"cross of gold"
(noun)
A public policy that puts the interests of the rich ahead of those of the poor.
Examples of "cross of gold" in the following topics:
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The People's Party and the Election of 1896
- Many Republicans in the western states, dismayed by the strong allegiance of eastern Republicans to the gold standard, considered forming their own party.
- Gold Democrats looked to the President for leadership, but Cleveland, trusting few in his party, did not involve himself further in the gold efforts; he spent the week of the convention fishing off the New Jersey coast.
- The "Cross of Gold" speech was delivered by Bryan, a former congressman from Nebraska, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 9, 1896.
- He decried the gold standard, concluding the speech, "you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. " Bryan's address helped catapult him to the Democratic Party's presidential nomination; it is considered one of the greatest political speeches in American history.
- 1896 Democratic Convention where Bryan delivered his famous "Cross of Gold" speech.
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Inadequate Currency
- Proponents of bimetalism argued that the gold standard left an inadequate supply of currency in circulation.
- The "Cross of Gold" speech was delivered by William Jennings Bryan, a former congressman from Nebraska, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 9, 1896.
- He decried the gold standard, concluding the speech, "you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold".
- Well aware of the overwhelming forces against them, many gold delegates were inclined to concede the platform battle.
- In his "Cross of Gold" speech, William Jennings Bryan advocated for bimetallism or "free silver", which he believed would bring the nation prosperity.
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Silverties Versus Goldbugs
- This put the U.S. on a mono-metallic gold standard.
- Bryan, the eloquent champion of the cause, gave the famous "Cross of Gold" speech at the National Democratic Convention on July 9, 1896 asserting that "The gold standard has slain tens of thousands. " However, his presidential campaign was ultimately unsuccessful; this can be partially attributed to the discovery of the cyanide process by which gold could be extracted from low grade ore.
- This process and the discoveries of large gold deposits in South Africa and Alaska (Witwatersrand Gold Rush of 1887 and the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896) increased the world gold supply and the subsequent increase in money supply that free coinage of silver was supposed to bring.
- The Silverites were members of a political movement in the United States in the late 1800s that advocated that silver should continue to be a monetary standard along with gold, as authorized under the Coinage Act of 1792.
- The Silverite coalition's famous slogan was "16 to 1" – that is, the ratio of sixteen ounces of silver equal in value to one ounce of gold, a ratio similar to that established in the Coinage Act of 1834.
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Economic Conditions
- To understand exactly what is meant by "free coinage of silver," it is necessary to understand the way mints operated in the days of the gold standard.
- Essentially, anyone who possessed uncoined gold, such as successful prospectors, could bring it to one of the U.S.
- Railroad bonds, the most important financial instrument of the time, were payable in gold.
- Pleading with the convention not to, "crucify mankind on a cross of gold," William Jennings Bryan, the young Nebraskan champion of silver, won the Democrats' presidential nomination.
- Silverites, who did not realize that most transactions were handled by bank checks, not sacks of gold, believed the new prosperity was spurred by the discovery of gold in the Yukon.
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Ottonian Metalwork in the Early European Middle Ages
- Many of the finest examples of the crux gemmata (jeweled cross) date from Ottonian rule.
- Made of wood, these crosses then were encased in carved gold and silver and encrusted with jewels and engraved gems.
- Arguably the finest of these Ottonian jeweled crosses is the Cross of Lothair, dating from around 1,000 and housed in the Aachen Cathedral.
- The cross bears a cameo of the great Roman emperor Augustus Caesar on one side and an engraving of the crucifixion of Jesus on the other.
- Surrounding the ivory plaque are panels with figures in repoussé gold relief.
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Mycenaean Metallurgy
- The death masks were created from thin sheets of gold, through a careful method of metalworking to create a low relief.
- A variety of gold and silver drinking cups have also been found in these grave shafts.
- The rhyton consists primarily of silver with gold-leaf accents.
- Gold. c. 1600-1500 BCE.
- Gold. c. 1600-1500 BCE.
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Mining on the Comstock Lode
- The excitement was the greatest since the discovery of gold in California ten years earlier at Sutter's Mill.
- Gold was discovered in this region—the Gold Canyon—in the spring of 1850 by a company of Mormon emigrants who were part of the Mormon Battalion.
- After arriving much too early to cross the Sierra, they camped on the Carson river in the vicinity of Dayton to wait for the mountain snow to melt.
- They soon found gold along the gravel river banks by panning, but they left when the mountains were passable, as they anticipated taking out more gold on reaching California.
- Most of them assumed they had made a small to modest strike like nearly all other gold strikes.
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Ancient Egyptian Trade
- Egyptians during this period also imported obsidian from Ethiopia, gold and incense from Nubia in the south, oil jugs from Palestine, and other goods from the oases of the western desert and the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean.
- By the Fifth Dynasty, trade with Punt gave Egyptians gold, aromatic resins, ebony, ivory, and wild animals.
- Egypt commonly exported grain, gold, linen, papyrus, and finished goods, such as glass and stone objects.
- A well-traveled land route from the Nile to the Red Sea crossed through the Wadi Hammamat, and was known from predynastic times.
- Another route, the Darb el-Arbain, was used from the time of the Old Kingdom of Egypt to trade gold, ivory, spices, wheat, animals, and plants.
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Nuclear Size and Density
- However, the nucleus can be modelled as a sphere of positive charge for the interpretation of electron scattering experiments: because there is no definite boundary to the nucleus, the electrons "see" a range of cross-sections, for which a mean can be taken.
- The qualification of "rms" (for "root mean square") arises because it is the nuclear cross-section, proportional to the square of the radius, which is determining for electron scattering.
- The famous Rutherford gold foil experiment involved the scattering of α-particles by gold foil, with some of the particles being scattered through angles of more than 90°, that is coming back to the same side of the foil as the α-source, as shown in Figure 1.
- Rutherford was able to put an upper limit on the radius of the gold nucleus of 34 femtometers (fm).
- This gives a charge radius for the gold nucleus ($A=197$) of about 7.5 fm.
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Sculpture of the Early Christian Church
- One example is the Golden Madonna of Essen (c. 980), a sculpture of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus consisting of a wooden core covered with sheets of thin gold leaf.
- Some examples are Nordic tradition rune stones, the Pictish stones of Scotland, and the high cross reliefs of Christian Great Britain.
- By the ninth century, reliefs of human figures were added to the crosses.
- Muiredach's High Cross (tenth century) at Monasterboice is usually regarded as the peak of the Irish crosses.
- The Golden Madonna of Essen has a wood core covered by thin gold leaf. c. 980.