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Show Merry-Co-Round By DREW PEARSON and ROBERT S. ALLEN WASHINGTON The president stirred up a hornet's nest recently while reviewing the 1938 budget when he asked Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau why his revenue estimates continued contin-ued to be so out of line with actual receipts. "One reason." replied Morgenthau, "is tha windfall tax. Wallace said he would get 100,-000.000 100,-000.000 from this source, but so far we have got only a dribble." what Morgenthau referred to was the "unjust "un-just enrichment" or "windfall" tax passed by congress in June, 1936, to recover the processing taxes turned over to manufacturers by the lower courts when the supreme court threw out the AAA. These returned taxes totaled-$200,000,000, and so far the treasury has collected only the driblet of $7,500,000 from the "windfall" tax. Shortly after this conversation, Secretary Wallace heard about it and immediately wrote to his friend Morgenthau. The letter began "Dear Henry." But the remainder was far from cordial. In effect, Henry Wallace told Henry Morgenthau: "afhe money is there, all you have to do is go after it. Why not get busy?" The job of collecting this tax belongs to Mor-genthau's Mor-genthau's internal revenue bureau, and part of the blame for its failure rests at the door of Morrison Mor-rison Shafroth, wealthy Denver socialite, who quit as the bureau's chief counsel last summer when he objected to the senate tax-dodging investigation. in-vestigation. Internal revenue officials say that Shafroth, contrary to court decrees, ruled that manufacturers manufac-turers could pay wholesalers a portion of the recovered processing taxes. This order, they of the Commonwealth and Southern corpora-plex corpora-plex collecting job. They also admit very frankly frank-ly that the bureau lacks competent personnel to deal with the problem. Internal revenue experts know all about income, in-come, corporation, estate and excise taxes, but are totally unfamiliar with the mysteries of the windfall tax. If and when Morgenthau gets around to manning the bureau with experts ex-perts able to unravel such mazes, the remainder of $100,000,000 may begin to flow into the government's gov-ernment's coffers. Garner on Warpath Business clamor for immediate revision of the capital gains and undistributed profits taxes is making a red hot new deal of Vice President Garner. Not that he is a left winger; far from it. But neither is he an old guarder. The bushy-browed Texan views big. business with a deeply ingrained in-grained hostility and when it gets belligerent lie goes on the warpath. The list of "peace concessions" con-cessions" proposed by Wendell L. Willkie, head of the Commonwealth and Southern sorpora-tion, sorpora-tion, to induce utilities to spend, particularly outraged Gamer. To senate cronies he growled like a grizzly: "Those fellows have got another think coming," com-ing," he rumbled. "The country is still being run from Washington aid not Wall Street. If they don't know it, they'll damn soon find out. "The people won't stand for any Wall Street monkey-shines. And they won't stand for any surrender to big business and tricky dealing on the taxes. Of course, some changes have got to be made, but they aren't going to be made in a hurry and there isn't going to be any funny business either." Dixie Senator Dixie Bibb Graves is taking her senatorial duties so seriously that no one would suspect thst in January she will go back to Montgomery, Ala., to keep house for her husband, the governor, gover-nor, who appointed her to the senate. She will have served less than six weeks of active session and drawn pay of approximately $3300. Dixie spends more time on the senate floor than any other member except the two floor leaders. Absorbed in senate debate, she forgets the lunch hour until after Sister Hattie Caraway, Cara-way, only other lady senator, has lunched. Then Dixie goes down to the senate restaurant and sits with the men. She was too busy to go home for Thanksgiving, Thanksgiv-ing, so Governor Graves came to Washington to see Senator Graves. Mrs. Graves is the fourth woman to sit in the senate, but the first nonwidow. Occupational Guides If you are a youth looking for a career with a future, write Aubrey Williams, head of the national youth administration. Through his support of a project conceived by Illinois State Director William J. Campbell, the youth administration rapidly is building up one of the most comprehensive and thorough libraries of occupational guides ever compiled in the United States. In mimeographed form these reports are available to anyone who wants them. (Copyright, 1937, for The Telegram) |