158 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE 



demand, especially from the West, that in 1878 the 

 Bland-Allison Act, passed over the veto of Presi- 

 dent Hayes, provided for the restoration of the sil- 

 ver dollar to the list of coins, with full legal tender 

 quality, and required the Treasury to purchase in 

 the open market from two to four million dollars' 

 worth of bullion each month. This compromise, 

 however, was unsatisfactory to those who desired 

 the free coinage of silver, and it failed to please the 

 champions of the single standard. 



For ten years the question of a choice between a 

 single standard or bimetallism, between free coin- 

 age or limited coinage of silver, was one of the prin- 

 cipal economic problems of the world. Interna- 

 tional conferences, destined to have no positive re- 

 sults, met in 1878 and again in 1881 ; in the United 

 States Congress read reports and debated measures 

 on coinage in the intervals between tariff debates. 

 Political parties were split on sectional lines : West- 

 ern Republicans and Democrats alike were largely 

 in favor of free silver, but their Eastern associates 

 as generally took the other side. Party platforms 

 in the different States diverged widely on this is- 

 sue; and monetary planks in national platforms, if 

 included at all, were so framed as to commit 

 the party to neither side. Both parties, however. 



