Beating the Gun

For months rich U. S. citizens have been acutely aware of the fact that sooner or later the New Deal was going to run greedy fingers into their pants' pockets and pick out more of the money they had been saving for their heirs. In June President Roosevelt formally initiated this operation by proposing to Congress his taxation-for-social-reform program. Thereafter even the dullest and most irresponsible millionaire could see that, unless he started passing on his capital under the present estate and gift taxes, his heirs would get considerably less than he intended under the revenue rates soon to be enacted by Congress. How many wealthy taxpayers began to "beat the gun," as President Roosevelt called it last fortnight, no man outside the Treasury knows for sure, but last week the public was given a clue. The Securities & Exchange Commission, which collects and publishes data on the stock transactions of corporation officials, reported gifts of securities made by such officials from March to June inclusive. Chief gifts made after President Roosevelt sent his tax message to Congress:

Henry Johnson Fisher, chairman of McCall Corp., 20,000 shares of McCall stock worth $660,000.

William Kissam Vanderbilt, 5,000 shares of Western Union, 2,000 shares of New York Central worth $201,000.

John North Willys, 10,000 shares of Affiliated Products worth $80,000.

George Horace Lorimer, editor of the Saturday Evening Post, 5,000 shares of Curtis Publishing Co. worth $95,000.

Robert R. Williams, vice president of S. S. Kresge, 6,000 shares of Kresge worth $141,000.

The SEC list, however, gave no conclusive evidence that the President's tax message had started a great gun-beating stampede among the U. S. wealthy. The biggest gifts reported for the four-month period were made before his message: In March John D. Rockefeller Jr. gave away 85,000 shares of Socony-Vacuum Oil valued at $1,090,000; in May Charles S. Woolworth, 20,000 shares of F. W. Woolworth valued at $1,200,000; Frederick B. Rentschler, 20,000 shares of United Aircraft valued at $270,000; Samuel Zemurray, 1,500 shares of United Fruit valued at $130,000. And whether these gifts went as tax avoidance to private heirs or as public benefaction to charitable institutions was not to be deduced from the SEC records.

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