Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-06-05
ATTACKS. EVASION
Of ESTATE TAXES
Couzens, Moving for Remedy,
CriticizeS Handling of !,
Hill Case.
CONTINUED From First Page.)

CernaI revenue, ana bdldyeIIe rICiASA6
jr., United States district attorney at
St Paul. Joined in recommending that
the case be appealed to the Supreme
Court. and Mrs Mabel Walker WILLIE
brandt, Assistant Attorney General, d.
rected the district attorney to take all
measures necessary to protect the GcV-
ernment'S interest in the premises =
6. That the then Attorney General
John G. Sargent, on June 8, 1928, WITH
out reciting reasons for bis action, |
signed an order directing the district
attorney not to appeal the case, =
The memoranda presented TO SEN
Ator Couzens.. after reviewing the, evils
dence presented iT the Hill casey asked
a series of nine questions as to- The pro-
priety of the Governments acoi0ns IN
the matter Senator CouzenS trans
mitted the full memoranda to Attor-
nev General Mitchell on March Il,
1881, with a letter as follows: ,,
MY dear General;
There having been considerable pub
licity concerning the estate tax OF the
estate of the late James j. Hill, l asked
a friend of mine to look INTO tne fii a.
ter and give me memorandum OF the
facts, and to also indicate any proper
questions that might be- raised as. 10 the
action of the Department OF justice IN
the case.
Il do not know that I have any right
10 ask you for a. response, or whetner
you have any disposition to reply, put.
in any event thought could only as-
certain by writing you this letterf ana
inclosing with it.. a memorandum, to
which have above referred. OF course,
If do not hear from you, will assume
that your conclusion Is thai I had 20
right to ask you to reply M..<%
with kind regards, I am;
Sincerely yours,
"(signed) JAMES CoUzENS.,"
Reply Received From Mitchell.
Mr.. Mitchell replied on March %, as
follows:
MY Dear Senator:
II have your letter of March 81, In
closing. a memorandum about the
estate tax case involving the estate OF
the late Mrs. James ]. Hill the
publicity recently given this case, 10
which you refer, has been due. to Sena-
tor Schall, who hes made recently
number of unfounded statements about
me in retaliation for my attitude about
one of his candidates for the judicial
office. 49,
From the general tone of this mem
orandum and, particularly, question
eight. I assume it was HANDED you by
Senator Schall or by an individual who,
I am informed, has been supplying him
with material on the subject. I am not
taking any notice of any of. the per-
sonal attacks Senator Sch2ll has made
upon me- They do not appear to me to
require any refutaGion on my part, ana
I prefer not to be called on to give
them any attention.
You will find on page 4882 Of the Con-
gressional Record Of FEBRUARY 10, 1s34s
the only statement about the case from
any one in this Department., :,
With personal regards,
Sincerely yours,
ISigned) WILLIAM D. MITCHELL"
Senator CoISenss was out of town att
the time. this reply AZ the. At orney 1GenSS
eral was received. When he returned
to his Office on April he wrote q Sec
officially disclaiming that he had re-
ceived his information from Senator
Schau, and stating that his Memoran-
dun had been prepared BY "a friend.
of NINE who Is connected WITH the In
ternat Revenue Bureau" The question
No. in the Couzens memorandum to
which the Attorney General specifically
objected was as follows:
"8-Should not the fact that Solicit
tor General Mitchell had been counsel
in the case make him all the more care
full to see that the Supreme Court
should settle the question:"
Replies to Two Questions Sought.
Stating that he had no desire to
press this particular question, Senator
CouzenS asked Mr.. Mitchell to confine
himself to answering two other ques-
tons. as follows:
"6-Why was the Government not
represented orally by counsel when the
case was heard before the Circuit Court
of Appeals?"
"7-Why was the request of District
Attorney French and the general coun-
sci of the Bureau of Internal Revenue
for an appeal to the Supreme Court
Tejected?"
Senator Couzens' second letter to
MIR. Mitchell was as follows:
,"April 8, 1881.
eMy Dear General:
while I was on short vacation,
your letter of the twenty third, In re-
Spouse to mine of the twenty-firSt con-
corning the estate of Mrs. James j.
Hill, reached my Office - .
II am afraid I did not make myself
very plain when I wrote you on the
Hwenty-flrst, because In reading the let
te. over I saw where I left the i'm
preston that I might be, inferentiaily
at least, questioning your motives. This
did not intend to do. I thought that
the memorandum I inclosed would OBJ
viate my repeating the questions in
Nolved. now wish to Straighten out
che matter, and first assure you that
the information contained in the
memorandum did not come from Sen
ator .Schall or from any one who might
be supplying him with material. When
this publicity occurred / asked a frteFld
of mine, who is connected with the
internal Revenue Bureau, for the facts
and his views concerning the matter.
I then submitted it to you in the exact
form in which it came to me. y
DiscIaims Personal Issue.
In reading it over, it seemed to me
that the Internal Revenue Bureau could
have appealed the case to the Supreme
Court, particularly in view Of the fact
that the District Court has sustained
the Treasury Departments ruling. I
did not intend to raise personal issue,
but rather to find out what motives
guided the Treasury Department In not
appealing the decision of the, Circuit
Court of Appeals of the eighth circuit.
I was particularly interested in an
SwerS to questions six and seven, and
was not concerned particularly with
question eight.
II think you are familiar with the
fact that for many, years 7 have taken
an active interest in the administration
of the Internal Revenue Bureau. not
only because of my membership on the
Finance Committee, but because early
in my service here was member OF
a committee which thoroughly investi-
gated the Internal Revenue Bureau.
Since this time I have followed closely
the workings of the bureau and par
ficularly the workings of the Joint Con-
gressional Tax Committee.
at have always desired to 60 direct
Tor my information rather than through
publicity channels, and that was my
fOH writing H1PGcf1U ingtpqn