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John Wesley Snyder (June 21, 1895 - October 8, 1985) was an American businessman and Cabinet Secretary. Born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, he studied at Vanderbilt University's engineering school for one year before joining in the Army during World War I. Snyder came to Washington in the early 1930s 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 U.S. Secretary of the Treasury in 1946 by his close personal friend President Harry S. 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. John Wesley Snyder retired from government at the end of Truman's second term. He died at the age of 90 in 1985.
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