It was also a political effort to improve the lives of working Americans. Its supporters wanted the government to mint an unlimited quantity of silver coins. They believed, with an almost religious fervor, that making silver a part of the national currency would end the economic hardship suffered by farmers, miners, and the working class.

- One issue that is important all over the 19th century is the issue of money. What is it, and who controls it? And that might seem like kind of a funny thing, because we live in a world in which there is a Federal Reserve, and we understand that currency is issued by the federal government, and it behaves itself in certain kind of ways.

NARRATOR: But that was not always the case. For most of the 19th century, Americans relied on coins or paper notes guaranteed by private or state banks. After the Civil War, Americans turned to greenbacks issued by the federal government and backed by gold.

JOHN STEELE GORDON: We were on the gold standard after 1879. In other words, the government guaranteed to buy or sell unlimited quantities of dollars for gold at a certain price.

NARRATOR: But after the discovery of major silver reserves in the West, miners began to push the government to buy their silver, and farmers began to demand the unlimited coinage of silver as well as gold. They believed increasing the supply of money in circulation would increase economic activity and create inflation. Inflation was good, they argued, because it would increase prices for their goods and reduce their debt burden.

JOHN STEELE GORDON: Most farmers are in debt-- just the nature of the farming business. They owe money to the banks. Debtors like inflation, because it means they can pay back their loan with cheaper dollars. Bankers hate inflation, because it means they're getting paid back their loans with cheaper dollars. So you have this conflict between the haves, the bankers, and the have nots, the farmers.

- There's growing demands on the part of urban workers, small manufacturers, and small farmers to try to orient the economy more to them, rather than to the needs of big industrialists and bankers, and to make more money available so that they could become economically independent, rather than end up working for somebody else.

NARRATOR: In 1896, in the midst of a severe recession, Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan delivered an impassioned speech convincing his party to side with the have nots, and to adopt free silver as part of its Populist platform. It became known as the cross of gold speech. But Republican candidate and gold bug William McKinley easily won the election, appealing to business interests and city-dwellers by painting the gold standard as the path to progress and prosperity.

JOHN STEELE GORDON: And that basically was the end of free silver, and was the end of the Democratic Party for until Roosevelt came along.