Clog Up the Courts and/or the Jails

Some tax resistance campaigns tried to make tax enforcement or government reprisals against tax resisters costly for the government by clogging the jails or the court system. This can force the government into a checkmate, where if it fails to take legal action against resisters it loses, and if it takes action it also loses. But by forcing resisters to throw themselves onto the gears of the machine, this tactic can be costly to them as well, and can make this tactic something of a game of chicken or a war of attrition.

Example John Brown Smith and J.J. Keon

John Brown Smith was a British citizen living in the United States. Not allowed to vote, as a non-citizen, he decided to test the famous American “no taxation without representation” motto by refusing to pay Belchertown’s $2 poll tax. In 1879 the town threw him in jail. There he stayed… for almost a year! The town had to spend about $1.75 per week just to feed him while he was behind bars.

Some of the frugal tax-payers of Belchertown object to being assessed for their proportion of Smith’s weekly board bill. They think that they are the real martyrs, since they maintain in idleness a man who will not pay a poll-tax, the proceeds of which would scarcely suffice to pay the cost of maintaining him one week in Northampton Jail. Some nobler spirits, however, express their willingness to pay their share of the cost of Smith’s prison fare until the crack of doom, if Smith should hold out so long, in order that the majesty of the law shall be vindicated. Smith, on his part, exultingly declares that he is better housed and fed than a majority of the voters of Belchertown who are paying his board. This aspect of the case detracts somewhat from the heroism of the martyr to the poll-tax. Nevertheless, as Smith adds that he would rather spend the rest of his days in jail than give up the principle for which he is contending, we may concede that he is a real hero, unaffected by the mercenary considerations of his board bill.

Smith was eventually released when someone came forward to pay his tax and fines (by then, a total of $5.62). This left the government about $75 behind on the deal.

J.J. Keon similarly tried to wear down the government from within jail after he refused to pay his poll tax in Grafton, Illinois, in 1910:

J.J. Keon, a Socialist of this city, is in the city jail, having the time of his life, so he says, because he is forcing the city to spend $125 to punish him for failure to pay a poll tax of $1.50… He says he finds nothing in the state constitution which makes a poll tax legal, so he insists that the city keep him in jail for six months, which is the longest term possible for his “offense.” He believes that it will not alter his principle and that it may make the city tired of forcing its male population to pay a poll tax.…

“You’re losing $4.50 a day [Keon’s usual salary] while you are in jail,” pleaded the mayor. “In six months that will amount to more than $500.”

“Money is nothing to me when compared with a principle,” replied Keon. “And let’s see what I am costing the city. Meals, 150 days, at sixty cents a day, $108; night watchman, $5; chicken fence wire [the city’s improvised prison bars], $2; miscellaneous, $10. Total, $125. The entire poll taxes [collected by the city] for the year are only $325.…”

Example The Anti-Poll Tax Unions

The campaign against Thatcher’s poll tax succeeded in clogging the courts. In theory, everyone summonsed for refusal to pay had a legal right to have their case heard, but the councils that implemented the tax were counting on people just rolling over and letting the government have its way without a fight.

Campaign chronicler Danny Burns wrote:

Initially, neither the councils nor the courts took the judicial procedure seriously because they didn’t expect anyone to turn up… South Tyndale Council summoned 3,500 to appear on two afternoons. A total of five hours was allocated to hear all these cases—an average of four seconds per hearing. When people heard this they were furious, because it was obvious that both the council and the courts saw the process as rubber stamping exercise.…

The “Anti-Poll Tax Unions” that formed the backbone of the campaign saw this as an exploitable weakness of the government, and they decided to encourage as many people as possible to show up in court and press their cases in the most time- and resource-consuming way the law would permit.

…People were given ideas about how they might disrupt or delay the court proceedings. These included simple things, like asking for a glass of water because their throat was dry, demanding to see the identity cards of everyone present in court, to fainting in court or arranging for fire alarms to go off. People were told to demand their rights to see and read every document which was produced as evidence against them. They were also given briefings on the basic technical arguments.

…Throughout England and Wales over a thousand people were trained to do court support work and could quote the relevant legislation…

Experience showed that the most effective way of wasting time, for those who were not familiar with the law, was to relate direct experiences of hardship. People talking in their own language about their own circumstances were much harder for the magistrates to dismiss than legal technicians. Many people made political speeches which lasted for as long as ten minutes, others outlined their financial circumstances. They all took up valuable time, and sometimes made a powerful and moving impact on the public gallery.

Sometimes just showing up was enough to crash the system. In Warrington, 1,000 people turned up to contest their cases, and the court, unable to cope, shut down for the day and postponed all of the scheduled cases. In Southwark, 1,500 people came to court and made things so unwieldy that “the police were stopping people from coming into their own court cases.…[and] the court declared all 5,000 cases adjourned.”

Example Turn-about Is Fair Play

Using the government’s own defenses against it can be a powerful strategy. I’ve even got an example in my archives of when the government used this sort of ju-jitsu and managed to frustrate nonviolent tax resisters by using their tactics against them.

During the Salt Raids in the Indian independence campaign, a group of policemen blockaded the road in front of an assembly of raiders, and sent another group to cut off their escape route. Then, rather than attacking the raiders, the police used satyagraha tactics to force a standoff:

“You cannot proceed.” the superintendent informed Mrs. [Sarojini] Naidu.

“We will not go back,” the poetess and leader replied. “We will stay here.”

“We are going to stay here, too, and offer satyagraha ourselves as long as you stay,” the superintendent said, ordering his men to stand their ground.

They parleyed for a short time and then Mrs. Naidu ordered a chair brought from a nearby house. She sat down and wrote letters and talked jovially with her friends. Her followers squatted on the ground nearby, many of them engaged in spinning cloth.

Example Māoris and the Dog Tax

A remarkably well-disciplined, non-violent, successful jail-clogging took place in early 1924 in the Chatham Islands. A news dispatch explained:

When the Maoris of the Chatham Islands, a dependency of New Zealand, were ordered to pay the dog-tax they did not refuse. They did not do anything else either.

Then they were summoned, they attended in a crowd at the native police court and they sat around and said nothing. The magistrate inflicted the usual small fines and looked surprised that no native came forward to explain.

Then the court tried to collect the tax. The Maoris said nothing, but moved off in a body 200 strong to the gaol. Outside it they insisted they should be imprisoned, but as the gaol would be crowded by a dozen—the Chathams being well-behaved and altogether peaceable Islanders—there was nothing to do but send them all home.

In future there will be no dog-tax in the Chathams. Passive resistance has won a complete victory.

Notes and Citations

“John Smith, Martyr” The New York Times 9 December 1879
“Socialist Refuses to Pay Poll Tax” The New York Call 25 April 1910, p. 5
Burns, Danny Poll Tax Rebellion (1992) p. 134–35, 138–40
Counter Information No. 30, February 1991 (quoted in Burns, Danny op. cit., p. 135)
Low, Francis “Salt Works Raid Cleverly Halted” Altoona Mirror 15 May 1930, p. 1
“Maoris Refuse To Pay Tax On Dogs” Vancouver Daily World 16 January 1924