New-York tribune., 1918-08-29
Secretary Writes to Kitchin
as to More Than Fifty
Alterations
Longer Delay Expected
Passage of 5000, 900, ,oooTax
Bill Believed Unlikely
Before Election.
By Theodore M. Knappen

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2s.-Secretary
McAdoo stirred up the Ways and
Means Committee again to-day with a
letter which will no doubt be given
out in good time and will constitute
from Mr. Ktchin's point of view
another piece of "exccllent publicity"
for Mr.. McAdoo.
AS has been more than once pointed
out in this correspondence, Secretary
McAdoo is more interested in having
wide discretionary authority for the
Treasury written into the new law
than in the matter of rates Of taxa
ton, much as he would like to have
the latter according to his way of
thinking. His letter of to-day to Mr..
kltchln bears down hard on this mat
ter of discretion. The committee has
already established liberal margin of
administrative discretion in the de-
termination of what invested capital
shall be held to be, but it has stub
bornly refused to go to the extreme
lengths that the Treasury has desired.
Many Changes Suggested
All that Chairman Kitchin would say
to-day about the insistence upon Writ
ual delegation of legislative authority
to the Treasury Department was that
there had been so many requests from
the Treasury along that line that he
hardly knew Just what it did want. He
had very little to give out concerning
the committees doings to-day. He did
complain, though, that the Treasury
after submitting some twenty-five ad-
mlnlstratlve changes a suggestion came
in to-day with fifty or sixty more, of
which only fifteen had been disposed Of
at the hour of adjournment, thus delay
ing the committees programme.
The real test will come in the COM
mlttee's action in response to Secretary
McAdoo's letter. Chairman Ktchin
would doubtless like to defy the Ad-
mlnistraton to the last on this point
of delegation of legislative authority,
and there are other Democratic mem
bers of the committee who feel that the
limit of submission of the legislative to
the executive Hanch has been reached,
but he doesn't relish the prospect of
being left out of the Presidents honor
able mention list.
The matter of the differential or no
differential between earned and un-
earned income was not carried further
to-day than yesterday, and the final
decision remains to be made.
Liquor Tax Unsettled
The committee has taken no final
action as yet on the tax on alcoholic
liquors, which is tentatively put at
about twice the present rates and is
calculated to raise $9OO,00O,O0O of rev.
enue on the assumption that the vol
ume of consumption will not be re-
duced. The proposed indirect prohibi-
tion law will eliminate large part of
this revenue, which is counted upon to
make up the $8,000,O00 aggregate, and
no steps have been taken as yet to find
Should prohibition be decided upon
while the revenue bill is still before
Congress, the deficit may be made up
from general percentage tax on all
sales Or even from horizontal in
crease of the customs tariff.
The bill will be reported to the
House without minority report, but
it is probable that the Republicans will
not sign the report. They will base
their aloofness upon objection to the
bill because it does not provide for a
joint committee on expenditures, on
the absence of tariff clause, and in
case the majority bows to Secretary
McAdoo on the plenary discretionary
autnOrlty matter, or the uelegaClOn OF
such authority.
Should the bill as reported not meet
with the favor of the Administration
the Senate will be relied upon to make
the desired alterations.
With the prospect of further delay
until next Monday probably in sub
mitting the bill to the House, and with
the Senate showing no tendency to
hurry it up, there is an increasing dis
position to consider that political con-
siderations will put the final enact
ment of the revenue law over until
after the elections. Bill-paying is
never popular and the makers Of an
$8,000,000,000 bill would just as soon
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