The gold standard is a monetary system where a country's currency or paper money has a value directly linked to gold.The
farmers opposed the gold standard because in order to live on their
farms, they needed to take out a mortgage on them because they couldn't
pay the entire fee by themselves. Thus, farmers were in debt, and a gold
AND silver standard would help them by increasing the amount of
currency in circulation. Inflation would help debtors because more
currency would be produced, therefore the value of each currency would
decrease and the value of their debts would similarly decrease, making
it easier to pay off. The amount of debt would stay the same, but they
would be getting higher wages because of inflation. The wealthy and
eastern industrial workers supported a gold standard because inflation
would not help them. The wealthy had savings accounts and such, and
inflation would lessen the value of their savings. Similarly, the
industrial workers might also have a small savings account, but would
not have a mortgage on a farm like the westerners (they would live in
tenement buildings), so inflation would not have a positive effect on
them either.
