Miscellaneous Mentions

Furnifold McLendel Simmons,

Senator from North Carolina, was accused last week by the able Washington correspondent, Clinton W. Gilbert, of having done a good turn for his college and his state. Senator Simmons is the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. Mr. Gilbert accused him of being "an excellent trade," of getting in "his best licks behind the scenes." He went on:

"In the Senate Finance Committee there suddenly appears a Simmons amendment to the tax bill, one making low inheritance tax rates retroactive. That being conceded by the Republicans, all the obstacles to co-operation between the two major parties in the Senate on tax legislation disappear. . . .

"A little while ago North Carolina's richest man, James B. Duke, left an astonishing number of millions to a little college in North Carolina, which at once became Duke University. From being a little college with a small endowment, it now becomes one of the dozen or so richest universities in the United States. This university is in Mr. Simmons' state. Not only that, but it is the college from which Mr. Simmons was graduated in the year 1873. Under the existing tax law a lot of Mr. Duke's millions would go to the Federal Government in taxes. With low tax rates on inheritances made retroactive, a lot more of those millions would go to Duke University."

Frank C. Page, son of the late Walter Hines Page,* Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, appeared before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. "How much does it cost a United States Ambassador to live in London?" he was asked and answered: "About $25,000 or $35,000 in addition to his salary of $17,500. One year it cost my father $48,000 to run the Embassy."

*Walter Hines Page had three sons. Ralph W., Arthur W. and Frank C. Arthur has been editor of the World's Work since 1913.