54 ChaPter^1
farm equipment. And Railroads, essential to the transport of crops, charged
higher rates to ship agricultural than industrial goods. But the farmers had a
solution. They wanted the government to inflate the currency with the free
coinage of silver. Since they were producing too many crops, causing prices to
drop [which is deflation], farmers believed that putting more money into cir-
culation [like running the printing presses at the mint] would cause prices to
go up and improve the farmer’s economic lives. They especially wanted the
government to start issuing silver coins, because there was not an abundant
supply of gold, and prices and inflation remained low. With a heavy infusion
of silver in the economy, farmers believed, inflation would go up, making their
debts cost less and improving their profits.
From these ideas sprung the Populist Party, which ran William Jennings
Bryan, a young congressman from Omaha, Nebraska, for president in 1896,
declaring the election a contest between “the masses and the classes.” Among
other things, the Populists advocated free silver. Bryan gained popularity after
delivering an unforgettable speech at the Democratic national convention that
encapsulated the farmers’ demands for free silver and he invoked the image
of Jesus Christ himself: “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, hav-
ing behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having
behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toil-
ing 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.”
The Populist Party also supported government ownership of the railroads,
and a government agency to offer cheap loans to farmers because the banks
would not—both of which were considered socialist ideas and at the least
were serious challenges to the very structure of capitalism. It was, in fact,
arguably, the most aggressive challenge to industrial capitalism in U.S. history.
The idea that the state would take over the railroads or create banks to com-
pete with Wall Street was unthinkable. On the other hand, Republicans
denounced free silver and argued that abandoning the gold standard would
destroy business and prevent economic recovery from the depression.
Accordingly, eastern industrialists and bankers gave millions of dollars to
Bryan’s Republican challenger William McKinley. In the most expensive elec-
tion to this day in U.S. history, McKinley’s campaign raised approximately