Some historical and global examples of tax resistance →
women’s suffrage movements →
American women’s suffrage movement →
Anna Howard (Annie) Shaw
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.
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw Puts
Her Little Yellow Car Up Against Boston Tea Party.
Let ’em Sell It for Taxes
She Has No Representation in Government, and She’ll Just Defy Their
Extortion.
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw and her little yellow suffrage car Eastern Victory, she hopes, will go down into history with the Boston Tea Party as examples of unjust taxation.
Dr. Shaw issued a statement in Pittsfield, Mass., saying that she had never refused to pay any but an exorbitant tax unjustly levied on her, and that if her little yellow automobile, presented to her in New York two weeks ago, is sold for taxes it will be an altogether unfair discrimination against the 70-year-old President of the National Suffrage Association.
The trouble began in the Fall of , says the statement, when the Tax Assessor of Upper Providence Township, Delaware County, Penn., left at the house of Dr. Shaw at Moylan a large legal paper requesting her to make out a detailed statement of all her “personal property, mortgages, stocks, and bonds with minute details.”
Dr. Shaw replied that while she was illegally denied the right of participating in the Government of the State to ask her to make out a list upon which taxes were to be levied would be “heaping injury upon tyranny.”
“In the spirit of ,” as her statement reads, she “declined to be a party to an act which violated the national Constitution.”
So she returned the document unadorned.
Dr. Shaw did not violate any law in this act, her statement goes on to explain, for on the document itself was the statement that if for any reason the list was not made out by the person to be taxed the assessor should “learn the amount of the property and make out a reasonably fair statement.”
Did the baffled assessor do this!
Not a bit of it.
He boasted before witnesses who can be brought by Dr. Shaw, she says, that he would make the assessment so large that the suffrage leader would be compelled to make out the statement.
He assessed her for $30,000. Then comes the thing that Dr. Shaw and her friends think is just plain “cattishness.”
Waiting until the proper time to swear off an overassessment Dr. Shaw found herself out of the State on a lecture tour, but sent a representative with full power of attorney to act for her.
The Tax Commissioner refused to do anything about a reduction unless Dr. Shaw made out the declaration and then, to quote her:
“Unable to conceal the real animus of the situation the assessor sent out an absolutely false and misleading statement, declaring that as soon as Dr. Shaw had received the notice of assessment she had immediately rushed to the Commissioner and demanded that it be reduced, and she did nothing of the kind.”
That was not the end of the trouble between the suffragist and the Tax Collector.
Dr. Shaw did not pay the exaggerated tax on property she did not own, but she did change her legal address and sent in first one personal notice, then a second acknowledged by her lawyer, and a third in a registered letter to make sure of its reaching its destination, but no notice was taken of them.
The taking of the little yellow car in the absence of every one but a little maid from the house in Moylan is a part of the assessor’s attempt to make her pay the unjust tax, says Mr. Shaw, the car being a gift.
At the end of her statement, as a valedictory to the little yellow car which was presented to her on , and in which she had taken her first two weeks’ vacation in three years to learn how to run it, Dr. Shaw says:
“These men, living on the soil made sacred by the blood of heroes and heroines who fought some of the fiercest battles against the tyranny of taxation without representation, had caught so little of this heroic spirit themselves that they thought it was dead in others.
“In making the levy upon the car the officer stated to Miss [Lucy] Anthony’s maid that unless the tax was paid within five days the sale would be advertised.
“The sale will probably take place, and the little yellow motor named Eastern Victory will become famous when the history of the tyrannical and inconsistent attitude of this so-called republic shall be written.”
An article in the Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger claimed that “some of the suffragists, it is said, will not support Doctor Shaw in the stand she has taken.
A young woman at the party headquarters in Media today said that she and other members could see no reason for the doctor’s attitude.”
The “Eastern Victory” did become a bit of a famous symbol, and was a hit at “Lucy Stone Day” :
Lucy Stone Day Observed By 1,000
Suffragists Erect Tablet to the Memory of Pioneer Fighter for Votes for Women.
Gather In East Orange
In 150 Automobiles, Visit House Sold in 1858 Because She Would Pay No Taxes.
Lucy Stone Day was observed by more than a thousand suffragists at East Orange, N.J., where a bronze tablet was unveiled on the little house in which Lucy Stone lived and which was sold, with its furniture, fifty-seven years ago for the taxes she refused to pay, because taxation without representation was tyranny.
Lucy Stone was born in , and was the first woman in Massachusetts to take a college degree.
She was graduated from Oberlin College in .
She headed the call for the first National Woman’s Rights Convention, held at Worcester, Mass., in .
About five years later she married Henry B. Blackwell and made a home in Orange.
It was here in that her household goods were sold to pay taxes, and when the sale was over, with Alice Stone Blackwell, one year old, on her lap, she wrote her burning protest.
Mr. Mandeville, Tax Collector, Sir:— Enclosed I return by 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.
Back to the Times article about Lucy Stone Day:
The units of the parade came from widely different sections.
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw made her début in the new yellow suffrage car, presented to her at at 505 Fifth Avenue by the National Woman Suffrage Association.
There were no ceremonies, but a crowd had gathered about the gaily decorated car and was so insistent that Dr. Shaw finally made a brief speech.
Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt came down from the Empire State Campaign Committee rooms to inspect the new car and to congratulate Dr. Shaw, and then the car started for Orange.
Miss Edna V. O’Brien of Tarrytown was the chauffeur.
She, together with Miss Amie Hutchinson, were the chief instruments in raising the funds for this new car, named the Eastern Victory Ⅱ., and also for the original little Eastern Victory that was sold in Pennsylvania for the non-payment of taxes and bought in by suffragists and again presented to Dr. Shaw.
The new car seats five and bears the owner’s monogram.
Alice Stone Blackwell unveiled the tablet to her mother’s memory, but said her voice was not fitted for outdoor speaking and that she could best prove herself intelligent enough to vote by refraining from a speech.
The tablet bore the following inscription:
In , Lucy Stone, a noble pioneer in the emancipation of women, here first protested against their taxation without representation in New Jersey.
It was erected by the New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association.
Dr. Shaw told how her grandmother, an Englishwoman, refused to pay tithes to the English church near her because she was not a member of it, and how year after year small pieces of her property were sold to pay the tithes.
Turning to Miss Blackwell, she said:
“It was on this very stoop that your mother rocked you in the cradle that was sold for taxes.”
There’s an example of how consciousness of the history and tradition of tax resistance was important for practicing resisters, and here’s another: In , Shaw set out her tax resistance theory, which was inspired in part by the tradition of Quaker war tax resistance:
Women’s Tax Fight Will Be Passive
Dr. Shaw Says Suffragists
Won’t Be “Militant” in Resisting Government Collectors.
Will Follow Quaker Plan
They Won’t Turn Pockets Inside Out While Government Picks Them, Suffrage
Leader Asserts.
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, President of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association, denied that “militancy” was involved in her appeal to suffragists to refuse to pay taxes until they obtain the right to vote.
Dr. Shaw asserted that she advocated only a passive resistance to the Government’s agents.
“I hold it is unfair to the women of this country to have taxation without representation,” she said, “and I have urged them to adopt a course of passive resistance like the Quakers instead of aggressive resistance.
I say to the Government, ‘you may pick my pocket because you are stronger than I, but I’m not going to turn my pockets wrongside out for you.
You will have to turn them out yourself.’
Since my letter was sent all over the country, I have received letters of encouragement and support from all directions.
I believe that the spirit of no taxation without representation that resulted in the Revolutionary War is inherent and just as actual in the women of the country as it was then in the men of the country.”
It was suggested to Dr. Shaw that she might have to pay a fine of from $20 to $1,000 if she refused to make returns to her tax assessor or failed to pay her assessments.
“Well, I will not pay the fine,” said Dr. Shaw.
“But suppose you should be held in contempt, what then?”
“I should go to jail, of course,” replied Dr. Shaw.
“And if you were put in prison for contempt for refusing to pay your tax assessments, would you start a hunger strike?”
Dr. Shaw was asked.
“Most assuredly, no,” she said.
“I should not thus destroy my health.
I’m of more worth to the suffrage cause while I’m in good health than I would be if I was starved.
Probably they will levy on some of my property and sell that.
I don’t know what will happen.
A thousand dollars is a very heavy fine.
I do hope they won’t impose that much.
But if they do, I’ll just go to jail and serve my time.”
Here is Dr. Shaw’s letter to the suffragists:
The enactment of an income tax law has caused assessors to be more insistent in their demand that an accurate statement of all personal as well as real property shall be listed and returned within a specified time, in order that no property may escape the Government tax collectors.
Here women may make their passive protest and decline to aid the Government in levying upon them by refusing to render an account of their property.
In this manner we can show our loyalty to those who struggled to make this a free republic and who laid down their lives in defense of the equal rights of all free citizens to a voice in their own Government.
This is a time when we may utter again into the ears of an apostate republic the words of James Otis, that great champion of the liberties of the colonists, when he wrote:
The very act of taxing over those who are not represented appears to me to be depriving them of their most essential rights as free men, and if continued seems to be in effect an entire disfranchisement of every civil right.
For what one civil right is worth a rush after a man’s property is subject to be taken from him at pleasure without his consent?
If a man is not his own assessor, in person or by deputy, his liberty is gone or he is entirely at the mercy of others.
Let our protest be universal, and let every believer in justice unite in this mode of passive resistance and steadfastly refuse to assist the Government in its unjust and tyrannical violation of its fundamental principle that “taxation and representation are one and inseparable,” and thus prove ourselves worthy descendants of noble ancestors, who counted no price too dear to pay in defense of liberty and equality and justice.
Dr. Shaw explained that she had determined to start a movement for passive resistance of taxation directly as the result of the activities of her own tax assessor in the Upper Providence Township, Delaware County, Penn., which embraces the town of Moylan, where she lives.
Three weeks ago or thereabout her assessor sent her the usual pink assessment slips, and she disregarded them.
The Saturday before Christmas the assessor called and saw her secretary in the absence of Dr. Shaw.
Through her secretary Dr. Shaw was notified that she would have ten days within which to fill out and return the assessment slips.
She then returned the slips, refusing to give the information requested.
Suffragists Plan to Oppose Taxation Without Representation of Their Sex
Washington, . —
Resistance on the part of women of the country to the federal income tax law, despite the government’s announced attention 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 Woman’s Suffrage association, that the “unfranchised” women of the country decline to aid the government in collecting taxes upon their incomes, caused a mild sensation 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 adds: “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.”
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 further 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.
Mrs. Ellen Spencer Mussey, honorary dean of the Washington College of law, in a statement 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 benefit.
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.”
Suffragists Plan to Oppose Taxation Without Representation of Their Sex
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’s 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 Woman’s Suffrage association, that the “unfranchised” 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 adds: “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.”
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
further 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.
Mrs. Ellen Spencer Mussey, honorary dean of the Washington College of law, in
a statement today 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 benefit. 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.”
To Offer Passive Resistance Only
New York,
. —
Militancy is not involved in the appeal by Anna Howard Shaw, president of
the National Woman’s Suffrage association, to suffragists to refuse to
pay income taxes until they are given the right to vote.
Dr. Shaw asserted
that she advocated only a
passive resistance to the government’s agents.
Dr. Shaw declared that she
would refuse to make returns to her tax assessor, and if fined by a court
would refuse to pay the fine. If sent to jail she will not start a hunger
strike, she said, adding: “I should not thus destroy my health. I’m of more
worth to the suffrage cause while I’m in good health than I would be if I was
starved.”
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.”
When trying to bring new tax resisters into a movement, there are lots of hopeful short-cuts, but sometimes there is no substitute for addressing potential resisters individually: whether that be through letters, petitions, or face-to-face meetings.
When the United States approved a billion-dollar military aid package to the government of Colombia in , the president of the Mennonite Church of Colombia, Peter Stucky, and Ricardo Esquivia, the director of that church’s Justapaz organization and the coordinator of the Evangelical Council of Colombia’s Human Rights and Peace Commission, wrote a letter to their sister churches in the U.S..
In that letter, they explained the disastrous consequences of fueling the civil war and the military wing of the war on drugs there, explained how the church there was trying to respond more productively to the crisis, and called on churches in the U.S. to do their part:
In reality, the government of the United States, using the tax-payers money, is supporting the Colombian government in what we consider to be a negative form.
This means that the message arriving from the North to the Colombian people becomes a message of death and destruction.
For that reason we are calling the churches in the North to redeem their taxes, on one hand by demanding that the U.S. government invests this money in life-producing projects, and on the other hand by redirecting part of their taxes toward a different project in your community or the world that promotes abundant and dignified life, as our Lord Jesus Christ has commanded us.
The American Mennonite Central Committee responded by urging taxpayers to redirect their taxes from the U.S. government to the Mennonite-run “Taxes for Peace” fund, which in turn would be dedicated that year to peace-building efforts in Colombia.
This sort of advocacy can be dangerous, as this next example will show.
In , R.W. Benner, a Mennonite minister, got worried reports from members of his congregation who were being told in no uncertain terms that they would buy so-called “Liberty Bonds” to support the U.S. war effort, or they would answer for their refusal.
Benner wrote to his bishop, L.J. Heatwole, who responded with a letter in which he reiterated the position of the church that Mennonite brethren “Do not aid or abet war in any form… [and] Contribute nothing to a fund that is used to run the war machine.”
He noted:
In a number of places where brethren have refused to contribute to the different war funds, outlandish threats have been made and in a few cases have been put into execution — such as, tar and feathering, painting houses yellow, decorating autos and buildings with flags to test them out on their principles of nonresistance.
But he urged his fellow-Mennonites to keep the faith and to embrace this sort of martyrdom like good Christians.
Benner conveyed this message to his flock.
For this, both of them were charged under the Espionage Act and convicted.
(To give you some idea of the railroading involved, Heatwole did not learn that a guilty plea had been entered on his behalf by his court-appointed attorney until after he appeared for the trial!)
Letters, or “epistles,” from war tax resisting Quakers to their fellow-Friends were an important way of spreading and maintaining the practice in the Society.
American war tax resistance can be said to have begun on , when John Woolman, Anthony Benezet, and several other Quakers addressed a letter in which they explained to other Friends why
as we cannot be concerned in wars and fightings, so neither ought we to contribute thereto by paying the tax directed by the [recent] Act, though suffering be the consequence of our refusal, which we hope to be enabled to bear with patience.
David Cooper reflected on how thoughtful letters like these helped him maintain his war tax resistance in times of doubt:
I read with singular satisfaction the piece which you lent me respecting taxes, as it was very strengthening to my mind, which before was somewhat encompassed with weakness on this account.… I have since felt much weakness, and had come to no solid conclusion of mind, until I read your little manuscript, which caused my heart to rejoice, under a feeling sense that it is the truth which leads those who walk and abide in it to hold forth this testimony unto the world.
And oh, says my soul, that I may yield faithful obedience to its monitions, let what will be the consequence.
Yearly Meetings would sometimes send letters to Quarterly or Monthly Meetings to reiterate the Quaker position on war tax resistance and give instructions as to how it should be enforced.
For instance, this is from an letter from the North Carolina Yearly Meeting:
…all our members should stand firm, and be faithful in bearing their testimony against war and military operations; taxes and fines appertaining thereunto, either directly or indirectly; or any way conniving or compromising with the specious and plausible offers of the legislature, by the tax proposed in the late act, to screen us from muster fines or military services.
And in order that all our members may be clearly informed on this subject, and be fully prepared to meet the trial likely to come upon us by this law, we have thought it best to send it down in this epistle.
An organizer of the Dublin water charge strike recalls:
…months of work had been done in local areas convincing people of the primacy of [non-payment].
This was done through local public meetings, door-to-door leaflets and even knocking on doors and talking to people… The building of the campaign in this way was crucial.
Local campaign groups were built and then came together and federated, rather than a central committee being formed first and then coming along to organise people.
…it became clear that while people might not have come out to the meeting, they had kept the information about the campaign and the campaign contact numbers had their place on a lot of fridge doors.
American women’s suffrage activist Anna Howard Shaw wrote a letter to women in the movement in , urging them to refuse to fill out income tax returns.
“In this manner we can show our loyalty to those who struggled to make this a free republic and who laid down their lives in defense of the equal rights of all free citizens to a voice in their own Government.
… Let our protest be universal, and let every believer in justice unite in this mode of passive resistance and steadfastly refuse to assist the Government in its unjust and tyrannical violation of its fundamental principle that ‘taxation and representation are one and inseparable,’ and thus prove ourselves worthy descendants of noble ancestors, who counted no price too dear to pay in defense of liberty and equality and justice.”
She told a reporter: “Since my letter was sent all over the country, I have received letters of encouragement and support from all directions,” and she soon thereafter won support for her stand from the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage.
Only some of the women’s suffrage activists in Britain were responsible for paying taxes, so although tax resistance was an important part of the campaign there, it was a part not everybody could participate in.
The movement made a special effort to find women who had taxes they could resist.
For example, at one meeting in , Margaret Kineton Parkes “asked anyone present who knew women who paid taxes to send in their names, that they might be approached by her society.”
In , Marie Lawson launched what she called a “snowball” protest: a sort of chain letter in which she sent out letters that advocated tax resistance (and protested on behalf of an imprisoned resister) and that asked the recipients to join her and to in turn send the same letter “to at least three friends.”
Public burnings of poll tax notices were good excuses for people to join in festive resistance activities.
The campaign to resist Thatcher’s Poll Tax used some creative outreach techniques (quotes from Danny Burns’s history of the movement):
“The Aberdeen Anti-Poll Tax group was formed when people from the radical bookshop came together with a community arts group:
“…The local community arts group had a theatre group called “Wise Up” and they got a show together about the Poll Tax.
They took this show around the estates with information for people about registration and how to fight it, to encourage them to set up local groups and support networks.
The plays were performed in local community centres.
Attendance for the plays varied from about 10 to 40 or more.
The meetings which followed were encouraging because people gave their names as contacts or asked people to set up future meetings.”
“In my local group… the union was built up through a door-to-door campaign.
A group of five or six people (mostly friends) formed the core.
They advertised a public meeting on the Poll Tax and about 50 people turned up.
Out of these some joined the organising group.
This small group then mass-produced a window poster which said ‘No Poll Tax Here.’
The poster was dropped through the letter-boxes of 2000 households and the group waited to see who put them up.
Posters appeared in about 100 windows.
Activists then went round and spoke to these people individually, inviting them to attend the next organising meeting; about fifteen did — enough to form the core of a group.”
“[Our] network was strengthened by a door-to-door survey of over 500 households.
The survey was not intended to be scientifically accurate.
Its purpose was to give the APTU a fairly accurate picture of what was happening on the ground, and, perhaps more significantly, it was a pretext for engaging people in conversation about the Poll Tax, informing them of the non-payment campaign and encouraging them to join their local APTU.… Over a third of the people canvassed became paid up members of the union.
By the end of the exercise Easton had over 300 members and street reps for almost every street.
The canvass was not left there.
The key to its success was the second visit.
The group compiled all the statistics on a street by street basis and many of the reps then went back, door-to-door, and told people the results of the survey in their street and the neighbouring streets.
A newsletter was delivered to everyone telling them what the overall results were for Easton.
This meant that people knew how few of their neighbours were going to pay and it gave them confidence not to pay themselves.
They had spoken to the canvassers personally, so they knew that the survey was genuine.”
“An independent television company approached the Easton group in order to work with us on a film about the Poll Tax.
The film was never shown, but the way the community was engaged in the process of making it is instructive.
The film producers wanted a shot of all the doors in the street, opening one by one as the occupants came out of their houses with banners and signs.
Charles, the local street rep, went round to people’s houses every evening for a week and explained to them what was wanted.
Out of 30 houses in the street (a cul-de-sac) 28 agreed to participate.
The street is multi-racial with a fairly wide class mix.
It was inspiring to see white working class men standing shoulder to shoulder with Asian women and their kids, holding the same banners and engrossed in conversation.
Some of them had never spoken to each other before.
The film was made, but more importantly, as [a] result of making it, virtually every one of those households joined the Union, and most still had posters in their windows a year later.
People were brought into the campaign, not through a leaflet or a canvasser, but through an interesting activity.
They didn’t have to go to the campaign, it came to them.”
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 .
Today, some bits from the archives about American suffragette tax resister Anna Howard Shaw.
First, from the San Francisco Chronicle, :
Dr. Shaw Calls Upon Women to
Resist Tax
Suggests Concerted Action in Protesting to Forward Propaganda of the
Suffragists.
Special Dispatch to the “Chronicle.”
New York, . — In a letter which she issued to unfranchised American women, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, national president of the woman suffragists, calls upon all suffragists in America to follow her lead and refuse to give to the assessors of the voting precincts in which they live an account of the personal property they own.
By refusing such a statement, Dr. Shaw says, the women of the country can voice their protest against a Government which taxes women without giving them the privilege of voting.
, the Vancouver Daily World also covered this story:
Advises Women to Resist Tax
New York, . — Militancy is not involved in the appeal issued by Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National Women’s Suffrage Association to suffragists who refuse to pay income taxes until they are given the right to vote.
Dr. Shaw asserted that she advocated only a passive resistance to the government’s agents.
Dr. Shaw said she would refuse to make returns to her tax assessor and if fined by a court would refuse to pay the fine.
If sent to jail, she will not start a hunger strike, she said, adding, “I should not thus destroy my health.
I’m of more worth to the suffrage cause while I’m in good health than I would be if I was starved.”
In explanation of her letter to the suffragists, Dr. Shaw said:
“I hold it is unfair to the women of this country to have taxation without representation, and I have urged them to adopt a course of passive resistance like the Quakers, instead of aggressive resistance.”
Washington, . — Resistance on the part of the women of the country to the federal income tax law, despite the government’s announced intention of imposing a fine of $1000 for each failure to report income, will receive the encouragement of the Suffragists’ Congressional Union, it is announced in a statement issued by the organization headquarters here.
The Charlotte, North Carolina Evening Chronicle picked up the torch with this somewhat contradictory article:
Dr. Anna Shaw Declares That
She Does Not Refuse To Pay Tax
Philadelphia, . — Declaring that many statements published in connection with her refusal to aid tax assessors in fixing the value of her property were erroneous, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, issued a statement today in which she explained her attitude toward taxation and “militancy of which I have been charged without any foundation whatever.”
“There was nothing in my statement that could have been construed as a refusal to pay my taxes,” said Dr. Shaw.
“Neither was there any thought of militancy in my refusal to fill out a bill of particulars of my personal property for purposes of taxation.
“I have always paid my taxes, but never without protesting against the tyranny and injustice of it.
I will do so again but I refuse to aid the government to impose a personal tax by making out a specific bill of my possessions in order to assist in imposing this tax upon me.
“The law upon this subject is clear, even though unjust.
It states that if a person refuses to fill out the bill the assessor will do so.
In declining I violated no law but I stated a principle.
If there is any militancy involved it is the militancy of the government, not mine.
“I am and always have been unalterably opposed to militancy.”
, the Logan [Utah] Republican carried this story, which seems to indicate that Shaw refused to pay her tax after all:
Dr. Anna Shaw to Lose
Auto
Noted Suffragist Refuses to Pay Tax on Ground of Non-Representation
New York, . — Dr. Anna Howard Shaw president of the National American Woman Suffrage association probably will not attempt to save her little yellow automobile from sale at auction at Media, Pa., to satisfy a tax assessment according to a statement she issued here .
The car was presented to Dr. Shaw by her followers here.
It was seized at Moylan, Pa., Dr. Shaw’s residence, on and is to be sold at auction to pay a tax assessment of $120 levied upon Dr. Shaw in .
The suffrage leader declined to make out a list of her property subject to taxes on the ground to tax her without giving her the right to vote “would be heaping injustice upon tyranny.”
“In the spirit of ,” her statement read, “she declined to become a party to any act which violated the national constitution.”
I came across this article in The Mennonite when I was researching American Mennonite war tax resistance last year:
Dr. Anna Shaw Refuses Taxation
Because She Is Neither a “Him” Nor An “It”.
Philadelphia, — Who is an “it” and what is an “it”? are questions being asked by Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association, in connection with her refusal to declare the value of her personal property for taxation.
The blank sent Dr. Shaw to be filled out called for a declaration on personal property owned by “him or it” and the suffrage leader argues that [as] she is neither a “him”, nor an “it”, she is, therefore exempt.
When Dr. Shaw refused to declare the value of her property at Moylan, Pa., the county commissioners placed on it an assessed valuation of $30,000. This, according to Miss Lucy Anthony, her secretary, is nearly four times its actual value.
“The blanks we received on which Dr. Shaw was to make her declaration called for personal property owned by ‘him’ or ‘it’,” said Miss Anthony today, “and I have never known an ‘it’ to pay any kind of taxes.
‘It’ usually refers to animals or inanimate objects, and I never knew the state to demand taxes of them.”
Miss Anthony intimated that Dr. Shaw, who is now on a lecture tour, probably would begin a legal battle over the question of “it”.
