Editing Andrew Mellon (section)

==Later days==
Numerous financial institutions failed in the months prior to Roosevelt's inauguration, but Mellon National Bank, the Union Trust Company, and another Mellon banking operation, Mellbank Corporation, were all able to avoid closure.<ref>Cannadine (2006), pp. 466–468</ref> Mellon strongly opposed Roosevelt's [[New Deal]] policies, especially the [[1933 Banking Act]], which required separation between commercial and investment banking.<ref>Cannadine (2006), pp. 478–480</ref> Mellon believed that the various New Deal policies, including [[Social Security (United States)|Social Security]] and [[Unemployment benefits|unemployment insurance]], undermined the free market system that had produced one of the largest economies in the world. Aside from banking reform, other New Deal policies, including regulations on utilities and coal mines and laws designed to promote labor unions, also affected Mellon's business empire. Additionally, the [[Revenue Act of 1934]] and the [[Revenue Act of 1935]] rescinded many of Mellon's tax policies and contained other provisions that were designed to increase taxation on top earners and corporations.<ref>Cannadine (2006), pp. 518–522</ref>

Even after leaving office, Mellon continued to be vilified by many in the public, and in 1933 [[Harvey O'Connor]] published a popular and unfavorable biography, ''Mellon's Millions''.<ref>Cannadine (2006), pp. 485–486</ref> Democrats won effective control of Allegheny County in the 1933 elections, and the following year Democrat [[Joseph F. Guffey]] won Pennsylvania's Senate election and [[George Howard Earle III]] won the state's gubernatorial election.<ref>Cannadine (2006), pp. 487–489</ref> Mellon endured numerous attacks during these campaigns, and his unpopularity in Pittsburgh led him to spend most of his final years in Washington rather than his home town.<ref>Cannadine (2006), pp. 490–491</ref>

In the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration conducted several high-profile tax evasion prosecutions against individuals such as [[Thomas W. Lamont]] and [[Jimmy Walker]].<ref>Cannadine (2006), pp. 514–515</ref> In response to accusations levied by Republican Congressman [[Louis Thomas McFadden]] of Pennsylvania in early 1933, Attorney General [[Homer Cummings]] began an inquiry into Mellon's tax history.<ref>Cannadine (2006), pp. 507–509</ref> Between February 1935 and May 1936, the Board of Tax Appeals heard a widely covered case in which the federal government accused Mellon of tax fraud. During the proceedings, Mellon divulged numerous details of his business career that had previously been unknown to the public.<ref>Cannadine (2006), pp. 525–528</ref>

Mellon was diagnosed with cancer in November 1936.<ref>Cannadine (2006), p. 558</ref> His health declined in 1937, and he died on August 26, 1937. Newspapers across the country took note of his death. Secretary of the Treasury [[Henry Morgenthau Jr.]] stated that Mellon had lived through "an epoch in the economic history of the nation, and his passing takes one of the most important industrial and financial figures of our time."<ref>Cannadine (2006), pp. 573, 578–581</ref> Months after Mellon's death, the Board of Tax Appeals handed down a ruling exonerating Mellon of all tax fraud charges.<ref>Cannadine (2006), pp. 583–584</ref>