After completing his studies at Western University (now University of Pittsburgh), Mellon He joined his father’s bank in 1874 and proved so capable that, in 1882, his father transferred ownership of the bank to him. Over the next three decades, he built a financial-industrial empire by supplying capital for Pittsburgh-based corporations to expand in fields such as aluminum, steel, oil, coal, coke, and synthetic abrasives.
Good judgment of Mellon about new technologies and potentially successful businesses and entrepreneurs allowed him to help found the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) and the Gulf Oil Corporation. In partnership with Henry Clay Frick, he helped found the Union Steel Company, which was later merged with United States Steel Corporation. Along with Frick they were also the main organizers (in 1889) of the Union Trust Company, which became Mellon’s main financial instrument and which acquired his family’s bank. In the early 1920s, Mellon he had become one of the richest men in the United States.
Mellon was appointed in 1921 by the president Warren G. Harding, to head the United States Secretary of the Treasury.
In discussions about reducing the national debt, which totaled about $ 26 billion in 1920 due to World War I expenditures, Mellon He argued that continued high wartime tax rates would discourage business expansion and therefore reduce revenues. He also advocated for the reduction of surcharge rates on income. In large part, through his efforts, Congress repealed the excessive income tax and gradually lowered the income tax rate until in 1926 the additional tax was lowered from 50 to 20 percent. Later reductions in tax rates were made; By June 30, 1928, the national debt had fallen to $ 17,604 million.