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History of the Treasury
Secretaries of the Treasury
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John W. Snyder
(1946 - 1953)
John W. Snyder (1895-1985) came to Washington in the
early 1930's with a broad background in banking and business. He held several
public and private offices including National Bank Receiver in the Office
of the Comptroller of the Currency,  Federal Loan Administrator, and Director of
War Mobilization and Reconversion. In the last office he played a leading
part in the transition of the nation's economy from wartime to a peacetime
basis.
Snyder was appointed Secretary of the Treasury in
1946 by his close personal friend President Truman, with whom he had served
in World War I. His task as Secretary was to establish a stable postwar
economy. The main points of his program were maintaining confidence in
the credit of the government, reducing the federal debt, and encouraging
public thrift through investment in U.S. Savings Bonds. He also developed
programs to promote greater efficiency within the Treasury Department,
including a streamlining of the Internal Revenue Service, which assured
a more impartial administration of tax laws, and a reform of the federal
accounting system. Snyder resigned at the end Truman's term.
About the Artist
Born in Vienna in 1903, Martha Greta Kempton moved
to the United States in the early 1920's. Working in Lynchburg, Virginia
in the early 1940s, she met Virginia Senator Carter Glass, a former Treasury
Secretary, which led to her entree into official Washington circles. Glass
introduced her to then Secretary of the Treasury John Snyder, for whom
she painted a portrait of his daughter Drucie. Snyder was so pleased with
the portrait that he commissioned one of himself and became Kempton's
promoter within the Truman administration. Kempton eventually painted
more than two dozen portraits of Truman administration officials and members
of their families. She painted a total of seven portraits of Snyder, this
one from life in 1947. The small image on the desk in Snyder's portrait
is a copy of Kempton's portrait of Drucie, who proudly proclaimed that
she was the only woman who had her portrait hanging in the Treasury Building.
Office of the Curator
All rights reserved. 2001
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