Panders

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"She is going to pay the cost of the Hall-Mills case, not because she has any personal desire to solve the financial problem of Somerset county resulting from that litigation, but because she owes certain taxes to the county because of her inheritance, and the county is going to devote the money realized from the inheritance tax to defray the expenses of the case."

So that was it. William Randolph Hearst, owner of International News Service, had sponsored one of the most "unethical", newspaper stories in his long career. He, of course, had not written it himself, but it was perfectly in accord with his tradition, and in direct conflict with newspaper ethics. "Get a lead! Go as far as you dare! Pep! Snap!" Well-paid Hearstlings and editors are promptly ousted if they do not get it.

What if a few details in the lead were manifestly not so, even after the revelation? That, for instance, she, now 15, has not yet "in- herited" the estate, which is to be held by her mother in trust until Doris is 35? Or that some of the estate goes outright to her mother, as coheir? The serious thing was that the main lead, keeping within the law, held interest through three paragraphs only by a deliberate misstatement. Taxes paid to a county or state are not earmarked for any particular disbursement.

On the $86,300,000 estate (since grown to $89,700,000) left by To- baccoman Duke, state inheritance tax alone was $2,581,366.57. Of this, Somerset County, N. J., is entitled to 5%, which is more than $125,000. Surrogate (Supervisor of Wills) Calvin McMurtrey of Somerset County is expected to get $89,000 in fees. In Somerset County is the 20,000-acre Duke estate, which has 35 miles of paved roads and many fine landscapes adorned with "beautiful statues." There are also Duke homes in Charlotte, N. C., Newport, R. I. and one in Manhattan, on Fifth Avenue, which is thought by many to be, in its simple magnificence, the finest house in the city.

Administration of bequests and taxes has reduced the estate to $53,400,000. Payments included a Federal inheritance tax of $6,560, 000, and $10,000,000 bequest to Duke University (Durham, N. C.), to which Tobaccoman Duke gave $40,000,000 (TIME, Dec. 15, 1924) while he was yet alive.