Shaw, Leslie Mortier

Shaw, Leslie Mortier, 1848–1932, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (1902–7), b. Morristown, Vt. Admitted to the Iowa bar in 1876, he organized (1880) a banking firm that specialized in agricultural credit. His strong defense of the gold standard in the 1896 presidential campaign won for him the Republican nomination for governor of Iowa the following year; he served (1898–1902) two terms. As Treasury Secretary under President Theodore Roosevelt, Shaw used government revenues to help expand the nation's money supply. After 1907, he returned to banking, and engaged in extensive writing and public lecturing. Shaw wrote Current Issues (1908) and Vanishing Landmarks (1919).