"To Hell with the Sales Tax!"

In Mississippi* last week 9,000 disgruntled whites, led by a Negro jazz band, stormed the State Capitol at Jackson to tell Governor Martin Sennett ("Sure Mike") Conner what they thought of a 3% retail sales tax as passed by the State House. "We want Mike! We want Mike!" was the mob's raucous shout as it shuffled from the rotunda toward the Governor's office. Was he in? Some said he was--locked in. Others insisted he was at a downtown hotel. Before the crowd finally drifted out of the Capitol, it left pinned on Governor Conner's door a sign: TO HELL WITH THE SALES TAX!

The Mississippi mob took its cue from similar action earlier this month in Kentucky where a rowdy throng invaded Governor Laffoon's home at Frankfort in protest against a 1% sales tax passed by the House (TIME, March 14). Last week the Kentucky levy died when the General Assembly ended its session without Senate action./-

"To hell with the sales tax!" was also the sentiment last week of a coalition in the national House of Representatives. Opposed to a 2 1/2% levy on manufacturers in the budget-balancing revenue bill, this bloc wrenched the legislation away from its sponsors and proceeded to mangle it almost beyond recognition. Leaders of the revolt were insurgent Republican LaGuardia of New York and Democrat Doughton of North Carolina. Arraying mass against class, they argued that the sales tax raising $595,000,000 of the bill's $1,096,000,000 was an unfair impost upon poor people, that wealth should be conscripted to balance the budget.

To knock out the sales tax, it was part of the coalition's strategy to substitute heavier levies elsewhere in the bill. The bill already raised the normal tax on net incomes (after deduction) of $8,000 or more from the present 5% to 6%. The House voted (121-to-81) to boost this levy to 7%. Where the bill upped the maximum surtax from 20% to 40% on over $100,000, the House voted (153-to-87) to invoke again the Wartime scale of surtaxes, boosting the rate beyond the $100,000 mark to a maximum levy of 65% on incomes over $5,000,000. Next by a vote of 139-to-103 the coalition knocked out the provision to allow U. S. taxpayers deductions on income taxes paid to foreign governments.

Speaker Garner, Majority Leader Rainey, Minority Leader Snell and Acting Chairman Crisp of the Ways & Means Committee were all powerless to stop the rowdy stampede. Weary and disheartened after a two-day drubbing, Chairman Crisp uprose to say: "I may be defeated but I'm never a quitter. I don't believe the House is in a proper frame of mind to legislate today. I think it would do us all good to have an opportunity to cool off and to think." Thereupon at his suggestion the House adjourned, laying the tax bill aside for three full days. Also at his suggestion it was agreed to skip 200 pages forward through the measure and have a showdown vote on the sales tax provision early this week.

All of last week's proceedings were in the Committee of the Whole House and the votes, representing scarcely half the membership, were taken without roll calls. It was possible but not probable that the regular leaders could later wipe out the coalition's handiwork when the Committee of the Whole rose and the amended bill was put to a series of formal votes.

*Last week Mississippi was the third State to ratify the proposed Constitutional amendment eliminating "lame duck" sessions of Congress.

/-Kentucky last week became the fourth State to ratify the "lame duck" Constitutional amendment.

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