“I, Franklin D. Roosevelt , President of the United States of America, do declare that said national emergency still continues to exist and pursuant to said…” With those mealy words, America’s Depression -era president ventured from bad luck into treachery. The Executive Order he issued on the 5th of April 1933 confiscated Americans’ private holdings of gold , then valued at $20.67 per ounce. Then, in January, 1934, the U.S. president fixed the price of gold at $35. All of sudden, Americans’ dollars had been devalued by 69.3%. Whether this act of nationwide larceny did the economy any good or not, we cannot say. It…