Prior to 1874 or 1875 the “silver question” did


156 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE


not exist. In 1873 Congress, moved by the report
of a commission it had authorized, had demone-
tized silver; that is, it had provided that the gold
dollar should be the standard of value, and omitted
the standard silver dollar from the list of silver
coins.* In this consisted the “Crime of 773.” At
the time when this law was enacted it had not for
many years been profitable to coin silver bullion
into dollars because silver was undervalued at the
established ratio of sixteen to one. In 1867 the
International Monetary Conference of Paris had
pronounced itself in favor of a single gold standard
of currency, and the principal countries of Europe
had preceded the United States in demonetizing
silver or in limiting its coinage. In 1874 as a re-
sult of a revision of the statutes of the United
States, the existing silver dollars were reduced to
the basis of subsidiary coins with only limited legal
tender value.
The Act of 1873 was before Congress for four
sessions; every section, including that which made
gold the sole standard of value, was discussed
even by those who later claimed that the Act had
been passed surreptitiously. Whatever opposition


t The only reference to the dollar was to “the trade dollar” of
heavier weight, for use in the Orient.
