USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -1) Cut the top income tax rate to 25 percent. Andrew argued that 25 percent was the most that investors would pay before sheltering their money in tax-free bonds. He believed that this tax-cut would attract large fortunes back into enterprise, and generate a surplus for the government.

Detailed explanation-2: -During his life, Mellon gave away nearly $10 million. Much of it went to educational and charitable institutions in his native Pittsburgh, but his most famous gift was the money and the artwork to establish the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Detailed explanation-3: -One of the major figures in the industrial and financial development of the Trans-Allegheny region, Andrew W. Mellon (1855-1937) was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President Warren G. Harding in 1921, and he continued to serve under Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.

Detailed explanation-4: -Mellon, who went to work for the bank as a young man, invested in companies in their early stages, such as the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) and Gulf Oil. With an uncanny ability to identify companies with substantial potential, his investments made him one of the richest men in the United States.

Detailed explanation-5: -One of the nation’s foremost art collectors, Mellon gave a collection valued at $25 million to the U.S. government in 1937. Among other paintings, it contained Raphael’s Alba Madonna, 23 Rembrandts, and 6 Vermeers. Mellon donated $15 million to build the National Gallery of Art, opened in 1941, to house the collection.