Philadelphia, (AP) —
A Philadelphia lawyer and his wife notified the internal revenue department
they would refuse to pay 34.6 per
cent of their income tax which “was used
for preparation for war.”
The couple — Walter C. Longstreth and his wife, Emily — wrote “true
patriotism requires a citizen to protest as strongly as he can peaceably,
when his country adopts a course that is leading to degradation and
destruction.”
Lawyer Longstreth said in his letter: “In the Nuremberg trials, the
U.S. maintained
the principle that a citizen of Germany should refuse to obey his Government
when his Government ordered him to do an evil act. That principle is equally
valid for the citizens of the
U.S. including
myself.”
The couple said 34.6 per cent of their
income tax “was used for preparation for war.”
Both said they were donating the portion of their income tax which they
refuse to pay to the American Friends Service Committee, the Navajo Indians
and for other relief and constructive purposes.
Remember the Doukhobors?
That group of Russian Christian anarcho-pacifist iconoclasts that were forced
into exile in the late nineteenth century? Leo Tolstoy championed their case,
and with the help of British Quakers, their community migrated to exile in
Canada.
Well, they had a bit of trouble accommodating themselves to the Canadian
regime too, as this news item (from The Montreal Gazette, ) shows:
Won’t Pay School Taxes.
Education Begets Evil in Children, Say the Doukhobors.
Langham, Sask., . —
The Doukhobors have flatly refused to pay school taxes on their lands, saying
that, as they have always refused to have their children educated, lest they
learn evil things, they will not pay money for school purposes. The
authorities here are puzzled themselves to know how to get the tax from them.
The Doukhobors have very thoughtfully lost no time in taking their crops from
the land within the Langham school district.
Dear Madam,— It is with great satisfaction that I learned the other day that
the Women’s Freedom League, while abandoning active militant action at this
time of national crisis, was still maintaining its constitutional action of
tax resistance. One of the more subtle evils of a time of war is that the
nation may grow to acquiesce quietly in unnecessary encroachments on civil
liberty, from fear of embarrassing those in authority on whom the immediate
integrity of the nation depends. If, however, civil rights have been
unthinkingly relinquished, rehabilitation is increasingly difficult when
peace is again restored. Therefore, though we may cheerfully waive our
individual rights as citizens, and bow to exigencies of martial law when
called upon to do so, yet it is of extreme importance that we should not lose
sight of the great constitutional principles on which our liberties are
based. Tax resistance is a means of asserting calmly and firmly the existence
and ultimate authority of these principles. At such a time as this it is
true that our country needs all that her sons and daughters can give, both of
money and service, but not now, any more than before war was declared, can we
trust an unrepresentative Government to use its revenues in the best interests
of the whole nation. I would, therefore, suggest that every tax resister
should contribute the sum she owes to the Government to a National Fund of
her own choosing, and should send her donation as “Taxes withheld from the
Government by a voteless woman.”
