The Hot Money Movement and the Private Exchange Pool Proposal of 1896

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A Widespread belief exists that those disequilibrating international capital flows known as “hot money movements” and the associated measures instituted to regulate transactions in foreign exchange were peculiar to the post-1914 era and especially to the epoch of the “Great Depression” that commenced after 1929. It is felt that the “relative” stability of world economic and political conditions associated with the operation of the pre-1914 gold standard precluded “hot money” transfers and obviated the need to control the foreign exchange market.1 The experience of the United States during the depression of the 1890's vitiates the accuracy of this sweeping generalization. To be sure, these phenomena were largely unrecognized before the depression of the 1930's, but they nevertheless existed. The purpose of this article is to examine one such pre-1930 hot money movement, the one that occurred during the American presidential election campaign of 1896. The nomination of William Jennings Bryan as the Democratic candidate on a free silver platform at Chicago in July 1896 gave impetus to a major disequilibrating outflow of short-term funds. This condition, in turn, led to an interesting effort to control the foreign exchange market.