Q. David Bowers
Dissatisfaction With the Dollar Design
The subject of dissatisfaction with the silver dollar design was treated in the Annual Report of the Director of the Mint, 1890:
"At the request of the Director of the Mint Edward O. Leech a coinage bill was introduced into Congress and became a law on September 26, 1890, which provided as follows:
"SEC. 3510. The engraver shall prepare from the original dies already authorized all the working-dies required for use in the coinage of the several mints, and, when new coins, emblems, devices, legends, or designs are authorized, shall, if required by the director of the Mint, prepare the devices, models, hubs, or original dies for the same. The director of the Mint shall have power, with the approval of the secretary of the Treasury, to cause new designs or models of authorized emblems or devices to be prepared and adopted in the same manner as when new coins or devices are authorized. But no change in the design or die of any coin shall be made oftener than once in twenty-five years from and including the year of the first adoption of the design, model, die, or hub for the same coin:
"Provided, That no change be made in the diameter of any coin:
"And provided further, That nothing in this section shall prevent the adoption of new designs or models for devices or emblems already authorized for the standard silver dollar and the five-cent nickel piece as soon as practicable after the pas-sage of this act. But the director of the Mint shall nevertheless have power, with the approval of the secretary of the Treasury, to engage temporarily for this purpose the services of one or more artists, distinguished in their respective departments of art, who shall be paid for such services from the contingent appropriation for the mint at Philadelphia.
"Approved, September 26, 1890.
"In the early future, I hope to present for your consideration some suggestions looking to an improvement in the designs of some of the coins of the United States."
Both the text of the bill and the director's comment indicate that Leech specifically sought improvement in the standard silver dollar, even though 25 years had not elapsed since the initiation of the design in 1878. No patterns of silver dollars are known from the period.
The Year 1890 in History
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed by Congress on July 2nd and sought to curtail "restraint of trade or commerce" and limit the powers of monopolies, which at the time had a stranglehold on certain sectors of the American economy. However, "trust busting" with vigor would not take place until the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt in the first decade of the twentieth century. Interpretations varied, and it was not certain whether the provisions of the act applied to labor unions, who were engaged in their own monopolies. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act, passed on July 14th, replaced the Bland-Allison Act and set new guidelines for the government purchase of silver (see above). The McKinley Tariff Act, passed on October 1st, increased certain tariffs to record high levels, but provided for reciprocal agreements with certain other countries. Opium used for smoking was taxed at $10 per ounce. William Jennings Bryan won election as a congressman from Nebraska, his first public office. Known as "the silver-tongued orator of the Platte," he would seek and receive the Democratic nomination for president in the elections of 1896, 1900, and 1908, but would be unsuccessful at the polls.
The Mormon church ended its endorsement of polygamy. During the last several decades of the nineteenth century, numerous books, pamphlets, public meetings, etc., were devoted to anti-Mormon and anti-Catholic efforts. The latter focused on a common belief that at papal orders Catholics would engage in subversive activity, their loyalty to the papacy outweighing their commitment to their country. In all fairness, part of this must be blamed on Pope Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors and on several encyclicals by Pius IX and Leo XIII denouncing freedom of speech, press, religious belief, etc., reiterating the papacy's claimed monopoly of truth, and insisting that error has no right to exist-despite the tolerance Jesus had preached in the parable of the wheat and the tares.
In November, the failure of Baring Brothers, London bankers, caused British investors to liquidate many-American securities, thus precipitating a short-lived panic on Wall Street. At the time, the British were the main foreign investors in the American economy. During the decade of the 1890s they would provide much of the capital to exploit mines in the Cripple Creek District of Colorado.
Wyoming joined the Union as the 44th state. The one sided Battle of Wounded Knee in South Dakota saw about 350 Sioux Indians killed by nearly 500 government soldiers, thus effectively ending the resistance of Native Americans to the encroachments of white men.
The 1890 federal census used a computer for the first time. Using principles employed by the Jacquard loom, player piano, and other devices, Herman Hollerith developed a machine which processed information punched on cards. The census pegged the population at 62,947,714, two-thirds of whom lived in rural areas. Boom times were occurring in Los Angeles and its environs, and the population of the city, just 11,183 in 1880, soared to 50,000 by 1890. The richest 1 % of the population earned more income than the poorest 50%. Of 12 million families in America, nearly half owned no tangible property. 13% of citizens were illiterate. (A century later, the situation would be much the same).
Charles Dana Gibson, who was to become America's pre-eminent illustrator of women during the 1890s and early 1900s and who would lose his fortune in a bank failure in 1907, created the "Gibson Girl," who made her debut in Life magazine. The Gibson Girl was said to personify the ideal "American Girl," as she came to be known, and ignited a craze for illustrations of pretty women. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, a dozen or more illustrators, including Harrison Fisher, Philip Boileau, and Henry Hutt, produced such depictions for use on magazine covers, calendars, and posters.
Cesar Franck (mystical Belgian organist and composer), world-famous for "Panis Angelicus," the symphony in D mi-nor, and a handful of other favorites, died. For many years he had spent most of his waking hours in the organ loft to avoid confronting his shrewish wife.