At a time when Americans were wringing their hands over Japanese landgrabs in Manchuria, a piece of American legislation did almost as much to enfeeble China as the Imperial Japanese Army. On June 19, 1934, President Roosevelt signed into law the American Silver Purchase Act, which directed the US Treasury to buy silver until the price tripled. This obscure decree, long since forgotten, had no effect on the US economy, already reeling under the shock of the Depression. The annual American output of silver amounted to a piddling $32 million, dwarfed by peanuts and potatoes. But Roosevelt needed
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