Scientific Hoax as a Technology of Resistance
47
financed a great deal of the rest of that war as well as foreign trade afterward, as
noted above with respect to the “trade dollar” debate in the “Eyeless Fish” hoax.
However, in spite of the boon the vast silver resources of Nevada had provided
the nation, the U.S. stuck to the gold standard after the Civil War, a policy that
increasingly hurt Nevada during the series of depressions that wracked the
country from the 1870s until World War I. Silver languished at various
unpredictable fractions of the price of gold, making paying for debts and basic
necessities with silver dollars nearly impossible. Proponents of “free silver”
wanted the U.S. Mint to allow the stamping of as many silver dollars as there was
free silver in Nevada, at a constant rate of 16 silver dollars to one gold dollar.
This would have helped mine '2