Sneezing Will Continue as Red Tape Snarls Unravelling of Cold Bequest

"I have a hell of a cold," Eugene G. Kraetzer, Jr. '29, recording secretary of the University, said yesterday, yet he saw no immediate relief in sight. Red tape has held up the $500,000 bequest of the late Paul V. Bacon '98 that was to establish a professorship for research on the common cold.

"We don't know any more about the will now than we did a year ago when Bacon died," Kraetzer said. Taxes seem the major cause of the delay. "After Uncle Sam has his pick, we don't know whether there will be a nickel left."

Officers of the Medical School have denied all knowledge, not only of the result of the bequest, but even of the gift itself.

The fate of the professorship should be known in a few months. "Until they settle the will we are up in air," Kraetzer explained. "It takes 15 months to establish an estate tax, but an extension of time can usually be obtained in the case of a complicated estate."

On January 9, 1950 Bacon's will was filed in which he left his son, George C. Bacon $1 and the University $500,000. The son promptly said he would not contest his father's testament, and explained, "Father was furious when I ran away from home to live in England, and he never forgave me when I married against his wishes and stayed in Britain after the war."

The son hoped that research resulting from the bequest would rid him of his annual cold. He was curious, however, as to why his father, "who was always a healthy person," left his money "to this cold business."