Roswell Magill '16, Trustee
ROSWELL FOSTER MAGILL '16, a Trustee of the College, died suddenly on December 17 in his apartment at 31 East 79th Street, at the age of 68.
Mr. Magill, former Under Secretary of the U. S. Treasury and one of the nation's leading tax authorities, was a senior member of the New York law firm of Cravath, Swain and Moore. In addition to his distinguished careers in government and the law, he was a law professor at Columbia University for nearly thirty years, 1924 to 1952, and was the author of six books about taxation as well as four casebooks used in college and university courses. At the time of his death he was president of the Tax Foundation, a non-profit organization which he had helped to found in order to make information about taxes available to anyone who requested it. As a speaker and writer of magazine articles also he worked to spread knowledge of federal taxation and its impact on American life.
Mr. Magill was born November 20, 1895, in Auburn, Ill., the son of Hugh S. and Amina (Foster) Magill. His father was a school teacher and later became superintendent of schools in Springfield, Ill. Mr. Magill came to Dartmouth from Springfield and had a brilliant academic record, graduating summa cum laude. He was editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Palaeopitus, Casque and Gauntlet, and Kappa Sigma fraternity.
From Dartmouth he entered the University of Chicago Law School but after one year left to enlist in the Army. He served with training detachments in this country and was honorably discharged in March 1919 with the rank of captain of infantry. He returned to law school and received his LL.B. degree in 1920. Admitted to the Illinois bar, he practiced with Hopkins, Starr & Hopkins in Chicago from 1921 to 1923 and also was instructor at the university law school.
At the very beginning of his law career Mr. Magill turned to taxation as his special interest, and in 1923 he was called to Washington to serve as special attorney in the Bureau of Internal Revenue for a six-months period. In the fall of 1924 he was appointed assistant professor at Columbia University Law School and there gave one of the first courses in federal taxation in this country. He later became associate professor and then full professor in his long association with Columbia, which ended with his resignation in 1952. During this period he was visiting professor at Cornell in 1928, at Harvard in 1930-31, and at Stanford in 1936.
The year after his move to New York, Mr. Magill in 1925 served as special adviser to the Puerto Rican Tax Commission. He filled this post again in 1928-29. Admitted to the New York bar, he first practiced there with Robert H. Montgomery; then with Dunnington, Bartholow and Miller, 1938-43; and finally with Cravath, Swain and Moore, of which firm he became a partner in 1943.
Mr. Magill returned to Washington as Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury in 1933-34 and in 1934 headed a commission to make a study of the British Tax System for the U. S. government. President Roosevelt in 1937 named him Under Secretary of the Treasury, a post Mr. Magill held until the next year. He was adviser to the Cuban Treasury in 1938-39; a member of the Public Examining Board of the S.E.C. in 1939; a public governor of the New York Stock Exchange, 1940-41; chairman of the committee to revise the tax laws appointed by the House Ways and Means Committee, 1947; chairman of the Connecticut Tax Survey Commission, 1948; member of the Connecticut Tax Study Committee, 1957; and member of the joint Connecticut-New York Tax Relief Study Commission, 1960.
In addition to his pioneer work with the Tax Foundation, Mr. Magill had been a trustee of Vassar College, which his daughter attended, and of the Academy of Political Science, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Macy Foundation, the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, and Seamen's Bank for Savings. He also had been president of the University Club of New York.
Mr. Magill's books included A Summaryof the British Tax System (1934), FederalTaxes on Estates, Trusts, and Gifts (coauthor, 1935), Taxable Income (1936), TheCuban Fiscal System (1939), The Impactof Federal Taxes (1943), and A Tax Program for a Solvent America (co-author, 1945). He also wrote four casebooks on the laws of taxation, civil procedure, business organization, and federal taxation.
Dartmouth conferred its honorary Doc- torate of Laws upon Mr. Magill in 1940, and in 1957 he received an Alumni Award from the Dartmouth Alumni Council. Both honors recognized his long and devoted service to Dartmouth College as well as his distinguished career in the law and in public service. Mr. Magill was president of the Dartmouth Alumni Council in 1948-49, first president of the Dartmouth Lawyers Association of New York, an area chairman for the William Jewett Tucker Foundation Fund Committee, and a member of the Foundations Committee for the Dartmouth Medical School Campaign in 1960. Nominated by the Alumni Council, he was elected nortmniith Trustee in January 1962.
Mr Magill was married September 7, 1918 to the former Katherine Biggins, his classmate at law school. He is survived by his wife; a son, Hugh S. Magill '53 of Weston, Conn.; and a daughter, Mrs. William P. Holden of Madison, Conn.
A funeral service was held December 19 at the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Resurrection, New York City, and burial was in the churchyard of Emmanuel Church in Weston, Conn. The College was officially represented by President Dickey, Vice President Hicks, and Trustee John D. Dodd '22. Members of the Class of 1916, representatives of the New York and Connecticut alumni, and many other Dartmouth friends also were among those at the service.
Roswell Foster Magill '16
