"Since Hamilton"

Granite, Indiana limestone, Tennessee marble and other indigenous U. S. building materials began to be routed last week to a parklike strip between the Capitol and the Potomac which Washington calls The Mall. A contract had just been signed to erect a vast $6,000,000 colonnaded building for the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Were Andrew William Mellon more the Napoleon and less the patrician, he might, as he scanned Architect James A. Wetmore's plans, have thought: "This should be named the Mellon Building." For it was under him (though not because of him) that this department has expanded from an obscure to almost the central department of U. S. government.

". . . Since Alexander Hamilton" is a phrase which may well jumble the dreams of Andrew William Mellon. What the sidewalks of New York were to Alfred Emanuel Smith. "... since Alexander Hamilton" is to Mr. Mellon. He almost never dines publicly without it. His perpetual, though flattering, subordination to Hamilton arises, of course, from the fact that Hamilton was a political philosopher as well as a financier. Last week Secretary Mellon narrowed the gap between himself and Hamilton by laying down certain principles of government: Responsibility. "A stable government must rest upon the confidence of its people. High administrative offices must be en trusted with responsibility and on their good faith, proven by the test of time, the people must rest." The issue which called forth this dictum concerned the above-named Bureau of Internal Revenue. Hot Greek fire has been aimed at it, all during the present session of Congress, be cause of the millions of dollars it was re funding to income-tax payers, private and corporate. Senator McKellar had finally introduced a bill which would automatically put all refunds under the immediate control of the Board of Tax Appeals, which is a quasi-judicial and not an executive arm of government. This was as much as to say that Mr. Mellon's Bureau of Internal Revenue could not be trusted. Nothing could be more insulting to a man whose greatest pride is his integrity and the integrity of those under him.

In a long letter Mr. Mellon presented facts which made Senator McKellar's proposal ridiculous -- such as, for example, that the Board of Tax Appeals is already 20,000 cases or three years in arrears. Then after stating with just pride that no one had ever charged corruption against the Bureau of Internal Revenue, he concluded: "The real issue is whether the income tax is to be ad ministered by the executive branch of the government in accordance with every precedent and every sound principle of gov ernment, or is to be turned over to the judicial branch.

"I have no hesitation in prophesying that the latter course spells the complete breakdown of the income tax. Any tax that cannot be administered save by means of litigation and court decision cannot long survive." Fundamentals v. Fanaticism. "In the long run whether in the prohibition field or in any other field of government, infinitely more is lost than gained if for the sake of accomplishing immediately a purpose, no matter how desirable, a fundamental principle of good government and sound practice is violated." Such a philosophic dictum might almost have been taken direct from "greatest" Alexander Hamilton himself. And in enunciating it, Mr. Mellon had to employ almost Hamiltonian courage. For he laid down this principle in a letter opposing additional funds for Prohibition, thus opening himself to further attacks from the Triumphant Drys, who rightly suspect him of less than Anti-Saloon League fervor for Prohibition. He was defending the fundamental principle that public money should not be appropriated except for specific purposes. In this case he was attempting to dis courage Congress from voting him $24,000,000 which he did not know how to spend on behalf of Prohibition (see p. 12).