<P> In the United States, bimetallism became a center of political conflict toward the end of the 19th century . During the Civil War, to finance the war the U.S. switched from bimetallism to a fiat money currency . After the war, in 1873, the government passed the Fourth Coinage Act and soon resumption of specie payments began (without the free and unlimited coinage of silver, thus putting the U.S. on a mono - metallic gold standard .) Farmers, debtors, Westerners and others who felt they had benefited from wartime paper money formed the short - lived Greenback Party to press for cheap paper money backed by silver . The latter element--"free silver"--came increasingly to the fore as the answer to the same interest groups' concerns, and was taken up as a central plank by the Populist movement . Proponents of monetary silver, known as the silverites, referred back to the Fourth Coinage Act as "The Crime of' 73," as it was judged to have inhibited inflation, and favoured creditors over debtors . Some reformers, however, like Henry Demarest Lloyd, saw bimetallism as a red herring and feared that free silver was "the cowbird of the reform movement, likely to push the other eggs out of the nest . Nevertheless the Panic of 1893, a severe nationwide depression, brought the money issue strongly to the fore again . The "silverites" argued that using silver would inflate the money supply and mean more cash for everyone, which they equated with prosperity . The gold advocates said silver would permanently depress the economy, but that sound money produced by a gold standard would restore prosperity . </P> <P> Bimetallism and "Free Silver" were demanded by William Jennings Bryan who took over leadership of the Democratic Party in 1896, as well as by the Populists, and a faction of Republicans from silver mining regions in the West known as the Silver Republicans who also endorsed Bryan . The Republican Party itself nominated William McKinley on a platform supporting the gold standard which was favored by financial interests on the East Coast . </P> <P> Bryan, the eloquent champion of the cause, gave the famous "Cross of Gold" speech at the National Democratic Convention on July 9, 1896 asserting that "The gold standard has slain tens of thousands ." He referred to "a struggle between' the idle holders of idle capital' and' the struggling masses, who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country;' and, my friends, the question we are to decide is: Upon which side will the Democratic party fight?" At the peroration, he said "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold ." However, his presidential campaign was ultimately unsuccessful; this can be partially attributed to the discovery of the cyanide process by which gold could be extracted from low grade ore . This process and the discoveries of large gold deposits in South Africa (Witwatersrand Gold Rush of 1887 - with large - scale production starting in 1898) and the Klondike Gold Rush (1896) increased the world gold supply and the subsequent increase in money supply that free coinage of silver was supposed to bring . The McKinley campaign was effective at persuading voters in the business East that poor economic progress and unemployment would be exacerbated by adoption of the Bryan platform . 1896 saw the election of McKinley . The direct link to gold was abandoned in 1934 in FDR's New Deal program and later the link was broken by Nixon when he closed the gold window . </P> <P> In 1992, economist Milton Friedman concluded that abandonment of the bimetallic standard in 1873 led to greater price instability than would have occurred otherwise, and thus resulted in long - term harm to the US economy . His retrospective analysis led him to write that the act of 1873 "...was a mistake that had highly adverse consequences ." </P>

Which backing for the united states currency was favored by the presidents