Before the war, when the gold standard had worked automatically, the system had simply required all central banks, operating independently, to follow the rules of the game. Collaboration had not needed to go beyond occasionally lending one another gold. Ever since the war, as the gold standard had been rebuilt and evolved into a sort of dollar standard with the Federal Reserve acting as the central bank of the industrial world, Strong had found it useful to consult frequently with his colleagues—he generally used his summers in Europe as an occasion to meet all of his European counterparts.
