Under the Revenue Act of 1934, anyone who filed a federal tax return would also complete another — pink — form, with his or her name, address, income, deductions and total taxes paid. Everything on the pink slips was public information, available to reporters, nosy neighbors or former spouses alike.

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At the time, the country was staggering through the Great Depression. A quarter of eligible workers were unemployed, household income averaged less than $1,100 ($16,000 in today’s dollars). Only about 7% of the population earned enough to require filing federal tax returns. So the revelation that some people with incomes in the millions had legally paid no taxes in 1931 and 1932 provoked widespread indignation.

 

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Robert La Follette, Jr., took the latter position. In 1934, Mr. La Follette, a Progressive senator from Wisconsin, introduced the pink-slip amendment to a tax bill, and the measure passed easily. Starting in 1935, wealthy taxpayers would reveal to the world how much they earned and how much they were sending to Washington.

 

 

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The group’s biggest challenge was to win over at least some of the vast majority of Americans who were too poor to be affected by the pink-slip law. Mr. Pitcairn appealed to their paranoia: If one day they earned enough to file pink slips, how would they feel about their finances being open to business competitors, high-powered salesmen, blackmailers and, the group’s most potent bugaboo, kidnappers.

 

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Kidnapping was much on Americans’ mind. Two years earlier, Charles Lindbergh Jr. had been snatched from his crib and found dead a few months later. The alleged kidnapper, Bruno Hauptmann, was arrested in late 1934, and after a widely publicized trial, was convicted in February 1935, just as the pink-slip debate was raging

 

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