Furor

Butchers stroked their jaws and pondered. Bakers smote their thighs and vowed. Bond salesmen banged their desks in glee, wrote down new addresses. Doctors hemmed, cogitated, jotted in their notebooks. Housewives and other married women bit their lips, considering, some in pride, some in anger, some in mortification. Up and down the land, "high" society buzzed and cackled; "low"society grinned, frowned, asked questions or just looked on. In their offices, restaurants, clubs, the income-taxpayers of the U. S. groaned and bore it; then joined the countrywide game of comparisons and exclamations.

It was a six-day wonder. It stimulated conversation more highly than did the oil scandal or Mah Jong or crossword puzzles because it was easier to understand--on the face of it. The Treasury Department had simply announced that the list of income-tax returns paid since Jan. 1, 1924, by every individual, corporation, partnership, estate and trust, was ready for "public inspection."Commissioner of Internal Revenue David H. Blair, with Secretary Mellon's perfunctory approval, had issued the order which was then flashed to the office of every Collector of Internal Revenue in the U. S. in accordance with the publicity section of the Revenue Act of 1924.

Few U. S. citizens had anticipated this order. Always, heretofore, such information had been strictly confidential. But newspapers had anticipated it. Reporters were ready in Internal Revenue offices everywhere, waiting pencil to lips for the assessment ledgers to be opened. Out came the ledgers. Forward rushed the eager reporters. Frenzied fingers pushed up and down the complicated indices seeking out names of individuals in whose tax payments "the public might be interested."

In some revenue offices, however, the public newsgatherers chewed their pencils and waited in vain. Not every Collector would reveal his books to the copyists because, though the Revenue Act of 1924 authorized "public inspection"of the amounts of taxes paid, a section of the Revised Statutes contained a seemingly contradictory clause : "... and it shall be unlawful for any person to print or publish in any manner not provided by law any income return or part thereof under penalty of a fine not to exceed $1,000, or of imprisonment or of both."

Dutiful Collectors reported their dilemma to Washington. Taken unawares by the turn of events, the Treasury Department, by way of official warning, called public attention to the Revised Statutes clause and informed inquiring newspaper men that the Department construed that clause as prohibitive, "pending a judicial determination."The Department of Justice refused to hand down such determination in the absence of Attorney General Stone. Out in Iowa, Mr. Stone approved this refusal and added that any persons publishing the lists before sufficient time had passed to permit a careful study of the law's provisions and intent, did so at their own risk. There was talk of a test suit, of endless litigation.

Many a newspaper--avid for news and willing to risk $1,000 in obtaining it--construed the Revised Statutes to their own advantage, published the lists. Timid or "law-abiding"papers held off . at first, then followed the cat, seeing it out of the bag. In a few hours, the "interesting"portions of the lists were public property.

Furor raged over what one irate taxpayer declared was "a damned outrageous invasion of what are known as individual rights,"and over what another declared was "a wholesome, logical service for the newspapers to render."Aside from the legality of their actions, newspapers that published the lists were condemned, on the one hand, for "snooping into a man's private affairs to get misleading information"and praised, on the other hand, for daring, in the face of the uncertainty prevailing, to save their readers the trouble of going to Collectors' offices to satisfy their idle or valid curiosity.

Quite naturally, most of the papers that "complied with the law"(i.e., refrained from exposing the lists) were of the Republican persuasion. And there were plenty of critics ready to impute a political motive to the Democratic papers. From the outcry that went up, it was obvious that few income-taxpayers greatly relished the publication of their names and payments, that few would thank an Administration that had let the information get out.

The New York Times (Democratic) published the lists promptly and, in doing so, pointed out that "full publicity, such as newspapers could give"was the intent of the insurgent Senators, led by Norris of Nebraska, who, last spring, fought for the insertion of the Revenue Act's publicity clause. The Times pointed out also that publicity of the bare figures of taxes paid was a compromise reached after Senator Norris and his fellows had argued for full publicity of returns.

What most people felt to be the worst feature of this country-sweeping wave of publicity was the misleading nature of the tax figures. So complex is the law, so complex are men's affairs, so varied and mixed are men's motives, that a bald tax total is anything but a fair indication of the income upon which it was paid or of the fortune from which the income was derived. Thus many a man, noted for his wealth, was popularly suspected of having practiced shrewd evasion when the surprisingly low figure of his income tax was made known. The suspected one might have had a lean year, might have given much to charity, might have paid other taxes upon trust or estate funds not mentioned in the public prints. Conversely, many a man, actually suffering reverses at the present, was popularly regarded as being affluent indeed, judged by the tax he paid on the winnings of 1923, now lost and gone forever.