From the 17 May 1960 Schenectady Gazette:

Tax Foe Sent To Jail Again

Chicago, May 16 — A Vermont congressman’s son was sentenced today to his third jail term for distributing leaflets on federal property.

Imposing the 20-day sentence, U.S. District Judge Walter J. Labuy commented to Karl Meyer, 22, “I suppose you’ll do it again when you get out.”

Meyer, son of Representative William H. Meyer, (D. Vt.) replied, “I suppose I will.”

Meyer has served earlier terms of three days and 15 days for passing out the leaflets in the U.S. courthouse which urge a boycott on payment of federal income taxes. Meyer said he feels that the government will use tax money to wage war.

Meyer is still resisting today. The Numinous Nomads recently visited his home at a Catholic Worker urban farm in Nashville, Tennessee and share their impressions of the visit.

The photo below comes from the Niagara Falls Gazette from fifty years ago today (the accompanying article comes from the following year).

A friend of mine, 43 year old Arthur Evans, a medical doctor with offices in Denver, Colorado, was sent to jail last August 8 by Judge Alfred A. Arraj of the Denver district court, for his refusal to pay his part of the income tax (about 50%) which would be used for the annihilation of the human race. He sent it, instead, to the United Nations, to promote peace in the world.

In a statement circulated by him to his friends he says in part: “My lawyer, the judge, and other lawyers, tell me that there is no law, no constitutional provision that provides for the individual to refuse to pay taxes for annihilation. So I go to jail, for I will not, I cannot in conscience be party to financing the means to annihilation. The Jews under Hitler were taxed to buy their crematoriums. The same happens here – but it is not only the Jews who finance their means of destruction – it is almost every income earner in the United States. This is called democratic because we are all taxed alike.”

Letters of approval have been pouring in to Dr. Evans, and since he is only allowed to write very few, his mother in Philadelphia has taken up the task of acknowledging them, sending at the same time a typewritten sheet explaining the affair in detail.

A little over a century ago, in 1846, another man (who is now considered one of America’s greatest) was picked up in Concord, Mass. on the way to his shoemaker, and brought to jail because he had refused to pay his poll tax to a government he thought misguided and evil because it allowed slavery and was also at that time waging a war with Mexico to extend its slaveholding territory. I mean, of course, Henry David Thoreau. Out of that incident came his famous Civil Disobedience, which influenced Gandhi and Nehru; Thoreau’s ideas are very much alive in many parts of the globe today. Strange, how history repeats itself!

Some day, perhaps after another century (if we escape a war of annihilation), Dr. Evans will be spoken of with appreciation and respect. We have a way of crucifying the great while they are with us, and of exalting them after they are gone. At present a medical doctor is doing laundry duty as a “trusty” in the Jefferson County Jail in Golden, Colorado, and he may like to hear from you.

Adele Wehmeyer

There were a couple of perplexing short pieces about war tax resister Richard Stenhouse in Jet magazine in 1958:

Harlem Cleric Defies U.S., Refuses to Pay Taxes

A 37-year-old white pastor of Harlem’s predominantly-Negro Presbyterian Church of the Master faced seizure of his automobile and personal property because he refuses to pay $344.81 in Federal income taxes. The Rev. Richard Stenhouse, associate pastor at Church of the Master, told Jet, “religious conviction and belief prevents me from paying that part of my tax (approximately 80 per cent) which is earmarked for military expenditure.” The taxes due are $192.27 for 1955 and $157.54 for 1956. The government in 1956 attached Rev. Stenhouse’s salary for 1954 taxes due. “I don’t refuse to pay taxes per se,” Rev. Stenhouse declared, “I simply refuse to support military expenditures.”

Refused to Pay Taxes, Seize Cleric’s Bank Account

A 37-year-old associate pastor at Harlem’s Presbyterian Church of the Master, who over the past four years has refused to pay Federal income taxes because he objects to U.S. military expenditures, learned that his $35 personal bank account has been attached by the government as partial payment of a $344.81 tax bill for 1955–56. Rev. Richard Stenhouse declared that “religious conviction and belief” prohibit him from paying that part of his U.S. income taxes (approximately 80 per cent) earmarked for military expenditures. Rev. Stenhouse disclosed that the Internal Revenue Service has also moved to attach his church salary for the balance of taxes due.

I think the second article gets it right, while the first one pictures Stenhouse’s partner-in-ministry Rev. Malcolm Evans.

I’m surprised I haven’t come across Stenhouse before in my research. There weren’t a whole lot of war tax resisters in the U.S. in the 1950s.

And continuing our series on lesser-known war tax resisting ministers, here is an article about Karel Botermans from this date in 1963:

Won’t Pay U.S. Taxes for Arms, Says Minister Who Fought Nazis

Kentfield, Cal. — (UPI) — A Unitarian minister who fought with the Dutch resistance during World War 2 now is refusing to pay part of his U.S. income taxes.

Karel Botermans, 40, says he is challenging the U.S. Government for reasons basically similar to those which prompted him to fight the Nazis 20 years ago.

He wouldn’t bow to some of the Nazi occupation’s orders because, he said, an individual has no right to violate his conscience just because the government so commands.

Now Botermans is refusing to pay that part of his taxes – 69 per cent – which he says would be spent for defense. To do so, he said, would be to make a personal contribution to an arms race which will lead to world destruction.

(Actually, under the budget submitted by the administration for the coming fiscal year, only about 50 per cent would be spent on defense and related items, including space and foreign military aid.)

Botermans, who arrived in the United States in 1947, paid only 31 per cent of his tax bill this year, and sent the remainder to the United Nations for use in developing a world court.

But the UN replied that it could not accept money withheld from income taxes.

Botermans’ action parallels that of a bookstore operator in this area who won’t pay any taxes. The Internal Revenue Service, however, gets its money by clamping liens on his bank accounts.

In the past, the service has employed the same method to get money from former Utah Gov. J. Bracken Lee, who refused to pay taxes for the support of the UN.

Botermans said his congregation is split over his conduct, but that nobody has questioned his right to follow his own belief. Respect for the other person’s position is a keystone of Unitananism, he said.

But he said his wife and four children agree with him. His 8-year-old son, Matthew, summed it up for Botermans when he said:

“Daddy, I think you are right because it is not the government that pays for the bombs, it is you.”

Asked if disarmament might not cause the U.S. to lose its freedom or to be wiped out by Communist attack, Botermans replied:

“There has to be another way than the way we’re headed on now. Our present path will lead inevitably to nuclear destruction.”

Karel Botermans died in 1979.

I like keeping up on what the war tax resistance movement in Spain is up to. Here is the latest (my translation):

CGT Campaign — Tax Resistance 2012

• The ultimate goal of WTR is the elimination of armies, military research, and the military industrial complex, by means of a progressive reduction in military spending.
• Engaging in WTR demonstrates the social rejection of military spending in particular, and militarism in general, while at the same time we show solidarity with other struggles going on in our society through the chosen projects [that we support with our redirected taxes].
• Support for the Vialía Málaga strikers is one of the alternative projects of this campaign.

War Tax Resistance is declared when you fill out your income tax return. It is best to complete your ordinary or simplified tax return and not the rapid-return sheet. This can be done by hand, with the help of a computer program from the Treasury Department.

We suggest to you the symbolic figure of €84.00 in protest of the 84 countries impoverished by debt, or any other amount from €1 up.

You deposit the amount of your tax resistance in the project you have chosen (ask for two receipts: one for you, and the other to include with your tax return).

It is advisable to attach also a note addressed to the Treasury Secretary (see the example at www.nodo50.org/objecionfiscal) giving the reasons for your Resistance to military spending; in this, you announce the total amount of money redirected and the alternative social project you have chosen.

You fill out the forms of your return and on reaching the general deductions, cross out the declaration for one of the boxes and add “for war tax resistance” and the amount chosen.

If you use tax software, you can include it in any of the sections in which the deduction from the total is set to a “certain percentage,” or even include it directly by hand.

And to finish, send us the details of your Tax Resistance (type of return, quantity refused, and chosen project) to the address CGT — OF 2012, C/ Sagunto, 15 1ª, 28010, Madrid, or by email: sp-a.social@cgt.org.es

Remember:

Although your tax return will come out as owing taxes, getting a refund, or breaking even, you can always declare yourself a tax resister, reclaiming the money from your taxes that is destined for military spending, and redirecting it to the alternative project.

If you have questions, see: www.nodo50.org/tortuga/article.php3?id_article=3640

War Tax Resistance (WTR) is the unwillingness to collaborate with one of the worst ways that capitalism expands globally: with militarism and wars, even as they are dressed up lately as “humanitarian interventions” or “wars against terrorism.”

With WTR we are actively resisting military spending at the moment of filing an income tax return.

Technically, this would consist of deducting from our taxes the part that is destined for militarist purposes.

With WTR we are not encouraging or promoting “à la carte taxes” as some people think, but the use of a tool in the framework of civil disobedience, which is to say, disobeying and breaking, publicly and collectively, a law or norm that is considered unjust, seeking to overcome it for society (in this case, military spending and militarism).

With the money that we redirect by means of the WTR in our tax return, CGT suggests financial help for concrete struggles, resistance funds or social projects related to anarcho-syndicalist organization and ideas. Giving this money that is taken from our acts of resistance establishes social projects, and they allow continued work for a more just and equitable society.

The article goes on to describe two suggested projects: support for a strike of janitorial workers at a train station in Málaga, and supporting a group organizing nonviolent resistance among Palestinians under Israeli control.

An editorial in the 8 June 1843 New York Morning Courier included these remarks:

The people of nearly all the States are now oppressed with direct taxation, for State and local purposes, to the utmost limit of their endurance. Indeed, in some of them they have resisted the collection of taxes and defeated, at least temporarily, the operations of the law; in some cases, by the resignation of officers whose duty it was to collect the taxes and in others by the refusal of the people to elect the proper officers for that purpose. In a portion of the State of Maryland, resistance to the tax laws has assumed a revolutionary character, and a meeting of “Democratic citizens of Carroll county,” adopted, among others, the following resolution, which was advocated by two of the Locofoco Senators of that State.

Resolved, That several of the counties have neglected or refused to pay any direct tax, and that all the counties ought to oppose, in a constitutional and legal manner, the payment of the same.

These are modern instances of the tone of American feeling on this subject, but those who are familiar with the condition of things during the late war with Great Britain, know that when contributions were levied upon the people for the purpose of defending their firesides, and sustaining their rights, and the national independence, they were collected with the greatest difficulty, and were the occasion of most exasperated and bitter feeling towards the Government. Direct taxation could not be resorted to, on the part of the General Government, with any prospect of realising an amount sufficient for its wants, nor without destroying the attachment of the people to their Government and creating a feeling which would, in its result, be destructive to our institutions.

Intrigued, I tried to hunt up a little more about this tax revolt. Niles’ National Register tut-tutted as follows:

Symptoms Of Repudiation.

There is no state in this union where a more sovereign aversion to repudiation is entertained by the great body of the people, than in Maryland, and yet there is perhaps no state in which there is a more distinctly organized and active party operating to effect repudiation if they can.

“Repudiation” here means individual states defaulting on their debts. The United States in the early 1840s were something like the European Union in the early 2010s — overextended, out of money, with failing institutions, a public unwilling to tighten the belts and pay off their creditors, and a central government reluctant to be the financial backstop. Some states ended up flatly repudiating their debts, and a number of others (including Maryland) partially defaulted.

In Maryland’s case, the debts had largely been racked up by government investments in canals, which were the bullet train boondoggles of their day – launched with promise of great benefit to the taxpayer (“they’ll pay for themselves!”) but mostly benefitting government contractors and kickback artists.

This party embraces men high in authority, wielding no small share of party influence as well as official power. Their measures heretofore have been covert and insidious — such as throwing every possible obstacle in the way of enacting salutary laws, in the first instance — then by obstructing the enforcement of such laws as are enacted to sustain the credit of the government, by sowing discontent amongst the people, and finally by intimidating men from accepting or attempting to execute the laws of the land. The progress of these efforts we have watched with deep anxiety. The effect of it has been to paralyze in a great measure the otherwise wholesome demonstrations of those who are zealous in maintaining the integrity and character of the state.

At length however some of the leaders of this movement have distinctly exhibited their designs and hoisted their colors.

This party, composed to some extent of members from each of the great political parties which divide community, has nevertheless such a preponderating proportion of one party only in their ranks, that the other party (though whigs) may be said to be prepared to act in body and unbroken phalanx upon the question; their opponents, calling themselves “democrats” are seriously embarrassed by the defection of so considerable and influential a section from their unity. Yet as a party, the great majority are sound in principle, upon this question.

These preliminary remarks are made in order to enable distant readers to understand the true posture of affairs, of which the following proceedings are the exponents. We are mortified at the necessity for recording such documents — and nothing but fidelily to the duly of being faithful chroniclers of passing events, would induce us to insert them.

The fact that the authorities of some three of the counties of the state neglected to take efficient measures to have the state tax collected from their people, last year, was one of the greatest difficulties which surrounded the legislature of the state at its last session in relation to ways and means to sustain public credit. Most of the counties had paid either the whole or a considerable portion of that tax — and they demurred at paying more unless all were compelled to bear their proportion. The measure of coercion which the occasion required, was the difficulty. Some were for a decisive course — others for temporizing, under an idea that a better temper and better times would insure the payment in future. — A medium course was adopted. To insure the collection of the state tax, it was concieved that to compel the county collectors to bond for the payment of that as well as of the tax required for county purposes, and to forbid by law the collection of the one unless the other was collected, would be conclusive. This therefore was the course adopted. It was a plausible expedient, — but has failed. Those counties that so easily enjoyed immunity from the state tax last year, by neglecting to obtain collectors, were in no humor to pay double tax this year, and accordingly they endeavor to find new expedients to avert the imposition. Other counties seem determined not to have all the tax to pay, whilst these are allowed to go free — and so we go.

Worcester, Somerset, and Calvert, were the defaulting counties last year. All of which — or the two first at all events, had real excuse in the successive of failures in their crops, — the last year’s especially. Calvert, we regret to learn, has again failed to obtsin the services of a collector.

A meeting was called upon the subject by the leaders of the party who call themselves “democrats” in Harford county on the 13^th ult. at which Alexander Norris, esq. presided, Henry Macatee and William L. Forwood vice presidents, John R. Nelson, secretary. The meeting was addressed by Otho Scott a Van Buren state senator from Harford county, and William P. Maulsby, a Van Buren state senator from Carroll county, two of the leading men of that party in the legislature of Maryland. Amongst the proceedings of the meeting, were the following preamble and resolutions, which were adopted, signed and published.

Whereas, The past injudicious legislation of this state has involved us in a debt far beyond the ability of the people to pay, and any attempt to coerce its payment by direct taxation, would oppress the people beyond their power of endurance.

Therefore, it is resolved, That the people are unable to pay the present direct tax, as a permanent exaction.

Resolved, That if the present direct tax was punctually paid through all future time, it would not save the credit and honor of the state, because the yearly interest on the public debt is twice as much as the direct tax.

Resolved, That we now owe for interest which is in arrear and unpaid about one million and a half of dollars, and that the interest which annually accrues, is about six hundred thousand dollars.

Resolved, That the proceeds of the direct tax, if this oppressive system is continued, will not, in less than five years, pay the interest now due, so that by the time the interest now due is paid by the present direct tax, we shall owe three millions for interest, which will accrue while we are paying what we now owe.

Resolved, That it is manifest, that as the present direct tax only pays half the interest, the longer the system is continued, the more we shall be in debt.

Resolved, That the people are unable to pay, even for a single year, a direct tax equalto the interest on the debt — that there is not as much money in circulation as would pay such a tax.

Resolved, That although every one is in favor of such a sale of the public works as would relieve the people from their burdens; still the law passed by the whigs at the last session, deserves the severest reprobation from every friend of the people or its public creditors. That law furnishes no ground to hope, that any sale can be made whereby our taxes can be lessened; on the contrary, its only effect, if not arrested in its execution, will be to strip the people of every portion of the works, which is valuable, for the benefit of wealthy associations of speculators, without diminishing in the slightest degree that portion of the public debt which is now oppressing the people.

Resolved, That several of the counties have neglected or refused to pay any direct tax, and that all the counties ought to oppose in a constitutional and legal manner, the payment of the same.

Resolved, That the people of this county at their next election, ought to express their disapprobation of this oppressive system of exaction, and come out openly for repeal.

The Cecil Democrat of the 9^th instant contains a formal account of what it represents as a “large and respectable” meeting of the “democrats” of that county, called with the design of sustaining the position assumed by the meeting in Harford. According to statements given in the Baltimore papers however, and respectably vouched for, it appears that efforts were made during court week in Cecil, to get up a repudiation meeting — but in vain. Mr. Forwood who distinguished himself during the session before the last of the legislature, in repudiating speeches and propositions, was indefatigable in his endeavors to get a meeting. He had been defeated at the last October election on the ground of having maintained such doctrines. As a meeting could not be mustered, a committee, it would appear — though it is difficult to tell how, got into existence some way or other from which the proceedings, resolutions, &c. that are published in the Democrat, were the produce. A meeting was attempted to be convened to countenance said resolutions. Two persons besides the committee attended, but one of them having come there under the impression that it was to be an anti-repudiation meeting, retired as soon as he was undeceived. Such is said to be the progress of this attempt at manufacturing “public opinion.”

On the 30^th instant a meeting of the opponents of the tax was held in pursuance of public notice in Talbot County, at which Foster Maynard, esq. presided, John Talbot secretary, and the following was unanimously adopted:

Resolved, That the system of direct taxation, as at present enforced or attempted to be enforced, in this stale, is oppressive and unequal in its operation.

Resolved, That the people of Talbot county are unable to pay the said tax.

Resolved, That the law of the last session of the legislature, blending the collection of state and county taxes, and making the payment of the direct tax a condition precedent to the payment of the county charges, is arbitrary, vexations and oppressive, and ought to be repealed.

Resolved, That believing no collector of the ordinary county taxes will serve under the present objectionable laws, and being extremely solicitous that the poor in the alms house, and the county pensioners, and others having claims against the county, shall be amply provided for, the chairman of this meeting is hereby authorised to appoint a committee of four persons (one from each election district) who are hereby authorised and requested to confer with the commissioners of the county and to make with them such arrangements as may be deemed expedient and appropriate for the of the purpose contemplated and intended by this solution.

Resolved, That this meeting most anxiously and earneastly desire the sale of public works for the benefit of the holders of state bonds.

Resolved, On motion, that the proceedings of this meeting be published in the newspapers of this town.

The committee appointed in pursuance of the fourth resolution is composed of the following individuals: Edward Lloyd, Nicholas Martin, Thorn Pierson, and Dr. James Dawson. The resolution itself is in direct opposition to the act of the legislature relating to the collection of state and county taxes.

These meetings, and especially the one in Harford county, being called under the appellation of, and with a view of identifying as far as was in their power those movements as being the movements of the “democratic party,” were objectionable to the great body of that party in the city of Baltimore. A meeting of the party was called at Monument Square the 11^th instant, the following proceedings of which; we extract from the Baltimore Republican of the 10^th instant.

I can’t figure out how that timing is supposed to work so that a paper published on the 10^th covers the proceedings of a meeting held on the 11^th. I suspect they just got it backwards.

I’m pretty sure, also, that Niles’ is sometimes confused as to its “instant” — sometimes this means June, but sometimes this means May.

But anyway, this is what the Baltimore Republican reported, according to Niles’:

TOWN MEETING.

In consequence of a call for a town meeting having been published by order of the Baltimore democratic convention, a numerous assemblage of persons convened at Monument Square last evening to take into consideration the subject for which they were called together. The meeting was organized, on motion of col. Wm. Fell Giles, by calling JOHN NELSON, esq. to preside, and appointing the following named gentlemen as officers for the occasion:

Vice presidents. Wm. Geo. Read, Robert Howard, Joseph White, B.I. Sanders, H’y. R. Loudenrman, Daniel Bender, John King, Mark Grafton Ant’y Millenberger, John I. Donaldson, Wm. J. Wight, William Krebs, Richard Marley, Elijah Slansbury, Jr.

Secretaries. Frederick I. Dugan, Wm. D. Roberts, Philip Muth, Jr., Benj. C. Presstman.

The organization being complete, Wm. Fell Giles, esq. addressed the meeting with much eloquence and feeling, and submitted the following preamble and resolutions, which were unanimously adopted:

Whereas, at a public meeting held in Bel-Air, Harford county, on the 18^th May last, a series of resolutions were passed in reference to the public debt of this state, and of the ability of her citizens to pay, by taxation, the annual interest thereof; and also expressing an opinion that the counties ought to oppose the payment of the present tax; which resolution if permitted to pass unnoticed, may lead the citizens of other states to believe that the same sentiments and opinions pervade the democracy of the state at large, and may thereby injure the great cause which we have so often been triumphant — a cause which recognizes, among its leading principles, prompt and faithful redemption of all promises, whether made by states or corporations; therefore,

Resolved, by the democratic party of the city of Baltimore in town meeting assembled:

1^st. That, although we believe the creation of a large part of the debt of Maryland to have been unwise and against her true interests, yet we recognise as obligatory upon the state her public debt, conracted by various acts of her legislature through a period of twenty years, and sanctioned by all forms of law; and that the state and her citizens are bound, by every consideration of justice and honor, to provide for the payment of the interest and the ultimate redemption of the principal thereof.

2^nd. That our state abounds with all the elements of wealth, that her resources are daily developing; that her lands are daily becoming more fertile; that this meeting believe that her citizens are fully able to pay, by taxation, the amount necessary to enable her to meet the annual interest on her public debt,

3^rd. That the city of Baltimore, having carried into execution the tax laws of the state, and her citizens being willing to pay the state tax of 25 cents, while they are paying at the same time a tax of about 77 cents on the $100 to provide for the payment of the interest on their corporation debt and for other municipal purposes, has a right to call upon every other part of the state to bear their portion of the public burden and to pay their amount of the public taxation.

4^th. That the idea cannot for a moment entertained, that this free commonwealth shall repuidate her public debt, — a debt solemnly contracted in the face of all nations, — and refuse to provide for the payment of the principal or interest of the same.

5^th. That we cordially and affectionately invite the citizens of every part of our state to a prompt and faithful compliance with the laws passed for the purposes above mentioned.

6^th. That whatever individuals may do, we believe the democratic party of Maryland will ever be willing to join their fellow citizens in bearing whatever burden may be necessary to redeem the plighted faith of the state.

These resolutions having been read and adopted, Benjamin C. Presstman, esq., made an address of considerable length to the meeting, appealing to their love of principle, patriotism, honor, and justice; and called upon them to stand by their time-honored state in her hour of difficulty. The following resolutions were submitted to the meeting by Mr. P:

Resolved, That while we thus recognise the doctrine that the public creditor has the right to demand the full and faithful discharge of the annual interest of the state debt, yet we have equal confidence that if a temporary failure should sometimes happen to meet the entire amount, owing to causes not under our control, nor within the reach of honorable means to void, that in such case, in that spirit of justice which rould regulate all private dealings between man and man, no imputations of dishonesty could or would be cast, if we discharged our liabilities at all times in good faith to the full extent of our ability. And that the want of power to meet the whole demand is not a valid defence for a refusal to pay what we can.

Resolved. That this meeting entertains the belief, that a sale of the public works upon such terms and conditions could be made as to cause a large diminution of the principal debt of the state, and that time alone is required to develope the practicability of such plan, consistent with the interest and honor of the state, and that when such deduction shall have been made, the interest which would have to be paid upon the remainder would in view of the advantages derivable from the completion of the public works alone, if from no higher consideration, be cheerfully met, and that in estimating what might be effected by such a sale, we believe that the citizens of Maryland might be relieved from the burthen of taxation to an extent when it might be easily borne, to a point indeed less than what prevails in many other stales of the Union. And that whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the proper mode and manner of disposing of the state’s interest, it is now manifest that these works are esteemed valuable, and that they may be used so as to concel [“conceal”? “cancel”?] a large portion of the public debt, at any time the people may desire and the legislature carry out the wish by proper legislative enactments.

Resolved, That this meeting in thus setting forth its opinions in a manner and language too plain to be misunderstood, upon a subject of such vital imortance to the public welfare, so intimately blended with the fair fame of our beloved state, so inseparably connected with the commercial credit of Baltimore, in short so paramount in all respects to every other political consideration, being a question of public morals, upon the settlement of which may depend whatever confidence is justly due to republican institutions, make no attempt at dictation as to the course others may see proper to pursue, and yet we desire to mark emphatically our own determination in the premises, from which there will be no shadow of turning, which is to express at all times as we do now, in the name of more than 7,000 voters of the democratic party of this city, their deep abhorrence of the odious doctrine of repudiation; their indignant and unequivocal denial that it is sanctioned by any principle of the democratic faith, but on the contrary that it is at war with its cardinal principle of equal and exact justice to all; and that we will use every effort in opposition to this novel heresy, looking at last to the ballot box as the faithful defender of the virtue, intelligence, and patriotism of the people.

Resolved, That the thanks of this meeting are due and are hereby offered to the able editor of the Balmore Republican & Argus, who well knowing the sentiments of our people upon this subject, did as a faithful sentinel on the watch tower, and in the spirit of a true democrat, rebuke the “first dawning of an attempt” to enlist the democratic party in hostility to the maintenance of the public credit.

These resolutions having been unanimously adopted, and the remarks of the speaker received with great unanimity and decided approbation, the meeting adjourned.

So how did that work out for the Democratic Party machine that, with Whig assistance, got Maryland into its debt mess, and for the Locofoco Democrat insurgents who were trying to lead the party on a path of debt repudiation and free trade?

Well, Maryland had already partially defaulted on its debts by halting payment in January, 1842. It tried to make up some of the difference by selling off its interest in the canals, but nobody wanted to buy them. Eventually the state managed to push new taxes through, but it wasn’t until 1848 that it formally resumed paying interest on the debts. But the repudiation party never won their case.

As for the Locofocos more generally, I don’t hear much about them after 1843, and I’m not sure to what extent this means they were absorbed into another party, or their concerns went mainstream, or they evaporated, or what. Histories of the Democratic Party of Maryland are not easy to find, and I’m not sure I’d really want to thumb through one if I did find it.

Does the name Cosmas Raimondi ring a bell? Yeah, me neither. And you’d think a name like that would stick in the memory. So I was surprised to see his name in an op-ed piece on tax resistance published thirty years ago today:

Creating a ripple effect?

On the moral objections to paying taxes

by Nick Thimmesch

Washington — What’s remarkable about the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Seattle refusing to pay part of his income tax in protest of U.S. nuclear arms policy — thus risking jail – is that so few of the 95 million Americans who file returns protest at all.

In 1981, according to the Internal Revenue Service, 26,925 people withheld all or part of their taxes in protest, their objections ranging from constitutional reasons to the argument that since the Republic is off the gold and silver standards, why pay taxes? These protesters represent an infinitesimal fraction of that huge, compliant herd of 95 million.

In 1981, there wasn’t one protester who cited pacifist reasons for refusal to pay up. In 1980, there were 20 such souls. But in 1982, there are likely to be hundreds because the “peace” movement inspires this sort of civil disobedience.

Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen announced earlier this year that he was holding back $125, or half of the tax money he owed the federal government as “a means of protesting our nation’s continuing involvement in the arms race for nuclear supremacy.” Archbishop Hunthausen, 60, is known to be soft-spoken and low-key, about as friendly and open as anyone who came out of Montana – as he did. But he feels great moral upset over the construction of a Trident nuclear submarine base close to Seattle, and points out that one Trident has the destructive equivalent of 2,040 Hiroshima bombs. Thus it is “immoral and criminal… the Auschwitz of Puget Sound.”

Now IRS doesn’t take such protesters lightly. First, they write to get them to file a correct return and pay what they owe. If they don’t respond, an IRS representative tries to make a personal visit. If that fails, IRS goes to the Justice Department.

Last week, one such protester, Armen B. Condo of Huntington Beach, Calif., was convicted in federal court on 41 counts of tax violations. The government argued that Condo urged members of “Your Heritage Protection Association” – which he founded – to avoid paying federal tax on the grounds that U.S. money is no longer redeemable in gold or silver. Tsk, tsk.

So, Archbishop Hunthausen and the eight priests in Pittsburgh who stood up April 15 – “Income Tax Day” – to announce that they were withholding part of their taxes to protest “the militaristic priorities of the federal budget and to resist our country’s obsessive participation in the arms race,” are sticking their necks out.

They can also create a ripple effect. When the Pittsburgh declaration reached Indianapolis, a reporter from the local Catholic paper phoned an associate pastor in a “socially active” parish to see if he knew of any area priests who were also protesting. According to National Catholic News Service, the priest, Father Cosmas Raimondi, said yes, he knew one – “me.” Father Raimondi said his expression of conscience was better called “divine” rather than “civil” disobedience.

Another priest, Father James A. Schexnayder of Oakland Calif., said he was “stimulated” by Archbishop Hunthausen’s action, so he, too was withholding half his 1981 taxes – the miserable amount of $60. Father Schexnayder said he “will not be part of a plot to incinerate humanity.”

And so it goes. There are deep rumblings in the Catholic Church, particularly in the clergy, about spending on nuclear weapons. In Amarillo, Texas, the United Way recently stopped funding the Catholic Family Service because Bishop Leroy T. Matthiesen had established a counseling program for workers at the Pantex Nuclear Weapons Assembly Plant. Pantex complained, charging that the Bishop’s anti-nuclear weapons views found their way into the operation of Catholic Family Service.

With nearly half the Catholic bishops in the U.S. backing a bilateral freeze on nuclear weapons, the Reagan administration is worried enough that it is dispatching Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger to meet with the bishop’s committee this week on the weapons issue.

Whenever a movement gathers momentum, as the anti-nuclear weapons campaign is now, the most committed often threaten to hold back on paying taxes. But if every American who had strong feelings about issues which involve federal funding expressed those feelings by refusing to pay income taxes, millions of Americans would have a plateful of trouble.

But the record shows that this kind of protest is only occasional, and never is expressed in worrisome numbers. The American taxpayer is the world’s most reliable. Indeed some cynics claim that the American taxpayer is a sheep, always waiting patiently to get fleeced.

So I tried to find out some more about Cosmas Raimondi and his protest. Here is something from the following year:

Church Won’t Pay Protesting Priest’s Taxes

Indianapolis (AP) — A church council said Sunday it will not comply with an Internal Revenue Service demand to pay federal taxes owed by its parish priest, who withheld 50 percent of them to protest U.S. defense spending.

Kathy Wallace, president of the 13 member Holy Cross Catholic Church Council, said the decision to support the Rev. Cosmas Raimondi was based on “the sacredness of conscience.”

“Although we personally do not feel called to war tax resistance for ourselves, we do support the right of Father Raimondi to make that decision according to the dictates of his own conscience before God,” Miss Wallace wrote the IRS on Oct. 28.

The 32 year old priest began withholding half his federal tax bill in 1982, and he told the council that he had donated the withheld money to various social service agencies. In August, the IRS put a lien of $593.26 against the priest’s salary.

Miss Wallace said the council did not act on the first demand for payment by the IRS, and an IRS representative came to her home on Sept. 16 and presented a demand for $604.18. Council members later asked parishioners their opinions and consulted a lawyer-theologian from the Center of Law and Pacifism in Colorado. “I really don’t know what’s going to happen now,” said Raimondi, who attended the news conference at which the council’s decision was announced. “It’s up to the IRS.

“I feel relieved, and I feel good,” he said of the council’s support. In an interview after the news conference, Raimondi said he began his tax protest last year because: “I decided in my conscience that if I’m going to pray and teach about peace, I couldn’t at the same time pay for war.”

…and, a few days later…

Tax protest is personal: archbishop

Indianapolis (AP) — The Most Rev. Edward T. O’Meara, archbishop of Indianapolis, says the Rev. Cosmas Raimondi’s tax protest is a “personal issue” between the priest and the Internal Revenue Service.

But O’Meara claimed Wednesday the right to address the political issues which prompted the protest.

O’Meara, in a statement, responded to “a number of requests to offer some comment” on events surrounding Raimondi’s refusal to pay part of his federal income tax.

O’Meara said he neither supported nor rejected Raimondi’s decision to hold back half his income tax payments as a protest against the government’s military buildup and its policies in Central America.

But he upheld the priest’s right to take a stand on arms and other public issues, and reaffirmed his own endorsement of the recent pastoral letter from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, calling for a halt to the nuclear arms race.

“Whether you agree or disagree with the tactic Father Raimondi has elected to use, make no mistake that the Roman Catholic Church does regard the questions of armaments in general, nuclear arms in particular, national budgetary priorities and basic human rights as issues which religious leaders have a right to address,” O’Meara said.

On Sunday, the parish council at Holy Cross Church, where Father Raimondi is pastor, announced that it would not withhold the back taxes from his paychecks and send them to the IRS.

The IRS filed a court lien against Raimondi for $604.18 in taxes and interest dating to last year, and had sought the money through the parish. But the parish council said it would not “undermine” its pastor’s act of conscience.

Raimondi said Wednesday the IRS had not informed him of its plans.

So the IRS, acting with uncharacteristic speed (due no doubt to the publicity surrounding the case), seized Raimondi’s car:

IRS takes his wheels, but priest remains driven

Indianapolis (AP) — The federal government has taken the Rev. Cosmas Raimondi’s car, but the young Roman Catholic pastor remains driven.

His supportive parishioners make sure he gets around, and he still refuses to pay taxes to support the military.

Raimondi said three or four families who attend Holy Cross Church on the city’s poor near east side offered to loan him an auto permanently. “I’m beginning to wonder why I even had a car,” he said.

Raimondi, an Indianapolis native known as “Father Cos” to parish schoolchildren, has withheld half his federal income taxes since 1982 to protest U.S. military intervention in Central America, the nuclear arms race and draft registration.

Earlier this month, the Internal Revenue Service put a lien of $604.18 — the amount he owed plus interest — against his salary and seized his 1980 Honda Civic when his parish council refused to pay the amount.

The car was valued at $2,500, and Raimondi is to receive the difference between that amount and what he owed.

Raimondi says he will respond by taking a pay cut to reduce his taxes or avoid having any taxable income that can be used for purposes he doesn’t support.

He now earns $545 a month, plus a monthly stipend of up to $70.

Lack of a car has not hampered his duties, Raimondi said this week at his church, where parishioners were putting donated Thanksgiving food for the poor into 550 boxes lined up in the pews.

“I think it is a protest when you give and organize for the poor,” Raimondi said. “It is showing what is happening to people’s lives because we don’t have enough in our budget to take care of people.”

In contrast, he said, money spent on the military is “sinful.”

Loss of a car has made him thankful for his friends and parishioners. About a dozen have loaned him theirs at one time or another, and three or four have offered to lend him their third family car permanently.

“I’ve not had to ask one person,” he said.

Three people walked out of Mass in protest, and haven’t returned, when Raimondi announced to the parish’s 179 families that he wasn’t going to pay his taxes.

His pastoral assistant, John Girard, 23, said the church has gained more parishioners than it lost, although he cannot say how many.

Parishioner Mark Scott. 38, said weekly collections have increased about $200 since Raimondi’s protest gained publicity this fall.

While young and old in his parish have supported him, Raimondi said the 40- to 50-year-old age group has had difficulty understanding his political views.

“I think it’s harder for them because they come from the age of peace through strength which was all fine and dandy in World War Ⅱ,” he said. [Another version of this same article adds at this point: “We have to learn how to deal more efficiently with the Soviet Union.”]

Mark Scott, coordinator of the parish food pantry, said: “I support him 100 percent. I would have loved to do what Cos has done, but I have a family to think about. I rebel by giving food to poor people.”

Another version of this article adds:

The priest said he believes that “by and large, a lot of people are not happy with our Government’s defense policies.”

Before withholding taxes, Father Raimondi said he protested by going to peace marches, organizing prayer services on behalf of the people of Nicaragua and El Salvador, and writing Congress. He even met with Sen. Richard Lugar (R., Ind.) to discuss U.S. military policies.

Melissa Derrick, a teacher at the parish school, said the priest’s civil disobedience caused some concern among the 207 students who worried whether he was doing the right thing.

“James A. Schexnayder” is another tax resisting priest that I draw a blank on, but the on-line archives have been less forthcoming about his resistance.

Cindy Sheehan met with the IRS the other day to hear their questions for her about her finances, but she didn’t much feel like giving answers. She shares what happened on her blog. An excerpt:

There was no ruling from the Magistrate at my hearing on April 19^th whether I could use a “blanket 5^th” for the IRS form 433-A, but we agreed to meet with the IRS on May 9^th… to do a “line by line” answer for my “assets.” Basically, every answer was “No” or “Zero,” but I do receive contributions for my books and speaking that pay the expenses for Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox and which allow me to be a full-time activist… so I did take the 5^th on my bank account records. Confirming my suspicion that the feds either want me to perjure or incriminate myself, after I answered “no” to the automobile question, the Revenue Officer pulled up my DMV record showing that I owned a Toyota Camry — which I transferred to my son last year after his only form of transportation died on him. It was barely my car anyway as I also try very hard not to purchase fuel. I had the feeling that I was asked many questions that the feds already have the answer to.

A tax resistance note from yesteryear in Spain:

Taxes Are Disliked

Spaniards Refuse to Pay Government Assessments.

Rioting Occurs in Various Parts of Spain and Several Citizens and Soldiers Are Wounded — Streets Barricaded.

Madrid, May 11 [1900]. — Yesterday passed off peacefully practically everywhere throughout Spain, despite the universal character of the anti-taxation measure. The only noteworthy disturbance took place at Valencia, where barricades were erected in streets and a mob stoned the gendarmes and received them with rifle shots. Two policemen were injured. The gendarmes replied with a fusillade, before which the mob fled.

Madrid, May 11. — Despatches just received here show that disorders due to anti-taxation agitation similar to those which took place in Valencia yesterday occurred last night at Barcelona, where a crowd threw up a barricade in the streets and exchanged musketry fire with a body of gendarmes. Shots were also fired from verandas and balconies of a number of houses. Several gendarmes were hit. A number of rioters were arrested. At Seville a mob threw stones at the building of the military club, shattering windows and gas lamps. The gendarmes only succeeded in dispersing the rioters after a hard fight, during which several citizens, two gendarmes, a police inspector, and two members of the municipal guard were wounded. Infantry and cavalry finally cleared the streets.

This anti-tax agitation concerned, I believe, the introduction of the income tax in Spain, partially in order to pay of debts from the Spanish-American War in which Spain was trying to hold on to its distant Western Hemisphere colonies (the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam) that the U.S. preferred to wrest for itself.

Some day the bill for the wars that the U.S. has been putting on credit is going to come due. Today’s Occupiers and TEA Partiers are just tuning up their paving-stone aim for when the real battles come.

Among the Americans who started refusing to pay taxes during the Vietnam War was the wife of a United States Senator, who announced her action to the IRS forty years ago today:

Refuses to Pay Taxes

Grand Rapids, Mich. (AP) — The wife of Sen. Philip A. Hart, D-Mich., says she has refused to make any more payments on her income tax as a protest against the Vietnam war, Booth Newspapers said in a copyright story.

The eight Michigan newspapers reported Monday that Jane Hart wrote the Internal Revenue Service on May 10, saying she will not make any more payments. She told the IRS she is “ready to accept any sanctions that apply,” the newspapers reported.

Mrs. Hart, heir to a Detroit manufacturing fortune, said she did not include a check for $6,200 in estimated tax payments when she made her quarterly filing on her estimated taxes.

“I cannot contribute one more dollar toward the purchase of more bombs and bullets.” she wrote the IRS. “As a citizen, I feel the kind of desperation that decent Germans must have felt in the ’30s.”

Senator’s Wife Refuses To Pay Her Income Tax

Detroit (UPI) — When Jane Briggs Hart, wife of Michigan Sen. Philip Hart, filed a quarterly report of estimated income on May 10^th she refused to include a check for $6,200 for tax payment. Now she says she won’t pay another cent in taxes until the Vietnam War ends, Booth Newspapers reported Monday in a copyrighted story from their Washington bureau.

“I cannot contribute one more dollar toward the purchase of more bombs and bullets,” Mrs. Hart wrote in her letter to the Internal Revenue Service.

Mrs. Hart is an heiress to the manufacturing fortune of her father, the late Walter O. Briggs, former owner of the Detroit Tigers. The taxes were toward revenue from that estate.

The senator, however, filed his part of their joint return income tax, although a spokesman for Hart said his sum was “much smaller” than his wife.

Hart told Booth Newspapers that he agreed with his wife’s stand on the war, but could not approve her decision to withhold taxes.

“If every taxpayer had veto power over all federal programs,” he said, “Then there could be no real government.”

“If someone’s conscience is genuinely offended by federal welfare programs or aid to education, don’t you have to allow him the same privilege?” the senator said.

Mrs. Hart said she had been thinking about withholding taxes for a long time but was deterred by her husband’s reasoning.

But when President Nixon escalated the bombing of North Vietnam and then announced the mining of Haiphong Harbor, her decision became firm.

In her letter she wrote: “As a citizen, I feel the kind of desperation that decent Germans must have felt in the 30’s.”

Another article adds a few more excerpts from her letter:

I can’t be a party to any more of this and still feel like an honest person.

I am convinced that in Vietnam, we are killing innocent people without cause and my conscience just will not allow me to quietly accept that. There is no vital American interest to be served by killing more people and churning up more countryside with bomb craters.

It anguishes me to break the law, and I am willing to accept any sanctions that apply but I cannot silently watch this go on any longer.

When the United States entered World War Ⅰ, they decided to finance it by selling “Liberty Bonds.” Although this war tax was ostensibly voluntary, those citizens who were most envenomed with war spirit took it upon themselves to be vigilante tax collectors, and used a variety of pressure tactics — up to and including physically violent lynch mobs — to encourage others to contribute.

Some time around 1968 Henry Cooprider, a Mennonite pacifist who witnessed one of these mobs in action against his family near Inman, Kansas some fifty years before, was interviewed. I found a transcript of that interview on-line. It also includes some very interesting memories of his time in a detention camp for conscientious objector draftees. Here are some excerpts.

[D]uring the years of going to church and teaching that we got from the ministers and our parents at home and the teaching that we had against participating in war or trying to take revenge of anybody or killing – taking life – we felt like the teaching we had in those early days were entirely against any of this. I suppose that we just grew up with that kind of a teaching and of course when it came time for us to be drafted, when World War Ⅰ came long, a number of us were exempted from military service, well, because of farm furloughs, because we were farmers, we didn’t have to go to training camp, but as the war progressed, the sentiment in our own neighborhood was such that it was about necessary for all young men of draft age really had to serve some time for the government in this way and it was along about 1917 that the sentiment was so strong about the stand that Mennonites were taking and especially in our own neighborhood. Myself and my brother had been exempted because of this farm – that wouldn’t be a furlough, what would that be called?

Q: Exemption? Farm exemption?

We were exempted because of participating in farming. That was supposed to have been because of the fact that we could produce food, so our people, even that were in war-torn countries, even in our own country.

Well, the sentiment got so that in our neighborhood, that people couldn’t put up with some young men being exempted and others having to go and serve their time in military service. Many had even went and never came home because of war service. Well, it was during that time that a number of people came to my parents’ home when I was still at home and helping my father farming. One night they came to my parents’ home and wanted to demand that my father buy war bonds and when he refused to do that because he figured that buying war bonds would be helping out in the war and promoting war, so these people that night said that, “We’re going to tar and feather you,” and my father was not well at that time, and my brother George stepped out – they were in our front yard – and my brother stepped out and said that they, that he would take my father’s place. So that’s what happened that night. My brother was tarred and feathered in my father’s stead.

Q: Give your father’s name.

My father’s name was Walter.

Q: How old were you and how old was George at this time?

I was twenty-one years old at that time and my brother George was twenty-five, and that seemed to satisfy this gang of people that night, and as quick as this was done, the whole bunch [word(s) omitted] as fast as they could go.

From here, he goes on to describe what happened when he was drafted, and sent to a detention camp where they tried to break down the conscientious objectors and convince them to take up arms — haranguing them, hosing them down with cold water, threatening them with execution, submitting them to various ordeals, assigning them work that was incrementally more-militaristic in nature to see how far each man would go. (Still, he says he’s thankful he was drafted late in the war, as Mennonite objectors had been treated worse earlier on at the same camp — some beaten to a pulp.)

While he was in camp, the war ended. He tells this story about what happened next:

[B]efore the armistice was signed, we were classed as some sort of a creature, you might say, instead of a human being, and after the armistice was signed, things changed altogether. I think they thought more of us as a human being than what they had before. I might just say here that a day or two before we were discharged, one of the top sergeants who had been the roughest and meanest and the… trying to get us to change our minds the hardest of any officer in the camp, we had gotten together and bought a Bible and presented him a Bible that morning at roll call and this man broke down and wept. I thought he had such a hard heart and the way he had acted during the months before, I thought he couldn’t shed a tear, but this man broke down and wept, so it shows to me that, after all, he was simply carrying out his duties as a military officer and he really didn’t believe in the things he was doing himself.

The conversation came back around to Liberty Bonds and the pressure put on Mennonites and other pacifists to put their scruples aside and fund the war effort:

Q: You said the mob came to your house because they wanted your father to buy war bonds? Did some of the Mennonites around here buy war bonds?

Yes, they did, And that’s the thing that made it a little harder, because some did and some didn’t, and there was a kind of a divided opinion as to what those war bonds were used for.

Q: Were there other incidents of this type around here where this kind of pressure was put on?

Not in our immediate community, but there was in the Canton, Kansas, community. Same thing happened over there, to a minister there. … Dan Diener, I believe was his name. It seems like that that was after them [word(s) omitted] thing that they did, and they [word(s) omitted] that that satisfied them.

Q: Do you think that they were ashamed of what they had done?

It seemed to be that many of the people that were there that night eventually would tell part of their experience and they even named the people that were in the gang that night – mob, as it was called, and many of them were ashamed of what they did.

Q: Did the general community around here, do you think, support them, or were they more opposed to this kind of action?

I think the general community of our neighbors around here were strongly opposed to that kind of action.

He remembered this interesting detail from the conscientious objector detention camp:

I might say there was a question too that was asked so many times by the officers in the camp. That was, “Did you vote?” That was a very common sentence that was brought before these conscientious objectors. “Did you vote?” And the ones that did vote, said, “Well, it’s up to you to support your government.” Of course, that was a little bit harder to answer. Then how come you don’t support your government if you voted and helped to put in these officials? I might say that I have voted once in my life, and I’m seventy-two years old.

Q: Is that the reason, you feel you have to support their…?

I think that’s the strongest reason I can put forth.

When the conscientious objectors were released from detention, they were issued paychecks for the time they had been officially in uniform.

[I]t had been decided amongst the whole number of men that were there that the money that we had would go into relief… to a relief fund, and none of it was kept individually. We had one man, a representative of this decision, that collected checks from everyone that agreed to do this and this was taken in one… what should I say… one bunch, so we had no money whatsoever to spend from the government check.

Here’s a newspaper article from the McPherson Daily Republican about the tar-and-feather mobs Cooprider mentions:

Use Tar and Feathers

Drastic Measures Taken with Men Accused of Disloyal Utterances.

D.A. Diener of Spring Valley and George Cooprider of Groveland Township the Men Treated.

For some time past there has been a current of much dissatisfaction in this county among the loyal citizens concerning the disloyal utterances and actions of a few of their neighbors. Last night the current gained force, and a party said to have numbered about forty citizens from all sections of the county gathered, and used strenuous methods to force some of these disloyalists to fall into line. It is understood that a good portion of these vigilantes were residents of the same community as the men visited.

The home of Walter Cooprider of near Groveland was first visited. Cooprider was first given the opportunity of reputing the utterances he had made, and also as proof of his conversion to buy a liberal amount of Liberty Bonds. He was stubborn and refused, stating that he would not buy bonds until the Government forced him to. He was then told that he was to be punished. His son Charles, 22 years of age who was present at the time pleaded with the men, and offered himself as a sacrifice in his father’s place. He was taken at his word, and a liberal dose of tar and feathers was administered.

The mob then travelled to the home of D.A. Diener of Spring Valley. His whiskers were badly slashed and he was stripped and treated to the same medicine that Cooprider got. The question was then asked as to who had removed the flag that had been placed on Diener’s church by the loyal residents of that section, and Diener’s son said that he had taken it down. No time was lost in applying the same treatment to him. All of the men treated by this “committee” are members of the Old Mennonite church.

It is understood that the vigilantes were orderly [!], and gave the men opportunity to change their beliefs before they were tarred.

The women’s suffrage movement in France took a lot longer to reach its goal than did the movements in Britain and the U.S.. Women could not vote on par with men in France until after World War Ⅱ. I haven’t seen many examples of tax resistance being used as a tactic by French suffragists — a couple from the 1930s that were mentioned in The Vote is all. But here is a brief note from way back in 1880 that shows the movement there had its “no taxation without representation” activists:

Paris women are beginning to assert their “rights.” Mlle. Hubertine Auclerc [sic] refuses to pay her taxes unless she is allowed to vote…

Here is another mention:

Mlle. Hubertine Auclert, the French woman who wants her rights, has served written notice on the Prefect of the Seine that as she is not allowed to vote she is not going to pay taxes. So long as she is denied a voice in determining the use to be made of her money, she prefers and intends to keep it in her own pocket. “If I have no rights,” she says. “It follows that I have no responsibilities. I do not vote. I do not pay.” Seven other ladies, three of them widows, join Mlle. Hubertine in this notification. One of the Paris newspapers remarks that this stroke of strategy is original with Mlle. Hubertine: that neither in England nor America has it occurred to any member of the disfranchised sex to refuse to pay her taxes. Evidently this Paris editor never heard of the Glastonbury cows.

Here is another brief note from later the same year:

Madamoiselle Hubertine Auclert, the notorious advocate of Woman’s Rights, appeared to-day in person before the Council of the Perficture of the Seine, demanding exemption from payment of taxes. Her argument was that, as women are allowed no voice in the government of the country, they ought not to bear any of the expense. It is needless to say that Mdlle. Auclert’s application was rejected.

The following year, an American women’s suffrage magazine called The National Citizen and Ballot Box carried this brief article:

“Les Femmes Qui Tuent et Les Femmes Qui Votent.”

by Alexandre Dumas

Or, Woman Suffrage as a Means of Moral Improvement and Prevention of Crime

[Extracts from the above book, translated by Thos. Mott, the only son of Lucretia Mott.]

In the moral world, as in the physical, everything is logical and progressive. We see the practical claims of women advance with her moral improvement and soon these new ideas will take shape and become incarnate as indeed, already appears.

An advocate of woman suffrage, Miss Hubertine Auclert, refused latedly to pay taxes, urging that as women are not allowed to vote, it was unjust that they should be taxed, that in imposing upon them the same responsibilities as upon men, they are entitled to the same rights, and she demands for women the right to the ballot.

Of course she is ridiculed. The furniture of Miss Auclert was seized, and the majesty of the law was sustained against her vain protests.

Among Auclert’s other claims to fame is that she invented the term “féministe” to refer to women’s rights proponents.

The Greek “won’t pay” tax resistance movement fielded a small party in the recent national elections, though there were questions as to what extent they really represented the movement or to what extent they were just trying to ride the wave of it. (Kind of like what would happen if Michael Moore announced he were running for president as head of the Occupy Party.)

From what I can decipher of the reporting, Greece elects its government on a sort of regional proportional representation system, with a couple of quirks: the top-vote-getting party gets a bonus pack of seats in the parliament (this is supposed to make it easier for them to form a government on their own initiative), and a party must get at least 3% of the vote to seat any of its candidates.

In the recent election, voters abandoned the major parties in droves, for a variety of smaller fringe parties – including “won’t pay” – to the extent that 19% of the voters cast their votes for a party that failed to reach the 3% threshold. That’s as many as voted for the top vote-getting party, who with their tiny plurality, will attempt to cobble together a coalition that can form a government. A further 38% of those eligible to vote didn’t bother. This means that despite proportional representation, of a sort, half of Greece is not represented in parliament — including one-fifth of those who attempted to elect a representative.

“Won’t pay” itself reached only about the 1% mark, and so it won no seats.

I recently read Joan V. Bondurant’s Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict.

Bondurant was working in military intelligence during World War Ⅱ and was assigned to India where she translated Japanese communications. While she was there she was exposed to Gandhi’s satyagraha techniques as they were being developed and put into use there, and she was impressed by what she saw and decided to give the subject some study. Her book was one of the first attempts to methodically describe the theory behind the use of satyagraha in political conflict.

(Bondurant seems to have had some instinctual appreciation of satyagraha ahead of time. Legend has it that when she went to learn Japanese in her eagerness to help the war effort, she was turned away — the class was for men only. So she sat outside the classroom door every day until they relented and let her in.)

Gandhi himself did not pause to try and rigorously delineate the contours of his theory. He explained himself briefly on many occasions, and you can piece together a picture of what he had in mind from various examples of these, but because he was developing his technique on-the-fly, experimenting and refining along the way, he sometimes contradicts himself, and the overall picture of what he developed can be a fuzzy one.

Bondurant’s is one attempt of many to try to make up for this lack of a formal understanding of satyagraha.

She starts by giving an introduction to what satyagraha is, how Gandhi developed it, and how he described it. She then tells how it played out in a variety of campaigns (including the Bardoli Satyagraha, of particular interest to people interested in mass tax resistance), and what generalizations we can draw from seeing how these campaigns played out.

Then she inquires into how much the success of satyagraha depended on the preexisting cultural context of Hinduism. (She suggests that while Gandhi was skilled at remixing the symbols and norms of Hinduism and of Indian culture to explain his technique, the technique itself is universal, and could just as easily be translated to another culture.)

Finally, she compares satyagraha, which is a theory of political action, to a variety of other, more static political theories — such as anarchism, Marxism, liberalism, autocratic idealism, and paleoconservatism. She finds that the means-are-the-ends philosophy of satyagraha give it an edge over other political philosophies that tend to be vague on the means to be used to bring about preferred ends or to resolve conflicts.

I found the book to be thought provoking in many parts, but also to be a little dry and sometimes wordy and vague.

Among the more interesting bits was the discussion of whether Gandhi could be considered an anarchist. Gandhi did not profess a particular political philosophy or theory of the state. Sometimes the things he said seemed to have no interpretation but an anarchist one; other times, he explicitly envisioned and promoted particular state-based action.

Bondurant suggests that part of the problem people have when trying to get a straight answer to this question is that they take for granted the traditional description of a state as an entity that claims a local monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Just as Gandhi was innovating in developing nonviolent ways of projecting force or of resolving conflict, Bondurant thinks, he was also able to imagine a state-like institution that did not use or legitimize violence in its methods of projecting force or resolving conflict. So that when Gandhi spoke of ideal governments or states, he may not have been imagining anything that would necessarily make an anarchist upset.

Here is another data point from the tax resistance of Art Harvey and Elizabeth Gravalos. From the 6 May 1996 Sun-Journal of Lewiston, Maine:

Owner says IRS price tag isn’t “realistic”

Hartford property being auctioned

by Judith Meyer
Special to the Sun-Journal

Hartford — The Internal Revenue Service has set minimum bids on the Route 140 home of Arthur Harvey and Elizabeth Gravalos in preparation for a property auction to satisfy an overdue tax debt.

The couple was informed last month that the IRS intended to seize the property for sale at auction, seeking payment on nearly $49,000 in overdue taxes dating between 1987 and 1992. But the property, which includes their home, a blueberry field and some wooded acreage, won’t be enough to satisfy the debt even if the minimum bids are met.

According to Gravalos, the IRS has set the minimum bids for the property, seeking almost $10,000 for a 13-acre blueberry field and almost $21,000 for the couple’s home where they have lived for 10 years and have been renovating during that time. These minimum bids are set according to a federal formula that takes into account local property assessment.

Gravalos said the IRS, when assessing the value, hadn’t considered that the building has no running water, no electricity and only an organic compost system for solid waste.

“I just don’t think it’s realistic,” Gravalos said, referring to buyers who may be interested in purchasing the house.

The couple call themselves tax resisters and Harvey hasn’t paid federal taxes since 1959 and Gravalos since 1972 as a way of protesting the government’s use of nuclear weapons and its policies on sending American troops and weapons overseas.

The IRS notice of seizure was delivered April 4 and includes not only the home and blueberry field, but another 21 acres of woodlot in Hartford.

Gravalos and Harvey said just after the notice of seizure was served that they were fielding many offers of help from family and friends. Gravalos said Friday that a group of people was willing to get together and form a trust to buy the blueberry field so the couple can lease the land back and continue to earn a living.

Blueberry farming is the couple’s chief source of income.

“We’re not encouraging them (to form the trust) because the price is too high,” Gravalos said, because they’re not too interested in paying a high lease term on the land they once owned. “It’s almost $10,000 for 13 acres down a road you can’t travel seven months a year,” Gravalos said of the minimum bid price. “It’s just a ridiculous price,” that she thinks won’t come close to being met when the property goes to auction.

The couple was given 10 days to protest the minimum bids, with the deadline falling in the middle of this week, but in order to protest the bid Gravalos said they would have to hire somebody to evaluate the property and they are not interested in that extra expense.

Gravalos also said she didn’t believe there was any need to protest the minimum bids because when the property goes to auction, she said the bids will show the IRS how inflated the bids are.

If she’s wrong and somebody does bid $21,000 for the house, Gravalos said, “If somebody bids that high, let them have it,” because she doesn’t think the house is worth nearly that much either in fair market or assessed property value.

The couple is not making any plans to move just yet, Gravalos said, but will wait until after the auction to see how soon they’re forced to leave.

Profits from the auction will be used to pay overdue tax bills of $8,103 from 1987; $7,708 from 1988; $10,478 from 1989; $11,044 from 1990; $7,334 from 1991; and $3,806 from 1992.

As it turns out, nobody bid on the house, but the wood lot and blueberry field were sold at auction the following month. The IRS tried again, at a lower minimum bid, and Gravalos’s mother purchased the house for $15,663 in July.

An article from the previous month covered the house seizure itself. Excerpts:

IRS grabs home in Hartford

by Judith Meyer
Special to the Sun-Journal

Hartford — Two Internal Revenue Service agents knocked on Arthur Harvey and Elizabeth Gravalos’ front door last week and informed the couple that the federal agency was seizing all of their property as payment for unpaid taxes and penalties.

The visit was not entirely a surprise for the couple since Harvey hasn’t paid any federal income taxes since 1959, and Gravalos since 1972. The two are politically opposed to the government’s use of nuclear weapons and its policies of sending American troops and weapons overseas, they said.

The couple seems resigned to the seizure action and the consequences facing their family of four. “The inconvenience to us is a lot less than the people who were maimed or died during the Gulf War,” Gravalos said, explaining that the couple has peacefully resisted paying federal income taxes because they have no say in where that money is to be spent.

“We have to draw the line somewhere,” Harvey said, noting that during the past 30 to 40 years, IRS agents have visited him and questioned him, but have never seized any of his property.

The IRS notice of seizure includes the couple’s small home and outbuildings across the street from the Hartford Town Office where they have lived for 10 years; a 13-acre blueberry field which they farm; and two woodlots in Hartford of just over 21 acres. All of the property, the couple has been told, will be offered for public sale within 30 days, and then the new owner will be responsible for any eviction proceedings against the family.

The value of their combined properties is $64,000, they said, but they estimated any profit from a sale of the properties would be less than $25,000 because of a depressed real estate market.

According to Gravalos and Harvey, the IRS has figured the couple owes $62,000 in unpaid taxes and penalties for the years 1987 to 1992. This information could not be confirmed at either the Lewiston or Portland IRS offices as all media inquiries are fielded at the Boston office.

Gravalos and Harvey said their resistance is only to federal taxes; they pay local and state taxes each year. But they are not anti-government; Gravalos, in fact, just finished serving jury duty.

Gravalos serves as a director on the SAD 39 school board and is the volunteer chairwoman for the Hartford Recreation Commission. Harvey is also active in local committees, and served seven years on the town’s Planning Board.

They are a continued and vocal presence at public meetings for both their town and SAD 39.

Gravalos even said she would be willing to volunteer her time to satisfy the IRS bill, say for example, teaching on an Indian reservation.

Gravalos and Harvey home-school their teen-age son, Max, while their daughter, Emily is away at college.

And so far, their friends, neighbors and family have been very supportive, Gravalos said, with plenty of offers of housing and other assistance. The two have met with other tax resisters in Maine, they said, and also with representatives from Quaker City, N.H., where there is a land trust they may consider joining.

The couple has no plans to move out of the house until they are instructed to do so.

The couple hopes that whoever buys their blueberry field at public auction will lease the property back to them so they can continue farming.

From the 6 May 1984 Utica Daily Observer:

Scholarships for draft evaders

Ames, Iowa — An anti-war group, with assistance from Iowa State University, says it will award an annual scholarship to a conscientious objector to the military draft.

Preference for the privately funded scholarship will be given to a student denied federal financial aid for refusing to register for the draft. The first scholarship is to be awarded this fall.

“Our group wants to help ensure that students who are morally opposed to fighting a war are not denied an education,” said Keith Schrag, coordnator of the Ames War Tax Resistance Fund and a member of the Ames Mennonite Fellowship.

A bill signed into law last year denies federal student aid to students who do not verify they have registered for the draft. The provision is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

When women won the vote in Pennsylvania, they also won the tax, and some were none too happy about it. Here are the stories of a few who said “no.”

6 Women Defy Tax Collector

Refusal to Pay $4.05 Impost May Result in Jail Sentences.

Darby, Pa., May 4 [1927]. — Six women out of 300 who defied the local tax collector and refused to pay a personal tax of $4.05, still were holding out last night against the payment of the impost.

Unless they pay the tax, says S. Robert Shaw, the collector, he will be forced to send them to the Delaware county jail until they meet this obligation to the borough.

Despite the resistance of the little band, a majority of the housewives of Darby chose to pay the tax in preference to going to jail.

Many of the women who decided to pay brought their babies along to the tax collector’s office and at one time there was a string of baby coaches outside the door.

Harry W. Shein, deputy collector, had his troubles in trying to find some of the delinquents. There was no response to his call at several of the homes and there was nothing for him to do but pass on to the next delinquency. He found Mrs. Margaret Lytle at home. She was busy doing an odd job in jainting.

“Jainting”? You got me.

“I’m the tax collector,” said Shein.

“So I see,” said Mrs. Lytle.

“What will my husband do if he comes home and finds no supper?” asked Mrs. Lytle.

Shein had no reply to this and again warned Mrs. Lytle that non-payers of taxes will go to jail.

Another woman, who is reported to have failed to pay her tax, asserted she was laughed at by her friends when she paid her tax in former years, and she would not be laughed at any longer.

The tax has been imposed to complete the new Darby high school, and is part of $5,000 that is needed. All the men apparently have paid the tax.

Darby Women Defy Tax Collector’s Demand For Tax

Media, Pa., May 5. — (U.P.) — Darby’s tax war, which threatened jail for several score of women who refused to pay an annual personal levy, assessed through a 1924 law, continued today with several hundred women dodging irate collectors or barricading themselves in their homes against them.

None of those whom Borough Tax Collector Robert Shaw threatened with jail yesterday if they had not paid their taxes by last night, were behind bars today. Many of them paid, according to the collector, and others had, for the time, disappeared.

The borough is levying the tax to get funds to complete the new high school.

Personal Tax In Darby Borough Mounts Rapidly

Madia, May 5. — (U.P.) — The $4.05 personal tax which scores of women in Darby borough defied constables and collectors in refusing to pay, even under threat of being jailed, had today amounted to $7.41 for the recalcitrant ones, Collector of Taxes Robert Shaw announced.

The additional “ante” came bout through the court costs of issuing and serving summons and committments papers by constables — when they were served.

The original tax Shaw explained, was $3.85 with a 20-cent fine for delayed payment, and now an additional $3.36 for court costs.

Committment papers were to be served today, Shaw said, on those who persisted in defying the tax collector.

The law, passed in 1924, levying an annual personal tax on all voters has not heretofore been enforced against women in Darby borough.

Here is another example from the previous year from a town about 70 miles from Darby:

Woman Tax Striker is Released From Jail

Lancaster, Pa., Aug. 11 [1926]. — After spending eighty-five house in the county jail because she refused to pay $6.82 in personal tax, Mrs. Anna Beck, 32 years old, of Murrell, this county, was released today.

The tax collector of the district, M.B. Hacker, appeared at the jail and signed her release. He stated that “a friend” had paid the township tax.

The tax collector declared that he has had trouble with Mrs. Beck before and was determined to make a test case of her refusal to pay.

“If I had not collected this tax I feel sure there are many others in he district who would have refused to pay,” he stated.

He acted, he said, under an old statute which gave him the right to seize the body of any one refusing to pay taxes.

Mrs. Beck was obdurate in her refusal to allow her relatives to pay the tax, but the long hours in jail apparently changed her mind.

Rather Stay In Jail Than Pay Her Tax

Lancaster, Pa., Aug. 11. — (AP) — Mrs. Anna Beck, of Murrell, who would rather “stay in jail until dooms day” than pay a township tax of $6.82, was still a prisoner in county jail today although her tax has been paid.

Claiming, that women should not have to pay taxes, Mrs. Beck, the mother of a year old child, willingly went to prison last Sunday. She would not pay the tax, she said, and ordered that no one pay it for her. Her husband and friends pleaded with her, but she was adamant.

Last night, however, a neighbor called at the tax collectorx’s home and paid the necessary amount. The payment was made to a member of the collector’s family, who then telephoned the jail and asked that Mrs. Beck be released. The jailer refused to do so, stating that under the law, the collector, who had placed Mrs. Beck in prison, must appear in person and sign her release. The collector, it was learned, is visiting in another section of the state and no one knows when he will return. Until he comes back, the jailer said. Mrs. Beck will remain in prison.

Remember how former District of Columbia council member Carol Schwartz threatened to start resisting her federal income taxes over the lack of Congressional representation for people in the district?

Well, that didn’t last long. When tax time rolled around, she backpedaled and paid up.

But since then I’ve found another example or two. First, this one, from way back in 1955, from a woman with a bit more fortitude:

Daisy Harriman Wants Vote For Washingtonians

“Boston Tea Party” Needed, She Says; Cooking Up Scheme

by Alicia Hart

Washington — (NEA) — The days of crusading women suffragists are not yet dead. That is if Daisy Harriman has her way.

A tradition here in the capital, this grand old gal is outraged that the citizens of Washington, both male and female, have no right to vote either in local or national elections. So she’s waging a red hot no-holds campaign to get Congress to rectify this situation.

If going to prison will help the cause, then Mrs. J. Borden Harriman is game. In fact, she’s presently cooking up a scheme that could put her back in the clink any one of these days.

Mrs. Harriman served as U.S. Minister to Norway during the critical years prior to World War Ⅱ. She is a distant cousin of Gov. W. Averell Harriman of New York.

After years of civic and social activity, political squabbles, hair raising experiences and close friendships with the great and near great, she’s in no mood to call it quits. A mere 84, she makes ridiculous the conventional idea that old ladies should stick to their rocking chairs.

Wake Up People

“We’ve got to do something spectacular that will wake people up to the fact that Washington is voteless.” exclaims Mrs. Harriman who is cochairman of the Washington Home Rule Committee and a power behind the drive to give the District of Columbia its own government. “It’s so hard to get anyone excited over it. Why most people in the country don’t even realize we can’t cast a ballot here.”

The best way to dramatize voteless Washington, Mrs. Harriman figures, is to refuse to pay D.C. taxes until something is done. So far, she has persuaded about 10 persons to go along with the plan. They’ll sign a paper notifying officials of their position.

“We need another Boston Tea Party,” she says. “It’s the same situation — taxation without representation. Washington is the only great capital in the free world where the people have absolutely no say as to how their government is run. It’s a disgrace.”

Such a skirmish with the law could put Mrs. Harriman and anyone else behind bars. Some of her more cautious friends have advised against such a step.

“I’d be perfectly willing to go to prison,” she comments as if referring to a coming engagement. “I think it would be fun.”

In 1937 she was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as Minister to Norway. The second woman in U.S. history to take on such a diplomatic post, it seemed to be a harmless spot where a female could hardly gum up international relations.

But Hitler changed that. When the Germans attacked Norway in 1940, she was on the spot, and her dispatch to the State Department sounded the alarm. Then 70, she stuck out air raids until finally forced to flee to Sweden with the Nazi armies close behind.

She haas also been through plenty of political battles and is a staunch Democrat ever since taking up the banner for Woodrow Wilson in 1912. Soon after his election, she was made the only woman member of the Federal Industrial Relations Commission.

Perhaps Daisy Harriman’s Sunday evening suppers won her the greatest fame, especially in Washgton circles. Here again, there were fireworks. New Dealers and right wingers from the ranks of Congress, the newspaper business and government were placed side by side at her table.

Then she’d throw out for conversation a sizzling topic of the day. When her guests got too hot under the collar, she could always cool them off with one sentence. It was: “Isn’t this all great fun?”

The District of Columbia finally got its own, locally-elected government in 1973, though it is subject to whatever arbitrary mandates Congress decides to throw over it from time to time, and it has turned out to be a particularly crappy government. The residents of the district still have no full-fledged Congressional representation.

In 1990, the non-voting District delegate to Congress, Walter E. Fauntroy…

…announced a campaign of tax-withholding civil disobedience, saying district residents should refuse to pay their federal income taxes until they get statehood.

That would risk penalties including imprisonment. “Those of us who have decided to take this action are prepared to accept those consequences,” Fauntroy said last week.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

Fauntroy… asked city residents to file federal tax returns but withhold payment of federal taxes and place the money in an escrow account to be established by a group called “Taxation Without Representation Committee.”

Fauntroy vowed to continue the protest until a D.C. statehood bill is passed by Congress. The bill, considered a long shot to pass, would make the city a state and give city residents their first voting representation in Congress--two senators and one member of the House.

“Like all Americans, the people of Washington, D.C., are not different when it comes to sharing the burden of taxation,” Fauntroy said. “Indeed, district residents pay more taxes per capita than the residents of every state in the union except one, Alaska.”

He said all records of tax returns and payments would be sealed, and he hopes to get $1 million in unpaid taxes into the account.

The Houston Chronicle added:

Jan Eichhorn, a longtime statehood activist who plans to withhold her federal tax payment, said the protest could affect the struggle for statehood.

“The only way we’re going to get statehood is the way we got home rule: by appealing to the voters of other states,” said Eichhorn, a D.C. government employee. “If this is organized well, it can have an impact.” Fauntroy, who for several years has waged an unsuccessful effort to achieve statehood for the district, said he would like to see $1 million in withheld tax payments made to the corporation. He first began planning the protest late last year.

To preserve taxpayer confidentiality, data about individual contributions to the fund would be sealed, Fauntroy said. He added that James M. Christian, a lawyer with the firm of Laxalt and Washington, had offered legal assistance to participants in the Fauntroy plan.

Fauntroy said the tax protest “will heighten the moral impropriety” of the district not having statehood and “prick the conscience” of those in Congress and other parts of the country who oppose statehood.

Here’s a graphic from the recently-launched tax resistance campaign in northern Italy, from the right-wing “Forza Nuova” party:

Here’s an entry from Thomas P. Cope’s journal, dated 3 May 1849, in which he (a little too facilely) tries to sort out whether as a shareholder of a railroad that has pledged to give special treatment to military shipments in wartime, he has the sort of complicity with war that ought to bother a good Quaker:

A large meeting of Citizens was held last night at the Chinese Museum, Joseph R. Ingersoll in the chair, to forward additional subscriptions to the Pennsylvania Rail Road. A good spirit is said to have prevailed. Ward Commissioners were appointed & no doubt the necessary funds will be supplied. Previous to this meeting I added 80 shares to my subscription, thus constituting me a holder of 500 shares. A much less addition from others will prove sufficient to finish the work.

There is in the act of Incorporation a provision authorizing in time of war the transportation of military stores on the road at half price. As the act was not published when the subscriptions were first taken, this provision was known but to a few, & has been the cause of uneasiness to Friends who had subscribed. But should the privilege ever be claimed, Friends can then withdraw & leave the road to others, should it be found impracticable to have the law altered.

Every importer & consumer of foreign wares knows that import duties go to the payment of army & navy & the munitions of war, so that these indirect levies we have to submit to, or give up business — nor will retiring from business exempt us while we use dutiable article. In effect a portion of every tax levied by the U.S. Government is spent in warlike munitions or actual hostilities.

Cope had been a member of the Pennsylvania state Constitutional Convention in 1837, and had lobbied that body to relieve Quakers from militia service or from the payment of militia exemption taxes.

The following month he wrote about a collection of old papers in a trunk that the owner was about to destroy:

Among the loose papers I picked up one is signed Griffith John, in which he assigns his conscientious scruples to pay a certain tax: “I look upon it no less than imposition upon the tender conscience, being contrary unto the wholesome charter of this Province.” It bears no date, but must have been long before the American Revolution.

A quick hunt through the google shows a number of people named Griffith John from that time period (and more still named John Griffith), so I haven’t been able to uncover much more about this person.

From the 3 May 1878 Utica Morning Herald:

Tax Resistance in Steuben County.

Another attempt was made the other day to sell farm property in the town of Greenwood, Steuben county [New York], on account of a tax levied for the town bonding in aid of railroads, and another failure has followed. The scene was upon the farm of William Atkins, where 200 of the solid yeomanry of the town had assembled to resist the sale, and where the tax collector appeared backed by a sheriff’s posse of 47 men from Bath, Corning, and Hornellsville. Speeches were made by the leaders of the opposing parties — the officials urging the farmers to obey the law and pay the tax, and the farmers replying that there was no law for the burden sought to be imposed upon them, and that they would not submit to robbery in the name of law. A Mr. Brundage said: “We shall stand by our rights, and will not let our money go. We do not mean to fight the law. We turn out to help our neighbors, and they turn out to help us. We are oppressed, but will defend ourselves.” A Mr. Updyke, with broader hint, made these remarks: “I want to tell you folks that Mr. Atkins has paid all of his tax except this railroad tax; and we consider any man who will buy our property to help John Davis and Sam Alley as contemptible sharks. We shall remember him for years, and will know where he lives.” The tax collector finally rose and remarkes that in view of the situation he would not attempt to proceed with the sale, and he wanted it distinctly understood that he “never called on the sheriff for his posse, nor authorized any one else to do so.”

I’ve covered tax resistance related to corrupt railroad bond swindles in other locales as well. Seems there was quite an epidemic.

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

• My Shareable article on “How to Not Pay Taxes” was the headline topic on the Porc Therapy Friday night podcast:
  
• A group of mayors who belong to Italy’s Northern League have announced a tax strike starting tomorrow and aimed at the unified municipal tax (called the IMU in Italy) as it applies to people’s homes.
• Jake, at A Mennonite Dreamed A Dream responds to the Mennonite World Review’s Lettermanesque “Top 10 reasons Mennonites no longer resist paying war taxes.”
• Lucy Steigerwald at Reason magazine’s Hit & Run blog brings us the news of a government-funded video game based on Thoreau’s Walden. Henry D.’s body lies a-spinning in its grave…
• Finally, here’s a photo from tax day, 1966:

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

• The Greek “Don’t Pay” movement has organized as a political party that is competing in the May 6^th elections. The video they have created to support their campaign, shown below, is a great collection of shots of the direct action campaign:

• Curious as to how the 1% lower or eliminate their income tax liabilities? Bloomberg Businessweek has a good overview of some of the strategies they use.
• Welcome, Maia Duerr, to war tax resistance.
• From the archives, here’s a photo that appeared (without an accompanying article) in the Yonkers, New York Herald Statesman in 1971:

Frida Berrigan of the War Resisters League writes up her impressions of the Tax Day protests in New York City.

You have heard before about the rise of the “lucky duckies” — that being the Wall Street Journal editorial page’s term for the growing number of Americans who do not have to pay any federal income tax because their income is low enough to put them under the income tax line after credits and deductions.

The Journal would have us believe that this is the result of the usual government conspiracy to punish society’s virtuous and politically powerless wealth producers for the benefit of those lazy freeloaders whose poverty makes them the darling of politicians everywhere. Or something like that. I don’t smoke what they’re smoking, so I don’t know for sure what they’re getting at.

To some extent, this phenomenon has resulted from the “end of welfare as we know it” and its replacement by tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit. But you may have wondered to what extent this all can be explained not by such changes in the law, but by demographic changes, as the ranks of the retired grow, and people come to live off of their savings rather than their income.

Turns out, this might explain a lot.

Over the next twenty years, the number of Americans aged 25–64 is expected to rise by 9.4% while the number of Americans aged 65 or older is expected to rise by 79.2%, which will inevitably exacerbate this issue (expect the Wall Street Journal to continue blaming this on the poor and their uncannily effective Washington lobbyists).

Thanks to John Kindley at People v. State for plugging The Picket Line.

Some more updates on Cindy Sheehan’s case, from Sheehan herself (excerpts:)

When I decided to be a conscientious objector to war tax, I knew that the consequence could be harassment and/or punishment, but I decided to do it long before I became well known as a gadfly to Empire. I was willing to accept those consequences because I felt that if I were put on trial, the reasons that I don’t fund war crimes would have to also be put on trial, and I think it’s the only way that the illegality of the wars can actually get a hearing.

I have an advisor who is an experienced tax attorney who advises the National War Tax Resister’s [sic] Coordinating Committee and he feels that the Empire may be targeting me to get publicity and to intimidate others from taking the same course of action that I actually encourage others to do, so he could inform me as to what usually happens every step of the way, but my case could be “special” and contain many surprises, a few which did occur in court today.

Before I continue, I’d like to say that since I have become an antiwar “criminal,” my respect for the legal profession has grown by leaps and bounds. I have always managed to attract some amazing attorneys to help me in my cases always on a pro bono basis and this case is no exception. My attorney of record in California is San Francisco attorney, Dennis Cunningham, who has been involved in many protest cases and advising us is Peter Goldberger in Pennsylvania. I am so thankful for the help of my attorneys and for the NWTRCC and I honestly don’t know what I would do without their legal help and peer support.

Anyway, there was a pre-hearing rally in Sacramento today and supporters came there from Los Angeles, Ventura, San Jose, San Francisco, Nevada City and Sacramento — we filled the small courtroom after the rally (my pre rally statement is linked here).

After we went through security and had to relinquish cameras and the signs we had pinned to us showing my son’s picture and my picture and No War Taxes printed on top, we went to the courtroom where my hearing was the final one on a short docket of four.

We were arguing that I had a 1^st Amendment right to the protest and a 5^th Amendment right against self-incrimination and the attorney for the IRS and her buddies that traveled from D.C. (yes, of course, this is not a political persecution) argued that a “blanket 5^th” is not allowed by case law and rulings and she wanted me to be ordered to go to a room in the federal building to answer questions about my “assets.” (My lawyer brilliantly argued that the “secret” agencies already had all that information on me, anyway) — but there was no way that I was going to be blindsided by an unwarranted demand like that and this is where some extraordinary things happened.

Dennis was able to expound at length about our fears of political retribution and my moral opposition to the wars and he was able to iterate that I was against militarism and the huge proportion of our taxes that go towards it. This is what I have always wanted — the position of Peace had its day in court today! I was thrilled beyond belief, but what happened when Dennis finished literally blew me away.

The Magistrate who presided over the hearing, John Moulds, is an older man whom my attorney said has been on the bench for years and years, but is known to be “fair” and not too “excitable.”

The Magistrate said that he read all of our motions and he looked me right in the eyes from across the room and with great emotion in his voice he said, “It strikes me as a civilized way to protest uncivilized acts.” (Reuters) I actually started to cry because it was such a beautiful thing to say in such a loving way and I can’t ever recall anyone in the government and/or establishment that has ever genuinely acknowledged my pain and practically admitted that what happened to Casey and my family was disordered. Oh, many democrats pretended that they were sorry for my pain, but they were only doing it for crass political gain — and when the republicans acknowledged it, they were “thanking” me for my son’s brave service to the country — I don’t know which approach was worse, but I felt no compassion until today.

Then the lady from D.C. said that she could “sympathize with conscientious objectors” but “losing a son” was no excuse to “break the law with impunity.” What’s the empire’s excuse for breaking the law with impunity in many ways on every day?

Dennis and I agreed to meet with the IRS at a future date so I could do a line by line 5^th amendment claim to each question and the lady from D.C. requested that the magistrate order me to comply and show up for the meeting and he said something like, “I want the parties to talk, this hearing is over and I have 45 days to make a ruling one way or the other on your motion — I may, or I may not.” According to Peter, this is also something unprecedented.

I came away feeling very energized and encouraged by today’s proceedings and if the Empire wants to make someone cower before them in fear to intimidate others, they picked the wrong person. Even if the magistrate hadn’t been so favorable to our side, I still would feel triumphant.

The fissures of imperial overreach and excess are widening and the Empire is being exposed for the ridiculous bully it really is.

No Empire lasts forever and the terribly destructive nature of ours requires us to help its inevitable collapse. I am doing everything I can in my own small ways with all the courage I can muster and I appreciate all the support and help I get along the way.

Yesterday the IRS took war tax resister Cindy Sheehan to federal court to ask a judge to compel her to turn over information about her finances so they could find assets to seize.

And the agency completely struck out. The judge told them that if they want Sheehan to come in and talk to them, they should ask her nicely. But can’t you make her come in and answer our questions? they asked. Maybe I could but I won’t, the judge said.

There is a second hearing scheduled for June 4^th at which time the judge may reconsider.

During the hearing, the judge said others have made political statements with tax protests while still managing to comply with the law.

“It strikes me as a civilized way to protest uncivilized acts,” Moulds said, bringing tears to Sheehan’s eyes inside the courtroom and again at the news conference afterward as she recalled his words.

“Finally, someone in this government recognizes my pain,” she told reporters.

Sheehan has agreed to meet again with the IRS, but not to answer their questions or to pay the taxes the agency says she owes. “No matter if the government says I owe a penny or $100,000, I’m not paying one penny to them,” she told supporters outside after the hearing.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, J. Russell George, presented a report to the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Organization, Efficiency, and Financial Management yesterday.

The IRS had recently bragged to the press that it had successfully blocked over 200,000 fraudulent tax returns this year that claimed over $1.15 billion in refunds. But George will tell Congress that: “We have found that the issuance of fraudulent tax refunds based on false income documents is significantly greater than the amount detected and prevented by the IRS.”

How significantly greater? To the tune of $14 billion, says George. To put that into perspective, that makes issuing fraudulent tax refunds a bigger federal budget item than, for instance:

• The entirety of the Department of the Interior ($12.057 billion) — that includes the National Park Servicee, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and others
• The total budget of the Internal Revenue Service ($13.285 billion)

NWTRCC is collecting reports from this year’s tax day actions on its website.

The Internal Revenue Code permits the IRS to slap a $5,000 “frivolous filing penalty” on anyone who files a tax return that “(A) does not contain information on which the substantial correctness of the self-assessment may be judged, or (B) contains information that on its face indicates that the self-assessment is substantially incorrect, and … (A) is based on a position which the Secretary has identified as frivolous… or (B) reflects a desire to delay or impede the administration of Federal tax laws.”

The IRS has been abusing this authority to fine people who file full and correct tax returns but who also include with their returns letters of protest indicating why they are not paying the full amount or why they feel their taxes are being misspent.

The law pretty clearly says the penalty only applies to filings that both assert a legal position the IRS considers frivolous or designed to delay or impede tax collection and accompany a tax return that is incomplete or incorrect.

But the IRS has a trick up its sleeve: in order to challenge an unlawful fine like this, according to the IRS’s own rules on the subject, you must first pay the fine. Tax resisters who are unwilling to give money to the IRS are thereby locked out of the appeal process, and the agency can fine them whether or not they have the legal authority to do so. The agency seems determined to continue abusing its authoity in this way.

The law students who have taken on Vickie Aldrich’s case plan to pursue this angle in their defense strategy.

PeaceSigns is a publication of the U.S. Mennonite Church’s Peace & Justice Support Network. The latest issue focuses on war tax resistance, and includes:

• Would you take a moment to consider this question? by John Stoner
• Timeline of Mennonite-related war tax resistance by Titus Peachey
• Personal story of war tax resistance by Pat Hostetter Martin
• Top Ten reasons Mennonites no longer resist paying war taxes by Steve Ratzlaff
• Learnings of a war tax redirector by Stan Bohn
• What does conscience require? by Berry Friesen

These links pointed me to James C Juhnke’s paper on “Mob Violence and Kansas Mennonites in 1918” which describes some of the violent vigilantism directed at Mennonites who declined to buy war bonds.

Here is the text of Clare Hanrahan’s great tax day speech that she delivered at a rally in Asheville, North Carolina. Her speech repulsed the contemptible vampire liberals of MoveOn (they withdrew from the rally when they heard a war tax resister would be addressing it) better than if she had been wearing a garlic wreath, holding up a silver cross, and shooting holy water from a super-soaker.

“The greatest changes in history have only come when people are willing to put everything on the line.” Julia Butterfly Hill

Environmental activist and tree-sitter Julia Butterfly Hill took direct action when the IRS claimed she owed them $150,000 from a court settlement. Instead of aiding and abetting war, Julia redirected this money to education, arts and cultural programs, community gardens, programs for Native Americans, alternatives to incarceration, and environmental protection.

When war is illegal, isn’t paying war tax a crime?

I have refused to pay war taxes since 1981. That’s the year I took the pledge. That’s when I decided to break the deadly habit of paying for war.

It’s not just our federal taxes that fuel war, but our lifestyles of waste and habitual consumption, this privilege that we maintain on the backs of the destitute of the world, is upheld by the Pentagon and its deadly force.

I’m one of thousands of people around this country who openly identify themselves as War Tax Resisters. Some file and refuse to pay. Some refuse to file or cooperate in any way. Some refuse a portion of federal taxes, some refuse to pay any at all.

Most War Tax Resisters are also Peace Tax Payers, redirecting refused war-tax dollars to fund community needs. Local alternative Funds throughout the U.S. each year deliver more than $50,000 in refused war taxes to support constructive projects.

As we gather here today to call out Bank of America, to demand that they stop participating in this business of death — to demand that they stop funding mountain top removal coal mining enterprises, stop facilitating the buildup and modernization of nuclear weapons, and stop loaning millions to criminal enterprises like Eric Prince and Blackwater/Xe, the largest mercenary operation in the world.

As we say to Bank of America and its shareholders: Stop!

Are we willing to risk our own economic privilege to obstruct this business of death?

Who will block the doors to the post office today when most Americans will voluntarily submit taxes on the demand of the IRS — the taxes that fuel the Pentagon!

When war is illegal — I ask you — isn’t paying for war a crime?

Whatever the risk to property or privilege, career or liberty, we must stop. We must stop supporting this system of destruction. Not merely because it is immoral and unjust, but because it is illegal — according to International Law.

The Pentagon and media are aligned in their efforts to hide the costs: the maimed soldiers, the battlefield carnage, the grieving widows, the broken souls, the poisoned Earth — funded with nearly one-half of every tax dollar obediently submitted under threat.

The mandate of the Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal of 1950 is clear:

Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to [refuse to obey] domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.

We cannot say we did not know.

We who refuse to cooperate with the Internal Revenue Service in its coercive efforts to collect the funds to wage illegal wars, are in fact upholding International Law and treaties that compel citizens to refuse to cooperate with the crimes of their government.

Each citizen has a responsibility to ensure that their own personal conduct does not breach international law.

According to the International Criminal Court a person is criminally liable who “aids, abets or assists” in the commission of such a crime “including providing the means for its commission.”

Governments cannot wage war without the money to buy weapons, pay troops or purchase supplies. Without the support of taxpayers and moneylenders war would be impossible.

When war is illegal, isn’t paying war tax a crime?

Look around. The crime scene is everywhere. Let’s just talk about what we harbor here in these ancient mountains — weapons of mass and indiscriminate destruction — weapons that violate all the criteria for acceptable weapons of war, including: “Distinction” (between combatants and non-combatants), “Proportionality” (causing excessive loss of civilian life); “Protection of Environment” (causing “widespread, longterm & severe damage”).

In Jonesboro, Tennessee, weaponized uranium in the form of armor-piercing bullets is manufactured at AeroJet. It contaminates, kills, and deforms for generation after generation. In Erwin, Tennessee, Nuclear fuel Services manufactures the fuel for Trident Nuclear Submarines — the first strike nuclear submarines, themselves a violation of International law, and in Oak Ridge at the Y-12 nuclear bomb factory where billions more are being spent to upgrade the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal for generations.

The United States is the number one military spender and arms exporter in the world.

U.S. war crimes include “crimes against peace” such as the “planning, preparation, or initiation of a war of aggression.” “Crimes against humanity,” (both civilians and soldiers). Violations of the rules as to the “means and manner by which war is to be conducted once begun.” These include the following prohibitions: “killing of civilians, indiscriminate bombing, the use of certain types of weapons, killing of defenseless soldiers, ill treatment of POWs and attacks on non-military targets.”

We can’t say we didn’t know.

Any violation of these two sets of laws is a war crime — when done on purpose, as the U.S. has done, they are grave breaches — Nazis and Japanese following World War Ⅱ were hanged for such grave breaches.

The United States and its leaders have committed international crimes. As global citizens, under International law, we are complicit in these crimes against humanity, these war crimes.

When war is illegal, paying for war is a war crime.

How long, I ask, will it take those of us who know the futility of the Pentagon’s wars, how they rob us of our brightest and best, how they kill and rape and maim, tear apart families, lay desolate the land, leave orphans and widows and broken and discarded veterans wandering our streets, filling our jails, or bringing the violence of war back home?

How long, war-tax payers, will you persist in this deadly submission?

We can’t say we didn’t know.

When war is illegal, isn’t paying war tax a crime?