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GOVERNOR MILLER: My recollection is that it was called by the Bank of
France.
GOVERNOR YOUNG: No, it was the League of Nations who called
them together."
The secret meeting between the Governors of the Federal Reserve
Board and the heads of the European central banks was not called to
stabilize anything. It was held to discuss the best way of getting the
gold held in the United States by the System back to Europe to force
the nations of that continent back on the gold standard. The League
of Nations had not yet succeeded in doing that, the objective for
which that body was set up in the first place, because the Senate of
the United States
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had refused to let Woodrow Wilson betray us to an international
monetary authority. It took the Second World War and Franklin D.
Roosevelt to do that. Meanwhile, Europe had to have our gold and
the Federal Reserve System gave it to them, five hundred million dollars
worth. The movement of that gold out of the United States caused the
deflation of the stock boom, the end of the business prosperity of the
1920s and the Great Depression of 1929-31, the worst calamity which
has ever befallen this nation. It is entirely logical to say that the
American people suffered that depression as a punishment for not
joining the League of Nations. The bankers knew what would happen
when that five hundred million dollars worth of gold was sent to
Europe. They wanted the Depression because it put the business and
finance of the United States in their hands.