Shafroth Out

In the perpetually shifting line-up of the New Deal, one of the least permanent jobs in Washington has been the important legal post of Chief of Counsel for the Bureau of Internal Revenue--whose legal policies toward taxes and taxpayers have lately been increasingly stiffened and dominated by onetime Law Professor Herman Oliphant. Clarence Miles Charest, who held it in 1933, moved out to make room for Elijah Barrett Prettyman who moved out to make room for Robert Houghwout Jackson. When Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau's good friend Bob Jackson was elevated to Assistant Attorney General last winter, the job went to Morrison Shafroth of Denver, whose father, John Franklin Shafroth, was Governor of Colorado twice, Senator from 1913 to 1919. Last week, the post was vacant again. Secretary Morgenthau announced that Morrison Shafroth and his first assistant, Russell J. Ryan, had resigned.

When Administration officials appeared at the Congressional tax evasion inquiry last summer, Lawyer Shafroth did not approve their naming companies and individuals who had discovered and used tax loopholes. The obvious deduction that his resignation--sent in last June but not accepted until last week--was the consequence of his being overruled, was confirmed by two statements.

Said Lawyer Shafroth: "Assistant Chief Counsel Russell J. Ryan and I were unable to convince ourselves it was proper to use the Bureau of Internal Revenue as planned in the tax avoidance and evasion investigation. Being given the choice of participating in the presentation of the names or resigning, we tendered our resignations."

Said Secretary Morgenthau: "He differed with a policy I was trying to carry out." Four days later Secretary Morgenthau announced Lawyer Shafroth's successor: John P. Wenchell, heretofore an assistant Treasury general counsel.

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