"Impertinent! Scandalous!"

For twelve long Republican years Andrew William Mellon was almost a saint to his party. By last week, however, the Democratic Administration in Washington was rapidly making this 79-year-old Pittsburgher over into an Old Deal devil.

When Mr. Mellon took over the Treasury Department for President Harding in 1921, few citizens outside of Pennsylvania had ever even heard his name. Gradually they learned that only the Rockefellers and the Fords were richer than their Secretary of the Treasury; that he had made his wealth in aluminum, steel, coal, oil, banks; that he invested his profits in the finest of old masters; that personally he was a shy, modest man with a quiet charm. When he started to reduce the Public Debt, with a consequent reduction in taxation, enthusiastic G.O. Partisans tagged him with the silly title of "greatest Secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton." To cap his long service with a special honor President Hoover appointed Mr. Mellon Ambassador to the Court of St. James's in 1932. After a gently graceful year in London, Mr. Mellon stepped quietly back to private life on March 17, 1933. He did not hope for respect from the new Administration but he did expect peace.

But peace seemed the last thing the New Dealers wanted to grant him. Mr. Hoover vanished from the scene to Palo Alto. Mr. Stimson went inconspicuously back to his Manhattan law practice. Mr. Wilbur once more became active president of Leland Stanford. All the Hoover Cabinet was politically forgotten--except Mr. Mellon. For years the Democrats had yipped about his administration of the Treasury.

Last March, with a premature blare of headlines, Attorney General Homer Stille Cummings announced that he was going to prove that Mr. Mellon, while Secretary of the Treasury, had been guilty of tax crookery (TIME, March 19, et seq.). It was alleged that Mr. Mellon had cheated the Government out of $716,000 worth of income taxes in 1931 by fake stock transfers and bogus losses. Two months later the case was brought before a Federal Grand Jury in Pittsburgh. The jury refused to indict its rich fellow-citizen.

The personal feud between Homer Cummings and Andrew Mellon is of long standing. On behalf of various clients, the Stamford, Conn. law firm of Cummings & Lockwood has, since 1925, pressed one damage suit after another against Aluminum Co. of America. No sooner had the Pittsburgh jury dismissed the case against him than Mr. Mellon turned around and filed a petition with the Board of Tax Appeals for $130,045 which he claimed he had overpaid on his 1931 tax return. In September the Board published its reply, in which was discerned the fine Connecticut hand of Homer Cummings. It revived the old tax evasion charge, added a 50% indemnity for fraud, this time demanded $3,075,103 in back taxes and penalties. It openly accused Mr. Mellon of using his knowledge of income tax machinery to defraud the Government whose servant he was. "It is quite clear," said old Mr. Mellon, "that in my case the Treasury is not so much interested in the collection of revenue as in attempting to discredit me."

Last week Mr. Mellon formally replied to the Board. He did not mince words either. Specifically the Board had charged that in 1931 Mr. Mellon had "sold" big blocks of his securities to Pittsburgh's Union Trust Co., on whose board sat Mr. Mellon's late brother Richard and his nephews William and Richard. In effect, Mr. Mellon was accused of selling stock to himself to establish a tax loss. This Mr. Mellon bitterly denied, calling the latest complaint "impertinent, scandalous and improper."

Twenty-four hours later, the Government was at Mr. Mellon's throat once more. The Treasury filed suit against Union Trust itself to recover $218,333 in back taxes from the bank for 1930. plus a 50% penalty. Union Trust was also accused of "wash sales" of stock to its affiliated savings bank to avoid taxes. To those who felt the New Deal was deliberately persecuting old Mr. Mellon for political purposes, it was highly significant that Union Trust should be the first institution of its kind ever to be charged with tax evasion fraud.

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