According to Bimetallists in the USA, Gold Monometallism Produces FX Instability between Countries on Different Metallic Standards

Another argument advanced by bimetallists against the substitution of gold monometallism for bimetallism was that it had broken down the so-called nexus between countries on different metallic money standards. As long as some countries were on a bimetallic standard, with the unlimited coinage of both gold and silver at a fixed mint ratio, the fluctuation would be very slight in the gold price of silver in gold-standard countries and in the silver price of gold in silver-standard countries. Foreign exchange rates, therefore, among countries on all three standards--bimetallic, gold, and silver--would be stable, as they were prior to 1873.

Since discontinuance of bimetallism, it was said, all this had been changed. The nexus between gold and silver was broken and each metal had gone its own way. There was thenceforth no limit to the possible variation in exchange rates between a gold-standard country and a silver-standard country. This brought a large new element of risk and speculation in foreign trade between countries on different metallic standards. It was an obstacle to the development of trade between gold- and silver-standard countries, as well as to the flow of funds for investment between such countries.

--Edwin Walter Kemmerer, Gold and the Gold Standard: The Story of Gold Money, Past, Present and Future (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1944), 91-92.

Distrust of Government and Politics in American Monetary Affairs Has Been Deep and Widespread for Many Years and for Very Good Reasons

This distrust of government and politics in American monetary affairs has been deep and widespread for many years, and for very good reasons. Our record in this field has been bad, as have been the records of many other countries, notably those in Latin America and the Near East. Witness the blundering way in which our Congress handled American bimetallism from 1791 to the Civil War, Jackson's war with the Second United States Bank, and our subsequent sad experiences with the bank notes of the wildcat banks. Witness our 17 years' experience with inconvertible greenbacks from 1862 to 1879, our unfortunate silver legislation of 1878 and 1890, and the absurd and highly expensive silver policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administrations.

--Edwin Walter Kemmerer, Gold and the Gold Standard: The Story of Gold Money, Past, Present and Future (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1944), 181.

We Have Gold Because We Cannot Trust Governments

The typical gold standard prior to 1914 was highly automatic. Gold flowed freely in international trade from the places where it was cheap to the places where it was dear, always seeking to maintain its international-value level, with free coinage in a large part of the world and with widespread interconvertibility on demand with other kinds of currency. Normally, man's interference with the automatic functioning of the gold standard prior to the First World War was small and was limited chiefly to the manipulation of discount rates by central banks and to a small-amount of open-market operations. The resort, moreover, to these means of "keeping under control" the international movement of gold frequently did more harm than good. The highly automatic character of the prewar gold standard was one of its great virtues. "We have gold," says an old proverb, "because we cannot trust Governments."

--Edwin Walter Kemmerer, Gold and the Gold Standard: The Story of Gold Money, Past, Present and Future (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1944), 180-181.