How you can resist funding the government → the tax resistance movement → birth of the modern American war tax resistance movement → Edith Aldis

Mary Stone McDowell is a rare — perhaps unique — example of someone who took a war tax resistance stand during World War Ⅰ and was also part of the post World War Ⅱ revival of war tax resistance in America.

From the New York Herald (excerpt):

Woman Teacher Is Suspended on Pacifist Charge

Miss Mary S. McDowell, Member of Society of Friends, to Face Trial.

Miss Mary S. McDowell, a teacher of Latin in the Manual Training High School, was suspended from duty without pay as a result of charges of pacifism brought against her several weeks ago by the Board of Superindendents.

The order suspending Miss McDowell, issued by Dr. Gustave Straubenmuller, acting Superintendent of Schools, was approved formally by the Board of Education at its meeting. In the formal notice the cause for suspension is given as “conduct unbecoming a teacher.”

Miss McDowell will be called before a special committee of the School Board to show cause why she should not be dismissed from the service. No date has been set for the trial.

Miss McDowell, who lives with her mother at No. 20 Crooke avenue, Brooklyn, is a member of the Society of Friends and declares that by reason of her faith she conscientiously is opposed to war and all its activities. It is alleged she repeatedly refused to sign loyalty pledges circulated among the teachers and refused to take part in Red Cross work and Liberty Bond sales.

Miss McDowell has been a teacher in the public schools for thirteen years and, in the opinion of Dr. Straubenmuller, is “a very estimable woman and an excellent Latin teacher, with unfortunate views regarding the war.”

(The New York Times, always jealous in defending its own freedom of speech, though it so rarely has anything to say that the government would find any need to censor, editorialized that “it becomes the Friends to retire from and to keep out of positions which in their very nature involved the declaration and teaching of patriotism as it is understood by a majority of human beings so large that its members have a right to consider themselves normal and everybody else abnormal. For these reasons it seems to us that a Friend, at this time, is distinctly out of place as a teacher in a public school — that if well advised such a teacher will resign, and that if not docile to good counsel, he or she, as the case may be, should be dismissed.”)

From the Brooklyn Eagle:

Ex-Boro Teacher Joins 69 in Income Tax Defy

, but 70 pacifists throughout the country, including a former school teacher in Brooklyn, will refuse to pay Uncle Sam who, they say, is spending his money preparing for a war.

The group has grown since when about 40 pacifists, objecting to the “war preparations,” refused to pay either all or a part of their taxes.

Mary McDowall of 555 Ocean Ave., a Quaker who taught Latin at Abraham Lincoln High School until her retirement five years ago, is a member of the group, known as the Tax Refusal Committee of Peacemakers.

“I’m Not Stingy”

Miss McDowall has withheld one-third of her total tax, claiming “at least that proportion is used for war preparation.” The withheld amount, she points out is donated to the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers).

“I don’t want the money I withhold,” she says. “I’m not stingy. I merely won’t help in construction for war.

Miss McDowall’s Quaker principles caused her suspension from the faculty of Manual Training High School in . She was suspended for “disloyalty and insubordination,” having refused to take part in the school’s patriotic aid program of World War Ⅰ.

She was cleared and reinstated in when it was officially admitted that her Board of Education trial had been held “at a time of great public excitement.”

Has Jaile[d] Confrere

The 70 “tax refusers,” in a statement issued at their headquarters, 2013 5th Ave., Manhattan, announced they “hail the courage of Katsuki James Otsuka,” who drew a three-month Federal sentence and a $100 fine in Indianapolis earlier this month for refusing to pay $4.50 in income taxes.

Otsuka also refused to pay the fine, choosing instead an additional sentence.

Among the organization’s Manhattan members is Sander Katz, 25, who served 19 months in jail for refusing to report for induction in World War Ⅱ and who was sentenced to another year and a day for refusing to register under the Draft Act.

Another Brooklyn Eagle article, from, I think, around :

Pacifist Balks at “War” Use of Income Tax

Mary S. McDowell, 74, retired public school teacher of 555 Ocean Ave., wants it known that again this year she is paying only two-thirds of her Federal income tax.

The reason, she advised during a call at the Brooklyn Eagle office, is that she is opposed to war and refuses to finance the manufacture of war materials.

“An estimated third of income tax collections goes for defense,” she said. “So one-third of my tax payment, or what would be a third of it, I am giving to a charity. I did it last year on my own initiative and this year I am withholding one-third as a member of the ‘Peacemakers’.”

From its Manhattan office at 2013 5th Ave. the Peacemakers issued a press release in which it described itself as “a national pacifist movement” and listed “27 men and 19 women in scattered parts of the United States” who are not paying income taxes because they “refuse to finance war preparations.” Miss McDowell is among those listed.

“I am a Quaker,” said Miss McDowell, the only Brooklynite on the Peacemakers’ list. “I have always been opposed to war. Not paying income tax is a practical Way of expressing opposition to war.

“I was opposed to the first World War. I was teaching at Manual Training High School then. Because of my expressed opposition I was fired. It wasn’t until that I was reinstated as a teacher.”

She was at Abraham Lincoln when she retired in .

The Peacemakers’ list of tax rebels includes the names of the Rev. A.J. Muste of 21 Audubon Ave., Manhattan, described as secretary of the organization, and the Rev. Ernest R. Bromley of Wilmington, Ohio, named as chairman of the Tax Refusal Committee.

“One omission from the list,” the release explains, “is the name of Katsuki James Otsuka, an earlham college student of Richmond, Ind. He was released on after serving nearly five months in the Federal Correctional Institution, Ashland, Ky., for his refusal to pay $4.50 income taxes. He was released even though he continued to refuse to pay. His name does not appear because his imprisonment prevented his earning a taxable income for .”

The Eagle covered her protest again in :

Kansas Tax Conchies

Topeka, Kan., (U.P.) — Kansas Internal Revenue officials had two “conscientious objectors” on their hands today when Edith Aldis and the Rev. Gerhard Friesen defied Federal income tax laws on grounds that “too much of the money goes for military armament.” Both have signed a statement issued by the tax refusal committee of Peacemakers, a pacifist movement with headquarters in New York.

Ex-Teacher Here Joins “Tax-Refuser” Movement

A retired Brooklyn Latin teacher was one of 41 “Tax Refusers” across the nation who deducted from their Federal returns — due  — percentages they said would be used for present and future wars.

Mary S. McDowell of 555 Ocean Ave., a Quaker who started teaching in borough schools in and was suspended from the school system for pacifist activities, in a letter to the local internal revenue office said she was sending $237 — 60 percent of her return — to the American Friends Service Committee, a charity, to keep herself from being “involved in war preparations.”

The 76-year-old woman wrote: “All war is contrary to the essential principle of Christianity and to the basic faith of democracy.” She inclosed a pamphlet entitled “A Democratic Program for a Durable Peace” which she recently had published.

, she said, she deducted only 45 percent from her tax return. The increase this year, she explained, was prompted not by inflation but by mounting Government spending for rearmament.

Government Takes Lien

The income tax office , in a move to collect the unpaid balance of her return, placed a lien on the elderly ex-teacher’s pension.

A native of New Jersey, Miss McDowell attended Swarthmore College and taught in Manual Training and Abraham Lincoln High Schools. She retired in .

Her letter, in part, said: “I realize that I cannot entirely free myself from being involved in war preparations; but I believe it is important to bear my testimony in action as far as I can.

“Now that we are so largely devoting our men and our resources to war preparations and taking part in an armament race, it seems clearer than ever that our course may be leading toward world war and inconceivable slaughter and destruction to our own country as well as the world.

“Accordingly, it would seem that not only religious pacifists, but all intelligent true patriots should do everything in their power to halt rearmament and vastly increase constructive activities looking toward worldwide human welfare and durable peace.”

The Eagle covered her protest again in :

Woman, 77, Clings to Tax-Strike Vow

A 77-year-old former Latin teacher has taken a stand in which many of her neighbors would like to join her , although for more personal reasons. Mary McDowell of 555 Ocean Ave. has refused to pay her income tax.

Member of the Tax Refusal Committee of Peacemakers — a group of individuals scattered over the nation who withhold that part of their tax which they believe will be used for armaments — Miss McDowell held back 70 percent.

Each year the tally grows. In , the elderly teacher said, she deducted only 60 percent from her return. it was 45 percent. It is her custom to contribute the deducted amounts to the American Friends Service Committee.

The Quaker lady has been fighting a war against war nearly all her life. She started teaching in Brooklyn in but was suspended from the school system because of her pacifist activities during World War Ⅰ.

Her defiance of the tax collector, Miss McDowell calls “the new patriotism.” The popular idea, she said, holds up the soldier as a model of patriotism but, against this, she matches her own method of “trying to prevent a disaster to one’s country.”

Each year the U.S. Government refuses to be persuaded and places a lien on her teacher’s pension. Each year Miss McDowell tries, in the same way, to express her belief that “war or threats of war cannot bring security.”

The Tax Refusers, she said, “strive not only to avoid assisting in preparations for war, but also to point out constructive courses of action, that will bring durable peace through human welfare, disarmament and solution of world problems.”

Miss McDowell believes the great day of permanent peace “will come like Spring,” suddenly but only as a result of slow preparation and a multitude of just such efforts as her own small token resistance to the tax collector.

, McDowell was at it again, and the Eagle was there:

Anti-War Ex-Teacher Defies Uncle Sam Again on Taxes

Mary McDowell, 78, retired high school teacher of 555 Ocean Ave., figured out her Federal income tax.

It came to $300.

She promptly sent a check for $90 as her tax to the Internal Revenue Bureau.

“I’m paying only 30 percent of my tax,” she said .” I refuse to pay the 70 percent which goes for war purposes.”

She calls her tax defiance “the new patriotism.”

Miss McDowell is a member of the Tax Refusal Committee of Peacemakers — a group of individuals scattered over the nation who each year withhold part of their tax which they believe will go for armaments. she has withheld part of her tax.

Each year the Government refuses to go along with her and it places a lien on her teacher’s pension.

She is a Quaker and has been fighting against war all her life.

“War is contrary to Christian principles and is contrary to democratic ideals,” she contends.

In , the Mary S. McDowell story became the second of the “Profiles in Courage” featured on the short-lived television series of that name. The Friends Journal published a profile of McDowell in .

’s Picket Line was all about Mary McDowell, but it also briefly mentioned three people involved in the early years of the modern American war tax resistance movement whom I hadn’t heard of before: Sander Katz, Edith Aldis, and Gerhard Friesen.

You’d think a name like “Sander Katz” would make for easy Googling, but in fact there is a “Sandor Katz” who is well-known today for, for instance, his fine do-it-yourself guide Wild Fermentation. Google tends to want to assume you’re just misspelling his name if you try to hunt for “Sander Katz.”

Katz is listed as the editor of a collection of Freud’s essays “on war, sex, and neurosis” with an introduction by Paul Goodman. He is also listed as one of two editors of Complex: The Magazine of Psychoanalysis and Society (and he’d occasionally contribute articles as well, for example: “Comparative Sexual Behavior: Is orgasm for the human female normal?”). He was also on the editorial committee of a magazine called Alternative that published and was associated with the “Non-Profit Association of Libertarians” and the “Committee for Non-Violent Revolution.” Other members of that committee included war tax resisters David Dellinger, Ralph DiGia, and Roy Kepler.

In , the syndicated columnist Robert Ruark spent several column inches denigrating Katz, who had just been sentenced to a one-year prison term for refusing to register for the military draft (and then Ruark put out another column’s worth when Katz was released eight months later). “I know something about this particular rugged individualist,” Ruark wrote, “who served 19 months in jail during the last war for refusal to report for induction. His name is Sander Katz, and he is one of the long-hairs who stroll the [Greenwich] Village streets, lost in reverie and a turtle-neck sweater.” Katz was imprisoned because he said he opposed the draft on “social, political, and philosophical grounds” and the law at that time only recognized conscientious objection for religious reasons.

, Katz, along with several dozen others, burned his draft card during a “Break With Conscription Committee” demonstration in New York City. , Katz was arrested, along with several others, for picketing at a draft registration center.

I found a few more newspaper articles about Edith Aldis, all based on the same template. The Long Island Star-Journal of for instance, which also mentions Gerhard Friesen:

2 Pacifists Refuse To Pay Taxes

Topeka, Kan. (UP) — Kansas Internal Revenue officials had two “conscientious objectors” on their hands today when Miss Edith Aldis and the Rev. Gerhard Friesen defied federal income tax laws on grounds that “too much of the money goes for military armament.”

Both have signed a statement issued by the Tax Refusal Committee of Peacemakers, a pacifist movement with headquarters in New York.

Miss Aldis said she paid 10 per cent of her taxes, the amount estimated for use for non-military spending. Friesen said he would pay only direct taxes on the “principal of the thing,” because other levies are “a part of the plan to destroy our country.”

I found a few more things about Friesen as well. I even saw one mention of his war tax resistance (too brief to quote, alas) that said that he had begun resisting in !

The Mennonite profiled Martha Graber in . Graber is Friesen’s daughter.

Her father, she said, “was ahead of his time” in advocating war tax resistance and speaking out at Mennonite conferences against profiteering from the war economy. “His conscience would not let him support the military.”

She said her father would have approved the action by the General Conference Mennonite Church to honor employee Cornelia Lehn’s request to not have her income taxes withheld from her paychecks.

The Friesens practiced war tax resistance by living simply, giving generously, and usually not earning enough to owe taxes.

Although as a youth she was embarrassed by her father’s outspokenness to audiences unreceptive to his message, Martha embraced her parents’ convictions about Christian discipleship and peacemaking and taught them to her children. She files tax returns but usually has a zero taxable income due to living simply and giving 50 percent of her income to charity. She has also advocated for the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund legislation.

Cornelia Lehn sounds interesting as well: “Lehn sponsored a group of Vietnamese immigrants who attended Bethel College Mennonite Church in North Newton… and was an avid supporter of nonpayment of war taxes,” according to one source. Here are some more articles that mention her war tax resistance:

From the edition of The Youngstown Daily Vindicator:

Mennonites Vote Refusal To Withhold U.S. Taxes

Bethlehem, Pa. (AP) — In an action primarily protesting U.S. military policies, the General Conference Mennonites has became [sic.] the first mainstream Christian church to refuse to withhold federal taxes from employees’ paychecks.

Delegates to the church’s international convention voted 1,128 to 457 to authorize church officials to violate federal law by refusing to withhold federal taxes.

A denomination spokesman said the church has tried for four years to secure legislative, administrative, and judicial approval for its employees to refuse to pay their taxes as a protest against the use of the money for military hardware.

A group of Quakers — the American Friends Service Committee — also has refused to withhold taxes, according to Margaret Bacon, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia-based group. The AFSC provides world-wide relief and works for social change.

But Dean M. Kelley, director for religious and civil liberty of the National Council of Churches, said none of the council’s 31 member denominations had previously refused to forward employees’ taxes to the federal government.

The 66,000-member General Conference Mennonite Church and the 93,000-member Mennonite Church are holding their international meetings this week at Lehigh University. The conferences are the first time the two churches have ever met together.

Larry Cornies, news director for the General Conference Mennonites, said the church has been considering the issue of tax withholdings for five years.

The catalyst came in , when Cornelia Lehn, then director of children’s education for the church, asked the church to not withhold taxes from her paycheck, Cornies said. She has since retired to British Colombia.

, the church has decided a U.S. Supreme Court test case would be unsuccessful and a tax withholding bill could not get through Congress, he said.

Cornies said a bill to let taxpayers earmark their taxes for a World Peace Tax Fund, to be used only for peaceful purposes, “doesn’t look like it’s got much of a chance.”

The National Council’s Kelley said the only denominations considering refusal to let taxes be withheld are the “peace churches” — the Mennonites, the Church of the Brethren, and the Quakers.

“Most of the mainline denominations are not pacifist,” he said.

The Mennonites decided not to approach the Supreme Court after the justices ruled against an Amish employer from New Wilmington, Pa., who had refused to withhold Social Security taxes from Amish employees.

“Then it gratuitously added something to the effect that ‘if we let this take place, people would be able to insist that they were entitled to withhold paying of taxes on expenditures they object to, such as war and armaments,’ ” Kelley said.

The (Lexington, North Carolina) Dispatch carried this shorter and slightly different version of the report:

Mennonites’ Vote Protests Funding Military Activity

Bethlehem, Pa. (AP) — To protest funding of U.S. military activity, the General Conference Mennonites have voted to refuse to withhold federal taxes from employees’ paychecks.

Dean M. Kelley, director for religious and civil liberty of the National Council of Churches, said the 66,000-member General Conference Mennonites are the only denomination belonging to the council ever to have taken such action.

A Quaker group, the American Friends Service Committee, also refuses to withhold employees’ federal taxes.

A spokesman for the pacifist General Conference Mennonites said the church has tried for four years to secure legislative, administrative, and judicial approval for its employees to refuse to pay their taxes as a protest against use of the money for military hardware.

Delegates to the church’s international convention voted 1,128 to 457 to authorize church officials to violate federal law by stopping the withholding of federal taxes.

Larry Cornies, news director for the General Conference Mennonites, said the church began considering the issue in , when Cornelia Lehn, then director of children’s education for the church, asked that taxes not be withheld from her paycheck. Ms. Lehn has since retired to Canada.

A third version of the article, from the Gainesville Sun adds this paragraph:

Gene Harris, spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service in Philadelphia, said of the Mennonite’s vote: “It’s a violation of the law. If they actually do that, they could be prosecuted in court. It’s happened before and the IRS has won the case. But they would have to be audited first.”

According to the Toledo Blade, it was , not , when the Conference began mulling over war tax resistance. Here is an article from their edition:

Serious Study Urged On War Resistance

Mennonite Conference Considers Tax Action

From The Blade Correspondent

Bluffton, O. — The General Conference Mennonite Church, holding its 41st triennial conference here, passed a resolution calling for “serious study of civil disobedience and war tax resistance during the next 18 months.” The vote was 1,178½ yes to 453½ no.

The conference Monday rejected a proposed amendment to the resolution that would have allowed the denomination as an employer to refuse to withhold the so-called “war portion” of an employee’s income tax, if the employee requested it, during the 18-month study period.

The denomination employs about 50 persons at its Newton, Kan., headquarters, Lois Barrett, spokesman, said.

The resolution was drafted because one employee at the headquarters, Cornelia Lehn, had requested that the war-tax portion of her taxes not be withheld from her salary, making it possible for her to “follow her conscience in this matter.”

The “war portion” refers to the percentage used by the Government for military purposes, according to the resolution.