Word: bullion
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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During the panic of 1857, when nearly every bank in the land suspended specie payments at least temporarily. Chemical continued to pay out cash on demand, much of it in good hard gold. Even today the bank is affectionately known to Wall Street oldsters as "Old Bullion...
Last week "Old Bullion" had its annual meeting along with other New York State trust companies, but there was nothing in its vaults to justify its nickname. Super-solvent though it was, a distant relative of Chemical's onetime Acting President James A. Roosevelt had commandeered every dollar of gold coin and bullion it possessed...
Money. The Man of the Year lopped 41 ? off the gold value of the dollar, called in all gold, nationalized all silver bullion in the U. S. and set the Treasury to buying 1,300,000,000 oz. of silver. But little if any general price-rise followed, and the President admitted to newshawks gold policy was a disappointment...
Fortified with this spirit, Button has no great trouble in making the name of "Gold Eagle Guy" a power on the Pacific. He transports Chinese labor, marries his partner's fiance, and sails with brazen keel over all opposition. Faced in 1898 with ruinous Japanese competition, he steals government bullion from one of his own vessels, then scuttles her to conceal the deed. It is not money for which Button lusts, however, but rather power, and the ability to create. His faith in himself is colossal, and like Jeremiah, he shrouds all his actions in a sort of Old Testament...
Then, while detectives watched the shadow of their criminal flit about their pin-pricked map without ever leaving a satisfactory clue, a huge piece of luck came from Washington. On April 5, 1933, Franklin Roosevelt recalled all gold bullion, coin and certificates. Since $40,000 of the $50,000 ransom money was in gold notes, police chances of catching the extortionist were increased a hundredfold. Not only the Lindbergh money but all gold bills automatically became "hot." The problem had been simplified, but by no means solved. In August $2,980 of the Lindbergh notes were converted into legitimate currency...