|
History of the Treasury
Secretaries of the Treasury
< BACK
Walter Q. Gresham
(1884)
Upon the death of Secretary of the Treasury Charles J.
Folger in September 1884, Walter Q. Gresham (1832-1895) accepted President
Arthur's stopgap appointment as Secretary. Gresham, previously Arthur's
Postmaster General, had been close to Folger and shared his ideas
on finance. The overriding question was what to do with the Treasury's surplus,
an issue unresolved during Folger's tenure. Gresham agreed with Folger's
suggestion that the surplus should be reduced by a cut in customs duties.
He stated that ''public credit has been so firmly established and the public
debt so largely reduced that we can now safely reduce taxation within the
demands of the law."
A believer in sound money, Gresham told New York
businessmen that the only way to keep government currency afloat as legal
tender was for the government to keep enough gold in the Treasury to meet
the demand of notes presented. Gresham resigned after two months to become
circuit judge of the Seventh Judicial District.
About the Artist
Born in Manitowoc, Wisconsin in 1861, Charles Harold L. Macdonald traveled as a young man to Paris to study painting with Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre. He moved to Washington, D.C. in 1890 and began a portrait business, filling many commissions for the federal government. In addition to painting Walter Gresham, Macdonald painted the Treasury collection portraits of secretaries Dexter, Windham, Gage, and Cortelyou. His portrait of Gresham, painted in 1893, is thought to be painted from life.
Office of the Curator
All rights reserved. 2001
|
|