Talk:Cross of Gold speech

Note this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz#The_Gold_Standard_representation_of_the_story

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_interpretations_of_The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz DAB295 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.243.80.253 (talk) 15:15, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm familiar with those, and have read a couple of journal articles on it. Yes, I know Bryan was the Cowardly Lion, and the reason the Good Witch came from the South was that it was pro-silver and Hanna was Oz, but I still haven't found a good way of putting it in the '96 election articles.  Possibly I'll find a way.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:12, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Puzzling sentence
I'm no economist, but I must admit that I find this sentence baffling:

The deflation that would result from the gold standard backed by the Republicans would benefit banks by making it harder for their debtors to pay back their loans.

Under what circumstances would it benefit creditors to make it more difficult for debtors to pay off their loans? --Jfruh 18:31, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

The banks didn't benefit from it being harder for debtors to pay off loans, but it did benefit in that the same money would have a higher value. --Rmdsc 03:17, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

That should instead say that it would be a loss to the banks because loan interest rates would be below inflation, causing a negative return from the loan CompIsMyRx 23:25, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Here it is in simple terms: A farmer made a loan for $100,000. After (a huge) deflation that $100,000 would be worth $75,000. So now it would be harder for the farmer to make money and therefore pay off his debt, and the bank will profit because the $100,000 he will have to pay back is technically worth more than the $100,000 they originally lent. Hopefully that made it understandable. Also, farmers usually wanted the dollar to be backed by silver instead of gold because this would cause inflation and create the opposite affect. --Daniel 1/11/12 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.106.167.196 (talk) 03:45, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Also, I found this sentence puzzling: "is considered one of the great political addresses in American history." It seems like it should either be "is considered one of the greatest political addresses in American history." or "is considered one of the great political addresses of American history." Maybe I am wrong though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.106.167.196 (talk) 03:48, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Loan defaults result in foreclosure and the bank gets the property. They've exchanged their virtual money (at the time, unbacked IOU's on gold, see fractional reserve banking) for real assets. Money, even gold, is only a social convention and a catalyst for economic production. Bryan correctly saw that silver would reduce the money trust's monopoly on currency. The only qualities required of a currency is that it be divisible, non-counterfeitable and widely accepted as a token of value. This is why the continental was so spectacularly successful until the british started counterfeiting it. Speaking of which, the section on "monetary standards and the united states" completely ignores the colonies' experiments with paper money. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_American_currency#Continental_currency Rwinkel (talk) 15:44, 23 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't question it, it made sense to start with the first attempt by the post-Constitutional Convention federal government to issue money. Yes, Bryan saw that, but I want to keep this relatively short, although about thirty articles, some on the politics of that time, some on coins, link to it.  There was also the "greenbacks" of the Civil War, which the government intelligently (in my view) kept from specie redemption until 1879, allowing fiat currency to help fuel an economic boom.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:55, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

William Harpine (talk) 21:05, 7 November 2013 (UTC)I respond as follows: deflation makes loans harder to repay because the loan is repaid in money that has greater purchasing power, and which is harder to earn, than the money received from the original loan. Bankers sometimes favored deflation in that era because they didn't understand that the risk of default was greater than the benefit received. I'll restore a statement about this issue. I briefly discuss this in William Harpine (talk) 21:05, 7 November 2013 (UTC)William Harpine
 * Thanks for that. Enjoyed your excellent book.--Wehwalt (talk) 04:58, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Election of 1896
In my textbook (The American Pageant, 12th Edition), it says that the Cross of Gold Speech allowed Bryan to recieve the Democratic Nomination. Should I add it? Nonamer98 (talk) 23:16, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Article improvement
As part of my McKinley project, of which this is the third in possibly five or six, ending with himself, I'll be improving this article over the next few weeks, with an eye to FA one of these days. All help welcome.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:52, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * 5000+ hits (above my 3000 threshold). :) TCO (talk) 02:58, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

William D. Russell
There seems to be a bit of a problem in the 1896 convention "Silver advocates take control" section with the identity of the speaker proceding Bryan. The article calls him William D. Russell, notes his death in the following weeks and says he was governor of Mass. The link formerly pointed to a modern film director. In attempting to disambiguate the link I've pointed it at William E Russell. A former governor of Mass. (seemingly the only Russel to hold that post) and who died in 1896. I'm loath, however, to alter the article text as it's very far from my areas of expertise. Can someone more familiar with the topic please set this right.--IanOfNorwich (talk) 10:52, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually the picture of him clearly shows the same chap (at the right age) as the William E Russell article. That article is clearly right to have him as E eg . I'll change the Ds to Es.--IanOfNorwich (talk) 10:59, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, no doubt it should be E. Very sorry.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:54, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

missing context
I noticed that this article in its current form doesn't include the words "creditor" or "debtor" at all. It should probably be explained that over the course of the nineteenth century, economic activity was increasing faster than available gold, so that there was a long-term slight deflationary trend, periodically counteracted by discoveries of gold. This deflationary trend favored creditors, while the "bimetallism" movement was mainly motivated by those who preferred non-deflationary trends which would be more friendly to debtors (in a nineteenth century context where fiat paper money was not a serious option in peacetime, and the idea of Keynesian monetary policy was completely unknown). This explains why vested upper-class interests (other than silver-mine owners) were in favor of gold, while those from classes likely to be in debt tended to favor bimetallism... AnonMoos (talk) 12:22, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I will add something.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:37, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

High importance for Wikiproject Economics
Why is this entry considered of "high importance" to Wikiproject Economics? It seems to me that it deserves "Mid importance". If no one opposes, I can change it. --Forich (talk) 21:10, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
 * No opinion I just write them I don't concern myself with the importance ratings. By the way discussions should be added at the bottom of the page so you might want to move this down there.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:35, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I moved this section down as you suggested, Wehwalt. Thanks for your response on the rating, I'll change it.  --Forich (talk) 20:47, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrage
Imagine that this 15:1 ratio were the law of the land today. And suppose that silver is currently $100 an ounce (bear with me) and gold is $1500 an ounce, reflecting the prescribed ratio.

Now suppose the price of silver drops to $80 an ounce. I buy 15 ounces of silver for $1200 and demand an ounce of gold in exchange, making $300 on the deal.

Similarly if silver rises in relation to gold I buy gold and convert it to silver.

It seems like this type of arbitrage could easily be anticipated by anyone with a clue. Yet I see no mention in the article that this possibility was debated before or during the dual-standard era. There are a couple references to people selling coins overseas or such, but everyone seems to have been taken by surprise that this occurred.

If someone can find sources discussing contemporary warnings about the potential for arbitrage, I think it would make an informative addition to the article. Thanks. 129.219.155.89 (talk) 18:58, 31 August 2015 (UTC)


 * This is when the coins went out of the country, as in the 1840s, 1850s. I'll think about how to make it clearer.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)


 * It makes sense to me that the coins would be depleted. What surprises me is that nobody seemed to anticipate this? I would expect it to be part of the debate against bimetallism, and I think the arguments of bimetallism supporters, if any, on this subject would be interesting. Not asking you to answer the question yourself, but if someone knows references to contemporary discussions they would be a useful addition. 129.219.155.89 (talk) 19:45, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll look into it. Some of my books have some discussions that may go there. I take it you mean at the time?--Wehwalt (talk) 21:17, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes I was using definition 1 of https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/contemporary -- from the same time period. Didn't mean to be ambiguous! 129.219.155.89 (talk) 18:23, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Bibliography section
I changed the "Bibliography" section to a subsection. This is a relatively minor adjustment, but as a section this title is usually placed first in the appendixes related to biographies or named "Works or publications", "Discography", or "Filmography", per MOS:BIB. Using a separate source related "Bibliography" section is out of place, confusing, and not consistent with a majority of other articles. We commonly practice placing relate subjects in a subsection so it seems appropriate to follow this with source links (generally listed), and links providing inline text-source integrity, that combined form the citations. Otr500 (talk) 17:42, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I changed "Bibliography" to "References cited" per MOS:NOTES: "Bibliography" may be confused with the complete list of printed works by the subject of a biography ("Works" or "Publications"). As named the subsection would be about "Works" or "Publications" and not a list of referenced used. Otr500 (talk) 03:41, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Added audio excerpt of the speech
I added an audio excerpt reading of the speech recorded later on by Bryan himself! Tyrone Madera (talk) 02:12, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Anti-semitic *what* went up from a spectator?
If something "went up", it should be a placard, no? Or was it a chant? And why did it come from "a" spectator? And who cares if it was only one specator? I'm confused. Someone please look into this. There's also no link to the citation in question, albeit it does tell us the author. --Svennik (talk) 18:47, 10 September 2023 (UTC)


 * This was not in the version of the article that passed FAC, and I wonder about WP:UNDUE. Surely Bryan bears no responsibility for a placard, that if it was shown at the end of his speech, had to have been prepared in advance, and since no one knew what Bryan was going to say, not necessarily for him. If it indeed happened. Wehwalt (talk) 18:55, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I tracked down the source and the exact page on Internet Archive. It was some of the delegates chanting, apparently. --Svennik (talk) 19:00, 10 September 2023 (UTC)