Deficit "Averted"

Last October--just before the election--President Coolidge announced that he was troubled by the prospect of a deficit next June 30. He could see only the "narrowest margin between revenue and expenditures." An air of anxiety, if not gloom, was thus cast over the Treasury--in voters' minds. The conservative conclusion could only be: If a deficit threatens, let us not change horses, i.e., political party control, in midstream. The President's announcement was also used as a fiscal hackamore to make Congress stand hitched.

Last week the U. S. paid its 1928 income tax. And as has invariably been the case under the Mellon regime, it was seen that the Treasury had underestimated its revenue expectations. Tax payments ran high enough last week for Fiscal officials to talk of a $50,000,000 surplus.

Such a surplus would handily meet a $45,000,000 bill which the U. S. Supreme Court last week declared the Government owed the railroads in back pay for carrying the mails.