During the Great Depression, One Reason the Federal Reserve Did

During the Great Depression, one reason the Federal Reserve did not respond forcefully was the "free gold problem," which refers to the idea that ___.

A) gold was fleeing Nazi Germany, thus undermining the Fed's attempt to control the money supply.
B) gold was essentially free because people had excess supplies of currency that could be converted into gold.
C) the Fed claimed that almost all its gold was tied up by reserve requirements (there was little free so it could not increase the money supply) .
D) gold was essentially free because silver, which existed in abundance, could be converted into gold at the fixed rate of 16:1.