Morgan-Belmont Agreement
MORGAN-BELMONT AGREEMENT
MORGAN-BELMONT AGREEMENT was a contract (8 February 1895) between the U.S. Treasury Department and the banking houses of J. P. Morgan and August Belmont, American representative of the Rothschilds of Paris. In 1893 the American economy sank into a serious depression, creating a rapid flight of foreign investment. With shrinking gold reserves threatening to worsen the crisis, the Cleveland administration turned to Morgan and Belmont for help. Under the contract, these financiers agreed to buy $62 million worth of thirty-year government bonds and pay for them in gold, thus replenishing the government's rapidly diminishing gold reserve. By 1897, the depression ended.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Black, David. The King of Fifth Avenue: The Fortunes of August Belmont. New York: Dial Press, 1981.
Brands, H. W. The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890s. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.
Brodsky, Alyn. Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000.
Strouse, Jean. Morgan: American Financier. New York: Random House, 1999.
P. OrmanRay/a. g.
See alsoDebt and Investment, Foreign ; Gold Exchange ; Gold Standard ; Laissez-Faire ; Treasury, Department of the .