Did the Fed's Gold Policies cause the Great Depression?

"The result was that gold. seeking a haven. flowed into the United States - $175 million in 1929 and $280 million the next year. If the Federal Reserve had followed the old gold standard rules, this would have increased money available to banks and citizens. But George Harrison at the New York Fed and others believed in the inflation theory, and thought that more cash would exacerbate inflation. The Fed therefore veered from the old gold standard tradition. It sterilized the effect of all that new money by selling bonds - in effect, soaking up money from the economy to offset the money expansion."

So the Fed did not follow it's own traditions because some unelected experts thought they knew better. How did that work out?