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History of the Treasury
Secretaries of the Treasury
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Charles S. Fairchild
(1887 - 1889)
Charles S. Fairchild (1842-1924) became Assistant Secretary
of the Treasury under Daniel Manning in 1885 and, when Manning's health
forced him to retire in 1887, President Cleveland promoted Fairchild. Upon
assuming the  office of Secretary, Fairchild was confronted
with a huge government surplus, the result of heavy taxation and large customs
receipts. In order to prevent more money from accumulating in the Treasury
vaults, Fairchild appealed to Congress to reduce taxation and to allow Treasury
to deposit Treasury funds in commercial banks, an action then not permitted
by law.
Congress refused to act and Fairchild took matters
into his own hands. By buying back government bonds from commercial banks,
which held them as investments and increasing government deposits in commercial
banks over the next two years, he was partly able to dispose of the surplus
revenue. Fairchild suffered sharp congressional criticism, but he continued
with his policy of putting funds into circulation and averted a financial
crisis. He resigned at the end of Cleveland's term in 1889.
About the Artist
Massachusetts born, Robert Hinkley spent seventeen
years in Paris studying with Carolus Duran and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
Upon his return to the United States, Hinkley made Washington, D.C. his
home. He was a fashionable portrait painter, fulfilling commissions for
the federal government as well as private patrons. Hinkley also had a
penchant for large group portraits, such as his history painting The First
Ether Operation, now hanging in the Boston Medical Library. His portrait
of Charles S. Fairchild, painted from life in 1889, is most likely set
in the Secretary's office at the Treasury Building.
Office of the Curator
All rights reserved. 2001
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