Includes: 59 Autograph Letters Signed and Autograph Notes signed by A.P. Giannini to John W. Snyder, totaling 85 pages of holograph. * 13 Typed Letters Signed by Giannini to Snyder (15 pages). * 15 Telegrams from Giannini to Snyder. * 1 Autograph Letter Signed from Giannini's daughter and 1 Typed Letter Signed from Giannini's son, both the Snyder. * Plus several hundred pages of accompanying letter copies, printed documents, and news clippings. (Note: the above numbers are approximate.)
Highly important and revealing archive of unpublished and previously unknown correspondence to President Harry Truman's Secretary of the Treasury, John W. Snyder, by the "father of modern consumer banking," A.P. Giannini (1870-1949), demonstrating his influence on the financial policies of the U.S. Government after World War II. Spanning a four year period from the start of the Truman presidency in 1945 until the last months of Giannini's life, following the presidential election of 1948, the revelations in these papers are especially crucial today as questions of the banking industry's role and its regulation are in the forefront of our consciousness. Amadeo Peter Giannini, son of Genovese peasants, a San Francisco grocer who was an elementary school dropout, became founder and ruler of an empire, at one time the largest and wealthiest privately-owned financial institution in the world, to this day a cornerstone of American and global finance. John W. Snyder (1895-1985), to whom the letters are written, was a banker with a long history of government service whose friendship was first cultivated by Giannini while Snyder was serving as Director of War Mobilization and Reconversion. When Snyder was appointed U.S. Secretary of the Treasury in 1946 by Truman, his close personal friend since their Army days in the First World War, Giannini's foresight proved politically valuable. The papers in this archive reveal Snyder's unofficial labors, throughout Truman's first presidential term, as a virtual lobbyist for Giannini at the highest levels of Government, including the removal as Federal Reserve Board Chairman of Roosevelt appointee Marriner Eccles, a longtime Giannini nemesis. Among the more telling portions of the correspondence are the assurances given to Snyder that he would always have a job available at the Bank of America should he leave government service - in fact, such an offer was also made for Truman, should he not be re-elected. A few excerpts: Comforting Snyder against the political infighting following his first White House appointment, "Now please don't let any of these guys around Washington get your goat. Tell them to go to ___. I do hope you'll stick around here some time longer. But if you do want to get back to the Banking Business, I have a made to order place for you -join the Bof A as I have suggested." Discussing his old adversary former US Ambassador to England Joseph P. Kennedy, "I guess I dont need to tell you that Mr. Kennedy, while Ambassador, didnt miss a chance to feather his own nest while in Britain by getting exclusive agencies in US for Haig & Haig Scotch whiskey. He's a fellow whose God is Money." When Marriner Eccles came up for reappointment as Federal Reserve Board chairman, "Rumors seem to point to the reappointment of a certain man who has consistently violated his Oath of office when acting on many of the matters pertaining to certain Interests. I'm wondering if, at the moment, there isn't any one readily available as successor&" [Eccles was demoted to vice chairman, and another appointed in his stead]. There is of course much, much more in the hundred pages of blunt notes and letters, often hurriedly handwritten on hotel and resort stationery and familiarly signed A.P., and a thorough study of the papers will reveal much about the relationship between the U.S. government and the banking industry in the post-World War II years. A more thorough description of the archive is available on request. As a final note, the archive received national notice from a description in the Huffington Post in January, 2010.