Roosevelt needed to in effect devalue the dollar during the Great Depression. .... However doing a straight devaluation was politically unacceptable at the time. Because the dollar was pegged to gold, devaluing the dollar meant in effect increasing the value of gold in terms of dollars.
Roosevelt did devalue the dollar. On January 31, 1934, he issued an Executive Order which devalued the dollar from 23.22 grains of gold down to 13.71 grains. That was a 59% devaluation. As you say, devaluing the dollar did increase the value of gold in terms of dollars. The value of gold in terms of dollars jumped from $20.67 to $35.00, an increase of 69%.
Roosevelt did not have the advantage
of modern economics and he made many economic mistakes which prolonged the depression, but devaluing the dollar was not one of them.
Yeah, good thing Roosevelt didn't make the mistake of devaluing the dollar! Whew! :-)
Americans could be living in a People's Republic today. Confiscating gold was clearly the lesser of the evils.
Yes, the only way to avoid communism was to devalue the dollar and make possession of a yellow metal punishable by fine and imprisonment. Anybody can see that. :-) Seriously though, we didn't avoid communism at all. FDR was our first communist president. -- Patrick P.S. http://www.strike-the-root.com/columns/Chkoreff/chkoreff1.html