Appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President Dwight D.
Eisenhower in 1953, George M. Humphrey (1890 - 1970) advocated a
free market economy. He believed that the less the Government
did, the more the American people would prosper, and he
recommended a reduced federal budget and a cut in taxes to spur
individual initiative. Sec. George M. Humphrey Thomas Edgar
Stephens Oil on canvas 59 x 48 1/2 x 3" Humphrey adopted a
policy of offering government securities at the higher market
rate of interest, rather than at the fixed Federal Reserve rate,
to attract investment by the general public and to reduce the
proportion of such securities held by Federal Reserve banks. He
enlivened Cabinet meetings with polemics on the need for
checking federal deficits, delivered as ardently as Secretary of
State John Foster Dulles' exhortations on checking Communist
expansion. In response to Eisenhower's 1953 budget he quipped,
"There are a lot of places in this budget that can be cut." He
warned that the "terrific" tax burden