Philadelphia v. National Gallery

When Philadelphian Joseph E. Widener announced that his late father's famed art collection would go to Washington's new National Gallery, disinherited Philadelphia museum folk kept a disappointed silence, but last week, seeing a chance that Widener might have to change his mind, they howled.

Pennsylvania's tax department demanded a 5% (perhaps as much as $2,500,000) inheritance tax, if the Widener art left the State. Since the Widener will specified that the beneficiary should pay any taxes, and the National Gallery has no appropriation for that, something had to be done. So a friendly representative, Reuben E. Cohen, introduced a bill in the State Legislature exempting such bequests from the tax. In a burst of uncorighteous indignation last week Philadelphia museum folk joined the newspapers in attacking the Cohen Bill as an attempted tax dodge by Wideners and Mellons. Either, they demanded, the Widener art must stay in Pennsylvania or the Wideners and Mellons must fork up what the museum folk estimated might be 10% of Pennsylvania's 1941 tax bill.

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