Strictly speaking the currency of the United States has not been bimetallic since 1873, but a very close approach to bimetallism was made in 1878 and 1890. The chief source of the increased production of silver, which has been one of the causes of its declining value during the last thirty years, has been the rich mines of our western States, and on this account, since the early sixties, very important private interests in this country have been associated with the fortunes of silver. The principle of protection, which has so long and so persistently dominated the policy of our government in its relation to private interests, very naturally encouraged the owners and others interested in these mines to seek assistance from the State when the value of their product began to fall and the profitableness of their industry to decline. They were greatly aided in their efforts by the people who, still cherishing the monetary fallacies of the greenback period, believed that the quantity of money in circulation and prosperity were related to each other as cause to effect and that the country was suffering from a scarcity of currency. Most of our theorists also believed in the doctrine of bimetallism, and, hence, furnished plausible arguments for the more active partisans. After the passage of the resumption act in 1875, this combination of circumstances produced a strong party in Congress which favoured a return to the bimetallic system by restoring the silver dollar to its status previous to 1873.

It is not possible within the space which can be devoted to the subject here to describe even in outline the struggle which ensued. We can only state the results. In 1878 a compromise measure was enacted into law, known as the Bland Act, which ordered the director of the mint each month to coin into silver dollars of the same weight and fineness as formerly minted, not less than two nor more than four million dollars worth of silver bullion, and which restored to these coins their former legal-tender power. Being the result of a compromise, neither party was satisfied with this act, but under it we resumed specie payments January 1, 1879, and, owing to a fortunate combination of circumstances and devices, our commerce was able to make use of this constantly increasing mass of overvalued coins, and the gold standard was maintained intact. Lulled into a state of fancied security by our apparent ability to absorb enormous quantities of silver, and pressed by political exigencies, the party which had fought so strenuously against the rehabilitation of the silver dollar in 1878 consented to a still more liberal measure in 1890, known as the Sherman Act. This was passed as a substitute for the Bland law, and authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase each month four million five hundred thousand ounces of silver at its market price and to pay for it in treasury notes redeemable at his option in silver dollars or in gold. While this measure did not increase to any appreciable extent the amount of silver dollars in circulation, it greatly increased the strain upon our gold standard and piled up an enormous quantity of unused silver in the vaults of the treasury building.

The course of events which resulted in the exhaustion of the government's gold reserve and in the repeal of that portion of the act of 1890 which authorized the purchase of silver bullion has been described in a previous chapter and need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that since 1893 we have not added to our stock of silver, and that in 1900 Congress passed an act which in many particulars safeguards the gold standard against danger from this source.