The key issue for “Free Silver” is not paper certificates, nor unlimited coinage, but the fixed exchange rate between silver and gold, in which the two metals were considered primarily as money, and not as commodities with separately varying supply and demand patterns.

Imagine briefly a market in which APPL and TSLA common stock were subject to a fixed price ratio. Crazy idea, yes? But a 16:1 ratio for silver:gold makes just as much sense from a market point of view.

For the consumer, investor, banker, a fixed ratio is a nice convenience, but if the supply or demand for either gold or silver were to change significantly, opportunities for arbitrage could become very profitable. Now think of the California gold rush, the Comstock silver lode, and the hundreds of other mining booms between 1850 and 1896.

Who benefited, and who paid? Were WJ Bryan and other orators and politicians champions of the masses or tools of the robber barons?