Cox Committee Investigation
The Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations (Cox Committee Investigation) was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. The committee was created by House Resolution 561 of the 82nd Congress in 1952 with the intent of investigating tax-exempt foundations.[1]
Actions
In April 1952, the Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations (or just the Cox Committee Investigation), led by Eugene Cox, of the House of Representatives began an investigation of the "educational and philanthropic foundations and other comparable organizations which are exempt from federal taxes to determine whether they were using their resources for the purposes of which they were established, and especially to determine which such foundations and organizations are using their resources for un-American activities and subversive activities or for purposes not in the interest or tradition of the United States."
In the fall of 1952 all foundations with assets of $10 million or more received a questionaire covering virtually every aspect of their operations. The foundations cooperated willingly. In the committee's final report, submitted to Congress in January 1953, endorsed the loyalty of the foundations. "So far as we can ascertain, there is little basis for the belief expressed in some quarters that foundation funds are being diverted from their intended use," the report said.[2]