Some historical and global examples of tax resistance →
women’s suffrage movements →
American women’s suffrage movement →
Susan B. Anthony
I have reproduced here before the text of some documents relating to the British women’s suffrage movement’s organized tax resistance campaign.
Today I’ll add some concerning tax resistance in the women’s suffrage movement in the United States.
The first comes from Annie Shaw.
It’s an amusing look at the state of that portion of the franchise that was being generously offered to the tax-paying women of Massachusetts by its men, and ends with Shaw’s pledge:
“I will not pay another cent of tax in Massachusetts while I live.”—
You have all heard what school suffrage is in the State of Massachusetts, and it isn’t much of anything, for we have not school suffrage; we haven’t anything but school committee suffrage, and that is a good way from school suffrage.
When the law was passed giving us school committee suffrage I felt as old and as large as my brother did when he was twenty-one; and so I immediately started with some of the ladies of my church to register.
We went out into the field to find a person to register our names, we hunted him up and brought him in from the hay-field, and then we all stood along in a row, like a lot of school-girls, waiting to take our oaths.
The way they do this in Massachusetts, they make us women swear to our property in order to tax us.
That isn’t the way they do with men; they tax them first and then send in their bill and let them do the swearing afterwards.
I had never been taxed before for three reasons: being a Methodist preacher, nobody supposed I had anything to tax, and nobody asked me; and then again, having paid the tax on the property I did own in the place where it was, we in Massachusetts, by a double system, have to pay it over again, and I wouldn’t pay it anyhow; and then again, I don’t believe in taxation without representation, that is tyranny, and I never pay a cent of taxes unless I am obliged to.
Upon going there we women stood up in a little row, and took our little oath in regard to property.
My property yields me $105 a year.
Out of this enormous income I paid $22.50 tax! leaving me a large amount of money to live on the rest of the year, you see.
On the morning of the election I did not know, as we lived in the country, when we were to vote for school suffrage; so we went early.
The way they do there, they stand in a sort of line or procession, you know, as they do in our country places, and vote first for one thing and then another; so we stood there until our time came.
At nine o’clock in the morning we got our places; and presently the men who were there began burning incense on the altar of liberty, and the smoke began rising until by and by, along toward noon, we could scarcely see across the house.
We live in a seafaring place, where they smoke red herring, and every one of us went through the process and know how red herring feel when they are smoked through.
At three o’clock our time to vote for school committee came, and now, we thought to ourselves, is our opportunity.
Just as the time was announced the moderator said, with great dignity:
“I appoint three men to nominate a gentleman for school committee.”
And they walked out and returned with the name of the only man in town whom they could persuade to take the office.
There was no pay to the office, and in order to get a man to take it they had to talk to him of George Washington and the Pilgrim Fathers and the Fourth of July, and wave the flag there in his face for an hour.
So they nominated the only man they could persuade, and the moderator said:
“I appoint Captain Crowell to cast the ballot for the town.”
But I said, “Gentlemen, I thought I was to vote;” but they said, “This is the way we always do it.”
I said, “Yes, I know, but I have paid $22.50 tax; I have been smoked done, and I want to be allowed to vote; may I not be allowed to cast my vote?”
He said, “Ladies, we have no time to spare.”
I said, “Gentlemen, I think I ought to vote, and I want to vote.”
“Very well,” said he, “if you must vote, vote for the town.”
But I said, “I can’t do that, gentlemen, because there are five other ladies here, who all want to vote.”
And as I was talking, an old man, with a pipe in his mouth, snarled out, “That’s just the way; just the way I knew it would be, just the way.”
The moderator quieted them down after a little, and I said, “Gentlemen, I insist upon voting; I came here to vote;” and then I nominated one of the ladies who was with me as my candidate for school committee, and then immediately we began to buttonhole and every one began to vote, and everybody began to dive to get a chance to vote for school committee; and it took us just three hours to vote.
And then the old gentleman who was so angry that the institutions of the fathers had been overturned immediately mounted a chair, and, doubling up his fist, exclaimed, “If this is woman’s suffrage, I am agin it every time.
Here we have spent three hours on the school-house, when we needed it all on the herring brook.”
So that is my voting; that is the opportunity which we say we women are not equal to grasp!
When the question of appropriations for schools came up, there was a certain class of men who wanted to cut them down, and I was asked to speak a word against it, and I said I would do it gladly; but the moderator said: “The lady can not speak upon that subject.”
And I said: “Why not; I am entitled to vote on this subject?”
And he said: “No; you don’t vote on questions pertaining to schools; it is only a question pertaining to school committees” — and that is school suffrage!
And men who never paid a dollar of tax, and men who never paid a dollar for the town, voted to cut down that appropriation, but to increase the fund to support the poor outside of the poor-house, knowing very well that the women who paid the taxes would raise that fund.
I said to the gentlemen: “Can’t you stop this?” and they said: “No, ladies; we can’t stop this.”
I looked up to see who it was, and I saw he was running for representative, and I knew he couldn’t stop it, because there were nine or ten votes involved there.
Finally I said: “Gentlemen, I can stop my part of it, because I will not pay another cent of tax in Massachusetts while I live.”
He said: “You can’t help it; that is what school suffrage does for women in Massachusetts.
They register and swear to their property, and we know what they have and we tax them after.”
Said I: “Gentlemen, you will never tax me again in Massachusetts.”
They laughed at me and said I could not help it; but I could.
I happened to be my own master, so the next day I put my property in such a shape that it has never been taxed in Massachusetts since, and it never will be taxed there if I live there until the angel Gabriel blows the last trumpet.
It costs me more not to pay the tax than it would to pay it, and my friends say: “You are squandering your money.”
I know I am squandering my money, but if I have any money to squander I want to do it.
That is my experience on school suffrage in Massachusetts.
Now, do you wonder that every woman in the State is not anxious to be taxed and get nothing but the privilege to vote on such an unimportant matter as this, knowing full well that if she does vote it will amount to nothing at all?
Lucy Stone wrote:
It is the duty of woman to resist taxation as long as she is not represented.
It may involve the loss of friends as it surely will the loss of property.
But let them all go; friends, house, garden spot, and all.
The principle at issue requires the sacrifice.
Resist, let the case be tried in the courts; be your own lawyers; base your cause on the admitted self-evident truth, that taxation and representation are inseparable.
One such resistance, by the agitation that will grow out of it, will do more to set this question right than all the conventions in the world.
There are $15,000,000 of taxable property owned by women of Boston who have no voice either in the use or imposition of the tax.
An this is the letter she wrote to the tax collector when she put this into practice:
Orange, N.J.,
Mr. Mandeville, Tax Collector, Sir:— Enclosed I return my tax bill, without paying it.
My reason for doing so is, that women suffer taxation, and yet have no representation, which is not only unjust to one-half the adult population, but is contrary to our theory of government.
For years some women have been paying their taxes under protest, but still taxes are imposed, and representation is not granted.
The only course now left us is to refuse to pay the tax.
We know well what the immediate result of this refusal must be.
But we believe that when the attention of men is called to the wide difference between their theory of government and its practice, in this particular, they can not fail to see the mistake they now make, by imposing taxes on women, while they refuse them the right of suffrage, and that the sense of justice which is in all good men, will lead them to correct it.
Then we shall cheerfully pay our taxes — not till then.
Respectfully, Lucy Stone
Elizabeth Cady Stanton tried to get some momentum behind an organized and large-scale campaign of tax resistance:
Should not all women living in States where woman has the right to hold property refuse to pay taxes, so long as she is unrepresented in the government of that State?
Such a movement, if simultaneous, would no doubt produce a great deal of confusion, litigation, and suffering on the part of woman; but shall we fear to suffer for the maintenance of the same glorious principle for which our forefathers fought, bled, and died? shall we deny the faith of the old Revolutionary heroes, and purchase for ourselves a false power and ignoble ease, by declaring in action that taxation without representation is just?
Ah, no! like the English Dissenters and high-souled Quakers of our own land, let us suffer our property to be seized and sold, but let us never pay another tax until our existence as citizens, our civil and political rights be fully recognized.…
The poor, crushed slave, but yesterday tolling on the rice plantation in Georgia, a beast, a chattel, a thing, is to-day, in the Empire State (if he own a bit of land and a shed to cover him), a person, and may enjoy the proud honor of paying into the hand of the complaisant tax-gatherer the sum of seventy-five cents.
Even so with the white woman — the satellite of the dinner-pot, the presiding genius of the wash-tub, the seamstress, the teacher, the gay butterfly of fashion, the feme covert of the law, man takes no note of her through all these changing scenes.
But, lo! to-day, by the fruit of her industry, she becomes the owner of a house and lot, and now her existence is remembered and recognized, and she too may have the privilege of contributing to the support of this mighty Republic, for the white male citizen claims of her one dollar and seventy-five cents a year, because, under the glorious institutions of this free and happy land, she has been able, at the age of fifty years, to possess herself of a property worth the enormous sum of three hundred dollars.
It is natural to suppose she will answer this demand on her joyously and promptly, for she must, in view of all her rights and privileges so long enjoyed, consider it a great favor to be permitted to contribute thus largely to the governmental treasury.
One thing is certain, this course will necessarily involve a good deal of litigation, and we shall need lawyers of our own sex whose intellects, sharpened by their interests, shall be quick to discover the loopholes of retreat.
Laws are capable of many and various constructions; we find among men that as they have new wants, that as they develop into more enlarged views of justice, the laws are susceptible of more generous interpretation, or changed altogether; that is, all laws touching their own interests; for while man has abolished hanging for theft, imprisonment for debt, and secured universal suffrage for himself, a married woman, in most of the States in the Union, remains a nonentity in law — can own nothing; can be whipped and locked up by her lord; can be worked without wages, be robbed of her inheritance, stripped of her children, and left alone and penniless; and all this, they say, according to law.
Now, it is quite time that we have these laws revised by our own sex, for man does not yet feel that what is unjust for himself, is also unjust for woman.
Yes, we must have our own lawyers, as well as our physicians and priests.
Some of our women should go at once into this profession, and see if there is no way by which we may shuffle off our shackles and assume our civil and political rights.
We can not accept man’s interpretation of the law.
The Presbyterian Magazine told its readers that “We fear that these deluded women are the unconscious subjects of that influence which tempted their first maternal ancestor in Paradise.
A glance at some of their sayings in the Syracuse Convention, as reported in the papers, will confirm this apprehension.”
Among these sayings were the following:
Miss Lucy Stone took the platform. She wished to say a word about taxation.
She wished to urge women heroically to resist, bear the reproaches, receive the disgrace, but resist firmly oppression.
What did our fathers say to taxation without representation?
She advised woman, when the tax-gatherer came, to refuse; and when brought to justice, to reply that taxation and representation are inseparable, and keep saying it in reply to every question asked.
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith advocated woman’s right to resist taxation.
She made a motion: “Resolved, That it is the right of every woman holding property, to resist taxation till such time as she is fully represented at the ballot box.”
Miss Susan B. Anthony offered the following resolutions, drawn up by Mrs. Henry B. Stanton:
Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of those States, in which woman has now by law a right to the property she inherits, to refuse to pay taxes.
She is unrepresented in the Government…
Finally, the story of Julia and Abby Smith, and their cows Votey and Taxey:
From time to time women had protested against taxation without representation, some going so far as to refuse absolutely to pay.
The most notable case was that of Julia and Abby Smith of Glastonbury, Connecticut, who, rather than pay their taxes without the privilege of voting, allowed their fine dairy cows and rich meadow-lands to be sold, year after year, at public auction, until even the assessor grew ashamed to visit them.
These women attracted wide attention because of their plucky stand.
At the time they made their fight they were aged women, with neither brothers, husbands, nor sons.
They were highly educated ladies as well as thrifty farmers, earning by their labors a goodly income.
Becoming converted to the principles of equal rights, they carried their conviction to the logical end and resisted taxation.
When at last they were reduced to two cows they named them respectively “Votey” and “Taxey,” and it is recorded that “Taxey” was always aggressive, while “Votey” was ever timid and shy.
Lucy Stone had long since gone on record on the subject, and held that women were in duty bound to resist taxation even though they should lose all they had, and that by combining they could force the Government to consider their rights.
Dr. Harriot K. Hunt protested every year, and many others did the same.
In a number of anti-tax societies were organized, chief among which was that of Rochester, N.Y.
The war taxes made big inroads upon incomes and laid heavy burdens on all property.
Large meetings of protest were called in many places, as the women felt the pressure severely, and at last they resolved to resist.
It was in vain they struggled, however, and, after many fruitless appeals for justice, they gave up the attempt.
Strange, is it not, that men laud to the sky the historic Boston Tea Party, by which the participators lost not a cent, and yet will continue year after year to collect the taxes of unrepresented persons, and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law any one brave enough to resist their tyranny?
Men boast of their chivalry, of the fulness of their protection, yet they inflict upon helpless women wrongs which they themselves would never suffer.
If the women resist, the courts are set in motion; back of the court stand the prison, the Government, and the army.
Truly, men have but little of which to boast in their treatment of women as a class, whether the women be brave or meekly submissive.
The New York Woman’s Suffrage Society celebrated the centennial of the Boston Tea Party by throwing a tax resistance meeting.
Here are some excerpts from a New York Times article that covered the event on :
[Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake] stated that New-York had had its tea party as well as Boston, although its history was not so well known, and proceeded to inform her auditors that the Sons of Liberty, (an organization which existed in New-York at the time,) or Mohawks, as they were sometimes called, had procured the emptying of two cargoes of tea into the waters of the bay, having waited for the vessels which brought the cargoes, the Nancy and the London, for several months.
Boston had not, therefore, the exclusive honor which belonged to this tea-party transaction.
She wished people could be brought to understand that the demands of women to-day were not less reasonable than those in furtherance of which their ancestors, a century ago, elected to precipitate a revolution.
She did not advocate the proposition that women should refuse articles upon which they were unjustly taxed (because if they did that, they would deprive themselves of all the luxuries of life) by throwing them overboard, but she thought the time had come when the tax collectors themselves might be thrown over.
[Great laughter.]
She said that, of course, only figuratively.
What she desired was that women would not consent to pay taxes until they are represented.
There should be an anti-tax association in this City which would guide them to this issue.
The Rochester women, she said, had been holding anti-tax meetings, and the same order of things had been going forward in San Francisco.
Mrs. Blake narrated several anecdotes of vigorous ladies, who, in the security of their own castles, had defied all the approaches of the tax collector.
One lady, she said, was in the habit of barricading herself in her house whenever the tax collector made his appearance, getting into a top room of the house, and from that coign of vantage, delaying the minion of the Government with potations from her parlors.
[Laughter.]
In this case, Mrs. Blake said it was suspected that the collector had paid the taxes himself, rather than submit to the convincing streams of the lady’s eloquence.
[Laughter.]
Other instances of ladies who didn’t recognize the right of the Government to levy taxes upon them while in their present condition of bondage were given.
The position which they had assumed, she said, was no more than that of their ancestors one hundred years ago, and she proceeded to show that the very resolutions which she submitted were based on the declaration made by their ancestors in Congress in .
…[Miss Susan B. Anthony] then supplemented the list furnished by Mrs. Blake, of interesting ladies who declined any advances by the Government in the matter of levying taxes.…
The resolutions were then adopted by the meeting, and a petition to the Legislature of the State of New-York was also adopted asking them to pass a law exempting women from taxation until they were represented in the Government.
At the fifth convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association in Washington, D.C. that opened on , Susan B. Anthony submitted two resolutions concerning tax resistance:
Resolved, That the thanks of woman suffrage are due to the Misses [Julia & Abby] Smith, of Glastonbury, Connecticut, for their patriotic resistance to the tyranny of taxation without representation, and that all women tax payers through the country should follow their example.
Resolved, That the best means of agitating at the present hour is for all women to insist on their right of representation by actually presenting their votes at every election, and for all property-holding women to refuse to pay another dollar of tax until their right of representation is recognized.
Resolved, That as the duties of citizens are the outgrowth of their rights, a class denied the common rights of citizenship should be exempt from all duties to the State.
Hence the Misses Smith, of Glastonbury, Conn. and Abby Kelly Foster, of Worcester, Mass., who refused to pay taxes because not allowed to vote, suffered gross injustice and oppression at the hands of State officials, who seized and sold their property for taxes.
Susan B. Anthony addressed the U.S. Senate’s Select Committee on Woman Suffrage on .
She was accompanied by Sarah E. Wall.
Wall did not speak, or at least she is not represented in the transcripts, but Anthony introduced her in this way:
Gentlemen of the committee, here is another woman I wish to show you, Sarah E. Wall, of Worcester, Mass., who, for the last twenty-five years, has resisted the tax gatherer when he came around.
I want you to look at her.
She looks very harmless, but she will not pay a dollar of tax.
She says when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will give her the right of representation she will pay her taxes.
I do not know exactly how it is now, but the assessor has left her name off the tax-list, and passed her by rather than have a lawsuit with her.
This is how Wall announced her tax resistance (according to the Worcester Daily Spy of ):
Believing with the immortal Declaration of Independence that taxation and representation are inseparable; believing that the Constitution of the State furnishes no authority for the taxation of woman; believing also that the Constitution of the higher law of God, written on the human soul, requires us, if we would be worthy the rich inheritance of the past and true to ourselves and the future, to yield obedience to no statute that shall tend to fetter its aspirations, I shall henceforth pay no taxes until the word male is stricken from the voting clauses of the Constitution of Massachusetts.
Earlier , she had addressed her state legislature’s Joint Special Committee on the Qualifications of Voters, saying:
We do not expect to remedy all the evils of society, or that the defects of woman will be speedily corrected; she will commit her follies still, as man does; she will sometimes make a mistake in voting, as many wise men have done; but with all her follies, and all her mistakes, she cannot possibly bring on the country a more perverted state of the moral atmosphere than the present, or a worse financial crisis than that through which we are now passing.
We do not send our petitions to you year after year, merely for you to report “leave to withdraw;” we demand action, immediate action.
If it cannot be done in the name of affection, in the name of justice it must be done.
If, in the absence of every argument, after the removal of every objection, you still persist in refusing her appeal, but one step remains for her to take, and that is, to refuse to pay taxes, and she will do it.
Having made good on her threat, the tax collector took her to court, and the judge decided the case against her .
Susan B. Anthony also gave a shout-out to Wall when she was defending herself against a criminal charge of Voting While Female:
I would that the women of this republic at once resolve, never again to submit to taxation until their right to vote be recognized.
Miss Sarah E. Wall, of Worcester, Mass., twenty years ago, took this position.
For several years, the officers of the law distrained her property and sold it to meet the necessary amount; still she persisted, and would not yield an iota, though every foot of her lands should be struck off under the hammer.
And now, for several years, the assessor has left her name off the tax list, and the collector passed her by without a call.
Mrs. J.S. Weeden, of Viroqua, Wis., for the past six years has refused to pay her taxes, though the annual assessment is $75.
Mrs. Ellen Van Valkenburg, of Santa Cruz, Cal., who sued the County Clerk for refusing to register her name, declares she will never pay another dollar of tax until allowed to vote; and all over the country, women property holders are waking up to the injustice of taxation without representation, and ere long will refuse, en masse, to submit to imposition.
, the National Woman Suffrage Association held its Ninth Annual Convention and passed a resolution “That we rejoice in the resistance of Julia and Abby Smith, Abby Kelly Foster, Sarah E. Wall and many more resolute women in various parts of the country, to taxation without representation.”
I haven’t been able to find much else about the tax resistance of J.S. Weeden or Ellen Van Valkenburg.
Dora Montefiore wrote a book, From a Victorian to a Modern (1927), a chapter of which she devoted to her tax resistance and the “Siege of Montefiore” in which she held off the tax collector for several weeks:
“Women Must Vote for the Laws They Obey and the Taxes They Pay”
I had already, during the Boer War, refused willingly to pay income tax, because payment of such tax went towards financing a war in the making of which I had had no voice.
In a bailiff had been put in my house, a levy of my goods had been made, and they had been sold at public auction in Hammersmith.
The result as far as publicity was concerned was half a dozen lines in the corner of some daily newspapers, stating the fact that Mrs. Montefiore’s goods had been distrained and sold for payment of income tax; and there the matter ended.
When talking this over in with Theresa Billington and Annie Kenney, I told them that now we had the organisation of the W.S.P.U. to back me up I would, if it were thought advisable, not only refuse to pay income tax, but would shut and bar my doors and keep out the bailiff, so as to give the demonstration more publicity and thus help to educate public opinion about the fight for the political emancipation of women which was going on.
They agreed that if I would do my share of passive resistance they would hold daily demonstrations outside the house as long as the bailiff was excluded and do all in their power outside to make the sacrifice I was making of value to the cause.
In , therefore, when the authorities sent for the third time to distrain on my goods in order to take what was required for income tax, I, aided by my maid, who was a keen suffragist, closed and barred my doors and gates on the bailiff who had appeared outside the gate of my house in Upper Mall, Hammersmith, and what was known as the “siege” of my house began.
As is well known, bailiffs are only allowed to enter through the ordinary doors.
They may not climb in at a window and at certain hours they may not even attempt an entrance.
These hours are from sunset to sunrise, and from sunset on Saturday evening till sunrise on Monday morning.
During these hours the besieged resister to income tax can rest in peace.
From the day of this simple act of closing my door against the bailiff, an extraordinary change came over the publicity department of daily and weekly journalism towards this demonstration of passive resistance on my part.
The tradespeople of the neighbourhood were absolutely loyal to us besieged women, delivering their milk and bread, etc., over the rather high garden wall which divided the small front gardens of Upper Mall from the terraced roadway fronting the river.
The weekly wash arrived in the same way and the postman day by day delivered very encouraging budgets of correspondence, so that practically we suffered very little inconvenience, and as we had a small garden at the back we were able to obtain fresh air.
On the morning following the inauguration of the siege, Annie Kenney and Theresa Billington, with other members of the W.S.P.U., came round to see how we were getting on and to encourage our resistance.
They were still chatting from the pavement outside, while I stood on the steps of No. 32 Upper Mall, when there crept round from all sides men with notebooks and men with cameras, and the publicity stunt began.
These men had been watching furtively the coming and going of postmen and tradesmen.
Now they posted themselves in front, questioning the suffragists outside and asking for news of us inside.
They had come to make a “story” and they did not intend to leave until they had got their “story.”
One of them returned soon with a loaf of bread and asked Annie Kenney to hand it up over the wall to my housekeeper, whilst the army of men with cameras “snapped” the incident.
Some of them wanted to climb over the wall so as to be able to boast in their descriptions that they had been inside what they pleased to call “The Fort”; but the policeman outside (there was a policeman on duty outside during all the six weeks of a siege) warned them that they must not do this so we were relieved, in this respect, from the too close attention of eager pressmen.
But all through the morning notebooks and cameras came and went, and at one time my housekeeper and I counted no less than twenty-two pressmen outside the house.
A woman sympathiser in the neighbourhood brought during the course of the morning, a pot of home-made marmalade, as the story had got abroad that we had no provisions and had difficulty in obtaining food.
This was never the case as I am a good housekeeper and have always kept a store cupboard, but we accepted with thanks the pot of marmalade because the intentions of the giver were so excellent; but this incident was also watched and reported by the Press.
Annie Kenney and Theresa Billington had really come round to make arrangements for a demonstration on the part of militant women that afternoon and evening in front of the house, so at an opportune moment, when the Press were lunching, the front gate was unbarred and they slipped in.
The feeling in the neighbourhood towards my act of passive resistance was so excellent and the publicity being given by the Press in the evening papers was so valuable that we decided to make the Hammersmith “Fort” for the time being the centre of the W.S.P.U. activities, and daily demonstrations were arranged for and eventually carried out.
The road in front of the house was not a thoroughfare, as a few doors further down past the late Mr. William Morris’s home of “Kelmscott,” at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Cobden-Sanderson, there occurred one of those quaint alley-ways guarded by iron posts, which one finds constantly on the borders of the Thames and in old seaside villages.
The roadway was, therefore, ideal for the holding of a meeting, as no blocking of traffic could take place, and day in, day out the principles for which suffragists were standing we expounded to many who before had never even heard of the words Woman Suffrage.
At the evening demonstrations rows of lamps were hung along the top of the wall and against the house, the members of the W.S.P.U. speaking from the steps of the house, while I spoke from one of the upstairs windows.
On the little terrace of the front garden hung during the whole time of the siege a red banner with the letters painted in white:
“Women should vote for the laws they obey and the taxes they pay.”
This banner appeared later on during our fight, so it has a little history quite of its own.
The members of the I.L.P., of which there was a good branch in Hammersmith, were very helpful, both as speakers and organisers during these meetings, but the Members of the Social Democratic Federation, of which I was a member, were very scornful because they said we should have been asking at that moment for Adult Suffrage and not Votes for Women; but although I have always been a staunch adult suffragist, I felt that at that moment the question of the enfranchisement of women was paramount, as we had to educate the public in our demands and in the reasons for our demands, and as we found that with many people the words “Adult Suffrage” connoted only manhood suffrage, our urgent duty was at that moment to gain Press publicity up and down the country and to popularise the idea of the political enfranchisement of women.
So the siege wore on; Press notices describing it being sent to me not only from the United Kingdom, but from Continental and American newspapers, and though the garbled accounts of what I was doing and what our organisation stood for often made us laugh when we read them, still there was plenty of earnest and useful understanding in many articles, while shoals of letters came to me, a few sadly vulgar and revolting, but the majority helpful and encouraging.
Some Lancashire lads who had heard me speaking in the Midlands wrote and said that if I wanted help they would come with their clogs but that was never the sort of support I needed, and though I thanked them, I declined the help as nicely as I could.
Many Members of Parliament wrote and told me in effect that mine was the most logical demonstration that had so far been made; and it was logical I know as far as income tax paying women were concerned; and I explained in all my speeches and writings that though it looked as if I were only asking for Suffrage for Women on a property qualification, I was doing this because the mass of non-qualified women could not demonstrate in the same way, and I was to that extent their spokeswoman.
It was the crude fact of women’s political disability that had to be forced on an ignorant and indifferent public, and it was not for any particular Bill or Measure or restriction that I was putting myself to this loss and inconvenience by refusing year after year to pay income tax, until forced to do so by the powers behind the Law.
The working women from the East End came, time and again, to demonstrate in front of my barricaded house and understood this point and never swerved in their allegiance to our organisation; in fact, it was during these periods and succeeding years of work among the people that I realised more and more the splendid character and “stuff” that is to be found among the British working class.
They are close to the realities of life, they are in daily danger of the serious hurts of life, unemployment, homelessness, poverty in its grimmest form, and constant misunderstanding by the privileged classes, yet they are mostly light-hearted and happy in small and cheap pleasures, always ready to help one another with lending money or apparel, great lovers of children, great lovers when they have an opportunity, of real beauty.
Yet they are absolutely “unprivileged,” being herded in the “Ghetto” of the East End, and working and living under conditions of which most women in the West End have no idea; and I feel bound to put it on record that though I have never regretted, in fact, I have looked back on the years spent in the work of Woman Suffrage as privileged years, yet I feel very deeply that as far as those East End women are concerned, their housing and living conditions are no better now than when we began our work.
The Parliamentary representation we struggled for has not been able to solve the Social Question, and until that is solved the still “unprivileged” voters can have no redress for the shameful conditions under which they are compelled to work and live.
I also have to record with sorrow that though some amelioration in the position of the married mother towards her child or children has been granted by law, the husband is still the only parent in law, and he can use that position if he chooses, to tyrannise over the wife.
He must, however, appoint her as one of the guardians of his children after his death.
, the time was approaching when, according to information brought in from outside the Crown had the power to break open my front door and seize my goods for distraint.
I consulted with friends and we agreed that as this was a case of passive resistance, nothing could be done when that crisis came but allow the goods to be distrained without using violence on our part.
When, therefore, at the end of those weeks the bailiff carried out his duties, he again moved what he considered sufficient goods to cover the debt and the sale was once again carried out at auction rooms in Hammersmith.
A large number of sympathisers were present, but the force of twenty-two police which the Government considered necessary to protect the auctioneer during the proceedings was never required, because again we agreed that it was useless to resist force majeure when it came to technical violence on the part of the authorities.
Some extracts from interviews and Press cuttings of the period will illustrate what was the general feeling of the public towards the protest I was making under the auspices of the W.S.P.U.
The representative of the Kensington News, who interviewed me during the course of the siege, wrote thus:—
Independent alike in principles and politics, it is the policy of the Kensington News to extend to both sides of current questions a fair consideration.
Accordingly our representative on Tuesday last attended at the residence of Mrs. Montefiore, who is resisting the siege of the tax collector, as a protest against taxation without representation.
On Hammersmith Mall, within a stone’s throw of the house wherein Thomson wrote “The Seasons”; of Kelmscott House, the home of William Morris, and within the shadow of those glorious elms planted by Henrietta Maria, the consort of Charles Ⅰ, a bright red banner floats in front of a dull red house, inscribed: “Women should vote for the laws they obey and the taxes they pay”….
Certainly as mild a mannered a demonstrator as ever displayed a red banner, refined of voice and manner, Mrs. Montefiore, who is a widow, would be recognised at once as a gentlewoman.
We were received with charming courtesy, and seated in the dining-room proceeded with our work of catechising.
Primarily we elicited that Mrs. Montefiore resented the term suffragette.
“It emanated, I believe from the Daily Mail, but is entirely meaningless.
The term ‘suffragist’ is English and understandable.
What I object to most strenuously is the attempt of certain sections of the Press to turn to ridicule what is an honest protest against what we regard as a serious wrong.”
“So far, what has happened?”
“The tax collector has been, with the sheriff, and I have refused them admittance, barred my doors, and hung up the banner you saw outside.”
Then questioned as to the reason for her action, Mrs. Montefiore explained:
“I am resisting payment of, not rates, but the Imperial taxes.
I pay my rates willingly and cheerfully, because I possess my municipal vote.
I can vote for the Borough and County Councils, and on the election of Guardians.
I want you to understand this; my income is derived mainly from property in Australia, where for many years I resided.
It is taxed over there, and again in this country.
I never objected to paying taxes in Australia, because there women have votes both for the State Parliament and for the Commonwealth.
There women are not disqualified from sitting in the Commonwealth Parliament.
One lady at the last election, although unsuccessful, polled over 20,000 votes.”
“You were not one of the ladies who created a disturbance behind the House of Commons grille?”
“No.
I was, however, one of the deputation to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and I listened to his very unsatisfactory answers.
This action of mine is the rejoinder to Sir Henry’s reply.
He said we must educate Parliament — so we thought we would, in my active resistance, give Parliament an object lesson.
Remember, it was the first Reform Bill that definitely excluded women from the franchise.
Prior to that Bill they possessed votes as burgesses and owners of property.
We only seek restitution.
After the Reform Bill certain women in Manchester actually tested their right to be registered as voters, and the judges decided against them.
Mr. Keir Hardie, who is our champion, deals with this in his pamphlet.”
“You are selecting certain candidates to further your cause in Parliament,” we suggested.
“Certainly,” was the reply.
“The women employed in the textile factories at Wigan ran a candidate of their own at the last election, and I addressed vast meetings at every street corner at Wigan.
I have received many messages of sympathy and encouragement from the women and the men in Wigan.”
“Have you taken Counsel’s opinion on your resisting action?”
“No, I am relying on the justice of my cause.”
“What is the next step you anticipate?”
“I believe their next weapon is a break warrant.
I have had my furniture distrained on and sold twice already in this cause.
Of course, I am only a woman.
I know the law, as it stands, is stronger than I, and I suppose in the long run I shall have to yield to force majeure, but I shall fight as long as I am able.
Only,” the lady added with a plaintiveness that might have appealed to the most implacable anti-Woman Suffragist, “one would have thought that men would have been more chivalrous, and would not force us to fight in this way to the bitter end for the removal of the sex disability.”
“Do you look for assistance from any, and which, political party?”
we asked.
Mrs. Montefiore shook her head.
“Our only policy is to play off one, against the other.
I am a humble disciple of Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy, who, now 73 years of age, has for 41 years been a worker in the woman’s cause.
She has witnessed fourteen Parliaments, but has never seen a Cabinet so inimical to Woman’s Suffrage as the present.
Every time the franchise is extended the women’s cause goes back; her hopes are far less now with seven millions on the register than they were with half a million.
Gladstone was the worst enemy woman’s suffrage ever had.”
In conclusion Mrs. Montefiore said: “We claim that the word ‘person’ in Acts of Parliament connected with voting should include women.
We believe that action goes further than words.
I am taking this action to bring our cause before the public.”
Without committing ourselves on the question of the cause itself, we could not resist expressing the hope that the lady’s devotion to it had not entailed hardship or suffering.
She smiled bravely, and said: “I have received much sympathy and encouragement, and many kindnesses.”
We ventured one more question: “Are you downhearted?”
The answer was a smiling “No!” and we left Mrs. Montefiore’s residence impressed at any rate with the sincerity of her belief in, and her devotion to, the cause she has espoused.
The Labour Leader of , had the following:—
“No taxation without representation” is one of the cardinal doctrines of the British Constitution.
But like many other ideas of British liberty it exists more on paper than in reality.
It has been left for the modern generation of suffragettes to point out that one whole sex subject to all the taxes which are imposed, has yet absolutely no representation on the body which determines and passes those taxes.
The siege of “Fort Montefiore” is the tangible expression of this protest.
On two previous occasions Mrs. Montefiore has had her goods seized for refusing to pay income tax.
she determined upon more militant tactics.
Some eight or nine weeks ago she was called upon for the income tax.
As she persisted in her refusal to pay, a bailiff was summoned.
Mrs. Montefiore’s reply was to bolt and bar her house against the intruder, and to display a red flag over her summerhouse, with the inscription: “Women should vote for the laws they obey and the taxes they pay.”
Fort Suffragette, as Mrs. Montefiore’s house may be called, is an ideal place, in which to defy an income-tax collector; and a few determined women could hold it against an army from the Inland Revenue Department.
It is a substantial three-storeyed villa in a narrow road (Upper Mall, Hammersmith).
A few feet from the front the Thames flows by; and the house is guarded by a high wall, the only access being through a stoutly built arched doorway.
The “siege” began on , and up to the present the bailiff has not succeeded in forcing an entry.
Meanwhile, important demonstrations have taken place outside, and the crowd has been addressed by various speakers, including Mrs. Montefiore, who has spoken from an upper window of her house.
On one of these occasions Mrs. Montefiore alluded to the Prime Minister’s reply to the recent deputation on Women’s Suffrage, in which he advised them “to educate Parliament.”
She was giving Parliament an object lesson.
“They had had enough abstract teaching,” she said, “now a little concrete teaching may do them good, and they will see that there are women in England who feel their disability so keenly that they will stop at nothing, and put themselves to every inconvenience and trouble in order to show the world and the Men of England what their position is, and how keenly they feel it”… A resolution was carried declaring that taxation without representation was tyranny, thanking Mrs. Montefiore for her stand, and calling upon the Government to enfranchise women this session.
Susan B. Anthony was one of my dear and valued friends in the suffrage movement, and I received from New York the following interesting communication with cordial wishes for the success of my protest:—
Appeal made yearly by Susan.
B. Anthony to the City Treasurer, Rochester, New York, When paying her property tax.
To THE CITY TREASURER, ROCHESTER, N.Y.
Enclosed please find cheque for tax on my property for , with a protest in the name of ten thousand other tax-paying women in the City of Rochester, who are deemed fully capable, intellectually, morally and physically of earning money, and contributing their full share towards the expenses of the Government, but totally incapable of deciding as to the proper expenditure of such money.
Please let the record show as “paid under protest.”
Yours for justice to each and every person of this Republic. MARY S. ANTHONY.
TO THE COUNTY TREASURER.
Enclosed find County tax for .
A minor may live to become of age, the illiterate to be educated, the lunatic to regain his reason, the idiot to become intelligent — when each and all can decide what shall be the laws, and who shall enforce them; but the woman, never.
I protest against paying taxes to a Government which allows its women to be thus treated.
Please so record it.
MARY S. ANTHONY.
Today is going to be all about tax resistance in the women’s suffrage
movement in the United States.
To start off, we take the wayback machine all the way back to
, when the
Daily Standard of Syracuse, New York, reported on
the National Woman’s Rights Convention (ᔥ). Excerpt:
Miss Anthony read an address to the Convention, written by Elizabeth Cady
Stanton. The scope of it was the duty of property-holding women to refuse
paying taxes, when not represented in Legislative bodies.
Lucy Stone said she wanted the woman who had wealth, nobly, heroically to
refuse to pay taxes. The issue would thus be made, of taxation without
representation. She appealed that this nation should be consistent in its
declaration that governments derived their just powers from the consent of the
governed. Make your practice consistent with your theory. She advised women
when the tax-gatherers came, to refuse, and if brought to justice to reply
that taxation and representation are inseparable, and keep saying so, in reply
to every question they asked. Boston Court House was hung in chains, and
Thomas Sims, in the
prime of his manhood, was cast down from the platform of freedom, to seethe in
the cauldron of slavery, and Boston women were taxed to defray the expenses.
From here, jump forward to , when
this short note hit the pages of The Mirror of
Bloomville, New York (ᔥ):
Lucy Stone refuses to pay her taxes at Orange,
N.Y., on the old
Revolutionary principle of “no taxation without representation,” and the
collector is about to levy on her goods.
In , the
American Union of Ellicottville, New York, noted
(ᔥ):
Sarah E. Wall, of Worchester,
Mass., refuses to pay
taxes. In a letter to a local newspaper she says: “If Massachusetts wants my
money voluntarily given, she can have it by striking one word from two clauses
of her State Constitution. So long as she deems it ‘inexpedient[’] to do that,
I deem it ‘inexpedient’ to pay taxes, and she will get them only by process of
law.”
Mrs. Dr. Lydia Hasbrouck, being
unrepresented, refuses to pay taxes at Wallkill. She was ordered to appear on
the high road with a shovel to work out the amount, and did so bearing a fire
shovel, greatly to the wrath of the authorities, between whom and herself
there consequently exists a terrible disturbance.
The Courier and Union of mocked an anonymous suffragette thusly:
A New York editor has seen a strong minded woman, a “Bloomer,” in the interior
of the State, and he says her port and costume made a strong impression upon
him. She wore a brown tunic, a brown vest, bifacations, a broad, coarse straw
hat, masculine boots (nines, he thinks, for her feet were very large) and
strange to say, carried in her arms a baby. It seemed odd that such a manly
looking being should be a mother, but so it was; and the newspaper man was
informed that, in contempt of the usages of decency, she was accustomed, when
the infant required sustenance in the street, to seat herself on the nearest
door step and administer to its wants from the maternal fountain. From all he
heard of the lady, she is certainly entitled to the merit of consistency. She
is an abolitionist, and a free lover, as such folks are. Her principles and
practices agree. When the road that runs by her residence requires repairing,
she turns out with her brother laborers and shovels dirt and cracks
stone. — She refuses to pay taxes on the ground that she has no vote, and that
taxation without representation is an outrage on civil liberty. — Consequently
the tax collector seizes her property (she has a small estate of her own,
independent of her husband), and sells it to the amount of his claim. On
general training days she has ever been promptly on the ground, armed and
equipped according to law; but, much to her chagrin, has never been able to
find a militia captain ungallant enough to put her through the faceings. Jury
duty she also considers a part of her duty; but the Courts “don’t see it.”…
The Naples [New York] Record gave us this brief
note in their edition
(ᔥ):
Mrs. Virginia L. Minor, of St.
Louis, indignantly refuses to pay taxes unless she is allowed to vote.
Sarah E. Wall, one of the Worcester women whose property is to be sold because
she refuses to pay taxes until she can vote, writes to the
Worcester Gazette: “The idea of the city of
Worcester and the state of Massachusetts leaguing to take from me the little I
possess, by the right arm of the law, to pay the salaries of men who are
fattening on the spoils of the government, in whoso fitness or unfitness I can
have no voice, has always struck me as exceedingly funny, more funny for me
than for the city of Worcester. For others, however, it has a more serious
meaning, those who by years of toil have consecrated a home, around which
cluster the holiest joys of the domestic circle, for them it is martyrdom in
the general sense of the term.”
On two papers (at least)
covered the tax resistance of Mary Anthony. Here, first, is the Syracuse, New
York, Evening Herald’s take:
Miss Mary Anthony of Rochester to Make a Test Case in the Interest of
Cause of Suffrage — Local Political Equalitists Sympathize.
The rebellion of Miss Mary Anthony of Rochester against paying her taxes has
caused a considerable amount of gossip among Syracuse women, and especially
among the suffragists of the city.
Miss Anthony, as is known, served a notice upon County Treasurer Hamilton of Rochester,
stating that she refuses to pay taxes any longer; that for more than forty
years she has paid taxes amounting in the aggregate to thousands of dollars.
She is, she states, a “citizen of the United States as well as of the State
of New York, and of sound mind and not disfranchised for any crime.” Because
she is refused the right of suffrage she is taxed without representation and,
therefore, she gave notice that she would refuse to pay taxes on the ground
that it is unjust, tyrannical, and unconstitutional.
Miss Anthony’s course is upheld by equal suffragists of Rochester and her
course ratified at a meeting of the club held recently in Rochester. Syracuse
suffragists are mainly in favor of Miss Anthony’s position, and express
themselves as follows:
Mrs. C.C. Hall — I think it is a good idea and if more women would make such
an attempt it would be a grand thing. I believe that women should not be
taxed without representation. I believe that women should have a vote and
voice in the making of laws. The
Rev. Anna Shaw has for years
protested against paying her taxes. If more women were alive to the fact and
protested against it the effect would be wholesome.
This course has been tried years ago. Susan B. Anthony was imprisoned some
thirty years ago because she refused to pay her taxes. The case was decided
against her. Of course, as to the outcome of the affair it will be difficult
to say, but it is a step in the right direction.
Miss Harriet May Mills — It is unjust for women to be taxed without
representation. Miss Anthony has all the ethics of democracy on her side. She
is simply doing what our forefathers did. We thought it a noble thing in
them, and so it is with her. We are so proud to boast of their achievements.
They stand for the same principle for which Miss Anthony is working to-day.
It is said that taxation and representation do not go together, because all
men vote regardless of whether they pay taxes or not, on most questions. That
is true, but it is also true that no tax-paying man is denied representation.
I admire Miss Anthony for her courage and her adherence to principle. It is
the principle upon which all government should stand — the consent of the
governed. As to the outcome, I have my opinion of what will happen, but I
don’t wish to express it.
Miss Ada Hall — I don’t approve of it myself. I should never want to take
that course. It doesn’t seem to me that the way to improve laws is to break
them, but I shall, of course, be interested as to the outcome of the matter.
The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle put it this
way (excerpts):
These Things Discussed in Their Relations to Women.
Miss Anthony Talks
Miss Mary May Make Test Case of Her Refusal to Pay Tax Bill — Susan B.
Quotes the Words of the Forefathers.
When a reporter of the Democrat and Chronicle
called at the Anthony home last evening, Miss Mary and Miss Susan B. Anthony
consented to talk about the latest move which Miss Mary has made in the
political world, to have what she considers her rights as an American citizen
recognized.
When it was announced that Mary Anthony had written to the county treasurer
protesting against and refusing to pay her taxes, on the ground that it was
unconstitutional to tax her without representation in the government, it
created a sensation, and several women property owners are awaiting the
outcome with interest, with a view to following Miss Mary’s lead if there is
the slightest possibility of success or of furthering woman suffrage.
“Miss Mary, is it your intention to carry this matter into the courts?” was
asked by the reporter.
“That depends,” was the reply. “The main object of this protest is to arouse
agitation on this phase of woman suffrage, and get the public to declare
itself. But whether we shall carry it through to the end remains to be seen.
Of course, it is expensive, getting into litigation, and it may seem best to
avoid this, but we shall be governed by circumstances.”
“Miss Anthony,” said the reporter, “you have been quoted as stating that
taxation without representation is unconstitutional, and Miss Mary has implied
the same thing in her formal protest to the treasurer. I would like to know if
you have been correctly quoted.”
“I don’t think that I stated that taxation without representation is
unconstitutional, for I should not dare make such a statement without
referring to the constitution, but there has never been any question as to
representation being a correlative right of taxation. Taxation and
representation are inseparable. It is the basic principle upon which our
government is founded. It was the battle cry of our forefathers and a
principle of government which has been handed down to us from the
Revolutionary period.
“Our government is based upon the Declaration of Independence, and the
constitutions of all the states include that principle, if they do not make
the exact statement in words. The constitution of New York state says that
‘No member of this state shall be disfranchised, or deprived of any of the
rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the law of the
land, or the judgment of his peers.’ The pronoun ‘his’ in this article of the
constitution, is interpreted to include only male citizens, but in other
places where it appears in the constitution, when they want to hang us, or
imprison us, or tax us, the pronoun ‘his’ or ‘him’ is interpreted to include
women. Therein lies the great injustice. Man has it all his own way, and he
interprets the constitution and twists and turns it to suit himself every
time, whether it is consistent or not. Why should ‘his’ or ‘him’ in one place
mean only male citizens, and in the other places include both men and women.”
Miss Mary S. Anthony, of Rochester,
N.Y., who not long ago
subscribed the last $2,000 needed to secure the admission of girls to the
University of Rochester, has notified the county treasurer that she will
refuse to pay her taxes, on the ground that she is not permitted to vote, and
that there should be no taxation without representation. Miss Anthony is a
sister of Susan B. Anthony. In Rochester alone 9,991 women pay taxes on
$28,672,974 worth of property.
To Miss Anthony’s plea it is objected, somewhat lamely, that the property of
minors, aliens, and idiots is taxed, although they are not voters. Minors,
aliens, idiots, and insane persons were taxed without representation in
, but that did not seem to our forefathers a
sufficient reason why sane adults should be taxed in the same way, and they
fought the war of the Revolution upon that argument. It is not likely that
Miss Anthony will get a favorable decision in the courts, but every such
incident educates the public and hastens the day of equal rights for women.
The Hudson [New York] Evening Register
editorialized as follows on :
There is a “No Vote, No Tax” league in Chicago composed of women who are
inclined to make trouble if women are not given the ballot.
The women who compose the league give it out that they are going to flatly
refuse to pay taxes until the electoral franchise is accorded them.
The right to vote and the duty to pay taxes have no relation to one another.
Thousands of foreigners who have not yet acquired the right to vote are
assessed taxes upon their property. Women who have not the right to vote are
also assessed taxes on their property and for the same reason, and that
reason is that they have the protection of the law both in their property and
personal rights, and should contribute to the public funds for maintaining
the government that protects them.
Women will never win the franchise on any such pretext as this.
There is no good reason why a woman should not be just as competent to vote
upon any public question as a man if she is intelligent enough to comprehend
it, but that she should claim the right to vote because she pays taxes is
claiming a right that is not accorded to the men, even men who own large
property and conduct large enterprises.
Under our constitution and laws the “No Vote, No Tax” agitation is the
essence of silliness. Woman suffrage cannot rest upon a different basis than
manhood suffrage.
The women have too many sound and logical arguments, to resort to unsound
ones.
In the
Western Mail of Perth, Australia, ran this story:
American suffragists are beginning to adopt tax resisting as a means of
protest against their exclusion from the State franchise. The case of Miss
Lucy Daniels, a Vermont property owner, has attracted a good deal of
attention. Miss Daniels, who has a summer house at Grafton, Vermont, has put
the authorities in a dilemma by refusing to pay taxes while, as she says,
denied representation. Last year some of her bank stock was seized, and sold,
but the bank refused to honour the sale, and continues to send Miss Daniels
the dividends. It appears that the transfer of national bank stock is
controlled by Act of Congress, and is not subject to control by Vermont or
other State laws. The purchaser of the stock. Miss Daniel’s nephew, has done
nothing to enforce his claim, but, as the authorities received more for the
stock from him than the amount of taxes due, they may be content to let the
knotty point as to legal ownership rest. What proceedings, if any, they will
take to recover this year’s taxes is not apparent.
The laws on the Statute Book, Miss Daniels maintains, show that the lawmakers
recognise that the person who pays the bill is the person who must “have the
say.” So far has this conviction been carried that “pocket-book rights” have
been permitted to override, on the statutes, motherhood rights. Yet men are
ignoring these same pocket-book rights in the case of women, making them pay
without letting her say. This makes Miss Daniels “tired,” and the tax-testers
are wondering what will happen next.
Suffragist Leaders Assert They Have Hundreds of Followers
They Are Encouraged
Congressional Union Will Back All Individuals Who Refuse to Pay — Statement Causes Mild Sensation in Washington
Washington, . —
Resistance on the part of women of the country to the federal income tax law
despite the Government’s announced intention to impose fines of $1,000 for
each failure to report incomes will receive the encouragement of the
Suffragists Congressional Union, it is announced in a statement issued by the
organization headquarters here.
Resistance to the law, it is declared, would be thoroughly justified from a
moral standpoint. The statement, coming as it does upon the heels of the
suggestion of the Rev.
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw,
president of the National Women’s Suffrage Association, that the
“unenfranchised” women of the country decline to aid the Government in
collecting taxes upon their incomes, caused a mild sensation today in
congressional, treasury, and suffragist circles.
The statement issued by the Congressional Union declares that it does not
plan to organize a widespread resistance to the income tax law, but says:
“If any society or individual, however, should refuse to pay income tax or to
give information as to amount of income the Congressional Union would have
every sympathy with such action.”
“Helplessness of women”
Imposition of an income tax on women, the statement says, has made them
realize afresh their helplessness under the Government. To tax the women
without granting them representation, the statement asserts, would be an act
of “intolerable injustice.”
“Resistance to the income tax law,” the statement says, “would have excellent
educational value and would be thoroughly justified morally.” It is stated in
conclusion, however, that the union will not undertake to organize a protest
against the law.
The suffragist leaders assert that they have hundreds of followers pledged to
fight the income tax.
Mrs. Ellen Spencer Mussey, honorary dean of the Washington College of Law, in
a statement to-day, takes issue with suffragists who would accept
Dr. Shaw’s advice of “passive
resistance.”
“Women should remember that they receive the protection of the Government,”
said Mrs. Mussey, “and it is only right that they should contribute to the
support of a system of law and order in which they share the benefits.
“In addition to this reason, the income tax was enacted by the aid of
legislators from equal suffrage States and, therefore, suffragists should not
hinder its operation.”
The Washington Times led their article with Mussey’s criticism, and continued as follows (ᔥ):
Treasury officials pointed out that the provisions of the income tax are
plain, and that the penalty clause is sufficiently stringent to prevent women
from attempting to evade payment of the tax. The law provides that any person
liable to make the return or pay the tax “who shall refuse or neglect to make
a return at the times specified in each year shall be liable to a penalty of
not less than $20 nor more than $1,000.”
Guilty of Misdemeanor.
And it is further provided that any person who “makes any false or fraudulent
return or statement with intent to defeat or evade the assessment shall be
made guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be fined not exceeding $2,000 or be
imprisoned not exceeding one year, or both, at the discretion, of the court.”
Miss Alice Paul, of the Congressional Union, when asked as to the attitude of
Washington suffragists on the question of resistance raised by
Dr. Shaw, declared that “women
shouldn’t be taxed unless they have a voice in making the laws.
“If it were possible to resist the measure, undoubtedly we would,” she added.
Members of Congress expressed interest in the letter written by
Dr. Shaw, which was addressed
to the “unfranchised American women.” Congressman Frank D. Mondell, of
Wyoming, one of he first suffrage States, declared that he “is not a believer
in militancy whether It be active or passive as suggested by
Dr. Shaw.”
Includes All Persons.
He declared that Congress had enacted the income tax law and that all persons
whose incomes are above the exempted amount are required to make returns to
the tax collectors and pay the tax.
"Any refusal to make returns, as suggested by
Dr. Shaw, would, of course, be
a refusal to obey the plain letter of the law,” he said.
The Treasury Department has not indicated whether it will take official
notice of
Dr. Shaw’ suggestion by making
reference, to it in instructions to income tax collectors.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle impatiently commented on
the case as follows (ᔥ):
The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw
refuses to pay her taxes without the vote. This is the limit of militancy in
this country. The refusal points an argument and maims or kills no one. If a
friendly sheriff can be induced to sell out
Dr. Anna under spectacular
auspices it will advertise the cause far more, than hit-or-miss
bomb-slinging. But if the sheriff is not friendly, these tax matters drag
over such a long period that they wear out the patience of a press agent.
Dr. Shaw’s Plan to Demand
Representation Meets With Approval in Quaker City.
Philadelphia, . —
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw’s appeal
to the women suffragist property owners of the country to resist taxation
without representation met with sympathy yesterday in this city, but without
promise of definite action.
All the women of the Suffrage party holding property who could be reached
declared their complete sympathy with
Dr. Shaw’s refusal to give the
Tax Collector of Moylan, Delaware County, an appraisement of her property.
None of them would say they would follow her example here.
Dr. Shaw’s appeal carried
particular weight, because she is president of the National Suffrage
Association, and is the trusted leader of the party in the United States.
“It’s all right for those who are brave enough to do it.”
This and similar comments greeted the proposition to refuse Tax Collectors
any help in making assessments, was submitted to the women of Philadelphia
yesterday through Dr. Shaw.
“It has my entire sympathy.” declared Miss Mary Winsor, of Haverford.
“Fine! Splendid!” applauded Mrs. George Morgan, of 4418 Osage avenue, one of
the prominent members of the Suffrage party.
Mrs. Henry C. Davis, of 1822 Pine street, with the blood of her Quaker
ancestry flowing through her veins, was all she needed to promote her to
indorsement of tax resistance.
“It’s the same principle against which my forbears protested,” she said.
“They didn’t have to levy a war tax, because the Quakers didn’t believe in
war. Resistance to taxation without representation has my entire sympathy.”
The New York Call added this note to their coverage
of the tax resistance call:
Denver, . —
Colorado suffragists declared today as a whole that they will refuse to pay
an income tax because the law is “man-made and unfair.”
, Anna Shaw followed
through on her promise to resist, and the Hudson [New
York] Evening Register reported (ᔥ):
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president
of the National American Woman Suffrage association, has refused to list for
taxation her property in Pennsylvania. She declares that thus she intends to
prove the impotency of women’s position under existing laws. She will be
assessed by a man she had no voice in choosing, punished by a judge she didn’t
choose, and will lose her estate at the hands of a sheriff she never helped
select but must help to pay. She refuses to pay her income tax also for the
same reason, and when asked to fill out a blank stating the amount of her
income and from what source it was derived, wrote instead on the official
sheet her declaration of principles: that taxation without representation is
tyranny.
The New York Call called upon Joseph E. Cohen to
give the standard order sensible liberal tut-tutting, in “Militancy in America”:
If there is one thing more than another which throws the conservative papers
into hysteria, it is the idea of militancy upon the part of woman
suffragists.
They are accustomed to regard the ordinary channels of politics as something
with very little sting to it (which is not unjustified from their experience
with the Republican, Democratic, and reform parties). The act of the lawless
reaches home; it is personally effective.
Experience teaches that “propaganda of the dead” [sic] — where peaceful methods are at hand — is not direct action, but direct
reaction. It is not the shortest way to the object desired: it is a boomerang.
But where no peaceful methods may be used, what are those who desire
political right to do? The answer is in England.
And if the situation in America were identical with that in England, then the
same methods would come to the front in this country. Not all the preaching
of all the opponents of woman suffrage would stop it.
But the situation is not the same in America. Consequently, it is very
debatable if the suggestion made by
Dr. Anna Shaw, to refuse to
pay the income tax, is a good one.
It is no longer true that taxes are the basis upon which suffrage is to be
had. If only those who pay taxes directly were given the vote, the largest
part of the population would be disfranchised.
And we do not think Dr. Shaw
would care to place herself with those limited suffragists who think only
those should vote who pay taxes.
Still less so would she care to be put in the position of advocating that
only such as pay an income tax should have the right to vote.
If extra legal methods are considered advisable in this country, then they
should be such as may be adopted by all women, irrespective of economic or
other restrictions.
That is to say, the fight on the income tax, from whatever source it comes,
is a fight upon the part of people of means — not the masses.
And the Woman Suffrage Association only too recently, at the national
convention, placed itself upon record as being a working woman’s movement as
much as any one else’s, to now adopt tactics in which the great body of women
can take no part and for which they can have no sympathy.
So far as the income tax itself is concerned, it may indeed be taken to be a
democratic measure, or a progressive measure. To be sure, it is only an
auxiliary of the tariff bill and not independent of it. Its purpose is not to
establish the broad principle of taxing the well to do according to their
ability to pay, which is the right basis for an income tax. The purpose of
the present law is merely to secure to the government such revenue as is lost
by shifting the tariff schedules.
More than that, the woman suffrage movement would be in a rather awkward
plight if it were to be taken for granted that
Dr. Shaw and those who favor
her quarrel with the income tax do so for the same reason they favor woman
suffrage. If woman suffrage were favored for the same reasons that the income
tax is opposed, then something would be wrong with woman suffrage.
Turning the thing around, there is no connection between the suffrage
movement and the income tax. The income tax is a measure to reach the
wealthy, and those who oppose it must do so because they are against popular
government.
That Dr. Shaw and the women
generally should feel resentment toward President Wilson and the Democratic
party for sidestepping the ballot for women, is quite natural and to be
commended. However much one may welcome certain acts of the present
administration, the fact remains that these have been done in the general
plan to offset the real democratic movements of the time, both for
democracy in politics and industry.
The women have every reason for carrying on a vigilant campaign in their own
behalf, and placing no reliance in the old parties. But the fight on the
income measure is not a necessary part of such a campaign.
Better work would be done if the same spirit and energy were thrown toward
securing measures of relief for the working women.
The Casa Grande Valley [Arizona] Dispatch on
reported:
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw sent out
from Pittsfield,
Mass., a statement
regarding her refusal to pay the “exhorbitant” personal tax “unjustly” levied
upon her by the assessor of Delaware county, Pennsylvania. Her statement
reads in part as follows:
“In the tax assessor of
Upper Providence township, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, left at the house
of Dr. Shaw a four page, legal
size, pink sheet requesting that she make out a detailed statement of all her
personal property including bonds, stock, mortgage,
etc., giving in
minute details the name and character of each.
“Dr. Shaw has always believed
in the contention of the Colonies that ‘taxation without representation is
tyranny’ and has consistently protested along this line when paying her
taxes. But when, in addition to imposing an unjust tax, the government
demanded that when she make out the list upon which the taxes were to be
levied, she respectfully declined, stating that the very act of taxing a
citizen of the United States while arbitrarily depriving her of
representation was a violation of the National Constitution which declares
that the ‘privileges and immunities [of] the citizens of the United States,
shall not be abridged or denied by the United States nor by any State.’
“For the State of Pennsylvania to deny to women citizens of the United States
the right to participate in the government is in direct violation of this
fundamental law of the land.
“Furthermore when the state demands that the citizen thus illegally denies
her rights, shall in addition be the state’s accomplice in this
unconstitutional act by making out a list upon which taxes may be levied,
this is heaping injury upon tyranny. In the spirit of
Dr. Shaw declined to be a
party to an act which violated the National Constitution. She returned the
document without making out the list.
“But in declining to make out the list,
Dr. Shaw did not violate any
law for the document stated that if for any reason the person failed to make
out the list, the assessor should prepare it, but added that in doing so he
should as far as possible learn the amount of property in order to make a
reasonably fair statement.
“Dr. Shaw has witnesses who
are willing to testify to the fact that instead of complying with this
reasonable provision of the law, the assessor declared he took no pains to
inform himself, and boasted that he would make the assessment so large that
it would compel Dr. Shaw to
make a statement. He therefore assessed her taxable personal property at
$30,000.00. Had the assessor, as he was legally bound to do, sought to
ascertain the value of Dr.
Shaw’s personal property he could easily have done so, and if upon this
information he had levied taxes she would have paid them as she always does
all other taxes, namely, under protest against the tyranny of taxation
without representation.”
“We don’t vote, and we don’t propose to pay,” is ultimatum of the teachers in Independence, Mo.
Kansas City, . —
Women teachers in the schools of Independence,
Mo., today announced they
would refuse to pay taxes until given the right to vote. The teachers said
they had been notified they were assessed $50 each and must pay taxes on that
amount.
Angered at what she called taxation without representation, Miss Anna Baskin,
teacher in the Columbia school, together with several other teachers, took
the war path to let men know they could not dominate women in any such
manner.
“They don’t let us vote and we are not heads of households and we don’t
propose to pay taxes,” said Miss Baskin. “When they give us suffrage, then we
will be glad to bear our share of the expense of the government.”
If you can convince an organization to endorse tax resistance, or to recommend it to its members, this can strengthen your campaign and bring in new resisters.
Tax resistance in the women’s suffrage movement started with individual women who saw the logic (and the rhetorical power) of the “no taxation without representation” stand.
But it was an uphill climb to get suffrage organizations to endorse the tactic.
Here are some examples from the U.S.:
Both Susan B. Anthony and E. Oakes Smith offered resolutions advocating tax resistance at the Syracuse Women’s Rights Convention in , but the records of the convention do not indicate whether these resolutions were taken up or voted on.
In the newly-formed Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage announced that while it did not plan to organize a tax resistance campaign, it “would have every sympathy with such action.”
This came in the wake of a call to tax resistance by Anna Howard Shaw, president of National American Woman Suffrage Association.
and from the United Kingdom:
In , the Women’s Freedom League, which had advocated tax resistance since , was joined by the older Women’s Social and Political Union.
“It is to be hoped,” wrote a League member in their newsletter, “that the Women’s Tax Resistance League will succeed in persuading all the other Suffrage Societies to unite on this logical policy of refusing supplies until our grievance is redressed.”
In , the Federated Council of Suffrage Societies “unanimously and enthusiastically” endorsed tax resistance and “recommended its adoption as a means of supporting their demands for a Government measure of Woman Suffrage.”
The classic example of a group adopting tax resistance is that of the Society of Friends, or Quakers.
Since the founding of the Society, it had a policy of instructing members to refuse to pay tithes to rival churches, and this soon expanded to teaching Quakers not to pay taxes for “drums, colors, or for other warlike uses” or fines assessed for refusal to participate in the military.
These policies would be codified in a book of “discipline,” and Quakers who deviated from them would be subject to a process of correction, or, if they continued to defy the policy, “disowning.”
The extent of the policy could change over time, and from meeting to meeting, and there could be heated argument about how strict a standard of tax resistance Quakers should be held to.
Miners’ lodges in western Australia met and voted to instruct the Coal and Shale Employees’ Federation to launch a tax strike in it and other employees’ unions and to back it up with a general strike if the government took action against resisters, in .
In , three American “peace” churches — representing Quakers, Brethren, and Mennonites — issued a joint statement that called for war tax resistance among the 350,000 church members there.
The United Ireland Party — known as the “Blue Shirts” — passed a tax resistance resolution at its annual conference in .
In , the Landlords Association, a group of Jewish property owners in Palestine, adopted a policy of refusing to pay taxes to the British occupation government in protest against its “White Paper” policy.
After the passage of the Education Act which gave taxpayer money to sectarian schools, the Leeds Free Church Council voted 89 to one in favor of promoting tax resistance.
The New York Automobile Club met in and decided to advise its members not to pay a new license fee that it considered to be illegal.
The Moslem League instructed its members to refuse to pay a punitive tax to the United Provinces of British India in .
One way a tax resistance campaign can claim victory is by convincing the government to either formally rescind the tax, or to recognize the legal validity of tax resistance.
Charles Ⅰ went around Parliament to create a new property tax, and John Hampden famously said “no” in .
He lost his court case, but the next Parliament legalized his resistance by voiding the “ship-writs” tax and declaring the court judgment against him invalid.
American Amish, after a long campaign of lobbying, lawsuits, civil disobedience, and public relations, successfully won an exemption to the U.S. social security system, including its tax, and also canceled the outstanding social security tax bills of 15,000 Amish resisters.
A number of pacifist groups, frequently including war tax resisters, have been trying to get their governments to recognize or legally formalize a right to conscientious objection to military spending that would permit conscientious objectors to pay their taxes in a way that would not pay for the military portion of the government’s budget: a “Peace Tax” as it were.
So far, none of these long-standing efforts — which have included legal challenges using a variety of arguments, lobbying, and appeals to international legal bodies — have borne much fruit.
Governments seem universally hostile to the idea, and those international legal bodies with any clout have been unwilling to push the point.
Besides this, it is difficult to separate a government’s military budget from the rest of its budget in a way that would make a separate “Peace Tax” plausible.
The American version of the “Peace Tax” legislation, for instance, would ironically result in more taxpayer money going to military projects.
Italy has an otto per mille tax, which people can designate either for their church or for “humanitarian and cultural projects” of the government’s choosing — this resembles the sort of plan the “Peace Tax” promoters have in mind, but Italy’s government cunningly declared its participation in the Iraq War a “humanitarian and cultural” project and siphoned the funds off that way.
A tax resister who was opposed to the death penalty came to an agreement with the state of Delaware in which the state permitted him to pay his state taxes into a fund designated for paying state tax refunds of other taxpayers, rather than into the general fund that funded the prison system and executions.
American Quaker war tax resister Joshua Evans was so persistent that eventually the tax collector gave up.
“I was told it was concluded that as I gave myself up very much to the service of Truth, it was not proper I should be troubled on account of military demands; and I understood my name was erased, or taken from their list.”
Occasionally something similar happens today, when because a war tax resister has so few assets, or those assets would take too much trouble to discover, the IRS formally lists the resister’s file as “uncollectible” and gives up the attempt to force payment.
After ten years, a delinquent income tax payment hits a statute of limitations and the U.S. government is generally forbidden to pursue the matter further.
American suffragist activist Sarah E. Wall resisted her taxes for 25 years, when finally, according to Susan B. Anthony, “I do not know exactly how it is now, but the assessor has left her name off the tax-list, and passed her by rather than have a lawsuit with her.”
Something similar happened to English suffragist tax resister Charlotte Despard and some others: “[T]he Government rather than go to the trouble of selling up the recalcitrant ‘debtor,’ and attracting attention to the principle involved, had quietly dropped the matter in several instances.
Mrs. Despard had had no application for taxes since she had been sold up last year.”
Ellen C. Sargent patiently pursued legal challenges in California to try to promote women’s suffrage with a “no taxation without representation” argument.
She began by petitioning the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for a refund of her property taxes, and then filed a lawsuit when this petition was denied (the lawsuit also failed).
When farmers in drought-ravaged regions of Argentina threatened a tax strike in , the government responded with a clever bit of ju-jitsu — it declared an agricultural emergency in the area which exempted those farmers from paying taxes.
Utah governor J. Bracken Lee stopped paying his federal income taxes in the hopes of prompting a Supreme Court test case that would invalidate what he considered to be extraconstitutional federal spending.
(The court declined to take his case.)
A group referred to as “the Texas housewives” resisted paying the social security tax on the salaries of their household help, and pursued a two-year parallel legal challenge to have the tax invalidated, before finally being turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Property tax resisters in Depression-era Chicago won a court case that found property assessments in the city to have been performed incorrectly — with $15 billion in property held by wealthy, well-connected Chicagoans somehow left off the rolls — thus effectively legalizing the resistance.
“As the matter stands,” a newspaper account put it, “citizens howled about their taxes, refused to pay them and a court upheld them.
They are in revolt with legal sanction.”
During the Land League’s rent strike in Ireland, Charles Stewart Parnell reported that “a large majority of landlords” reduced the rents on their properties, “[which] shows that they did finally recognize the situation, and that they determined to make the best of it.”
When the Prussian quasi-autocracy tried to ignore the legislature and govern on its own, the legislature formally declared tax resistance to be legal, and said that the autocrats had no authority to raise or spend money.
Something similar happened in Russia half a century later, when the Czar dissolved the legislature, which then reconvened in Vyborg and called on the citizens to refuse to pay any more taxes to the Czar.
According to a book on war tax resistance: “In Russia became the first country to establish legislation exempting pacifists from paying war taxes.
Thirty British citizens were invited by Czar Alexander Ⅰ to establish a cotton mill.
Because some of the employees were Quakers, a petition was submitted to the Czar from the employees asking for freedom of conscience and an exemption from military service, church taxes for war, etc. The Czar issued a certificate which read ‘His Imperial Majesty has given his gracious assent to this petition … all … shall be exempted from all civil and military taxes … the sect of Quakers may now and in future be freed from war taxes for the support of the Military…’ Two English Quakers visiting Russia in found these provisions still in effect.”
The Great Confederated Anti-Dray and Land Tax League of South Australia began as a tax resistance and mutual insurance group, but was soon successful in convincing the government to rescind the offensive tax.
But history is also full of lessons about the foolishness of trusting the government when it responds to your tax resistance campaign by insisting that it’s on your side and wants to help.
For example:
When tax resistance leader Wat Tyler was assassinated while negotiating with the King in , the king boldly went out to the enraged crowd and told it that he would be their leader and would press for their demands.
Instead, he waited for the fuss to die down, then executed some of the other leaders of the rebellion.
When the Whigs were whisked into power in the wake of the Reform Act agitation around , the tax resistance movement celebrated its victory… only to find that the Whigs could be just as tyrannical about prosecuting those who promoted tax resistance as their Tory cousins.
The recent American TEA Party was quickly coöpted by the Republican Party, which learned how to lead it by the nose with witless rhetoric, but conceded nothing on the tax-and-spend big government front.
During the Annuity Tax strike in Edinburgh, the government passed something called the “Edinburgh Annuity Tax Abolition Act.”
Despite its name, that act did not abolish the annuity tax, but merely concealed it with an aim to making it more difficult to resist.
On , Susan B. Anthony, convicted of voting-while-female, was sentenced by Justice Ward Hunt of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York to “pay a fine of one hundred dollars and the costs of the prosecution.”
This is Anthony’s response to the sentence:
May it please your honor, I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty.
All the stock in trade I possess is a $10,000 debt, incurred by publishing my paper — The Revolution — four years ago, the sole object of which was to educate all women to do precisely as I have done, rebel against your man-made, unjust, unconstitutional forms of law, that tax, fine, imprison, and hang women, while they deny them the right of representation in the government; and I shall work on with might and main to pay every dollar of that honest debt, but not a penny shall go to this unjust claim.
And I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old revolutionary maxim, that “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.”
She never did pay the fine or costs of prosecution.
And despite some efforts to find assets to seize, the courts were never able to squeeze anything out of her.
And the following tale comes from Leo Schiff’s Toward a Nonviolence of Daily Living: The Life and Times of Juanita and Wally Nelson (1996):
The Nelsons continued to encounter the Internal Revenue Service in New Mexico.
The IRS tracked them down in Ojo Caliente and tried to collect back taxes on Wally’s income from the Antioch Bookplate Company.
Juanita recalls:
They came to Ojo Caliente, sixty miles north of Santa Fe, and tried to take our vehicles.
One had completely gone kerplunk and was ready to be hauled off to the junkyard, but they didn’t know that, and the other one wasn’t much better.
They came and placed stickers on them saying, “Property of the United States Government,” and then they got a tow truck to try and haul them away.
I sat in front of one and Wally sat in front of the other, and finally the guy went away.
