The vast majority of Americans didn’t have one gold coin to turn in. The average household income of that era was, prior to the hard years of the Depression, less than $2,000 per year. Gold coins were largely held by banks as part of their reserves.
“For my part, there may be good reasons to do, or not do, certain things but why the secrecy and pseudo-legal mumbo jumbo?”
I don’t know that there was any secrecy about it. I think that idea comes mostly from the tales of modern conspiracy fans. The legal issue came from those who had gold clauses in their contracts and who didn’t want to be paid in cheaper dollars. But that was a moot issue since during the Depression dollars were much harder than before, not cheaper. Gold remained the monetary base. But revaluing it while it was still in circulation would have given a 30% windfall to the tiny minority who held gold, and this would likely have been extremely unpopular considering the desperate conditions of that time. Whether that was the proper thing to do you’ll have to decide. I’m just trying to describe it, not judge it.
It’s nor “conspiracy”, it’s all in the public record in fact and very well documented. Of course nobidy wants to be paid back in depreciated money, but that’s not news. What’s important to note is the repudiation of gold clause contracts - what you’re really talking about is the unit of account with respect to the rule of law, etc. You certainly should be able to judge that because it is a form of theft under color of law. Long term lease contracts are often 99 years. Expressed in terms of gold or some objective standard makes sense. Otherwise, inflation eats away at the currency value and end up with absurdities as renting whole office buildings for a song. See where I’m going with that?
See: Trostel v. American Life and Casualty