Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” →
Quakers →
20th–21st century Quakers →
the Monteverde settlement
The first edition of the Friends Journal is dated , and billed itself as “Successor to The Friend () and Friends Intelligencer ().”
The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, which had been split into an Orthodox and a Hicksite meeting , had reunified .
The new magazine reflected this merger: The Friend had been the organ of the Orthodox meeting, and the Intelligencer that of the Hicksite meeting.
, the magazine shared offices with the “Friends Peace Committee” of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, which may have led to some cross-pollination, and increased coverage for peace testimony concerns in the magazine.
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
There are few mentions of war tax resistance in the early issues of Friends Journal.
We have reached the last years of the long decline of war tax resistance in the Society of Friends that began around the time of the American Civil War.
In , the American Friends Service Committee put out an influential booklet, Speak Truth to Power: A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence, that mentions war tax resistance only once, in reference to its use by Quakers in (this despite the fact that war tax resisters A.J. Muste and Milton Mayer were part of the committee that wrote the booklet).
The first mention I found comes from the issue.
It is a single-sentence sardonic comment on the tax resistance of conservative Utah governor J. Bracken Lee:
“The Governor of Utah should be welcomed to the ranks of conscientious objectors, even though most Friends and other pacifists would not resist paying income tax on the ground that they were conscientiously opposed to economic aid to other countries.”
The issue mentions a lawsuit filed by Milton Mayer “to recover income tax taken from him forcibly in what he claims was a violation of his conscientious objection to war.”
The three-paragraph article is conspicuous for how much effort it seems to go to to avoid referring to Mayer as a Quaker.
Mayer is “a well-known writer,” a “Carmel, Calif., author, formerly a Chicagoan,” “who writes for leading magazines,” and “has been a lecturer for the American Friends Service Committee and at many colleges, universities and churches,” and “has been a member of the faculties of the University of Chicago and Frankfurt (Germany) and is consultant to the Great Books Foundation.”
All that resume material in the brief article, and yet no mention that he is a Quaker convert.
The article says that “his religious principles will not let him buy guns for other men to shoot” but doesn’t call these Quaker principles or refer to the Quaker peace testimony.
So it makes for a curious article: a respectful nod at war tax resistance with a pained effort to distance the Society of Friends from it.
The issue included a “symposium” on “Investments and Our Peace Testimony” which highlighted the difficulty of finding investments “free of the taint of involvement in war preparation.”
Only one of the participants, Samuel J. Bunting, Jr., explicitly mentions taxation as something that triggers the same concern.
Excerpts:
The problem has worried me ever since World War Ⅰ.
At that time, at the risk of losing a position and the chance of becoming permanently barred from my chosen profession (the investment business), I refused to sell or otherwise handle U.S. Liberty Bonds.
My firm respected my conscientious convictions, however, and the ax did not fall.
Since then I have scrutinized the activities of the corporations whose securities I have considered selling to my clients and have rejected many because of their service in military production.
Yet I still think there is no satisfactory solution of the problem for most of us.
We live in a world geared to military activities.
I see no way of escaping it except by the destruction of militarism itself and by adjudicating differences which might lead to war.
Investments are only a small fraction of the over-all problem.
Payment of taxes is another important aspect of the situation.
It is true that to some extent mortgages could be considered, but, of course, income taxes would have to be paid from the interest.…
The issue included an interesting note about the Quaker outpost of Monteverde, Costa Rica, in the form of a letter from one of the inhabitants there.
Excerpts:
You are so surprised that our group consists of so many North Americans.
The reason that most of them have established themselves in Costa Rica is not the climate, nor the possibility of finding work here, but rather an idealistic reason, typical of Quakers.
They were convinced that it was against their conscience to continue living in a country where, indirectly, they had to collaborate in arming the nation for war by means of taxation, and where it is impossible to educate their children according to principles of Quakers.
A few of them spent a year in prison for being conscientious objectors before emigration to Costa Rica.
So finally, a full-throated reference to real live Quakers who have taken action in response to their conscientious objection to paying war taxes.
Perhaps their geographical remove made this feel safer to mention.
Or perhaps the ice that had formed over American Quaker war tax resistance was beginning to crack.
The issue covered the goings-on at the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting earlier that year.
On , according to the article, war tax resistance was discussed:
It will always be unfinished business that Friends’ practice of our testimonies is not consistent with profession.
The discussion centered on the payment of income tax, particularly that portion used for military purposes.
Few present felt it right to refuse to pay, nor yet felt comfortable to pay.
Varied suggestions were presented: Send an accompanying letter expressing one’s feeling about war; live so simply that income is below tax level; make no report, but once a year send a check for nonmilitary purposes; engage in peace walks and other minority demonstrations; follow Jesus’ example of rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; beware of taking for granted the evils deplored, such as riding on military planes; associate more closely with the Mennonites, who share Friends’ concerns; rise above one’s own shortcomings through personal devotion; work to unite with all Friends Yearly Meetings in refusal to pay taxes.
Nothing can be done unless there is a willingness to suffer unto death.
The next mention comes from the issue, and shows the cracked ice has begun to melt.
Excerpt:
Meetings [on the West Coast] in general have been reconsidering the meaning of the peace witness.
Newer activities have included… street distribution of a leaflet on tax refusal because of the amount going to arms (write Franklin Zahn, 836 South Hamilton Boulevard, Pomona, California, for samples), and a poster walk in front of the federal tax office on income tax day, …
Franklin Zahn’s name will come up frequently during the years of the thaw and resurgence of war tax resistance in the American Society of Friends.
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
In the simmering issue of war tax resistance
begins to hit the boiling point in the pages of the
Friends Journal.
“Taxes for Violence”
In the issue appeared a brief
article by Alfred Andersen entitled “Taxes for Violence.” While Mildred Binns
Young’s article on revitalizing the Quaker peace testimony back in
(see
♇ 9 July 2013) had suggested war tax
resistance in the course of its larger argument, Andersen’s article was the
first one that was both devoted to the subject of war tax resistance and that
unmistakably recommended it to Quakers:
Friends have become increasingly concerned about paying taxes which finance
war. Some reasons for this are:
The Federal Income Tax provides 75 per cent of the money by which the
military is financed.
Yet there is no provision for conscientious objection to paying taxes, as
there is for conscientious objection to serving in the armed forces. It
is obvious that such a provision would be the equivalent of the existing
provision for alternative service for
C.O.s.
Many Friends took the conscientious-objector position regarding military
services when younger; now, in paying taxes, they are serving the
military in a more fundamental, though less obvious, way.
It is inconsistent for them to encourage young people to refuse military
service while they themselves continue to “serve” in this way.
Those who have merely sent the Internal Revenue a note of protest along
with their tax checks are coming to realize that integrity requires that
they follow protest with action.
Those who have withheld part of their payment in protest are becoming
aware (a) that what they do send is used for military purposes in the
same proportion as all the rest, and (b) that because they indicate to
the government the amount that they have withheld, the Bureau simply
collects it by distraint and adds interest!
Therefore, some Friends are increasingly clear that the thing wrong with
the tax law is its lack of provision for conscientious objection; nothing
short of noncooperation with the tax law itself (i.e.,
refusing to file a return until the defect is remedied) will meet the
moral challenge before us.
True democracy requires that all Federal laws provide for conscientious
objection.
All Friends have observed, and many have helped encourage, the successes
of civil disobedience to laws discriminating against Negroes. Therefore,
they feel encouraged to challenge other injustices with nonviolent
resistance. Forcing persons to finance nuclear weapons makes them
perpetrators of in justice toward all living creatures on the earth, both
in our generation and in generations to come.
Therefore, we should expect that more and more Friends will refuse to file
income tax returns until our government gives reliable assurance that
whatever money is paid will not be used for those purposes which our
consciences clearly tell us are out of moral bounds for us. As these refusals
increase, we may expect that others will join the movement, affirming that
where conscience and law conflict, conscience shall prevail.
As you can see, this not only advocated war tax resistance, but also tried to
shut the door on many perennially popular half-way measures of tax resistance
such as paying under protest or withholding a symbolic amount of
taxes — claiming that “nothing short of [total] noncooperation… will meet the
moral challenge before us.”
Several letters-to-the-editor, found in the , ,
, and issues, addressed Andersen’s argument:
Hanna Newcombe wrote about how the Canadian Yearly Meeting had been
struggling with the issue. At first, she writes, they tried to lobby the
government for “a tax law… which will channel our tax money into
nonmilitary uses,” but then they “came to the conclusion that it would not
do… since they would then simply readjust their books to use someone
else’s taxes for military purposes only, and nothing would have been
achieved.” They then adjusted their goal to be one in which taxpayers
could choose to divert their money from the national government and into
“non-governmental peace-directed activities.” Finally, “[i]n order to show
the seriousness of our purpose and the intensity of our feeling, we
offered to match the diverted amount from our own pockets, so that
essentially we, as conscientious tax-objectors, were petitioning the
government to increase our taxes!”
J. Passmore Elkinton wrote in to advance the subtle argument that because
tax money is legally owned by the government, and not the taxpayer, the
taxpayer has no moral responsibility for deciding what to do with it,
aside from the ordinary legal processes of trying to influence the
government in its decision-making. The conscription of money is not
analogous to the conscription of people, Elkinton argued, since the
ownership of money is a function of government policy to begin with, while
the ownership of one’s body is inalienable.
Daniel Smiley, while expressing sympathy for Andersen’s position, and
while claiming to be “against paying taxes for military purposes, past or
future,” says that he has not refused to pay his income taxes because
there are so many other taxes that also support war and that are embedded
invisibly in every economic action — even something like buying a loaf of
bread. If you cannot completely avoid paying war taxes (“we would have to
remove ourselves completely from the economy of our country… by becoming
hermits”), he thinks, there’s no reason to bother refusing to pay some
particular tax. Besides, if we were to redirect our income taxes to, say,
the Peace Corps, wouldn’t our contributions just end up getting replaced
by those of taxpayers who don’t share our concerns?
A later letter by Thurston C. Hughes makes almost the same argument,
even going so far as to say that the Quakers who emigrated to Costa
Rica so as not to continue paying taxes to the
U.S.
government (see ♇ 5 July 2013)
were making a vain gesture, as they still pay taxes for the police
force there, and pay taxes on any imported goods they purchase!
Lee Maria Kleiss wrote in about the compromise she had come to — refusing
to pay 55% of whatever small amount she still owed at filing time, as a
protest, and then writing to the tax collector and her political
representatives to ask them to enact some alternative for conscientious
objectors to military taxation. “Certainly some protest concerning the
inconsistency of paying for war — and especially paying to have somebody
else do a dirty job that we refuse to do — should periodically be
expressed.”
Samuel Cooper (there’s more about him below) wrote in to say that his war
tax resistance grew out of his experience as an imprisoned conscientious
objector during World War Ⅱ. “My wife and I have tried several means of
protest and withholding; latterly we have resolved the problem by living
within the non-tax income bracket.” He suggests this approach as a tenth
item for Andersen’s manifesto.
Finally, Andersen writes a response to some of the letters mentioned
above. I particularly liked his answer to Hanna Newcombe’s letter about her
Meeting’s attempt to gain a legal method for taxpayers to stop funding war
this way: “I suspect that it is only as we first commit ourselves to
stop supporting what we clearly see to be wrong, thus living up
to the moral insight we now have, that we shall be worthy of more.”
Andersen, by the way, certainly practiced what he preached. In the
issue of the
Journal is a brief note about the
IRS
seizure and auction of his home (the
IRS
got $1,500 for the property; the Andersens owed $36,000). The note
concludes: “The Andersens [Alfred and Connie] have refused to file an income
tax return for more than twenty years.”
Samuel Cooper
I’m going to deviate from my chronological system here a bit so that I can
follow the trail set down by Samuel Cooper, who wrote letters to the editor of
the Journal promoting war tax resistance:
There’s the letter I mentioned above, from
, in which he responds sympathetically to
Andersen’s argument and notes that he and his wife are practicing
low-income/simple-living tax resistance.
In , he wrote in with disappointment
over “how few Friends have refrained from payment of income taxes, knowing
that a large portion goes for past wars and preparation for future ones!”
He noted that Quakers in John Woolman’s time “suffered ‘distraint’ of
goods, rather than willing payment for war.”
In Samuel and Clarissa Cooper wrote to
ask “what should Friends do” about “income taxes and the 51 per cent of
the budget allocated to the military.”
Should Friends now stand by in acquiescence, letting a few others take
the risks of civil disobedience and possible imprisonment? One can bear
testimony, even refusing to pay part or all of the tax. If the Society of
Friends were to unite on this aspect of our peace testimony — to take a
stand not to support war any more — what might the influence and result be?
In he wrote in again:
I have been witnessing for more than twenty-five years against the payment
of part or all of the tax levied against my income. I do not presume that it
has hindered the war program by one iota, but it has said no to war
after I said no to conscription and served a time in prison. I
believe there is a real relevance, although all one’s assets are involved in
our economy. Simply buying one’s food is supporting, through hidden taxes,
the war effort. If one is working for money, then time is a
contributing factor.
There is no satisfactory way to be consistent for peace and against violence.
Our Quaker peace testimony can only be resurrected — from near death by
inaction — by corporate action, standing together instead of quibbling over
methods, expediency, and results.
Let the light of Christ shine in your heart to show the true way acceptable
to the Prince of Peace.
Also in , he wrote in about socially
responsible investing, noting that this isn’t just a matter of avoiding
stocks “in the military-industrial complex and its subcontractors” but
that because some “businesses pay nearly as much in Federal taxes as they
do to their stockholders… [they contribute] indirectly toward military
procurement.” He recommends investing in low-income housing.
In , Cooper addresses a number of points
related to war tax resistance:
“It is not the amount of money… but the principle — whether one feels
easy to support the war-minded Government…”
“[V]oluntarily living below the taxable income” is one way to
“avoid the issue” — another is to “scrutinize very critically the source
of that income.”
He says that a response to people who accuse tax resisters of not
supporting Government is that even tax resisters pay “hidden taxes in
most things we buy.”
He recommends some less-offensive investments: municipal bonds, and
bonds for “college, hospital, rest homes and such” that “yield good
income and help humanity instead of destroying.”
In , Cooper returned with a letter about
the 1,000-person-strong peace walk and vigil that accompanied the
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting . “Does
this ‘witness’ satisfy our Peace Testimony for a year? What do we
do now?” He recommends phone tax resistance as something Friends
can do to make their testimony continue through the year.
Miscellany
In the issue, Robert
Horton briefly reflected on
the voyage of the
Phoenix, a small ship that tried to interfere
with nuclear weapons testing at sea. In the course of this, he asked this
series of rhetorical questions:
“Why does one do what he doesn’t have to do?” Why did Thoreau refuse to pay
taxes and why did he write Civil Disobedience? Why
did Columbus sail an uncharted ocean? Why did Kagawa of Japan go to live in
the slums? Why did my young neighbor, married and with three children, refuse
to pay taxes for war? None of these heroic souls could see the eventual
result of their actions; there was no guarantee to them that their actions
would be effective in changing social patterns. They were true to the Inner
Light and left the result in the hands of God.
But [particular] interest to Friends is his objection to at least one half of
what is collected [by the Internal Revenue Service] being used to prepare for
the destruction of the world as we know it. He recounts the experience of a
few tax refusers whose action meets with his approval; a number of others
equally dramatic are well known to Friends. Since the great debate is going
on in the minds of many Friends and others as to effect on our society, our
times, and on us as individuals of our promoting the peace testimony on one
hand and paying for world destruction on the other, this book will at least
help clarify the issue, even though it will not contribute to peace of mind.
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
There was hardly an issue of the Friends Journal in that did not at least mention war tax resistance, and some issues covered the topic in depth.
In the issue was an article by Scott Benarde about the Quaker community of Monteverde in Costa Rica.
Excerpts:
In , a year after the sentencing [of Marvin Rockwell for draft resistance], Rockwell and the small Quaker community of Fairhope made national news.
In a short article, Time magazine mentioned that “for the first time in history a group of Quakers were planning to leave the U.S. because of their peace-loving convictions.”
Seven Quaker families — including Marvin Rockwell and his parents — twenty-five or thirty people in all, had decided to move to the Central American Republic of Costa Rica.
, Marvin Rockwell recounts why he left the U.S. and what has happened to him since settling 5,000 feet up in the steep, rugged mountains of Costa Rica.
“We had a growing dissatisfaction with what we in Fairhope thought was a military build-up, a wartime economy.
We wanted to be free of paying taxes in a war economy,” Rockwell says in a soft, yet deliberate, voice.
“When the judge sentenced us he said, ‘If you’re not willing to defend your country, you should get out.’
So we began to think seriously of that possibility.”
That issue also brought the news that Quaker Richard Catlett “has been indicted on criminal charges of willful failure to pay income tax for three years” (the indictment was actually for failure to file).
The issue — under the theme “Can the Government Cancel Conscience?”
— had many mentions of war tax resistance.
The opening article, by Ruth Kilpack, began:
Ten years ago, at the height of the Vietnam War, a Friend spoke directly to my condition at Philadelphia Yearly Meeting when he said, “Many of us support our sons’ conscientious objection to serving in the armed forces.
But what about ourselves?
Do those of us who are beyond draft age, or not otherwise subject to the draft, conscientiously object to giving our money for war?”
For me, this struck deep, as did the words, “Two things are needed to fight a war: warm bodies and cold cash.”
For the first, the full flush of youth is required for combat.
For the second, there is no age limit for those who must pay tax funds, over half of which are channeled directly into wars, past, present, and future.
Everyone is involved.
By the payment of taxes, all are required to support the “national defense,” or whatever the current euphemism is.
Kilpack’s article concerned the legal case of Robert Anthony, who was appealing his tax case on religious freedom grounds.
What Bob Anthony’s case was about that day was an effort to break the longstanding precedent set by the case of A.J. Muste, the great peace activist, who in had challenged the U.S. government in the matter of paying taxes for war.
The court had then ruled that the income tax does not interfere with religious practice.
Whatever attempts have been made since that time to break that precedent-and there have been many-have been thwarted, federal judges repeatedly refusing to examine the deep issues involved: the issues of rights of conscience and the First Amendment’s protection of religious belief.
As it turned out, according to Anthony, “the court came up with a complete backing of the government’s right to cancel conscience for the sake of the taxing system.”
The same issue reprinted excerpts from a letter that Media Monthly Meeting had sent to the court that was hearing the Anthony case, in which it said:
As a Meeting, we have consistently backed and encouraged [Anthony’s] position on military taxes.
We believe that any citizen who on the basis of religion or conscience is opposed to paying for armaments or war should not be compelled by the tax laws to pay taxes for these purposes.
Refusal to participate in any way in killing and warfare is a basic principle of the Quaker faith.
…Robert Anthony’s refusal of military taxes constitutes an essential and consistent implementation of Quaker religious principles.… We assert that the free exercise of the Quaker religion entails the avoidance of any participation in war or financial contribution to that part of the national budget used by the military.
In the same issue, Bruce & Ruth Graves wrote of how their war tax resistance had grown out of their conscientious objection to the draft.
[O]ur early married years were largely those of family and professions, years in which we were no longer pressured by government to form external written attestations of belief to satisfy the draft board.
After all, we had done that.
What else could just we two do to alter this evil?
The pacifist ideas could safely rest — or could they?
In retrospect, those beliefs that had been yanked forth from us by society, perhaps too early in our lives, needed more time to mature, to become integrated into our very beings.
Perhaps ten years of integration preceded our realization that a different and subtler written attestation of belief was being required of us by our society.
This attestation was made not once, but every year and it was an attestation of beliefs we did not believe.
It was a lie.
It was our income tax return.
We signed it every year, and thus gave money, without objection, to buy the tools of war, even though we did not believe in killing.
It was subtle because it was money and did not look like death.
But when you put them together, it is a contract.
…All of this occurred during a time when militarism increasingly permeated national policy.
Here, then, we finally reached a point where the idea of our financing the arms race became unbearable.
After all, warfare was becoming more automated, thus relying far more on the expenditure of tax money than on the conscription of lives.
In fact, it now appears that conscientious objection itself may be tending toward irrelevance, unless the concept is expanded beyond the confines of the Selective Service system — especially for those over draft age.
At this point we changed our tax returns into something we could in conscience sign and our remittance checks into contracts for the Internal Revenue Service.
Each year, the item “Foreign Tax Credit” and about fifty percent of our normal tax “due” was entered.
Carrying that credit over to the first page as instructed, we showed each year on our signed returns a credit balance due us from the IRS.
To reduce IRS profit from interest and penalty, we still paid tax “owed” as calculated normally, but our check required the IRS to promise to refund the war tax we claimed by their endorsement because of a restrictive clause we placed on the back of the check.
Rather than our refund, the IRS has usually sent a notice for us to sign, correcting our return.
We have never signed these, because that means agreeing to the original war tax.
Yet the IRS seems to need our agreement to resolve each case legally — that is, unless it should decide to initiate proceedings against us in U.S. Tax Court.
That, in fact, happened to us in for tax year .
From here, the Graveses write about their frustrations with the legal system, which seems eager to latch onto superficial technicalities to avoid having to face head-on the issue of whether the government can force people to violate such core tenets of conscience as “thou shalt not kill” via the tax system.
They also express the need they feel for a stronger and more sustaining national war tax resistance organization:
At present, the community of war tax resistance appears to us to be a loosely-structured communications network of interpersonal contacts, newsletters, and small organizations perhaps not always widely known.
Entrance to this network, we presume, is often gained through need for help by individuals who then grow, gain experience, and are later able to help other newcomers in their various situations.
Whether they do help others or just gradually fade out of the network, however, is crucial to the power of the community.
If we, ourselves, were to fade out as our own tax problems become less immediate, for example, the experience and knowledge we will have gained (even though far from complete) would be lost to the others.
It would seem to be a sad waste to have this process repeated over and again for each member passing through the community.
There are a few organizations emphasizing war tax resistance (e.g., WTR, Peacemakers, etc.), from which a range of handbooks and information is available for individual action.
Some may provide counseling: for example, we have recently learned that CCCO is in liaison currently with the Philadelphia Office of War Tax Resistance (WTR), thus affording the wider range of counseling needed by this more recent form of conscientious objection.
They added:
There are other courses of individual action besides variations on how to fill out a tax return.
One such course is to reduce one’s income to a level of lower — or no — taxation.
For some, this would mean a change in profession, or else a donation of one’s professional services to his or her current employer.
If it is not desirable to put that kind of commitment into that particular employer’s pockets, one can give away up to fifty percent of taxable income to tax deductible organizations, thereby reaching three simultaneous objectives: a) continue one’s profession, b) support human interests of choice, and c) decrease war tax payments.
Tax liability on interest income can also be reduced by buying tax-exempt bonds or shares in exempt bond funds.
Both Individual Retirement Accounts and Deferred Tax Annuities (sometimes available through the employer) enable the postponement of income to retirement years, when, hopefully, the World Peace Tax Fund Act will have become law.
This provides a reasonable chance for legally claiming the exemption on a part of current income, the exempted funds then being redirected to the WPTF Trust Fund for uses more closely aligned with human values.
Also in that issue was an update on the Richard Catlett case, in which he was charged with “willfully and knowingly failing to file income tax returns for ” — he in fact hadn’t filed .
The Brandywine Peace Community wrote in with “some fundamental questions of reality and responsibility” for Quaker taxpayers.
The community ran an alternative fund “comprised of refused war taxes, personal savings, and group deposits, [that] makes interest-free loans to groups working for social change or providing change-oriented services.
Thus, the alternative fund is a small-scale act of beating swords into plowshares and initiating our own peace conversion program.”
Also:
In past January–April tax seasons, the Brandywine group and its supporters have been present at local IRS offices, presenting the option of war tax resistance, and posing the question, “H-bombs or Bread?” with peace tax counseling available.
The issue shared the story of John and Louise Runnings, who…
…have withheld payment of their income taxes in order, as they state, “to resolve the conflict between the spirit that dwells within and the violence implicit in surrendering our substance to the building of the war machine.”
They have submitted a brief to this effect to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Runnings feel that since their action makes them answerable to “those Quakers whose light allows them to pay the federal tax,” they must plead their case before the Society of Friends as well as before the Federal Court.
In doing so, they stress the fact that they share Friends’ testimonies against war but feel that these testimonies will be muted if they are not supported by actions which speak louder than words.
They question how we can “speak truth to power” when so large a part of our income supports that power.
They invite Friends to join them “in taking those uncomfortable actions which put us in conflict with the government rather than with the Spirit.”
That issue also brought the update that Robert Anthony’s appeal to the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals had been rejected.
It also noted that, according to the Albuquerque Monthly Meeting’s newsletter, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and the AFSC were contributing to the legal expenses in the case.
At the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, according to the Journal, “[a] minute on nonpayment of taxes for military purposes was adopted” — but not one that required much explanation, apparently.
A letter from Austin Wattles appeared in the issue in which he encouraged the Journal to continue to cover war tax resistance, saying that to him, “[t]he movement seems to be growing.”
He told of the support he had received from Meetings in his area — specifically the Old Chatham (New York) Monthly Meeting and Worcester (Massachusetts) Meeting.
He concluded:
[T]ax resistance can have its penalties.
You don’t have money to send your kids to college if you change your profession in a way not to pay withholding tax.
I think certainly one reason so few Friends have considered this witness is it can hurt one’s profession so seriously.
It’s not only losing the wages, but Friends enjoy doing a good job where they are working and don’t know how else they can live.
I like Quakers very much.
I’ve always been an active Friend.
But I feel our being part of the world to the degree we are prevents us from following Christ if the price is too high.
Molly Arrison also had a letter in that issue, but she thought war tax resistance “to be a most unrealistic and disrupting idea” because it would lead to a slippery slope of every citizen withholding taxes for whatever items of government spending they disapproved of, leading to “50 million contingencies” that would overwhelm the government’s revenue system.
She recommended that Quakers instead “orchestrate consistent barrages of phone calls, letters, and lectures until the general public has more influence than the Pentagon.”
David Scull considered this same argument in a letter in the issue:
We wish not to pay taxes for what we so strongly disapprove of.
But there are those who equally strongly feel that government contributions to the United Nations, or government money to pay for abortions, violate their principles.
It would not be difficult to compile a long list of purposes objected to; of course we say that our cause is a matter of high principle, but one person’s principle is another’s foible.
Is there some guideline which would make it easier to distinguish between two paramount obligations when they seem to be in conflict, one to support those purposes which our society has determined (no matter how imperfectly) to be for the common good, and the other to obey our consciences?
It seems to me that this can best be judged by our willingness to make some tangible sacrifices on behalf of conscience.
Scull went on to say that this made him skeptical of the World Peace Tax Fund plan: “[I]f I understand it correctly, there is no personal sacrifice involved.
It is just too easy to say to the government, ‘Please send my money where I want it to go instead of where you want it to go.’ ” He suggested improving the World Peace Tax Fund idea by “add[ing] the principle of personal sacrifice”:
Suppose I say, “Instead of $1000 which you say I owe you, here is $1100 as evidence of my sincerity; now will you allocate it in these ways?
That is how much extra I am willing to pay for the privilege of having my money not go to pay for machines of war.”
The inclusion of such a sacrificial element in the WPTF program would make a great deal of difference in my own ability to argue for it, and I think it would make a very convincing argument as we work toward its widespread acceptability.
…When we ask to relieve our consciences because of the way our money is spent, we should be… willing to put a price tag on the privilege.
A letter-to-the-editor in response to Scull’s argument, from Bill Samuel, thought that while the personal-sacrifice angle “has some surface attractiveness…”
Put another way, the proposal amounts to a government tax on conscience, which is quite a different matter from a voluntary personal sacrifice.
Not only is it morally questionable for the government “to put a price tag on” conscience, but some legal authorities believe it would constitute unconstitutional discrimination as well.
The World Peace Tax Fund bill would not be a special privilege.
Rather, the WPTF bill is a practical means of implementing the rights of conscience guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Like women, blacks and homosexuals, pacifists should take the position that we need not earn our rights but that they should be respected as a matter of course in a free and pluralistic society.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with the concept of people of conscience making a sacrifice for their deeply held beliefs.
Rather than impose a ten percent tax on conscience, concerned Friends might send an amount equal to ten percent of their tax payment to the National Council for a World Peace Tax Fund…
Corporately, Friends can also act to support those working to secure the right of pacifists not to pay for war.
One yearly meeting recently agreed to give $1,500 to the NCWPTF and several monthly meetings include the NCWPTF in their budgets.
Mennonites and Brethren each give a full time volunteer service worker to the NCWPTF.
While Friends do not have the kind of organized volunteer service effort that the other historic peace churches have, meetings can do their part by together contributing enough to support a full-time salaried worker.
Ross Roby also had some words to say about Scull’s argument against the World Peace Tax Fund plan.
He first begged for “immediate self-sacrificial labor and giving, on behalf of passage of a WPTF bill” and then wrote:
I would like to remind those who, like David Scull, have “difficulty with the World Peace Tax Fund as presently offered,” that there is nothing sacred and immutable about the present wording.
We can be quite certain that, when Congress takes a serious scrutiny of provisions for an alternative fund for C.O.s, much rewriting will be done.
The final bill. when passed, may look very different from the WPTF bill as now published.
He suggested that conscientious objectors to military spending should “soft pedal” the arguments amongst themselves over the details of the WPTF plan and instead concentrate on trying to convince the government to enact “a change in the income tax laws that will allow ‘free exercise of religion’ and give us the opportunity to build institutions for nonviolent solutions to international conflict with our present war tax dollars.”
His advice seems to have been followed, and the current campaign for “peace tax fund” legislation seems to have become so unwilling to use critical judgment and so eager to pass legislation of any sort that it has ended up backing a bill that would do nothing to help people with genuine conscientious objection to supporting military spending, nothing to reduce the military budget, and indeed nothing to increase spending on nonviolent conflict resolution — and yet even this bill has gone nowhere in Congress.
Such is the cost of “soft pedaling” internal debate.
an ad in the issue of Friends Journal
John J. Runnings confronted Molly Arrison’s argument more head-on in the letters-to-the-editor column of the issue.
Excerpt:
Our actions are determined by the degree of urgency we feel.
When our house is on fire we may exit by way of an upstairs window rather than by the conventional route via the stairs.
Many of us see the arms race as a fire out of control, and we are so adverse to feeding the flames that we are prepared to suffer considerable discomfort rather than do so.
So we break the law and are prepared to suffer the penalty.…
To break the law openly and expose oneself to the wrath of the power structure is to witness to the urgency and depth of one’s convictions.…
The early Quakers started at the places that Molly suggests, in the heart and in the community, but they went further.
They broke the law.
And they got themselves hanged and imprisoned; and they were heard above the contending clamors of their day.
And when the Constitution was written it contained provisions for freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
Modern Quakers continue, as of old, to work from the heart and in the community, but if we are to outshout the Pentagon we will have to use a louder and more urgent voice than we have used heretofore.
Perhaps more and more and more of us will have to break the law.
Franklin Zahn also responded to Arrison’s slippery-slope argument: “In practice, the portion of federal income tax for the military is far greater than for any other item.
Currently thirty-six percent goes for present costs and another estimated seventeen percent for past wars.
Objectors to smaller items would not find withholding worth the bother… [W]ords alone eventually lose all effect if no one ever acts.
But if a few other than war objectors choose to refuse, I see no objection to their doing so.”
Sally Primm interviewed Lucy Perkins Carner for the issue.
Among other topics, Carner addressed her war tax resistance:
[Q:] “Did you ever consider not paying part of your tax?”
[A:] “Oh yes, for years I’ve taken out of my income tax payment a portion that the Friends Committee on National Legislation says is equal to what the Pentagon gets.
Then I write a letter to the income tax people.
It’s good propaganda.
I send copies to my representatives in Congress and the President.
“I know my failure to pay isn’t going to impoverish the Pentagon, but it’s good propaganda.
They go to your bank and get the money.
I send them a copy of the letter, too.
Some people have refused to give them the information and go to jail as a result, but I’m not heroic.
They get it out of my bank every year.
“The bank has a right to charge for that, a service charge.
Well, in the last few years, believe it or not, I’ve received a letter from the bank saying they won’t make the charge any more.[”]
[Q:] “Why did they say that?”
[A:] “Well, that just shows you what good propaganda will do.
They know why I’m doing it.”
[Q:] “And how long have you done this?”
[A:] “I don’t know; when I became a pacifist, whenever that was [around the end of World War Ⅰ, according to another part of the article —♇].
I don’t even know when the income tax started.”
The issue covered the “New Call to Peacemaking” in which representatives from the three historic “peace churches” (Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren) got together to try to put some oomph behind their peacebuilding efforts.
There was actually less about war tax resistance in this article than in much of the mainstream media coverage of the Call — perhaps because the civil disobedience angle was thought to be more newsworthy or attention-catching.
Here is where taxes were mentioned in the Friends Journal coverage:
The Friends Committee on National Legislation points out that all the federal income taxes withheld from your paycheck from January 1 to June 23 go for military purposes.
Not until June 24 do you begin to support any other part of the budget.
Especially in recent years — in light of increasing military budgets and the trend toward fewer soldiers and more expensive weapons systems — many conscientious objectors have chosen to witness against war by refusal to pay voluntarily those federal taxes that will be used to fund present, past, and future wars.
Some have done this by lowering their income below the taxable level; others who owe taxes have refused to pay the portion that would go for the military.
In the same issue, Robert C. Johansen wrote about the challenge of putting forward a pacifist alternative to mainstream political thinking.
In the course of that, he wrote:
Even though their goals are radical in the sense of seeking fundamental system change, political moderates will feel most comfortable using conventional means of education, consciousness-raising, lobbying, campaigning, organizing, and personal witness.
Those people who have tried such means and found them weak and insufficiently penetrating politically will search for other actions, such as tax resistance and civil disobedience, that convey a seriousness and urgency more equivalent to the threat of planetary militarization.
Maynard Shelly gave the Mennonite perspective in the wake of the New Call conference, and claimed that “[r]esistance to the payment of war taxes is becoming the witness of choice for a growing number of Mennonites.”
Charles C. Walker wrote in to the issue to suggest a token $1 resistance to the Pennsylvania state income tax as a way of protesting against its anticipated adoption of capital punishment.
The issue noted in its calendar that the Media Pennsylvania Friends Meetinghouse would be hosting a “National Military Tax Resistance Workshop” that would be “[i]ntroducing the program and services of the newly organized Center on Law and Pacifism.”
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
The issues of Friends Journal had a few mentions of war tax resistance and an extensive debate about the wisdom of supporting the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund act.
The issue mentioned that J.E. McNeil had been named the head of the National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious Objectors, and that her legal experience had included “cases involving war tax refusers and conscientious objectors to military service.”
The issue included an article about the Monteverde community in Costa Rica, which was founded by American Quakers who fled the United States in part to avoid paying military taxes there.
Excerpts:
Many Friends know about Monteverde, the Quaker community established in Costa Rica in .
“They came here to be free to practice religion in the way they felt was important.”
They wanted no military taxes.
They wanted to send their children to Quaker schools and to bring them up with a good sense of priorities, away from materialism and militarism.
Some came out of a sense of adventure.
Four of them had just spent time in prison for their beliefs.
They wrote: “We hope to discover through Divine Guidance a way of life which would seek the good of each member of the community and live in a way that will naturally lead to peace rather than war.”
[At the trial of four Quaker conscientious objectors to draft registration], the judge said, “If you are not willing to defend this country, you should leave.”
They decided to do just that but had to wait until their jail sentences were over.
One couple in the meeting had visited Costa Rica, and several families had already been thinking of moving there.
Besides being a fairly prosperous and democratic country, and not very crowded, Costa Rica abolished its army in .
Forty-one people from the meeting eventually moved there, including the teacher of the meeting’s private school.
“We were looking for a peaceful place to raise our families without being involved in the military preparedness of the United States,” recalls Marvin Rockwell.
Marvin Rockwell ran the Flor Mar Pension, a simple hostel-like bed-and-breakfast with a pleasant restaurant serving delicious food.
He says he was never disappointed in the hopes he had when he moved to Costa Rica.
“Costa Ricans are a friendly, helpful people.”
He smiles, “And I do not feel bad at all paying taxes in Costa Rica.
The largest item in the tax budget is for education.”
In the same issue, Chuck Hosking (in the course of a larger article on ethical investing), said: “If I hadn’t had to start an IRA to lower my income below the taxable minimum (to avoid financing U.S. militarism), I would have put these retirement savings in the same place we’ve put most of our contingency savings — into no-interest loans to American Friends Service Committee and Right Sharing of World Resources.”
In there was a “Religion & Social Issues Forum” titled “Building a Culture of Peace” at the Pendle Hill Quaker conference center.
Among the speakers at the conference was Gordon Browne, who “told of his experiences as a ‘military tax refuser’ for over thirty years” during “a session on how Friends can make a personal difference today.”
The issue commented on the Rosa Packard legal case:
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a Quaker appeal of Internal Revenue Service penalties on religious practice.
Rosa Packard, a Greenwich, Conn., Quaker, had challenged the authority of the IRS to penalize her for religiously based non-payment of war-related federal income raxes.
For the last 18 years Packard has filed her income tax return, notifying the IRS by an attached letter that her core religious beliefs prevent her from paying a tax if any part of the money collected from her is used to fund war or preparation for war.
Every year she has placed the full amount of her taxes, as her letter to the IRS states, in trust for the government in an escrow account maintained by Purchase (N.Y.) Quarterly Meeting.
In Packard requested that the federal government waive the discretionary penalties imposed by the IRS for late payment and failure to pay estimated taxes.
Packard appealed the lower court’s dismissal of this request to the Supreme Court.
An obituary notice for Richard R. Catlett in the same issue noted that “Richard was a founding member of Columbia Meeting and an active war rax resister, for which he was imprisoned briefly about 25 years ago.
In his war tax resistance, he was supported by both Illinois Yearly Meeting and Columbia Meeting, which held an open meeting for worship at the prison where he was held.”
The “Peace Tax Fund” debate
The last issue of had included an op-ed by Spencer Coxe in which he cast a skeptical eye on the Peace Tax Fund idea (see ♇ ).
Boiled down, his complaints were these:
The Peace Tax Fund bill would ostensibly allow conscientious objectors to earmark their taxes for non-military government spending, but this will not in fact make any practical difference whatsoever in how Congress spends tax money.
Conscientious objectors could have more practical effect on actual military spending through such mundane political activities as lobbying, demonstrating, attempting to influence elections, and the like; and attempts to get a Peace Tax Fund bill passed distract from this.
The idea behind the Peace Tax Fund concept — that individual taxpayers can override the spending priorities of their elected representatives with their own conscientious imperatives — is corrosive of democracy, which requires people to compromise and accept the decisions of their representatives rather than engaging in a free-for-all.
If it were enacted, the Peace Tax Fund would make conscientious objectors to military taxation legal, and therefore mundane and unworthy of attention.
In contrast to the war tax resister of today, whose sacrifices evoke admiration and controversy and government inconvenience, the Peace Tax Fund payer would just be another citizen checking a box on a form — which would “[channel] a potentially effective resistance movement into a harmless backwater.”
I have less faith in the democratic process and in democracy in general than does Coxe, but his criticisms are sound, and, from my perspective, way overdue.
A sentimental, blinkered, panglossian take on the Peace Tax Fund bill had become part of the Quaker canon, and, disturbingly, had crowded out other discussion of the dilemma of paying for war with your taxes.
But now that the criticisms had finally been aired, how would the scheme’s supporters respond?
Voiciferously, as future letters columns showed:
Edward F. Snyder partially conceded the point.
“The aim [of the Bill] is not to reduce the military budget… The main purpose of the bill is to honor and respect the conscientious objections of those citizens who are opposed to war in any form, including the financing through their tax dollars…” He compared it to draftees who do “alternative service” rather than serving in the military.
“If I thought the primary purpose of the Peace Tax Fund were to reduce the military budget as Spencer Coxe does, I’d be hard pressed to give the proposal the time of day, and for many of the reasons he cites.
There are many more direct and effective ways to challenge military spending and the policies on which it rests.”
But he believes that since this isn’t the purpose, the bill is still worthwhile.
He also thinks that the fact that war is such a clear violation of a bedrock conscientious value, and because it is such a large part of the budget, it holds a unique place, and carving out an exemption for conscientious objectors here will not necessarily open the floodgates for vast numbers of objectors to every little this and that in the budget.
Joe Volk wrote an extensive op-ed in response (which, alas, is partially obscured in the PDF I have).
He said that he had shared Coxe’s letter with the Friends Committee on National Legislation’s Policy Committee (Volk was the FCNL executive secretary) as a way of provoking a discussion as to whether that group ought to change its policy of supporting the Peace Tax Fund bill (they decided to continue supporting it).
Volk shares Snyder’s views that the slippery slope is not so slippery in this case, and that one can support the bill without believing that it would reduce military spending (“On the contrary, another argument for the Peace Tax Fund is that it would not alter Congress’s control of the purse strings” and “Of course, federal funds are fungible.
Thus, whatever the Peace Tax Fund pays for simply frees other funds for the military.”)
Volk asserted that were the Peace Tax Fund passed into law, rather than defanging conscientious objectors, it might free them from their current troubles in tax court to take up more productive struggles.
Besides “the absence of the Peace Tax Fund does not seem to be generating the waves of protest and tension that Spencer Coxe fears we would lose were it enacted.”
He also felt that rather than being corrosive of democracy, it was supportive of that essential element of democratic legitimacy that requires respect for minority opinions.
And besides, Congress is carving out deductions and exemptions and other things all the time — it seems petty to pick out our own concern as the only one that’s corrosive of this manifestly imperfect democracy.
Volk concluded:
My wife, Beth, and I have refused to pay our war taxes voluntarily .
We want to pay our entire tax bill, but we won’t pay for weapons and the salaries of the people who use them.
Having seen so much war and its effects, we could not voluntarily pay that portion of our tax that goes for war.
So, we pay only that portion of our tax bill that does not pay for war.
Every few years the IRS levies our bank account, wages, or savings.
They take the principle, interest, and penalties on what we have refused to pay.
We end up paying more to the government than had we paid the war tax.
Once they took and auctioned our car.
We no longer park it at our residence.
We have never been able to own real estate; it would be confiscated.
In the U.S. owning real estate has been a principal way for poor and middle-class people to accumulate wealth.
Many of our friends could borrow on their land and property to put their children through school.
We have not had that option.
We are not complaining.
We are happy following our conscience on this matter.
We consider that these consequences of our war tax refusal are aspects of the voluntary self-suffering that nonviolent action uses to reveal truth to ourselves and to others.
But we think the government should recognize our conscientious objection to paying war taxes so that we voluntarily can pay our entire tax bill.
Today, we feel that we are being punished for our religious beliefs, a violation of the U.S. Constitution and of our human rights.
Recognition of our claim to conscientious objection will not cut the military budget, will not end war, will not bring the Kingdom of Heaven.
It will allow us to practice our faith without being punished for it.
That’s a fairly radical idea still.
It’s a dangerous thing too, but it can work without leading to anarchy.
Richard N. Reichley thought that Coxe was missing the point — that the Peace Tax Fund was not meant to put a dent in the military complex, but to permit certain taxpayers to follow their consciences.
It might, he suggested, help spread the idea of conscientious objection to military spending: “Once the Peace Tax Fund Bill is passed, every taxpayer will know that it is law.
IRS instructions will include the option to file as a conscientious objector.
Perhaps we will be pleasantly surprised to learn how many Americans do not want to pay for war.”
Silas Weeks shared his frustrating experience with war tax resistance: “Eventually, the IRS invades our bank account and recovers [the] amount, plus interest and penalties.
We end up paying more tax than we would otherwise have to, plus our income is reduced by whatever we have put in the local [alternative] fund.”
He says that while “[i]t is extremely unlikely that the U.S. Congress will ever establish a legal peace tax alternative” it is “an improper judgment of others” to insist, as he says Coxe did, “that effort on behalf of a Peace Tax Fund wastes time and is a balm to individual conscience.”
Bruce Hawkins thought the Peace Tax Fund was not meant as an ultimate goal but as “an organizational and educational tool” for outreach and lobbying, and one that helps keep pacifist ideas on the agendas of legislators.
“Don’t think for a moment that any of us will heave a sigh of relief and cease all political activity if the Peace Tax Fund passes!
We would continue in the same political activity that we are in now, including support of sensible candidates for office.
And we would encourage everyone we know to consider using the fund.
One of our next goals would be to get enough people to use it so that it would make a difference.
It will only be ‘low-key’ if we let it be low-key.”
Ben Tousley thought that while paying into a Peace Tax Fund might indeed have no practical effect on the military budget, the same could be said for many respected acts of “witnessing” — these things aren’t meant to be immediately, directly effective, but to have an eventual “transforming effect on both individuals and the larger society.”
Rosa Covington Packard echoed the idea that the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund bill was never meant “to influence the military budget” but instead “to acknowledge the inalienable right of conscientious objection to paying taxes for war and preparations for war and to accommodate it as a matter of religious freedom.”
She also asserted that those who would take advantage of the Peace Tax Fund were not thereby engaging in a risk-free and invisible act:
When the bill passes, the option will be described in the tax forms everyone receives.
Reports of numbers of conscientious objectors and amounts of taxes redirected to nonmilitary purposes will be published in the Congressional Record.
The conscientious objector will affirm a statement of belief and ille it with his or her tax form.
Even if conscientious objectors to paying for war are given legal status and accommodated, they will continue to suffer many forms of discrimination from the public and the military.
Making slavery illegal did not end racial discrimination.
Recognizing and accommodating conscientious objection to paying for war will not end religious discrimination.
Conscientious objectors were among the first to go to the gas chambers under Hitler.
When we study the Holocaust, we mourn the atrocities against Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies — and “others” — our memories of the victims of war rarely even name conscientious objectors.
Risk free indeed!
We who choose a visible legal status may be more vulnerable to hostility.
Finally: “Without visible legal status, without acknowledgment that it is indeed legal to act upon our beliefs, our ‘democracy’ will continue to confuse and seduce each generation into thinking that war is honorable or necessary and that there are no other options.”
Mary Moulton addressed only the idea that the Peace Tax Fund would “ease the conscience of pacifists and [thereby] deflect them from hard work.”
She said: “This prediction certainly would not apply to any of the peace activists I have known over the years.”
Samuel R. Tyson wrote in with his own set of objections:
Conscientious objection laws discriminate in favor of members of historical “peace churches” which has the effect of adding a religious bias to the law.
Such laws also (because they require objectors to convincingly testify to their conscientious beliefs) discriminate against people with less verbal or reasoning capabilities (a class bias).
Such laws also, for the same reason, favor people with a paper trail in the “historically dominant white paper-based culture” which leads to a racial bias.
He concluded: “A Peace Tax Fund will make it easier for the few, without a full explanation in tax forms. Do we really want another federal bureaucracy to sit in judgment on conscience?”
Coxe wrote back, and in a letter that appeared in the issue.
Excerpts:
The letters convince me that I overlooked two considerations, first that passage of the bill would signal a reaffirmation of our country’s respect for religious dissent (though in symbolic fashion), and second, that legislation would relieve the personal distress of pacifists.
I am surprised that no correspondent pointed out that logically my position is an attack on the legal recognition of conscientious refusal of military service.
As a matter of fact, I have come to the conviction (in my old age) that the pacifist movement might be strengthened if the government offered no alternative to military service except prison.
Then the issue raised by the resister would be the government’s claimed power to conscript.
In my view, conscription is the basic evil.
The government’s recognition of religious objection to military service blunts resistance to conscription.
Those who during the Viemam War said “Hell no we won’t go” were on the right track and did more co bring the war to an end than did the COs.
Debate aside, the issue noted that the Radnor, Pennsylvania, Meeting had approved a minute endorsing the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Bill, and considered this a way by which the Meeting “expresses its commitment to our historic Peace Testimony.”
At the upcoming national gathering of NWTRCC at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, I’m going to be presenting a summary of the history of war tax resistance in the Society of Friends (Quakers).
Today I’m going to try to coalesce some of the notes I’ve assembled about how the Quaker practice of war tax resistance began to reemerge after the Great Forgetting period.
The Thaw ()
In the Great Forgetting period, Quakers endeavored to overlook that war tax resistance had been an important part of putting the Quaker peace testimony into practice.
But during World War Ⅱ and the opening decade of the Cold War, a largely Christian pacifist war tax resistance movement began to coalesce, which included Quakers, but the most prominent members of which belonged to other denominations.
This movement set the stage for the coming renaissance of war tax resistance in the Society of Friends.
A few of the earliest tax resisters of this period were Quakers.
I’ve already mentioned Mary Stone McDowell, who carried on her resistance from the World War Ⅰ period (the only such example I’m aware of).
There was also Arthur Evans, who was resisting perhaps as early as 1943, making him one of the earliest adopters of war tax resistance in this Thaw period.
But institutionally, the Society of Friends still had little interest in the subject.
In the American Friends Service Committee, a major voice of the practical side of the Quaker peace testimony, put out an influential booklet: Speak Truth to Power: A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence.
It mentions war tax resistance only once, and in an 18th century historical overview context, not as an example of a contemporary method of speaking truth to power in search of alternatives to violence.
This is in spite of the fact that the committee that produced the booklet included among its members the war tax resisters A.J. Muste and Milton Mayer.
Instead, the leadership in advocating for war tax resistance and in organizing the fledgling modern war tax resistance movement largely came from outside the Society of Friends.
Some of the more prominent war tax resistance promoters in this important period were Dorothy Day (Catholic) & Ammon Hennacy (often Catholic), A.J. Muste (sometimes-Quaker, but bounced around a lot), Maurice McCrackin (Presbyterian), Ernest Bromley (Methodist, later a Quaker), Ralph DiGia (not religious as far as I could tell), and Milton Mayer (Jewish, later a Quaker).
The work of this emerging group of resisters helped to encourage the remaining Quaker war tax resisters and to remind Quakers that war tax resistance wasn’t only something of the legendary past but was an available testimony to them in the present.
The thaw in the Society of Friends had begun.
One of the first examples of this thaw was a particularly dramatic one.
When four Quaker conscientious objectors in the United States were put on trial for evading the Korean War draft, the judge told them:
“If you are not willing to defend this country, you should leave.”
They took that advice seriously, and began to look for an alternative.
They chose Costa Rica, a country that had abolished its standing army in .
“We wanted to be free of paying taxes in a war economy,” recalls Marvin Rockwell, one of the emigrants.
Seven Quaker families left the U.S. to found the community of Monteverde, Costa Rica, in .
Rockwell later told a Friends Journal reporter:
“I do not feel bad at all paying taxes in Costa Rica.
The largest item in the tax budget is for education.”
Today, an international tax resistance news round-up:
Hong Kong
The “Occupy Central” movement, which has been pushing for political liberalization in Hong Kong, is exploring the tactic of tax resistance.
Inspired by American war tax protester Evan Reeves, who paid his taxes in protest by writing 5,574 checks, each with a name of a fallen U.S. soldier written in the memo field, Raymond Kwong launched a similar protest against the Hong Kong government.
On , Kwong sent off the last of his 9,280 checks.
He used rubber-stamps, some hand-carved, to fill out each check, and hand-signed each one.
He says he felt like something out of the Charlie Chaplin film Modern Times while going through all the motions of stamping and signing each check, a process that took about 54 hours.
Between the cost of the checks, the postage, the stamps & ink, he also says he had to spend about HK$500 above and beyond the amount of the tax.
these stacks contain about half of Raymond Kwong’s 9,280 tax checks
The New Statesman looks back on the life of women’s suffrage activist Sophia Duleep Singh:
She was one of the early tax resisters, refusing to pay for licences for her dogs and carriage.
She ignored all letters demanding payment until she was issued with a fine.
Instead, she equipped her lawyer with a disquisition on female suffrage and the injustice of taxation without representation and sent him to court to read it to the judge.
Eventually bailiffs turned up at her house and seized a seven-stone diamond ring, worth far more than she owed.
But the suffragettes won the war: when the ring came up at auction, they flooded the auction house and refused to bid for it until the auctioneer was forced to lower the starting bid to £10 — at which price it was bought by a suffragette and returned to Sophia, amid rapturous applause.
This is the seventh in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal of the (Old) Mennonite Church.
We are now up to the post-World War Ⅱ period and the Cold War is about to ramp up.
Harold S. Bender gets us started with “Forward into the Postwar World with our Peace Testimony” (), which gives us some perspective on how wobbly the Mennonite nonresistance doctrine was even in regards to military service:
[O]f all the Mennoite men who were drafted, forty-one per cent entered the army and fifty-nine per cent stood by the faith of the New Testament and the Mennonite Church and went into C.P.S.
To be exact, thirty per cent went straight into the army, ten into noncombatant service, and sixty per cent into C.P.S.
In , Ford Berg took a hard line on Romans 13 in “The Christian’s Obligation to the Government”, disputing in particular the idea that Paul’s advice to the Romans was given during a placid period of Nero’s reign and so shouldn’t be taken to apply to all governments at all times.
(See yesterday’s Picket Line in which Edward Yoder tried to advance that gambit.)
When Christ was questioned about the paying of tribute (taxes) He answered, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s” (Luke 20:25).
We have no record of an unco-operative spirit or a voiced undertone of resentment on Christ’s part concerning the payment of taxes.
But what this tells me is that there were Mennonites out there who were chipping away at the Christians-Always-Pay-Their-Taxes edifice, enough so that the defenders of the orthodoxy felt it necessary to write such rebuttals.
There was a question of whether or not Mennonites should participate in blood drives run by the Red Cross, as the agency was apparently still doing this in a “race”-segregated way (e.g. only giving “white” plasma to “white” recipients) that was offensive to Mennonite teachings on common humanity.
Ford Berg, in the issue, compared this to the relative lack of reluctance Mennonites had paying their taxes for war:
[I]f we are so touchy on this thing, perhaps we should recall that our tax money goes largely for war purposes, to which we carelessly respond that we are not responsible after we make our payments.
Dare we apply this reasoning to the blood donations also?
Both seem inconsistent, and yet…
Forty-eight men and women, including eight Protestant clergymen, in various parts of the nation refused to file Federal income tax returns as a protest against “bomb building” and war, it was announced by the Tax Refusal Committee of Peacemakers, a national pacifist group.
“President Truman’s decision to begin the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb makes us even more determined than before to refuse to finance armaments.
Building this newest and most terrible weapon is further indication of the extreme depth of moral degradation into which our nation has sunk.”
As with the coverage in The Mennonite around this time, the first mentions of war tax resisters are those from outside the Mennonite community.
There is clearly some interest in this sort of witness or direct action, but it takes a while before Mennonites themselves put themselves forward.
Here’s another example, from the issue:
Twenty-five Quaker residents of Fair Hope, Alabama, have decided to emigrate to Costa Rica so that they may be free from military demand and from paying “war taxes.”
Said their spokesman, “Our economy has become so involved with military effort throughout the world, that a person can hardly make a living here without being a part of that system.”
A spokesman for the American Friends Service Committee said this would be the first instance in American history that a group of Quakers had left the country because of their religious pacifist convictions.
[W]e cannot apply our labor, money, business, factories, nor resources in any form to war or military ends, either in war finance or war industry, even under compulsion.
[I]n wartime, as well as in peacetime, we shall endeavor to continue to live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty; avoid joining in the wartime hysteria of hatred, revenge, and retaliation; and manifest a meek and submissive spirit, being obedient to the laws and regulations of the government in all things, including the usual taxes, except when obedience would cause us to violate the teachings of the Scriptures and our conscience before God.
The issue included an article on “Nonresistance in Eighteenth Century Pennsylvania” by M. Alice Weber that related the story of the war-tax-related Funkite schism in the early American Mennonite community, and also mentioned Quaker refusal to pay war taxes.
The first instance I saw of a Mennonite suggesting that Mennonites should take action to address the problem of their taxes going to the military was in the article “Give Caesar — Give God” by Christian L. Graber in the issue.
Excerpt:
A large part of the Federal Taxes are used to support the military budget.
If we do not deduct all that the government allows us to deduct, but rather pay a higher tax than we would need to pay, we are to the extent of such overpayment lending our voluntary support to the military program.
Good stewardship forces us to face this issue.
But this idea was taken as a reductio ad absurdum by Barney Ovensen, who was defending nonresistance against another Christian who was arguing that Christians should not be pacifistic (“Why It Is Not Right for a Christian to Fight”, ).
Excerpt:
McQuilkin says the man who pays taxes is just as guilty of killing as the man who actually joins the army and kills.
If this is true, every Christian is guilty — for we all are told to pay taxes to “Caesar.”
But where did McQuilkin learn this doctrine?
From Christ?
Of course not.
From the apostles?
No.
It is an awful thing to use the wisdom of this world in order to make void the “foolishness” of God.
For the third year in succession a woman pastor at Great Barrington, Massachusetts, has paid only 25 per cent of her federal income tax, because she is opposed to the large percentage of the national income used for war.
In a letter accompanying her tax return this lady says, “I cannot conscientiously pay more of my tax because at least that proportion of our national income is now used for war.
I believe it is wrong to kill human beings.
I believe that today war only increases the evils we are fighting and it will, if we persist in it, degrade us, destroy our liberties and our spiritual values, and eventually destroy us and our civilization.”
In the past two years a lien was placed against this pastor’s salary to collect the unpaid tax.
Probably the same method will be used again this year.
A series of notices in , , , and noted with alarm what a high percentage “of the taxpayer’s dollar” in the U.S. was devoted to military spending.
The annual sessions of the Virginia Conference, held , passed a resolution that indicates the attitude of unconcern was still dominant:
Resolved, That we gratefully acknowledge the sincere efforts of our government to provide for the welfare of its citizens; that we counsel our people to pay their taxes cheerfully…
An editorial by Paul Erb in the issue, “On Paying Taxes,” seemed to acknowledge that war tax resistance was in the air — not approving of it, but indicating that in any case there was a right and wrong way to go about it.
In our obedience to law, we reserve the right to obey God rather than man, if we are asked to do something contrary to our consciences.
But we do not think it is wrong to pay lawfully imposed taxes and customs, even tough some of the money maybe used for purposes which we cannot approve, like military preparations and war.
If anyone has conscientious scruples about paying taxes, he should be honest and aboveboard about it.
Certainly a Christian could never justify dishonest tax or import reports.
Yet a brother who is in business writes us of his certain knowledge that some Mennonites falsify their reports, and cheat the government out of some thousands of dollars.
“The Christian and the State” by Wilbur J. Miller, found in the issue, reiterated the traditional hard line on Romans 13.
“Mennonites and Bomb Tests” by Ronald & Elaine Rich () matter-of-factly presented war tax resistance as a possible Christian option:
Christians have responded to the challenge of this issue in various ways.
A few have refused to pay the proportion of their tax that is used for military purposes.
Some have voluntarily limited their income to the low level that is tax exempt.
I assume the following note, found in the issue, again refers to A.J. Muste:
A Presbyterian clergyman in New York has refused for the fourth consecutive year to pay the major part of his income taxes which he says are earmarked for military expenditures.
He pays only 20 per cent of his taxes and gives the rest to charities.
“The time has come,” he says, “when responsible clergymen must join in a common protest against the government’s present suicidal policy of reliance on military might.”
A Presbyterian pacifist minister who refused to pay the part of his federal income tax which he felt would be used for war purposes is now serving a six-month term at Federal Prison camp at Allenburg, Pa.
I’m not sure what if anything was behind the reluctance to mention his name.
A “Sunday School Lesson” (Alta Mae Erb again) in the issue asserted that when Jesus asked his interrogators to show him a coin, and then gave his Render Unto Caesar answer, what he meant by all that was:
“With these coins they paid their poll tax.
Jesus meant that this tax was among the things of Caesar.”
On , Melvin Gingerich testified before a Senate committee on a military conscription bill.
His testimony included the following phrase:
“We who have uneasy consciences because of the disproportionate share of our tax money which is going into military expenditures in contrast to that which is going into nonmilitary foreign aid…”
This, I thought, was a long way from Romans 13 and its insistence that Christians pay their taxes not grudgingly but “for conscience’ sake,” and shows how that norm was shifting.
Amish Farmers and the Social Security Tax
While this was going on, there was another tax resistance fight in the greater Anabaptist community.
The Amish, who placed a high value on mutual aid and on reliance on God and who therefore did not purchase insurance, were resistant to being roped in to the federal government’s Social Security system.
Many refused to apply for benefits.
Some refused to pay withholding taxes.
The first mention of this I noticed was this, from the issue:
The Federal International Revenue Service [sic] has ordered the seizure of livestock of Amish farmers in certain Ohio counties.
These farmers have refused to pay taxes which go for social security, which the Amish are opposed to.
Other mentions of this conflict included:
— the Amish farmers bought their horses back from middlemen who had bought them at a tax auction
— a bill was introduced that would exempt Amish from Social Security
— Amish refuse refund of overplus from auctions of their goods
— Amish petition government for an exemption from the Social Security law
— the Amish reportedly win such an exemption (but this turns out to be exaggerated)
— three work horses are seized from an Amish farmer for back taxes
— letters of protest hit the local papers after an Amish farmer’s horses are seized for taxes
— the IRS announces a crackdown on Amish social security tax resisters
— the IRS announces a moratorium on seizures from Amish Social Security resisters, and a Senator goes on record siding with the Amish on this
— debate on a possible exemption continues in Congress
— a Gospel Herald editorial sympathizes with with Amish resisters
and — more exemption legislation is proposed
— apparently they’re still debating whether or how much to exempt the Amish from Social Security in Congress
Today I’ll share what I found in the archives of American Brethren periodicals from the early 1950s concerning war taxes and war bond purchases.
I found most of the items of interest in the Gospel Messenger again, and for the first time these included specified war tax resisters from within the Church of the Brethren.
The edition gave readers this short notice:
Floyd M.
Irvin of Eustis, Fla., sent in only that part of his income tax which would not be used by the Federal government for war purposes.
The rest of it, he informed them, he was turning over to a useful church program.
He believes that if many more people would do this it would have a telling effect upon military expenditures.
This was the first I’d heard of Irvin.
There was a follow-up about his resistance in the issue (source):
A series of articles in a Lake County, Fla., local paper call attention to the activities of Floyd M.
Irvin of Eustis, Fla., on behalf of world peace.
While the articles tell a few facts concerning Bro. Irvin’s life, they give special attention to his advocating nonviolent techniques in place of war, and especially to his refusal to pay the share of income taxes which goes toward supporting the military program.
Through Bro. Irvin’s efforts a recent article in the Gospel Messenger was used as the basis for a feature in his local paper.
They don’t come right out and claim Irvin as a member of the Brethren here, but they do call him “Bro.” and make the Gospel Messenger connection.
I think this is the first explicitly war tax resisting member of a Brethren church named in a Brethren periodical from the modern war tax resistance era.
Another small note was found in the issue (source):
Again this year various people, who have conscientious feelings against the tremendous amount of our budget which is being spent for war, are withholding from their income tax the percentages which are used definitely for war purposes.
The rest of it they are paying.
I assume this refers to the Peacemakers, who were putting out press releases about organized war tax resistance around this time.
The issue included a note about the Monteverde Quaker emigrants (source):
Quaker Group to Leave United States
Twenty-five Quaker residents of Fairhope, Ala., have decided to emigrate to Costa Rica so that they may be free from military demands and from paying “war taxes.” This announcement came from Hubert Mendenhall, the spokesman for the group who range in age from twenty to eighty years.
Most of them are farmers.
“Our economy has become so involved with military effort throughout the world,” Mr. Mendenhall said, “that a person can hardly make a living here without being a part of that system.”
A spokesman for the American Friends Service Committee said that this would be the first instance in American history that a group of Quakers had left the country because of their religious pacifist convictions.
A letter to the editor from Mart Sheaffer, in the edition suggested that tax resistance was more Christian than the alternative (source):
Tax Refusal
Why do Christians continue to pay the government that portion of tax which is used to support war, since war is contrary to the teachings of the New Testament?
It seems that it would be more Christlike to refuse to pay that portion of tax and to give the same amount — or more — to some worthy Christian cause such as the program of the Brethren Service Commission or some other Christian denomination’s project.
We could then take a receipt for the amount given and turn the receipt over to the government.
If it is permissible to teach the gospel, it also should be permissible to live it and practice it.
the magazine printed a letter in response, disagreeing by giving the old taxes-are-debts argument, and recommending instead prayer rather than civil disobedience (source).
Floyd M.
Irvin responded in the issue (source):
Taxes and Our Responsibility
I would like to express my disagreement with the brother from Grantsville, Md., who states that “taxes are a debt… when we pay this debt our responsibility ends.”
I would say rather that, as a citizen, I am a partner with other citizens both in managing and in financing the affairs of our government.
A citizen of a democracy has a definite responsibility in determining the purpose for which his tax money is used.
The denial of this privilege by the English government was one of the chief reasons for the revolt of the American colonists and for the birth of our republic.
Now that we have this privilege, it becomes a responsibility.
If the fathers of the American Revolution in their day felt an inner compulsion to refuse to pay taxes for the use of which they had no directing voice, ought not followers of the Prince of Peace in our day feel an urge to refuse to pay taxes which are used to finance the killing of our fellow Christians?
This is a question which needs careful consideration.
The following questions may stimulate our thoughts on the matter.
Do we as citizens have a responsibility in regard to the use of our tax money which should direct our actions beyond our choice of representatives?
In other words, after we have voted to the best of our ability, are we guiltless if our taxes are used to kill our fellow men?
Does the Scriptural injunction to pay taxes apply without exception, or is the payment of taxes to finance a war that destroys God’s children an exception when we should obey God rather than men?
How can we order our lives and finances so that if we refuse to pay taxes the government will not take more than we withhold?
Is it time for Christians to organize a non-violent resistance movement against war?
The edition again covered the Peacemakers (source):
Group Refuses to Pay “War” Taxes
Fifty-nine men and women, including four Protestant clergymen, in various parts of the country have refused to file federal income tax returns because they find it impossible to support the Korean or any other war.
This announcement was made by the tax refusal committee of Peacemakers, a national pacifist group, which released a statement by the fifty-nine saying:
“We are particularly concerned at this time about the situation in Korea, where a civil struggle has been provoked and aggravated by two power states to the point where it is already a major war — one which may be the spark that will set the world afire.
“We find it impossible to support policies and activities of this kind with our allegiance or with our money.
We must, therefore, refuse to give money for such purposes of conquest and massacre, and must give it instead to causes which build understanding and world community.”
A.J. Muste of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, sent a separate letter to the collector of internal revenue in his district, declaring that this is the third successive year in which he has refused to file a return or pay taxes.
He contended that “anyone who contributes to arming the United States today also contributes to arming Russia — which is the last thing I want to do — in the same way that Russians contribute to American armament, for each government mechanically matches the military preparations of the other.”
At the auction sale of her husband’s car, Mrs.
Arthur H.
Emery, Jr., begged those attending the sale not to bid.
She said she feared the proceeds might be used for war.
The U.S. bureau of internal revenue, which had seized the car, will apply the $145 on the income tax owed by Mr. and Mrs.
Emery.
They had refused to pay it because they thought it might be used for military purposes.
This letter from Ernest Bromley comes from the issue (source):
Tax Refusal
Many people who have been deeply concerned over the large and growing percentage of federal taxes going to war purposes have been prevented from taking any definite action because all funds paid to the federal government go into a common treasury, whether this money is for war purposes or for constructive purposes to which citizens willingly contribute.
The Tax Refusal Committee of Peacemakers calls attention to the fact that if the increased military appropriations now being voted by Congress under various heads are added together, this will mean a total of around seventy billion dollars for war purposes out of a budget of around ninety billion.
The increased appropriations will reflect themselves in a percentage increase in taxes, and this increase will be for purely military purposes and nothing else.
We would welcome correspondence from persons who feel a concern over this matter, which should be addressed to Rev. Ernest Bromley, Golay Road in Gano, Sharonville, Ohio.
Another war tax resister from outside of Brethren circles was featured briefly in the issue (source):
Woman Pastor Refuses to Pay “War Taxes”
A woman pastor in South Hartford, N.Y., paid only twenty-five per cent of her federal income tax because she is opposed to the government’s “warlike ventures.” The Rev. Marion C.
Frenyear, pastor of the South Hartford Congregational church, said she is a Christian pacifist and “cannot support war in any way,” that in her belief war is against religious principles and taxes should be used to bring peace and disarmament to the world.
For the same reason Miss Frenyear paid only twenty-five per cent of her federal tax bill.
Walter R. Sturr, collector of internal revenue at Albany, placed a lien against her salary and indicated the same method would be used this year to collect the unpaid taxes.
The delinquent taxes were paid by the treasury of the church and the amount was deducted from the pastor’s salary.
The Brethren Missionary Herald seemed to trend conservative.
It complained about high government spending and taxes (and saw creeping socialism at every turn), and didn’t hesitate to put the blame for this on the military budget, but this was about as far as it was prepared to go in protest:
The child of God will… pay his taxes….
It is our judgment that the general tenor of the teaching of the Bible allows for protest and even revolt against unjust and exorbitant taxation.
Beyond these considerations, however, the Lord’s servant will not try to evade the payment of tribute.
[]
The Brethren Evangelist was also largely sticking to its guns and not entertaining any newfangled tax resistance ideas.
But the magazine’s intolerance for legalized alcoholic beverages was intense enough that, in the midst of what was otherwise a standard render-unto-Cæsar article, they let this slip in the issue (source):
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” What things does Caesar have a right to claim?
Taxes?
Yes, we should expect to pay taxes for the privilege of living in such a land as ours.
We expect protection of life and property; good sanitary living conditions, and the like — and these cost money.
But there is, of course, a limit to which the Christian should be forced to go.
For instance, to be forced to pay taxes for the upkeep of hospitals for the criminally insane and penitentiaries where are housed the results of crimes brought about by a government-supported liquor program, is going beyond what any government has a moral (even if it has a legal) right to demand.
We could go on at great length with many other examples, but space forbids.
You think about them.
