The Picket Line — 9 September 2010

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9 September 2010

From the 9 September 1911 issue of The Vote:

Tax Resistance.

Articles of jewellery belonging to Miss [Kate] Rayleigh were sold on Thursday at the Chequers Hotel, Uxbridge, having been seized for non-payment of Imperial taxes. This is the second occasion on which Miss K. Raleigh, who is a member of the Tax Resistance League, has made a similar protest. The auctioneer was entirely in sympathy with the protest, and explained the circumstances under which the sale took place. He courteously allowed Mrs. [Anne] Cobden Sanderson and Mrs. [Emily] Juson Kerr to put clearly the women’s point of view; Miss Raleigh made a warm appeal for true freedom. A procession was formed and an open-air meeting subsequently held. Mrs. Cobden Sanderson presided. Mrs. [Marianne] Clarendon Hyde, Miss [Alison] Neilans and Miss Raleigh addressed an attentive audience. A resolution was passed protesting against the sale, and calling on the Member of Parliament for the constituency to support the Conciliation Bill when it comes before the House next year. The various Suffrage Societies were well represented.
M.C.H.

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How you can resist funding the government → a survey of tactics of historical tax resistance campaigns → disrupt government auctions → British women’s suffrage movement: ▶; ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦; Tax Resistance in “The Vote”; A wonderful how-to and why-to book on “Possum Living” by a 19-year-old who lives on the cheap with her father. Also: a letter from the Women’s Tax Resistance League of 1913.; Tax resisting suffragettes see their goods seized and auctioned off, and the movement turns the auctions into protest rallies..; In the Spring of 1912, there were many auctions of goods seized from women’s suffrage activists by tax enforcers. The movement turned each auction into a rally for the cause.; Tax auctions, imprisonments, and releases from prison: all opportunities for the Women’s Tax Resistance League to rally supporters.; The campaign of the Women’s Tax Resistance League kicks into high gear, as reported on this date in 1913.; War tax resister Frank Donnelly was sentenced to a year in prison yesterday. Also: notes on Vivien Kellems’s tax resistance strategy. And: women’s suffragists rally around the new John Hampden statue at Aylesbury.; The Women’s Tax Resistance League produced a series of posters to propagandize their cause. They also came out in force at the unveiling of a new statue of John Hampden at Aylesbury.; Frank Sproson reflects on Emma Sproson’s tax resistance. Also: suffragists interrogate Winston Churchill about Emma Sproson’s imprisonment.; New Zealanders send manure to cabinet ministers to protest against a “flatulence tax” on greenhouse-gas-emitting livestock. Also: auctions of property seized from tax resisters become opportunities for suffrage rallies and parades in 1911.; Barricades, property seizures, and shady auctions: another week of action for the Women’s Tax Resistance League.; We wrap up our Mexico vacation today, NWTRCC’s website gets a facelift, and Clare Hanrahan reminds us of our responsibilities in the face of the ongoing U.S. torture policy. Also: Winifred Patch has her silver seized and sold to pay her resisted taxes, and protesters outside the auction address the crowd on women’s suffrage.; Gertrude Eaton’s and Marion McKenzie’s property is auctioned off for back taxes, giving suffragists opportunities for two more rallies, in 1911.; Charlotte Despard and Laurence Housman speak out for tax resistance in the suffrage movement as Winifred Patch’s property is sold for back taxes in 1910.; In 2009, activists broke in to the offices of an arms manufacturer and destroyed equipment, they were arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy, but they raise a “necessity defense” that they were acting to prevent war crimes by the arms purchasers — this year a jury acquitted them, unanimously. Meet the “decommissioners.” Also: the Women’s Freedom League hijacks a tax auction and turns it into a suffrage rally.; Joseph Maizlish of Southern California War Tax Resistance is interviewed on the Spirit In Action radio show. Also: more reports of tax resistance in the British women’s suffrage movement. And: Vivien Kellems strikes again, in 1971, at age 75.; Steve Ratzlaff on how some people suffer from irrationally exaggerated risk aversion that keeps them from aligning their lives with their values and adopting war tax resistance. Also: the press in New Zealand and England cover suffragette tax resistance in 1912.; A mention of Arthur Evans’s release from prison after refusing to disclose financial information to the I.R.S., in 1963. Also: the Women’s Tax Resistance League kicks into high gear in 1912.; The Samoans also organized tax resistance when they were occupied by the Germans (this example comes from 1887). Also: when Ulster Unionists threaten a tax resistance campaign in 1913, the Women’s Tax Resistance League wonders why they can’t get the same respect.; Several years before Beit Sahour there was another Palestianian tax strike, this one involving the doctors of Gaza City. Also: the tax authorities used a battering ram to break Kate Harvey’s barricade and seize her goods for taxes. A hell of a lot of good that did them when the suffragists turned the auction into a mass rally.; Auctions of distrained goods, public meetings, marches and processions, court hearings… all opportunities for suffragist tax resisters to get their rally on.; Tax resisters Kathy Kelly and Karl Meyer as they were profiled fifteen years ago today. Also: Lively protests accompanied the government’s actions against suffragist tax resister Kate Harvey in 1912.; 1913: Suffragists interrupt an unfriendly auctioneer at a tax sale, suffrage-sympathetic male tax striker Captain Gonne is arrested, Agnes Edith Metcalf refuses to pay her dog license, and Margaret Kineton Parkes gets a hearing for women’s tax resistance in Ireland.; “We are not so much concerned about the pecuniary loss or sufferings likely to be sustained by our Society from this law, as we are that all our members should stand firm, and be faithful in bearing their testimony against war and military operations; taxes and fines appertaining thereunto, either directly or indirectly,” wrote the North Carolina Yearly Meeting in 1831. Also: suffragettes successfully convince an auction crowd not to bid on a wagon seized from a resister. And: in 1982, Ralph Dull tries to pay his tax bill in corn.; A mob attacks a group of women’s suffrage activists protesting at an auction of a tax resister’s seized property in 1913.; Tales from the British Women’s Suffrage Movement, showing how tax resistance evolved as a tactic between 1884 and 1914.; A new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter is on-line. Also: the Women’s Tax Resistance League marches in the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.; A tactic that I’ve encountered on many occasions in my research into tax resistance campaigns is that of disrupting government auctions, particularly those of goods seized from tax resisters. Here are several examples that show the variety of ways campaigns have accomplished this.
Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → women’s suffrage movements → British women’s suffrage movement → Anne (& Mr.) Cobden Sanderson: ▶; ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦; Tax resisting suffragettes see their goods seized and auctioned off, and the movement turns the auctions into protest rallies..; In the Spring of 1912, there were many auctions of goods seized from women’s suffrage activists by tax enforcers. The movement turned each auction into a rally for the cause.; The campaign of the Women’s Tax Resistance League kicks into high gear, as reported on this date in 1913.; Kate Harvey writes of “a limit to a woman’s patience. The limit is reached when they talk of compelling us to contribute towards the salaries of the men who slam the door in our faces! Resistance is our most effective weapon.”; The announcement of the publication of “The Tax Resistance Movement in Great Britain” in 1919, and excerpts from Laurence Housman’s “The Duty of Tax Resistance.”; The Women’s Tax Resistance League produced a series of posters to propagandize their cause. They also came out in force at the unveiling of a new statue of John Hampden at Aylesbury.; Kate Harvey continues to barricade her house against the tax collector, and the Women’s Tax Resistance League makes every auction of seized goods an opportunity for a rally.; Kate Harvey’s trial for tax resistance in 1913. “I am not resisting the Act as an Act. If it had come straight down from heaven I should resist it just the same. I am doing what every business man throughout the country does as a matter of course — I refuse to pay for goods which I cannot choose.”; Gertrude Eaton’s and Marion McKenzie’s property is auctioned off for back taxes, giving suffragists opportunities for two more rallies, in 1911.; Tax resistance news from Germany, Venezuela, and Sicily. Also, a profile of J. Tony Serra, a free guide to nonviolent resistance, and an anarchist lemonade-in. And, 1911: a suffragist tax resister has her property taken by the government and auctioned off, and the auction turns into a suffrage rally.; In 2009, activists broke in to the offices of an arms manufacturer and destroyed equipment, they were arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy, but they raise a “necessity defense” that they were acting to prevent war crimes by the arms purchasers — this year a jury acquitted them, unanimously. Meet the “decommissioners.” Also: the Women’s Freedom League hijacks a tax auction and turns it into a suffrage rally.; A pistol and a hammer: two little articles you’ll find come in handy when the tax collector calls, according to a suffragette verse. Kate Harvey’s imprisonment further radicalizes the suffragists in 1913.; In September 1913, there was a large women’s suffrage protest rally held in Trafalgar Square. Tax resistance was on the agenda, especially with the recent imprisonment of resister Kate Harvey. And an editorial in the suffrage newspaper “The Vote” criticized government and taxation at a more radical level than the basic no-taxation-without-representation argument common to women’s suffrage tax resistance.; In 1912, suffragists backed the British government into a corner and put it in the weird position of imprisoning Mark Wilks because his wife refused to pay taxes on her income.; The government throws in the towel and without explanation releases Mark Wilks, who had been imprisoned for refusing to pay his wife’s taxes, in 1912. Also: Ethel Ayres Purdie on the plight of women whose incomes were legally the property of their husbands.; From the 15 October 1910 issue of “The Vote” come these reports of speeches given at a mass suffrage meeting in Trafalgar Square.; Joseph Maizlish of Southern California War Tax Resistance is interviewed on the Spirit In Action radio show. Also: more reports of tax resistance in the British women’s suffrage movement. And: Vivien Kellems strikes again, in 1971, at age 75.; Mark Wilks and Elizabeth Knight go to the mat with their tax resistance for women’s suffrage in 1912.; They say Mussolini made the trains run on time, and the chairman of the League of Nations’ Permanent Mandates Commission thought he could also teach New Zealand a thing or two about forcing the Samoan natives to pay their taxes to their occupiers. Also: the Women’s Tax Resistance League gets up a head of steam in 1910.; More meetings and auction protests by the Women’s Tax Resistance League in 1911.; “If anyone fears that he has not courage to go to prison he will soon find, when he is inside, that one of its peculiar characteristics is to produce a determination and courage undreamed of to resist, not its discipline, which is a farce, but its tyranny, which oppresses the weak, and vanishes like the mist before the strong.” — women’s suffrage tax resister Mark Wilks; “If anyone fears that he has not courage to go to prison he will soon find, when he is inside, that one of its peculiar characteristics is to produce a determination and courage undreamed of to resist, not its discipline, which is a farce, but its tyranny, which oppresses the weak, and vanishes like the mist before the strong.” — women’s suffrage tax resister Mark Wilks; Auctions of distrained goods, public meetings, marches and processions, court hearings… all opportunities for suffragist tax resisters to get their rally on.; Tax resisters Kathy Kelly and Karl Meyer as they were profiled fifteen years ago today. Also: Lively protests accompanied the government’s actions against suffragist tax resister Kate Harvey in 1912.; Dr. Winifred Patch keeps fighting the Crown’s attempts to tax her during World War One, and has a crowd of well-wishers behind her.; In pre-suffrage Britain, husbands were legally 100% on the hook for taxes owed by both halves of a married couple. So married women started taking legal action to prevent the tax collectors from touching their property.; War tax resister Francis Costello: “If I have any fear at all in my lifetime, it’s knowing exactly where my conscience is going to take me.” Also: the Women’s Freedom League expands their tax strike in 1914.; “We are not so much concerned about the pecuniary loss or sufferings likely to be sustained by our Society from this law, as we are that all our members should stand firm, and be faithful in bearing their testimony against war and military operations; taxes and fines appertaining thereunto, either directly or indirectly,” wrote the North Carolina Yearly Meeting in 1831. Also: suffragettes successfully convince an auction crowd not to bid on a wagon seized from a resister. And: in 1982, Ralph Dull tries to pay his tax bill in corn.; Tax auction, protest rally, tax auction, protest rally. The women’s suffrage movement in Britain knew how to make the most of government retaliation. Also, Joan Baez speaks out: “This country has gone mad. But I will not go mad with it. I will not pay for organized murder. I will not pay for the war in Vietnam.”; Concluding our year-long review of tax resistance articles from “The Vote” with tales of distraint on a duchess, the official robbery of married women, and an array of tax auctions and seizures — all accompanied, naturally, by lively protest rallies.; Dora Montefiore, in her book “From a Victorian to a Modern” told the story of her tax resistance and the “Siege of Montefiore.”; An unusual method of tax resistance is to deliberately make yourself taxable in order to owe a tax that you can then resist, or, similarly, to defy some legal condition of your tax-exempt status. Here are some examples. Also: a convergence of conservative tax critics and anti-war tax resisters in 1970.; A tactic that I’ve encountered on many occasions in my research into tax resistance campaigns is that of disrupting government auctions, particularly those of goods seized from tax resisters. Here are several examples that show the variety of ways campaigns have accomplished this.
Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → women’s suffrage movements → British women’s suffrage movement → Emily Juson Kerr: ▶; ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦; Kate Lelacheur’s tax resisting cow. Also: suffragists turn tax auctions of property seized from tax resisters and court cases against them into opportunities for organizing and protest.; In the Spring of 1912, there were many auctions of goods seized from women’s suffrage activists by tax enforcers. The movement turned each auction into a rally for the cause.; Frank Sproson reflects on Emma Sproson’s tax resistance. Also: suffragists interrogate Winston Churchill about Emma Sproson’s imprisonment.; Tax resisters Kathy Kelly and Karl Meyer as they were profiled fifteen years ago today. Also: Lively protests accompanied the government’s actions against suffragist tax resister Kate Harvey in 1912.; Dr. Winifred Patch keeps fighting the Crown’s attempts to tax her during World War One, and has a crowd of well-wishers behind her.; Dr. Winifred Patch keeps fighting the Crown’s attempts to tax her during World War One, and has a crowd of well-wishers behind her.; A tactic that I’ve encountered on many occasions in my research into tax resistance campaigns is that of disrupting government auctions, particularly those of goods seized from tax resisters. Here are several examples that show the variety of ways campaigns have accomplished this.
Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → women’s suffrage movements → British women’s suffrage movement → Alison Neilans: ▶; ♦ ♦ ♦; Kate Lelacheur’s tax resisting cow. Also: suffragists turn tax auctions of property seized from tax resisters and court cases against them into opportunities for organizing and protest.; British suffragettes are imprisoned and their goods are seized and auctioned off, but their tax resistance continues undaunted.; A tactic that I’ve encountered on many occasions in my research into tax resistance campaigns is that of disrupting government auctions, particularly those of goods seized from tax resisters. Here are several examples that show the variety of ways campaigns have accomplished this.
Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → women’s suffrage movements → British women’s suffrage movement → Kate Raleigh: ▶; ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦; Edward Koryto protested his increased property tax assessment by razing the home it took him seven years to build from scrap lumber. Also: more tales of suffragettes being harassed by the tax collector.; The campaign of the Women’s Tax Resistance League kicks into high gear, as reported on this date in 1913.; Kate Harvey writes of “a limit to a woman’s patience. The limit is reached when they talk of compelling us to contribute towards the salaries of the men who slam the door in our faces! Resistance is our most effective weapon.”; The announcement of the publication of “The Tax Resistance Movement in Great Britain” in 1919, and excerpts from Laurence Housman’s “The Duty of Tax Resistance.”; The Women’s Tax Resistance League produced a series of posters to propagandize their cause. They also came out in force at the unveiling of a new statue of John Hampden at Aylesbury.; Reporting from the first full (very full!) day of the joint National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee Fall gathering / 25th annual New England Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters.; A “socialist agitator” goes to jail in 1914 rather than pay his poll tax. Also: Winifred Patch decides on complete noncooperation with the court ruling on her tax case. And: A star roster of suffragist tax resisters speaks out for Dr. Patch.; Dr. Winifred Patch keeps fighting the Crown’s attempts to tax her during World War One, and has a crowd of well-wishers behind her.; In pre-suffrage Britain, husbands were legally 100% on the hook for taxes owed by both halves of a married couple. So married women started taking legal action to prevent the tax collectors from touching their property.; War tax resister Francis Costello: “If I have any fear at all in my lifetime, it’s knowing exactly where my conscience is going to take me.” Also: the Women’s Freedom League expands their tax strike in 1914.; “We are not so much concerned about the pecuniary loss or sufferings likely to be sustained by our Society from this law, as we are that all our members should stand firm, and be faithful in bearing their testimony against war and military operations; taxes and fines appertaining thereunto, either directly or indirectly,” wrote the North Carolina Yearly Meeting in 1831. Also: suffragettes successfully convince an auction crowd not to bid on a wagon seized from a resister. And: in 1982, Ralph Dull tries to pay his tax bill in corn.; It may sound like a long shot, but have you considered trying to make friends with the tax collector? It’s a strategy that’s so crazy it just might work! Here are some examples of where tax resisters or their allies have tried it.

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