ABSTRACT
The American market for gold, moreover, was a free one. Anyone had the right to possess gold without limit and to export and import it without restriction. A statutory provision permitting the President to vary the price of gold within such limits as to establish a commodity dollar that would have a gold value varying between 50 and 60 cents of the old gold dollar is fourth important item in monetary system. The principal motive advanced for devaluation has been the raising of commodity prices for purpose of lightening the burden of persons carrying long-term debts. People might assume that low commodity price level of early 1933 had come to stay for long time if the old gold standard and old gold dollar had been retained. When the stabilization law was passed, the National Government and Federal Reserve banks together owned a little over few milliard dollars of old gold coin and of gold bullion.
