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{
    "localId": "26335591",
    "label": "Letter from Frank R. Kent to President Harry S. Truman",
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    "id": "26335591",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Letter from Frank R. Kent to President Harry S. Truman",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/26335591",
    "collections": [
        "President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)",
        "Longhand Notes Files"
    ],
    "subjects": [
        "Byrd, Harry Flood, 1887-1966",
        "Gillette, Guy Mark, 1879-1973",
        "Presidential salaries",
        "Appropriations and expenditures",
        "Government salaries"
    ],
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    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 14,
            "logicalDate": "1949-02-14",
            "month": 2,
            "year": 1949
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    "ocrText": "THE\nSUN\nSUN SQUARE\nBALTIMORE, MD.\nPersonal and Confidential.\nFebruary 14, 1949.\nDear Mr. President:-\nYour letter of February 12, marked \"Personal and\nConfidential\", received this morning.\nI\nam distressed that you should feel offended by my\narticle of last Sunday on tax exempt expenses. Reading it over, I\nagree some of the language was untactful and for that I am sorry.\nHowever, I do not think you are quite fair to me in that you ignore\nthe chief point I made. If you will again examine my piece you\nwill see that I in no way criticized either the increase in salaries\nor in expense money. The point I made was that it is a bad principle\nto appropriate money for expenses out of the U. S. Treasury without\nrequiring some kind of accounting. That was the point of the whole\narticle. It was the point made by Senators Byrd and Gillette at the\ntime and I still think it a sound one.\nI believe Congress, itself, set this precedent three\nyears ago when it appropriated $2,500 tax free and not to be account-\ned for money for expenses of each member. I think it was a bad pre-\ncedent and was sorry to see it followed this year. If I had been a\nmember of Congress I should have voted for the increase in salary to\n$100,000 or even to $150,000, and probably for the $50,000 tax free\nexpense fund - but only if it were to be accounted for. Not because\nof any lack of trust in you but solely as a matter of principle.\nI hope, Mr. President, you will understand my position\nin this matter and believe that what I wrote was entirely without\npersonal feeling against you. If the way in which the piece was\nphrased gave you any other opinion, I regret it very much. Because,\nmy personal feeling toward you is one of real respect and friendli-\nness.\n'NATIONAL\nARCHIVES AND\nWith my very best wishes,\nREGORDS\nSERVICE\nSincerely,\nHis Excellency,\nTransferent\nThe President of the United States,\nThe White House,\nWashington, D. C.\nP. S.- I do not like to think you regard me as belong-\ning in the class of the four journalists you mention as being\n\"intellectually dishonest.\""
}