Demonstrate Support for Individual Resisters
Simply expressing “I’m with you,” “I’m on your side,” “I’m proud of what you’re doing” can keep a resister going when things get tough.
Example Valentine Byler
Amish tax resister Valentine Byler was in the fields plowing when the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) came and seized his horses and harnesses. He had refused to pay into the government’s social security system, believing that to participate in such an insurance program would be unchristian.
Americans across the country were furious that the government seized a man’s livelihood to force him to adhere to its social welfare program. They sent Byler messages of support like these:
“I congratulate you on having the intestinal fortitude to stand up for your beliefs.”
“Your courageous stand for your religious principles is to be commended.”
“I am sincerely sorry this has happened.”
Example War Tax Resisters
When war tax resister Aleck D. Dodd had his salary garnished for back taxes in 1949, his employer, the Toledo Council of Churches, dismissed Dodd from his position as its director of Pastoral Relations. Then, “[i]n one of the ‘longest and most spirited meetings in its history,’ the Toledo Ministerial Association adopted a set of resolutions supporting the right of Dr. Aleck D. Dodd to follow the dictates of his conscience… and sharply criticized the Toledo Council of Churches.”
Sympathizers can also take bolder steps to show their solidarity. In 1952, when the Wyoming Conference of the Methodist Church dismissed Rev. Richard Fichter for being a war tax resister, another minister, James Garst, resigned from the Conference in protest.
When Arthur Evans was in jail for contempt of court after refusing to turn records over to the IRS, he received letters from more than 150 people who supported his actions. “None of us knows how we strengthen the community by following our own conscience. I felt a power from the prayers and the loving concern of people who saw me suffering in jail,” he said.
At its biannual national meetings, American war tax resisters in the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee sign cards of sympathy and encouragement to be sent to war tax resisters who have recently suffered repercussions from their resistance.
Notes and Citations
- Igou, Brad “Valentine Byler vs. the IRS: ‘Pay Unto Caesar—The Amish & Social Security’ ” Amish Country News 1999, 2005
- “Beyond Our Own” The Mennonite 27 September 1949, p. 16 (quoting Fellowship)
- “Preacher Resigns Methodist Post: Protests Dismissal of Fellow Clergyman” Reading Eagle 25 May 1952
- Goering, Jack “Biblical issues raised by war tax workshop” The Mennonite 23 March 1971, pp. 190–91