Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” →
Brethren →
The Brethren Missionary Herald
The U.S. entry into World War Ⅱ gave the Church of the Brethren another chance to decide whether it would stick to its principles in the face of public pressure to join in the bloodletting.
As we’ll see, the evidence is mixed, but at least this time around the Church avoided the total surrender to war fever that it exhibited in World War Ⅰ.
The earliest mentions of war bonds I saw in the Brethren Evangelist were all of this basic opportunistic form (my paraphrase): “The government wants you to invest 10% of your income in war bonds; can’t you invest at least that much in our Mission Board?” There were also a few off-hand mentions of church institutions either investing some of their money in government bonds or taking government bonds as donations.
This mention was typical of the crass way this magazine saw war bonds largely as unwelcome competition for church fundraising (source):
Why not make your regular offering this year, and then make the added contribution of one of those “War Bonds” you have been buying.
This would help us look to the future in a fine way, if enough of those bonds were given each year so they would mature year by year…
Remember Jesus believed in Benevolence — so must we.
There was not even a hint in the Brethren Evangelist during the war years that there was anything ethically wrong with buying war bonds, unless it interfered too much with your tithing.
Things were a little different over at the Gospel Messenger.
The issue carried a resolution from the Brethren Service Committee that read in part:
Our citizens are being urged to help finance this war by many measures other than by direct taxation; and since [t]he official position of the Church of the Brethren involves nonparticipation in any war either directly or indirectly…
From there it did not counsel for or against anything specifically, but the flavor of the advice was for the reader to redouble his efforts for relief of war suffering and “look for the voice of God in his own Christ-enlightened conscience and obey that voice no matter to how great sacrifice and suffering it may lead.”
An Indiana section of the church held a peace conference on and “one subject of discussion was Shall We Buy Defense Bonds?” (source).
The issue carried “An Appeal for Patriotism” from W. Glenn McFadden, who noted that the defense bonds program had to bribe citizens with lucrative returns in order to get their financial support.
McFadden said that instead he would buy a Brethren Service Certificate and ask nothing in return.
an illustration of a Brethren Service Certificate
One issue noted without further comment that “Life insurance companies are putting well over half of all their funds for investment into United States government bonds.
On the average, each policyholder is owner of $120 in government bonds through his life insurance policy.” I am not certain how to interpret this, but if it’s not just a piece of trivia, it sounds like a veiled warning for conscientious objectors to military funding.
A note in another issue said that an annual “United Pacifist Conference” of some sort had adopted “[a] resolution demanding that Federal tax money collected from religious pacifists be used by the government for nonmilitary purposes only.”
This was only a one-paragraph short, and is the first I’ve heard of this conference or its resolution.
It might have been an A.J. Muste project from around the time when he was beginning to explore war tax resistance.
Some church leaders from the Michigan district approved the following resolution, which seems to allude to the pressure to buy war bonds (source):
In harmony with the historic attitude of the Church of the Brethren, we the representatives of the southern churches of the District of Michigan, declare ourselves to be in favor of all things constructive and opposed to all things destructive; and that when demands are made of us which we cannot conscientiously fulfill, that our attitude should be nonviolent, and that we encourage the churches of Michigan in the purchase of Brethren Service certificates and stamps.
In war life and money are conscripted.
Every nation demands of its citizens what they possess — service from the physically fit and money from everyone.
Taxes
Direct and indirect taxes are assessed against all citizens.
Investment in War Bonds
This is expected from all citizens who have investing power.
To date the government makes such investment a voluntary matter but community pressures are almost equivalent to compulsion.
Many persons with a conscience which prevents them from engaging in physical warfare are also deterred from voluntarily financing war.
a boy shows off his Brethren Service Stamps card
The article went on to talk up Brethren Service Certificates, which helped to fund the Civilian Public Service camps for drafted conscientious objectors who were doing alternative work.
There were also smaller-denomination “Brethren Service Stamps”, which were marketed to children in particular — “Children take their stamp books to school to indicate that, while they are not buying defense stamps, they are buying these stamps” — and also some so-called “peace bonds” and “peace stamps” that were meant as ways Brethren could participate in the bond drive mania without compromising their consciences.
In all of these cases, the amount spent on bonds or stamps was a pure donation — the bonds could not later be redeemed for cash like war bonds could.
“Civilian Bonds”
The article shared a letter from Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau in which he authorized the issue of government bonds “which are not designated by their terms as ‘war issues’ ” — or, as he put it in another place “securities not designated as ‘War Bonds’ ” — so that conscientious objectors could plausibly buy them.
Morgenthau’s language not so subtly indicates that this would be largely a fig leaf.
The bonds would not be “designated” as “war issues” or “war bonds” but there was no suggestion that their proceeds would be spent any differently than any other government bonds.
The accompanying article, however, went further and claimed that this new bond money was “to be used for civilian purposes” and would therefore be “a way to co-operate in government financing without violation of conscience.”
I think that was wishful thinking at best.
The Brethren Service Committee was taking orders for the bonds immediately, via the Provident Trust Company of Philadelphia, who would send the bonds out to purchasers when the government got around to printing them up.
In return for your order you would “without delay receive a reply which you may hold as tangible evidence to your community, if needed, to show that you are co-operating in financing the government.”
If memory serves, the Provident Trust Company ended up using the money to buy ordinary government F- & G-series bonds and then “registered” them as “conscience money” through some sort of hocus-pocus to distinguish them somehow from the bonds other people were buying without such conscientious decoration.
(If you want to delve further, this was also a project that was covered extensively in The Mennonite, and you can see what I found in that magazine starting here.)
A later issue gave further instructions on the program, and included a coupon employees could use, if their employers were withholding money from their paychecks to buy war bonds, to request that they be used for “Civilian Bonds” or “Brethren Service Certificates” instead (source).
The article explained the need for the new bonds:
“For us who hold sacred [pacifist] convictions, it becomes very embarrassing to refuse the purchase of war bonds to meet a community quota.
Our neighbors cannot understand and we are often looked upon as unpatriotic.”
A frequently-asked-questions section followed.
This mostly covered the practical issues of how the bonds worked and how to purchase them, and didn’t include any questions about just how conscientious or civilian the bonds really were.
The article seemed more careful than its predecessor in only implying without stating explicitly that the money raised by the bonds would not go to military spending.
There was, however, this somewhat telling answer:
Question: Does the purchase of a Civilian Bond give credit on the county war bond quota?
Answer: Yes.…
Often, subsequent mentions of the Civilian Bond program were careful to say merely that the bonds were not explicitly designated for war expenses.
But occasionally a stronger (and I believe, baseless) guarantee would be added, like this one from the issue (source):
The government assures us that the funds realized from the sale of these bonds are not used to finance the war.
Or this one, from (source), that you can just barely parse as not an outright lie if you try hard enough:
The historic peace churches through their committee have made arrangements that purchasers of government bonds may designate their money to be used in the civilian phases of our government program. Many citizens desiring to co-operate in the civilian program of the government but whose consciences do not permit them to aid directly and voluntarily in financing the war buy these bonds.
Or this carefully-constructed phrasing, from (source):
The peace churches have arranged with the government that… purchases may be made which constitute a designation that the money should be used in the civilian expenses of the government.
Purchasers of Brethren Service Certificates had more of a legitimately clear conscience, though they may not have found these certificates as useful as bonds in beating back the mobs of war bond enforcers, and of course they were also more expensive, being donations rather than loans.
But here is an example of how one taxpayer used this program to help assuage his guilt for taxpaying:
Enclosed please find a check… representing double the amount of the tax which has been deducted from my salary this month.
It is my conviction that the use to which this tax is being put — destructive alike of human life and of international goodwill — is incompatible with Christian ethics…
Since I can do nothing to prevent the withholding of this tax, I can at least protest the use to which it is put by trying to help counteract the damage it is doing to the cause of Christianity and democracy.
I am therefore sending double the amount of tax to organizations which are maintaining and strengthening the principles of Christianity and of true democracy by constructive work of goodwill.
I intend to continue sending this amount, in addition to my regular contributions, each time I receive a salary check from which this tax has been deducted.
As a receipt, the regular B.S.C. certificate will be ample.
Rufus D. Bowman
For the edition, Rufus D.
Bowman wrote an article titled “Our Brethren Heritage Is Being Threatened”.
One of these threats: “During World War Ⅱ the majority of the members of the Church of the Brethren are supporting the war system.” Bowman reported on the results of a survey he had conducted of Brethren practices that had reached 161 churches, representing about one-sixth of the Church of the Brethren.
In that survey, “forty-six per cent of the churches reported that the members generally were buying war bonds and stamps, while sixteen per cent indicated that a substantial minority were buying them, and seventeen per cent said that a few were purchasing war bonds.”
(Furthermore, more than 80% of Brethren draftees were going into the military without taking any sort of conscientious objector status, either noncombatant or civilian public service work.)
Along with the ministers all adults who have supported the war economically should repent.
War cannot be reconciled with Jesus Christ.
War is unchristian and is inconsistent with the most precious values of this universe.
The kingdom of God is not built through hate, but through love.
It is true that one cannot live without helping the war to some extent.
When the writer takes the train there is a war tax on his ticket.
But there are varying degrees of supporting the war and not supporting it.
Where the individual is free to choose, the spirit and teachings of Jesus and the position of the Church of the Brethren are clear that church members should not support a system that destroys personality.
Adults should repent of their part in this conflict.
In the edition, W.G. Willoughby took this now-that-the-war’s-over-let’s-repent thing and ran with it:
Let us confess to God and to one another that we have all shared in the dropping of bombs.
We have participated in the mass slaughter of God’s children.
Is the bombardier who released the bombs more guilty than the pilot who guided the ship; is he more guilty than the person who built the plane; is he more guilty than the person who bought bonds to pay for the ship, or is he more guilty than we who paid taxes to the government directing the whole operation?
The Etownian (Elizabethtown College student paper) covered a seminar held by Church of the Brethren officials who had been navigating the government’s conscientious objector / Civilian Public Service Camp bureaucracy (source).
A paraphrase of remarks of M.R.
Zigler included this: “The church must decide if it can purchase war bonds which are used to build more instruments of death, or if it should buy Brethren Service Stamps and Bonds which go to relieve suffering regardless of nation, race, or creed.”
The president of the student senate at Elizabethtown apparently decided in favor of bonds, when in a article (source), he wrote matter-of-factly that:
Today when we hear “Back the Attack” we know we must all cooperate by buying and investing in war bonds.
Without this cooperation our Government would be helpless and we might as well learn the “goose step.”
However, we know what we want and we will not let our Government down.
We have pledged to cooperate and we are cooperating.
And a front-page banner in the issue urged that “every alumnus and former student will adopt the slogan, ‘Buy a Bond for Elizabethtown College’ ” (source).
The Brethren Missionary Herald reprinted a statement from the Southern California District Conference on the propriety of non-combatant service, in its issue (source).
It included this:
In the matter of the purchasing of Government Bonds, War Stamps, and working in defense industries, we hold that the line of Christian duty, as well as of Christian privilege, is sometimes a very difficult line to draw; and, in these matters it must be left to the individual soul to deal alone with his God.
A news brief in the edition showed that the West 10th Street Brethren Church of Ashland Ohio didn’t find the line too difficult to draw (source):
Rev. Charles Mayes, pastor, received $10.25 in war stamps in the church offering plates.
Suggestion was made “that any other stamps appearing in the offering will be gladly received.
These can either be converted into a war bond in the name of the church corporation, or turned over to some of our creditors as stamps, probably at face value.
It honors the government to buy stamps even though the stamps may be turned into the church.
The government will not lose and the church will thus gain.
A sidebar noted that “War Bonds Will Be Accepted” in the Thanksgiving Offering of the Home Missions Council, so the line was not apparently very difficult for the Council to draw, either.
“Militarism and hate are sweeping the Church today,” complained the editor in (source).
“The gospel of love and grace has died in thousands of pulpits.
Many church members are complaining that they cannot buy war bonds and support the Church, too.”
I can think of one possible solution to that problem, but the editor had another in mind:
buy war bonds and then turn them over to the church!
When the government instituted an additional “Victory Tax” to be withheld from salaries, the Brethren Conference of Southern California sent a protest to the government about it, after a special meeting held for this purpose on .
Their protest was over the fact that the churches would be responsible for withholding this tax, which apparently they were not required to do for other taxes previously.
This, they evidently found to be an egregious violation of religious liberty, and they insisted that pastors of their district pay the tax themselves without the church doing the withholding.
Some lines were easier for the district to draw than others.
Clarence M.
Stump took an unusually radical stand in the edition of the Bible Monitor, criticizing other Brethren for helping the government establish, fund, and operate Civilian Public Service camps for conscientious objectors. “Some say, going to camp is not fighting, but nevertheless it is a defense program.
Trying to use one’s own power and not relying on God.” He recommended that draftees stand their ground and refuse to serve and take refuge in the Bible verse that says “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake.” So “Let us serve God and not Mammon.
Let us not take offerings to send our young men to camp, but rather let us pray for our boys that they may be faithful to God.” (source)
See “Why Should I Give?” by O.L. Strayer in the issue, on the other hand, for a passionate defense of the camps.
That defense included this admission:
We have paid taxes both direct and hidden for the carrying out of the business of the government.
None of us can be so foolish as to say that we did not know that a portion of those taxes have been going for the upkeep of the fighting forces of the country, and yet we have not scrupled to pay, nay, we have taught from our pulpits that the Christian will pay his taxes faithfully.
One of the arguments for participating in bond drives and for turning a blind eye to war taxes was that everybody was involved in the war somehow, directly or indirectly, so there was no point trying to take a risky personal stand to try to extricate yourself from it.
H.S.
Bender of the Mennonite “Peace Problems Committee” tried to address this in an article reproduced in a issue of the Bible Monitor (source).
Excerpts:
We are sometimes told that it is inconsistent for Mennonites to refuse to take part in the war because our Mennonite farmers are already in the war effort; hence all other forms of participation such as fighting, buying war bonds, working in war industry, must also be approved.
The argument is clear and logical: if farming is taking part in war, then we cannot logically refuse the other things asked of us in military service, in war bonds, or in war work; then we must either quit farming or give up our nonresistant position altogether.
Bender took the position that while the produce of the farmer is used by those engaging in war, this is not the same as manufacturing military materiel, operating under military orders, working in a war industry, or working for the benefit of the war.
While such a farmer does pay taxes, he did so just as much before the war.
In short: farming remains a peaceful industry, even if it is conducted during wartime.
The propaganda arguments used against nonresistant farmers come from chiefly two sources: either from the militarists who do not at all want to strengthen Christian conscience against war but who want to break down this conscience to get more war participation; or from men with weak consciences and convictions, often from some one in war industries or in military service who desires an alibi to justify his own lack of conscientiousness.
During World War Ⅱ the Church of the Brethren held somewhat more firm than they had in War Ⅰ.
At least they largely kept their misgivings about war funding, if they were not very consistent about following through on them.
A new pacifist war tax resistance movement began to gel outside of the traditional peace churches in the late 1940s, and I’ll be looking to see how or whether the Brethren contributed to this.
The Brethren Evangelist continued to look at war bonds mostly as a positive example of giving that ought to be emulated by Brethren in the post-war period through Church-directed giving.
For example, an article on that theme by the Reverend James E. Ault alluded to war bonds in this way: “We have assisted in meeting goals for War Bonds, Victory Bonds, or Community Fund drives until it has become a part of every day experience.
These goals would be of very little value if there were not some greater goal to be reached…” (source).
Things took a very different turn in the Gospel Messenger.
Harper S. Will presented “A Seven-Point Program for Brethren” in the issue.
Will suggested that the arms race and the normalization of military conscription and training meant that Brethren would have to be more active and persistent if they wanted to make progress for a peaceful world.
He asked his readers to “[g]o into your closet, quiet your mind, and seek the guidance of the Eternal Spirit” and gave this as one example: “Henry Thoreau did it in the days of the Civil War, and he ended up in jail because he would not pay his taxes.”
In the issue, Rufus D. Bowman addressed “The Church of the Brethren and the Cultural Crisis”.
According to Bowman, the Church was being overwhelmed by and absorbed into an unchristian culture.
One of the symptoms of this was the half-hearted way Brethren upheld their adherence to non-resistance:
During World War Ⅰ our members purchased war bonds and many of our young men went straight into the army.
During World War Ⅱ it is evident that the majority of our members compromised with the war system.
“Shall We Continue to Call Ourselves a Peace Church?” asked Ruth B. Statler in the issue.
Statler noted that most Brethren draftees in the last war went into the armed services without taking any sort of conscientious objector status, and that “[a] great many of our church members bought war bonds.”
The issue brought readers news of a war tax resister from the just-emerging modern war tax resistance movement (source):
Mrs. Caroline Urie. wife of a navy officer, a Quaker and veteran social worker, has publicly refused to pay the 34.6% of her income tax which, according to government figures, would go to military expenses.
Mrs. Urie wrote President Truman and the U.S. collector of internal revenue that the withheld money would be given to four nonprofit agencies engaged in removing the causes of war.
She is willing to pay taxes “for any reasonable constructive purposes.” As a Christian she said, “I must henceforth refuse to contribute in any way I can avoid toward maintaining the institution of war.”
that was followed up by this note:
This copy of a letter to the Collector of Internal Revenue came to the Messenger desk recently.
Enclosed herewith is my income tax return for .
I wish now to announce to the Collector of Internal Revenue and the Treasury Department that I cannot conscientiously continue to pay federal income taxes when so large a proportion of the funds is being used for purposes of war.
This country did not turn to peace at the end of World War Ⅱ, but instead sought to protect and expand an American Empire.
This mad attempt to dominate the world by force of arms, the threat of atomic war, and offers of economic aid only to future allies will lead to devastation and death.
I want to dissociate myself as completely as possible from these tragic, suicidal and evil policies, and to do all I can to convince my fellow citizens that we must completely renounce the way of war and violence. ―Marion Coddington, New York, N.Y.
There was also a note in the following issue about a woman who had been denied U.S. citizenship after she stated in her application that she would not be willing to “bear arms in defense of the United States [and] that she had refused to buy bonds in the last war because their proceeds were used to finance war.”
The issue noted briefly that “The National Baptist Sunday School and Training Union Congress at Cleveland, Ohio, recently urged churches and religious bodies not to invest in war or savings bonds which may be used in the financing of war.” (source)
The issue reprinted some resolutions passed by a Quaker gathering on the subject of conscientious objection to war (source).
Among these were that “Friends are urged… [t]o avoid engaging in any trade, business, or profession directly contributing to the military system; and the purchase of government war bonds or stock certificates in war industries. [And t]o carefully consider the implication of paying those taxes, a major portion of which goes for military purposes.” The issue also reported that the North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends had issued a statement on conscientious objection, which also “urged Quakers ‘to realize that by paying federal taxes we are supporting preparation for war,’ but did not advise that taxes not be paid” (source).
Up to this point, all of this sudden interest in war tax resistance has been focused outside the Church of the Brethren — neither Urie nor Coddington were Brethren, and the statements above are from Quaker and Baptist institutions.
But in the issue is a quote from Rufus D. Bowman, who up to this point has been hinting at war tax resistance without actually endorsing it, in which he finally comes out:
My conviction is that all war is sin and out of harmony with the spirit, life and teachings of Jesus.
It is, therefore, wrong to participate in war.
When war comes, it is difficult in a totalitarian state to keep from helping the war system.
The most Christian position is to remain apart from war as far as possible.
Accepting any service within the army puts a person under military orders and clouds his testimony against war.
Carrying on constructive service projects under church or civilian direction, the giving of a vigorous testimony against war and the payment of war taxes, and giving our lives for a vital peace program represents a consistent Christian position.
The issue continued the new trend of highlighting examples of war tax resisters from other denominations (source):
A Quaker of Moorestown, N.J., William B. Evans, paid his income tax three months ahead of time because he believes in the American government.
But he does not believe in war or in the preparation for it; therefore, he deducted from his payment the amount he estimated would be allotted to military purposes.
In a letter to the internal revenue office he said that he was giving that money to relief and rehabilitation.
Refusal to pay taxes that may be used for military purposes on the ground of conscience is being manifested by small groups of people in the United States, Switzerland, and Norway.
In Switzerland a growing group of women, many of them teachers, and in Norway Quakers are withholding taxes for military purposes, but stating their willingness to pay the same amounts for constructive projects.
The issue carried an update on Caroline Urie’s resistance (source):
Mrs. Caroline Urie, seventy-five year old Quaker widow, of Yellow Springs, Ohio, deducted 32.3 per cent of the first installment of her income tax and will donate the deducted amount to nonprofit agencies working for peace.
She estimated the deducted amount would be used for military purposes and expressed her opposition to this use of the tax money because “war and preparation for war in the atomic area is a crime against humanity.”
The issue reported on the blooming Peacemakers war tax resistance movement (source):
More than forty individuals throughout America, most of them from the peace churches, submitted only a part of their income tax to the government this year.
They sent an accompanying letter saying that they were contributing the rest of the tax to service or peace-making projects.
Their basis of refusal to pay all of it was that a high percentage of income tax revenue goes for war purposes.
The issue brought the news that “[i]n Norway the Quakers have decided to pay a peace tax to the government instead of the government defense tax recently voted by Parliament.
The government has agreed to this arrangement.” (source) No further details were given, though, so it’s difficult to guess what this amounted to practically.
The magazine repeated the news in its issue without adding much in the way of specifics.
There was clearly a hunger for news about war tax resisters, but in all of this there is still no mention of any actual named resister from within the Church of the Brethren itself, except perhaps Rufus Bowman by implication.
The issue included this representation of the debate about war tax resistance in the Church of the Brethren at the time (source):
How Does a Pacifist Act?
One says, “I have to stick my neck out.”
Vigorous efforts to break with a war system are necessary.
What kind of logic is it for a person to say he’s a pacifist and pay income tax — a large share of which goes for war?
If I refuse my income tax payment, I am protesting in the strongest way I know.
Anyone can write letters against a tax.
They mean little to our legislators.
What counts is conviction so strong that persons refuse to pay no matter what the consequences are.
If Gandhi had not been ready to go to jail for what he believed, the Free India Movement would have crumpled before it got well under way.
We cannot build a pacifist movement if leaders in the Church of the Brethren are unwilling to risk jail for what they believe.
⋮
Another says, “I must act with moderation.”
⋮
The extreme and antagonistic position of the tax refusers and nonregistrants seems out of harmony with the Master’s deeds and words:
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”
“Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.”
I don’t like it that I am forced through my income tax into supporting war preparations. However, if I refuse payment, the government will collect anyway.
The way to fight this tax is to work for a change in the law.
Meanwhile, over at the Brethren Missionary Herald things remained much in the vein of “you gave money for war, won’t you also give some to us?” For example:
the Brethren Home Missions Council held war bonds according to its financial statement
How much have members of our churches paid out in taxes and in purchase of war bonds during the past five years?
Dare we give the Lord less in the next five years? []
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.
In the late 1950s, the Gospel Messenger covered the war tax resistance of Maurice McCrackin, and the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference took on the issue of war taxes and decided to try to work out some form of legalized conscientious objection to military taxation with the government.
The edition of Gospel Messenger introduced Maurice McCrackin’s war tax resistance:
A Presbyterian pacifist minister who has refused for ten years to pay part of his federal income tax he felt was for war purposes, was indicted by a grand jury in Cincinnati, Ohio, for failing to answer a summons from the Internal Revenue Service.
He is the Rev. Maurice McCrackin of West Cincinnati-St. Barnabas church, a racially integrated mission congregation jointly supported by the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio and the Cincinnati Presbytery.
Recently twenty-eight ministers requested the two groups not to yield to pressure for the minister’s removal from his church.
A Presbyterian pacifist minister who refused to pay part of his federal income tax he felt would be used for war purposes has been sentenced to serve six months in a federal prison camp in Pennsylvania.
Following his conviction thirteen clergymen appealed to President Eisenhower to intervene in the sentence.
A somewhat more in-depth news brief appeared later in the same issue (source):
Pacifist Minister Jailed for Contempt
Maurice F. McCrackin, a pacifist minister who has refused to pay the part of his federal income tax he felt would be used for war purposes, was convicted of contempt of court and sentenced to jail for an indefinite period after ignoring a summons from the Internal Revenue Service.
Mr. McCrackin is pastor of the West Cincinnati-St. Barnabas church, a mission congregation jointly supported by the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio and the Cincinnati Presbytery.
He has refused to pay income taxes for the past ten years because some of the money goes for military purposes.
Clergymen Ask President’s Intervention for Imprisoned Minister
Thirteen clergymen appealed to President Eisenhower to intervene in the “persecution” of a Presbyterian pacifist minister who has refused to pay part of his federal income tax he felt would be used for war purposes.
In a message sent by the Fellowship of Reconciliation the clergymen asked the President to bring Mr.
McCrackin’s case immediately to the attention of the Justice Department and urged that he be freed of the contempt conviction so the charges may proceed “in orderly fashion” to try him on the tax charges.
W. Harold Row, secretary of the Brethren Service Commission, was one of the twelve Protestant ministers who signed the appeal.
The message stressed that the signers were not associating themselves with the position Mr. McCrackin had taken or with the means he employed to appeal to the conscience of his fellow citizens to renounce war.
A letter-to-the-editor in the issue took inspiration from McCrackin’s stand (somewhat mangled source):
Objection to War Taxes
In the issue, you questioned the way the tax dollar is spent, and in another section you mentioned the plight of Rev. Maurice McCrackin, imprisoned for not paying the war taxes.
To me it seems that McCrackin and others like him are pointing the way out of a basic dilemma for all who profess to be pacifists, namely how to effectively oppose war when tax dollars are taken from us that go four fifths for war.
It is time that the Church of the Brethren and the other peace churches come out in favor of conscientious objection to war taxes and alternative service for the dollars we get for our labors in the form of giving an identical amount or more than the amount of taxes to the Brethren Service Commission, CARE, and other such organizations that are doing the needed job that the war-minded government of the U.S. refuses to do:
help the needy and suffering and undeveloped people all over the world.
The early Brethren did not pay taxes for war, and we are a poor shadow of our forebears if we let our dollars be spent to maintain the cancerous military machine of the United States. ―John Forbes, Castañer, Puerto Rico
Jeanne Jacoby of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was in turn inspired by Forbes, in her letter in the issue (source): “I sincerely believe that we Brethren should oppose war taxes.
If we oppose war and preparation for war, why should we pay money for war.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, the war tax issue came up at the Annual Conference that year, though the focus seemed to be on trying to convince the government to accommodate conscientious objection to military taxation rather than on taking action in the here and now.
From the issue (source):
From the Brethren Service Commission came a recommendation to the Board urging that the Church of the Brethren begin making explorations with agencies of government in order to find some acceptable alternative for persons who, because of religious training or belief, are conscientiously opposed to the payment of the portion of their income taxes that goes for military defense.
It was pointed out that there is a growing interest among Brethren in finding such an alternative and that there is an increasing concern with regard to the large amount of tax money that is used for war preparation and various forms of military defense.
The Board recognized this interest and approved the recommendation that came to it.
It was pointed out that the difficulties confronting such a proposal would be extensive, but that a start should be made.
The church will attempt to work with other organizations having a similar concern, but if necessary, the church will proceed by itself to try to find some alternative to paying war taxes.
This evidently gave the editor of the Messenger permission to be somewhat more forthright about advocating war tax resistance.
In an editorial (source), Kenneth Morse wrote:
, the anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb, should not pass without every Christian deciding to take personal responsibility for some form of protest or non-violent action against the continuing arms race.
Some concerned persons have kept vigil at launching bases, others have demonstrated against policies by engaging in “walks for peace,” others have refused to pay taxes for war purposes.
W.A.
Ogden of Grace Seminary (Indiana) wrote an article on “Separation” for the issue of The Brethren Missionary Herald in which he set out his idea of the Brethren orthodoxy on how the Christian ought to behave toward the state.
When it comes to war bonds: “We recognize that there are many areas, such as purchasing bonds, war stamps, and so forth, which the individual must settle alone with his God.”
In the issue of The Brethren Evangelist, Percy C.
Miller reviewed the chapter on the Civil War from Rufus Bowman’s The Church of the Brethren and War (source).
He summarized the Brethren position on war taxes and related issues this way:
In the early days of the war, some of the Brethren hired substitutes.
The church members preferred to pay fines instead of using the system of substitutes.
But the records do not indicate that the Brethren clearly recognized the inconsistency with their peace position of employing substitutes or paying heavy war taxes to keep free from participation in armed conflicts.
The Society of Friends protested continually against war taxes.
The Brethren and Mennonites took the position that they [sh/c?]ould pay what the government required.
The brethren felt that the gospel required the payment of fines and taxes.
They based their opposition to war upon the teachings of Jesus but related their opposition more to the overt acts of war than to the whole war system.
They felt that the Brethren Church, for Biblical reasons, [sh/c?]ould not use the sword, but that the civil government, likewise because of Biblical reasons — “for the punishment of evildoers” (Ⅰ Peter 2:14) — might have to use material force.
In the debate over the proper response by Christians to government demands that they pay for war spilled over into the more conservative branches of American Brethren.
In the General Board of the Church of the Brethren met.
Among the items on the agenda was an invitation for them to stop paying the phone tax as an institution (source):
In still another action, a review of the federal excise tax on telephone service, the General Board by a 2 to 1 ratio voted down a motion that would have discontinued the voluntary payment of the tax.
Proponents of the motion alleged that the tax was instituted by the government to help cover costs of the Vietnam war.
Dorothy and Paul Brumbaugh shared their letter to President Nixon in the issue (source):
Preparing our income tax form and realizing that about sixty-six percent of our tax will go for purposes of war, past, present, and future, force us to examine our values.
For the past two years we have refused voluntary payment of our U.S. income tax.
We wish this year to reaffirm our previous stance and to emphasize even more emphatically (1) our abhorrence of mass murders in Vietnam and other places in the world in the name of freedom; (2) our opposition to the widespread fear generated by promotion of the ABM system; and (3) our disappointment in the neglect of hunger, housing, and education.
We also wish to affirm that governmental authority is within the will and plan of God.
We regret that our government refuses to accept the God-given authority and chooses instead the authority of power and the “almighty” dollar.
We urge you to help our government to place more emphasis on humanizing efforts and much less on the dehumanization of the war effort.
We desire that our funds be used for human development.
It is possible to choose not to participate in the Social Security program, a program helpful to many persons.
Why not also the opportunity of choice in supporting the military?
The issue featured Ralph Dull, a member of the Church of the Brethren and also a long-shot peace candidate for Congress (source).
The article noted:
For the last eleven years, the Dulls [Ralph & Joy] have refused to pay the percentage of their income tax that would be allocated to military spending, an amount of one half to two thirds of a tax figure.
The government has attached his bank account for that amount plus interest.
The Brethren Missionary Herald reported on the Annual Conference of the National Fellowship of Brethren Churches (source).
This is a more conservative group than those organized under the Church of the Brethren, and this is reflected in what its Selective Service Committee had to say about paying war taxes.
That said, the statement was sincerely searching about Brethren economic entanglement with war:
The presence of the military establishment in American life embraces much more than the problem of whether our sons accept military duty or claim conscientious objection.
The believer should realistically recognize the extent to which the military has invaded the whole of our lives and the probability that it will assume in the future an even more critical influence.
Let us carefully consider several grim realities and possibilities.
To begin with, our American system of taxation is so structured that every adult member of our society, from the oldest retiree to the youngest wage earner makes his contribution to the local, state or national government.
Huge chunks of these taxes are earmarked for the military.
Whether we like it or not we are involuntary contributors to the support of the military and are therefore participants.
Indeed, as law abiding citizens we believe we have an obligation to support our rulers (Romans 13).
Thus we are involved.
Furthermore, we must think fairly and logically about the very financial structure of our country and thus face a very disturbing reality.
Our economy is based upon the foundation of the investment of capital.
Each of us has been taught to save our money, to bank it, to invest it wisely.
Central in our economy is the building loan deposit, the government bond, the insurance policy, stocks and bonds and even the lowly savings account.
These monies, trustfully placed by us in the hands of financial experts, are reinvested for our benefit.
The returns are then paid to our accounts. It is common knowledge that tremendous amounts of investors’ money are spent to develop defense businesses.
Again we are involved.
Again, let us be reminded that a large segment of America’s work force supports the military.
The day is long gone when we can say that a few munitions makers supply the powder and ball for the military or that the Philadelphia Quartermaster Depot has purchased a supply of clothing and food for the soldiers.
Government contracts are eagerly sought by nearly every industry.
The sophisticated weaponry, communications systems and transportation systems consume material far removed from the conventional concept of war items.
The huge maw of the military gulps down huge quantities of goods of every description.
Thus from the farm, the mine, the forest, the ocean and from every type of manufacturing and assembly plants unnumbered items flow into the channels marked military.
How does one know whether or not he has been a part of this nationwide effort?
![$25 Certificate. Brethren Service Commitee. Church of the Brethren. General Administration Offices, Elgin, Illinois. This certifies that [blank] has contributed the within stated sum to the Church of the Brethren to be used in Civilian Public Service, in relieving suffering, in creating good will, and in making Christ known as Prince of Peace. Contributor’s Statement of Purpose: This contribution, made in addition to my normal giving, is in consideration of tragic world need, of the sacrifice of life and money which many are making in war and of my desire to support constructive service to humanity. This contribution is intended as an alternate service to war, in which my conscience does not permit me to engage. I give it voluntarily, asking neither interest nor return of principal.](brethren-service-certificate.png)
