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Under this, the Secretary of the Treasury was to buy not less than $2,000,000, nor more than $4,000,000, worth of silver bullion each month, and coin it into dollars. The House accepted the Senate amendment, and when Hayes vetoed the bill Congress passed it over his veto and the "Bland-Allison Bill" became a law in 1878.
Not only was the party divided, but McKinley's record on the subject was far from consistent. He had voted for the Bland free-silver bill in 1877, for the Bland-Allison act in 1878 and for the passage of that act over President Hayes's veto. In 1890 he had urged the passage of the Sherman silver purchase law, intimating that he would support a free coinage measure if it were possible to pass it.
When was the Resumption Act passed? Are the greenbacks in circulation to-day? What is free silver? What was the "Crime of '73"? What was the "Bland-Allison Act"? What was the Currency Act of 1900? What is Bimetallism? What is meant by "Mint Ratio"? What is meant by "Market Ratio"? What is meant by "Free Coinage"? What is meant by "Gratuitous Coinage"? What is meant by "Standard Money"?
In the first place, the United States sent delegates to an International Monetary Conference in Paris, in conformity with one of the provisions of the Bland-Allison act, to discuss a project for the utilization of silver through an agreement among the commercial nations of the world.
Richard P. Bland, of Missouri, had the disadvantage of having been one of the earliest of the silver supporters, since he had initiated the bill which resulted in the Bland-Allison act, and was looked upon in the East as a thorough-going, free-silver radical.
It will be remembered that in the former year the Bland-Allison act had provided for the purchase and coinage of two million to four million dollars' worth of silver bullion per month, and that the force behind the measure had been found chiefly among westerners who wished to see the volume of the currency increased and among mine owners who were producing silver.
The Sherman Act.% You remember that the attempt to enact a law for the free coinage of silver in 1878 led to the Bland-Allison Act, for the purchase of bullion and the coinage of at least $2,000,000 worth of silver each month. As this was not free coinage, the friends of silver made a second attempt, in 1886, to secure the desired legislation. This also failed.
President Arthur urged the repeal of the Bland-Allison act in his first annual message; President Cleveland again and again reiterated the same advice, warning Congress of the danger that silver would be substituted for gold. The argument of the opponents of silver could hardly be stated in more concise or complete terms.
This was a clever choice: McKinley was known to the public largely as the author of the McKinley tariff bill; his protectionism pleased the East; and what was known of his attitude on the currency question did not offend the West. In Congress he had voted for the Bland-Allison bill and had advocated the freer use of silver.
He had long urged the repeal of the Bland-Allison act; before the election of 1892 he had predicted disaster in case the nation entered upon "the dangerous and reckless experiment of free, unlimited, and independent silver coinage"; it was his belief that the distresses under which the country labored were due principally to the Sherman silver purchase law.
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