The Populist platform for the 1892 election called for unlimited coinage of silver and an increase in the money supply "to no less than $50 per capita.". Here again, the farmers are wrong in the assessment of their problems. It is true that the country's money supply was not adequate. United States government data from 1961 shows that though the country's population between 1865 and 1875 increased by nearly four million, the country's money supply actually decreased. However, many farmers …
showed first 75 words of 301 total

showed last 75 words of 301 total
…not make the farming less laborious or more profitable...". Many farmers saw silver as a cure-all for their problems, failing to see that changes in the world were to blame. Finally, the discovery of gold in Alaska and improved methods of extracting gold from low-grade ore did much to increase the nation's money supply. These facts prove that the farmers' view of silver was not sound, thus invalidating their complaints about the nation's financial system.