Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index In 1873, Congress enacted the Fourth Coinage Act ("THE CRIME OF '73") which embraced the gold standard and de-monetized silver. Western mining interests and others who wanted silver in circulation labeled this measure the "Crime of '73". For about 5 years, gold was the only acceptable metallic standard in the United States. See also: Resumption Act Sherman Silver Purchase Act Bland-Allison Act This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.