Ivory marked by the Royal African Company. International Slavery Museum, Liverpool. Wikimedia Commons.
In 1900 Congress put the gold standard into statute and named the Treasury’s duty to keep paper redeemable in gold.
A poor household still used silver coins for small change, and the statute was about the dollar of large payments, not the dime in a pocket.
A saver or a small creditor gained a legal promise that paper money matched a set weight of gold.
Bankers and foreign lenders who held American bonds received the assurance they had wanted through the silver fights.
The Gold Standard Act of 1900 defined the dollar as 25.8 grains of gold, nine-tenths fine, and committed the Treasury to redeem notes in gold.
It passed under McKinley after new gold from South Africa, Australia, and the Klondike had eased the money supply.
Silver coins stayed in pockets, and free silver was finished as policy.
Gold Standard Act, 31 Stat. 45 (1900); Friedman and Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States