War Resisters Give Away Their Taxes as Bus Fare

An article about “Moratorium Day” anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in the 15 October 1971 Central Michigan Life included this note:

Dimes taped to a card stating, “Taxes for buses, not for bombs,” were passed out to 1,000 subway commuters by the Philadelphia War Tax Resistance.

From the 14 October 1843 Cambrian:

Exemption of Lime from Toll

Yesterday, the Committee appointed at the meeting of the Neath Turnpike Trustees (reported in our last page) for the purpose of taking into consideration the expediency of exempting lime from the payment of tolls, and the best means of carrying the measure into effect, held a sitting. Being a Committee Meeting, the proceedings, of course, were private, but we understand, that all the Trustees present were most anxious to come to an arrangement with Mr. Bullin, the lessee, for the purpose of exempting lime. At the close of the sitting of the Committee, the Trustees held their adjourned meeting, which adopted and confirmed the following resolutions, which were passed by the Committee:–

That Mr. Rowland, the treasurer, be requested to advance the sum of 66l. 12s. 4d. to pay the list of bills delivered against the Neath Turnpike Trust, left in arrear by Robert Alford, the late surveyor, the said bills having been examined and allowed this day by the Committee appointed for this purpose — and that Mr. Rowland also be requested to advance the money required to pay the interest due to the bondholders to the 29^th Sept. 1843, and also the money required for current expenses.

That a bond be given to Mr. Rees Williams, of Aberpergwm, for 312l. 11s. 3d., and to Mr. W. Williams, of Aberpergwm. for 72l. 3s. 6d. for limestone supplied from 1833 to July 1843, and that such bonds bear date the 29^th Sept. 1843.

That from and after the 14^th of October, 1843, no toll be taken for lime carried along the turnpike roads of this district for the purpose of manure, and that a sum not exceeding 10l. be allowed in the account of Thomas Bullin, the contractor of tolls, for the above exemption, from the 14^th of October to the 6^th of January, 1844, when the tolls of this Trust will be re-let.

This course must prove satisfactory to the farmers of the neighbourhood who use lime as their principal manure.

I have found some hints of a tax rebellion in “Indian Territory” (now Oklahoma) in 1899, but most of what I’ve been able to dig up comes from a newspaper — the Indian Chieftain — that took a stand against the rebellion and had to defend itself in its editorial columns, so I’m getting a skewed view on what was going on.

Apparently, cattle farmers in the Territory had been refusing to pay their Cherokee Nation taxes into the U.S. Department of the Interior, and had refused some $50,000 dollars by the time the controversy hit the paper. The Chieftain came out against the resisters, and the resisters tried to organize a boycott of the paper in response. “Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel,” goes the saying, but they heeded it not, and the Chieftain devoted many columns to its frequently repetitive denunciations of the boycotters, and to reprinting those of sister papers.

To hear the Chieftain and its allies make the case, the cattle ranchers were largely out-of-state people trying to take advantage of weak law enforcement in tribal areas and hoping they could get free pastureland and that the U.S. government would not bother to try to enforce the per-head cattle royalty against them. Free riders, essentially.