The 1873 act eliminated the provisions allowing depositors of silver bullion to have their metal struck into standard silver dollars; they could now only receive Trade dollars, which were not legal tender beyond $5. As the price of silver then was about $1.30 per ounce, there was no outcry from silver producers. Beginning in 1874, however, the price dropped; silver would not again sell for $1.2929 or more on the open market in the United States until 1963. Advocates of silver both sought a market for the commodity and believed that "free silver" or bimetallism would boost the economy and make it easy for farmers to repay debts. Many in Congress agreed, and the first battle over the issue resulted in a partial victory for silver forces, as the 1878 Bland–Allison Act required the Mint to purchase large quantities of silver on the open market and strike the bullion into dollar coins. The Mint did so, using a new design by Assistant Engraver George T. Morgan, which came to be known as the Morgan dollar. The issue of what monetary standard would be used occupied the nation for the rest of the 19th century, becoming most acute in the 1896 presidential election. In that election, the unsuccessful Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan, campaigned on "free silver", having electrified the Democratic National Convention with his Cross of Gold speech, decrying the gold standard. The issue was settled for the time by the Gold Standard Act of 1900, making that standard the law of the land.