Third Promise

"I do not," said Franklin Roosevelt in January 1935, "consider it advisable at this time to propose any new or additional taxes." Five months later he asked for a new tax bill and Congress boosted taxes $250,000,000 a year.

"No new or additional taxes are proposed," said Franklin Roosevelt in January 1936. Two months later, on the ground that the Bonus bill had been passed over his veto and processing taxes outlawed, he asked for and got, a law imposing new taxes of $793,000,000 a year.

Last week the President hastily summoned a tax conference at the White House. Chairman Robert L. Doughton of the House Ways & Means Committee and Chairman Pat Harrison of the Senate Finance Committee dropped everything and flew to Washington to attend. Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau drove around to the White House. They all had breakfast together. Afterwards they emerged, gave the official result of their conference to the Press. It was in the form of a letter from Secretary Morgenthau to the President:

"We have reached the conclusion that no new taxes and no increases in present tax rates are necessary."

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