Never mentioned is the fact that the government had a fixed exchange rate for gold, yet was inflating the dollar from 1914 on. By 1929, the dollar had nearly halved in value, yet there was the same exchange rate for gold. What this essentially means is you could double your money by exchanging cash for bullion.

This precipitated a run on exchanging dollars for gold, a run that continued to collapse banks until FDR suspended exchanging dollars for gold.