Some historical and global examples of tax resistance →
United States →
Liberty Bonds in World War Ⅰ, 1917–18
Most histories of war tax resistance give little attention to World War Ⅰ.
But, in the United States anyway, it’s a fascinating story, and a very different one than the typical war tax resistance plot.
Resisters were hounded not by the government, but by vigilante mobs who were enforcing what was, nominally, a voluntary funding drive.
Although the U.S. government did raise some of its war funds through taxes, the most visible public war funding measure was the Liberty Bond program.
When someone bought a Liberty Bond, they were loaning the government money, at interest, for the war effort.
This program was ostensibly voluntary, but there was intense pressure to participate, and this pressure often amounted to compulsion.
Those who resisted buying Bonds included conscientious objectors to war, members of traditional peace churches, anti-capitalist and anti-government radicals, and European immigrants with ties among the people the U.S. and its allies were fighting.
Whatever the reasons, resistance to the Liberty Bond program was typically interpreted as treasonous.
For instance, an article from the New York Times reads in part:
Pro-German agents in the United States, according to reports to the Treasury Department, have directed their energies toward defeating the Liberty Loan.
Their organized propaganda is alleged to have borne fruit in scattered localities from Minnesota to Texas, where weak efforts have been made, not openly, but by indirect methods, to discourage subscriptions.
“There has been organized effort,” said Colonel [Herbert M.] Lord… “to discourage and defeat the loan.”
Assembled from various sources, the efforts of workers against the loan appear to have been directed along four main channels:
Attempts to discourage prospective buyers of Liberty bonds.
Efforts to prevent certain banks from handling the bonds.
The publication in certain newspapers and other mediums of publicity of editorials and articles which, while not directly opposing loan subscriptions, tend to discourage buyers.
The prevention, so far as local and sporadic efforts can prevent, of the placing of Liberty Loan posters and advertising literature where they will be most beneficial.
Attempts to discourage buyers by the personal plea method have been confined mostly to the East.
Instances have been brought to the attention of officials where buyers have been approached, apparently in a spirit of great friendship, and advised not to buy the bonds.
Efforts to prevent banks from handling the bonds have centered chiefly in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Missouri and Oklahoma.
The President of a Wisconsin bank has advised the Treasury that his depositors, mostly Germans, or of German parentage, have withdrawn many thousands of dollars from his bank because he aided the First Liberty Loan.
These depositors, he added, had taken their accounts to two rival banks on the understanding that those banks would not aid the second Liberty Loan.
The two banks, he reported, were not aiding the loan in any way.
A check is kept by the Treasury on all newspaper editorials and articles referring to the loan, not only in publications printed in English, but in the foreign language press.
A number of such publications, it is asserted, have been industriously printing editorials and articles of a tone apparently studied to produce impressions unfavorable to the loan.
The fourth phase of opposition — attempts to prevent the posting of Liberty Loan posters and placards in advantageous places — has been carried on in many places, notably Washington.
Efforts to get permission to hang placards in the windows of empty shops here in many instances have met with refusal.
In other instances, posters have been torn down.
In nearly every case investigated, it was found, it is reported, that the person refusing permission also was entirely out of sympathy with the course of the country.
Not until Colonel Lord’s announcement today, however, did officials believe that the effort was organized.
They now say it bears all the imprints of a carefully directed conspiracy.
, the Park City, Utah Park Record reported on some of these conspiratorial resisters:
There is only one disloyal spot in all of Summit county.
This is in the vicinity of Marion, where there are a few so-called Socialists, who not only absolutely refuse to subscribe to a bond — but openly denounced the government for its efforts in raising funds in this manner.
Their names are on record and in all probability they will be “attended to” later.
Liberty Loan enforcers sometimes appeared as underground, Ku Klux Klan-style groups, who would come by in masks in the dead of night and threaten people who did not purchase bonds (or who purchased fewer than the enforcers thought they should) with hanging, tarring & feathering, or various other tortures and degradations.
Other enforcers came in the form of above-ground “armies” who went door-to-door to enforce community Bond quotas.
The Steamboat Springs, Colorado Steamboat Pilot reported on the “Liberty Loan Army” that was organized in that area to enforce the third Liberty Loan drive.
Every person, without exception, will be visited and solicited.
Each individual will be given a chance to subscribe.
No one will be expected to subscribe more than they can afford, but in cases where those solicited refuse to subscribe, when it is known that they are financially able to do so, where those solicited make disloyal remarks against the government or criticise the merit of the government bonds, or are discourteous towards the lieutenants, detailed reports will be made and the matter turned over to the secret service department for investigation.
Persons knowing the importance of doing all possible toward the financing of the war and the support of the men who are offering their lives, and still refusing to help, although able, naturally are to be regarded as provoking suspicion.
The New York Times reported of another drive:
Persons with guilty consciences received scares , for policemen knocked at many doors to aid the Liberty Loan campaign.
It was called “Policemen’s Day,” and no arrests were made, although there were many pointed suggestions that a trip to the bank would be advisable.
A set of articles from the New York Times during , reported on what kind of treatment “bond slackers” could expect if they did not respond as desired to “pointed suggestions” like these:
A.L. Hitchcock, Socialist member of the Board of Education, was arrested on a warrant issued by United States Commissioner Mariatt, charging him with violating provisions of the Espionage act by making remarks against the Liberty Loan.
Hitchcock waived preliminary examination and was bound over to the Grand Jury.
In a speech at Sandusky on , Hitchcock is alleged to have made this reference to the Liberty Loan:
“I do not believe in the Liberty Loan.
Every dollar goes into the pockets of profiteers.
I won’t contribute any of my money to the war profiteers.
By purchasing bonds you are aiding the political ambitions of the head of our Government.
All who buy bonds are being hoaxed.”
Five Austrians who refused to purchase Liberty Bonds at the Lyttle colliery, near here, were taken by the heels by the workmen and dipped into a steel tank used for heating oil for the colliery engines.
Threats to sue the ring-leaders of the crowd brought the statement that a suit would result in the Austrians being strung up.
The men all purchased bonds .
Theodore Pape, former city attorney, for whom United States Marshals have been searching since afternoon, for violation of the Espionage act, walked into the Sheriff’s office morning and gave himself up.
Pape is said to have refused to buy Liberty bonds, declaring that he wanted the war to end in a draw, and that the way to realize his hope, was to withhold money from the Government.
Pape was hanged in effigy during .
Crowds at Liberty bond rallies here threatened to lynch a Russian and two enemy aliens when their remarks were considered by men in the crowds to be hostile to the Government and the success of the loan campaign.
The men were not injured, but Federal authorities detained two of them pending an investigation of their activities.
When a worker asked Michael Wisasanki, a Russian employed in a cannery, to buy a bond, his refusal was regarded as an insult and some of the factory workers threatened to lynch him.
Officers of the company held him for the Federal authorities.
John Radzouki, an Austrian, was held by the officers of the Everson & Leverson Manufacturing Company, after employees there had threatened violence to him.
Hans Spiegel, a German, employed in the Pennsylvania Railroad yards, was saved from a beating by fellow-workers upon the suggestion of railroad officials that he leave town immediately.
The Frank Katz Hat Company… reopened after a suspension of caused by the strike of employes who would not work with two girls in the establishment who had refused to buy Liberty bonds.
The trouble began two weeks ago, when the Liberty Loan Committee in the hat trade approached the employes of the Frank Katz Company with an appeal that every man and girl in the firm buy a $50 bond and give the company a 100 per cent. record.
A few days later the Hat Committee reported to Mr. Katz that one of his competitors had made a 100 per cent. record, and this fact set him to work.
He found that two employes, Miss Lizzie Rozitch and Miss Lena Turdalowitz, were responsible for the indifference to the Liberty Loan appeals.
Unable to do anything with them, Mr. Katz appealed to the union officials, and the latter worked up the employes to such a pitch of patriotic resentment against the dissenters that they not only bought bonds but on refused to work with the two girls unless they, too, bought bonds.
The girls refused, whereupon the rest of the employes declared a strike, and all activities at the factory were suspended on .
Miss Rozitch and Miss Tudalowitz informed Mr. Katz that they would not return to work, and the factory reopened.
Names of people who refused to buy the Bonds were published in “rolls of dishonor” and “slacker rolls” or were written up in the newspapers.
One such example:
David Fast, living south and west of Tyrone, has a fine farm with modern improvements.
He has good stock and farm machinery around him.
He is living on land that the government gave him for the magnificent sum of $16. When approached he refused, saying that the Bible did not teach war and that Germany loved us and would not bother us.
I believe this man to be in sympathy with Germany and think that his land should be taken back by the government.… We have no patience with a man whose only excuse is his religious scruples and believe he will bear investigation.
Another paper reported:
A story comes to the Reaper of a man living in Richfield precinct who, when called upon by a liberty loan subscription committee, declared he would help in Red Cross work, but not one cent would be subscribed toward a liberty loan, war savings stamps or other war work, as he is a conscientious objector, and the United States had no business entering the war.
The other day a number of drafted men, conscientious objectors, were sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kan., to serve 20 year sentences, for the same sentiments as those alleged to be uttered by this Richfield man.
Again the attention of the council of defense is called to this specific case.
If there is a man in or around Richfield with these sentiments there is a place at Fort Douglas for him and the council of defense should act.
Such objectors could expect to be shunned, or worse.
The Brigham City, Utah Box Elder News approvingly reported, “the way of the slacker is coming to be so odious and hard that might few individuals care to tread it.”
Whippings, tarrings & featherings, and beatings were among the discouragements.
Another common treatment was yellow paint:
“Peace on earth; good will toward all mankind” was not fully demonstrated in Hugo [Colorado] morning, early, when yellow paint was used freely in decorating the buildings of a citizen who had not subscribed as liberally as some thought he should to the various war funds, and for liberty bonds.
The yellow paint seemed to act as a persuader however, and the aforesaid citizen purchased $1300 worth of War savings stamps and donated $200 to the Red Cross and United War workers, and all is peace once more in patriotic Hugo.
In other cases, resisters’ property was stolen and used to purchase Bonds:
When an unconfirmed rumor was received that members of a Mennonite colony at Jamesville [South Dakota] had refused to buy Liberty bonds, officers in charge of the loan campaign visited the colony and drove away 100 head of steers and 1,000 sheep.
In a statement issued subsequently it was said the animals would be sold and the money invested in Liberty bonds and applied to the Jamesville quota.
The Mennonites offered no opposition to the bond “salesmen.”
I was able to find a lot of the newspaper articles referenced in today’s entry by following leads and searching for keywords suggested by reading H.C. Peterson’s and Gilbert C. Fite’s book Opponents of War, ().
The patriotic fervor of that time, and the lynch mob hysteria of the pro-war faction in America, reminded me of the “freedom fries” days after .
Only it was far worse then — people rounded up and put away for expressing their political opinions, conscientious objectors sentenced to decades of hard labor, mobs chasing down immigrants and forcing them to kiss the flag.
I read stories like these and I reflect on how safe it is today to dissent in the United States, and yet how few can be bothered to do it.
I think of the weak-kneed peaceniks like the clownish nebbish at the Tikkun booth at an anti-war rally in Berkeley a few months back whom I tried to talk into war tax resistance, but who told me with trembling voice how afraid he was to cross the IRS at a time like this when our government is so contemptuous of civil liberties.
And I want to scream.
Google is starting to do for newspaper archives what it has been doing for books: putting scanned images on-line and making them text-searchable.
Hooray for Google, says I.
Here are a few articles I found while browsing around today:
A couple of pieces regarding a reconstruction-era dispute over the legitimacy of the Louisiana state government (in which tax resistance played a role):
The Nixon Administration asked the Supreme Court today to rule out draft exemptions for men who are conscientiously opposed to the Vietnam war but not to all wars.
…
Besides, the Administration argued, if selective exemptions are approved people could refuse to pay their taxes on religious grounds or could defy other laws.
Washington [D.C.] Official Urges Tax Refusal to Push Statehood The New York Times (“Walter E. Fauntroy, the District of Columbia’s Delegate to Congress, has urged residents here not to pay their Federal taxes until Congress makes Washington the 51st state.”
[C]ollection will be a formidable challenge after years in which taxes
were identified by Palestinians with foreign occupation.
Tax resistance is strong in the territories. It spread during a seven-year
uprising against Israeli rule, when Palestinians working in the tax
department resigned. According to Israeli estimates, only 20 percent of
Palestinians taxed in the West Bank met their payments in 1993, when tax
revenues totalled some $90 million.
The Palestinian Authority has already run into difficulties collecting
taxes in Gaza and Jericho, and it has published appeals in recent weeks
urging tax payment as a national duty. Outside of Jericho, it has no
police powers in the West Bank, and the legal system there remains under
Israeli control.
“Taxes are the dowry of independence and the key to democracy,” said Atef
Alawneh, director general of the Palestinian finance department, at the
ceremony today in Ramallah.
“Nonpayment of taxes under occupation was a national struggle worthy of
praise,” he added. “Now it is 180 degrees different. Now delay in paying
means a delay in building the Palestinian state.”
Zuhdi Nashashibi, the finance minister in the Palestinian Authority, said
he was confident Palestinians would now “hurry to pay” their taxes.
Mr. Alawneh argued that collection by Palestinians would be more effective
because it would lack the coercion of military occupation, would extend to
places the Israelis were unable to reach because of security concerns, and
would create new revenue sources. The tax authorities will not use force,
he said, but will rely instead on friendly persuasion and public goodwill.
Remember what this sort of thing used to be like? You’d get yourself down to
the library, and then you’d look through each volume of the
Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature or whatever,
one at a time, hoping that what you were looking for was among the things the
editors of that guide felt was worth indexing. Then with luck, some of what
you were looking for was available in bound volumes, microfilm, or microfiche
on-site (elsewise you could always try for inter-library loan, but that might
take a couple of weeks). In the case of the first, you could find it on the
shelves or ask the reference librarian, and then thumb through the pages, but
in the case of the latter two, you’d have to haul your film over to a reader
(one that wasn’t broken or occupied) and then spend five minutes or so just
trying to locate the pages you were interested in. Then, if it turned out to
be good, you’d have to scribble things down or drop in some coin for a
barely-legible photocopy.
I like the future.
During World War Ⅰ in the United States, there was an ostensibly voluntary war funding drive in which people were encouraged to buy “Liberty Bonds.”
In many cases, though, bond purchases were made effectively mandatory by a vigilante enforcement system that was even more ruthless than that of the government’s official revenue department.
Here’s another example, from the New York Times:
Seize Live Stock For Loan
South Dakota Committeemen Force Mennonites to Contribute
Yankton, S.D., . —
When an unconfirmed rumor was received that members of a Mennonite colony at Jamesville, near here, had refused to buy Liberty bonds, officers in charge of the loan campaign visited the colony and drove away 100 head of steers and 1,000 sheep.
In a statement issued subsequently it was said the animals would be sold and the money invested in Liberty bonds and applied to the Jamesville quota.
The Mennonites offered no opposition to the bond “salesmen.”
Morgantown Bishop Believes in Relieving Suffering, but Not to Inflict It.
Breaking his silence, as far as newspaper interviews are concerned. Bishop
John S. Mast, of the Amish Church, living near Morgantown, has outlined his
position and that of his church on the question of Liberty Loans and war
bonds of all kinds. The Amishman in good standing in the church will not buy,
according to inferences from his statements, no matter how poor his standing
may be as a loyal supporter of the flag under which he lives. The Amishman
may invest his money in Red Cross contributions, or in enterprises that pay
dividends, but he will not put it into government war bonds.
Although declaring that “we cannot be too thankful for the government under
which we live,” Bishop Mast said that his people would deem it a violation of
their religious principles to buy Liberty Bonds or war savings stamps. The
Amish, he said, would pay money into a fund for improvements such as the
building and repair of roads instead of contributing to a fund that is used
for the slaughter of human beings. This plan, he added, had been approved
recently by the government.
Breaks a Long Silence.
The bishop broke a long silence on the matter when approached by a
Philadelphia Press reporter. Public demonstrations of disapproval of the war
attitude of the Amish have occurred recently. A large American flag was
placed at the bishop’s gate post, and the door of one of the largest churches
of the sect in that part of the country was draped with a flag. They have not
been removed. Indications of public condemnation, Bishop Mast said, convinced
him that the attitude of the church should be made public.
Denies Cowardice.
“Our people have contributed generously to the Red Cross fund and other
organizations of mercy,” he said. “We are willing to do what we can to
relieve suffering, but are not willing to inflict suffering. Our opposition
to war and militarism is not founded upon cowardice or disloyalty to our
government. The government has protected us in our belief and we are filled
with gratitude toward it, but our conviction is founded on our belief that
the Gospel of Christ is a gospel of peace. The nonresistant principles held
by this religious body are founded on the teachings of the Scriptures and are
set forth in their confession of faith adopted at Dortnecht, Holland, in
.
Can Support Red Cross.
“It has always been an essential principle in our creed. First we owe our
allegiance to God, second we owe our allegiance to our government. That does
not mean that we have no obligations to the government to bear an increased
burden because of the world’s greatest suffering brought on by war in
addition to Red Cross subscriptions. We can with a clear conscience subscribe
freely to bonds that are intended to finance reconstruction and local
improvements.”
The Amish Mennonite Church, Bishop Mast said, soon would agree to the
proposition of the government made through W.L. Crooks, of the Federal
Reserve Bank, in Cleveland, that the non-resisters subscribed for
reconstruction and improvements. He was emphatic in his condemnation of
non-resisters who attempted to influence others to evade military service.
Long Terms in Prison.
Speaking of the Mennonite young men just sentenced to Leavenworth
Penitentiary because of their refusal to put on the soldiers’ uniform, the
bishop expressed his faith in the government’s fair dealing.
Bishop Mast is one of the most influential men of the church. His
jurisdiction extends as far south as Norfolk,
Va.
PeaceSigns is a publication of the U.S. Mennonite Church’s Peace & Justice Support Network. The latest issue focuses on war tax resistance, and includes:
When the United States entered World War Ⅰ, they decided to finance it by selling “Liberty Bonds.”
Although this war tax was ostensibly voluntary, those citizens who were most envenomed with war spirit took it upon themselves to be vigilante tax collectors, and used a variety of pressure tactics — up to and including physically violent lynch mobs — to encourage others to contribute.
Some time around Henry Cooprider, a Mennonite pacifist who witnessed one of these mobs in action against his family near Inman, Kansas some fifty years before, was interviewed.
I found a transcript of that interview on-line.
It also includes some very interesting memories of his time in a detention camp for conscientious objector draftees.
Here are some excerpts.
[D]uring the years of going to church and teaching that we got from the ministers and our parents at home and the teaching that we had against participating in war or trying to take revenge of anybody or killing — taking life — we felt like the teaching we had in those early days were entirely against any of this.
I suppose that we just grew up with that kind of a teaching and of course when it came time for us to be drafted, when World War Ⅰ came long, a number of us were exempted from military service, well, because of farm furloughs, because we were farmers, we didn’t have to go to training camp, but as the war progressed, the sentiment in our own neighborhood was such that it was about necessary for all young men of draft age really had to serve some time for the government in this way and it was along about 1917 that the sentiment was so strong about the stand that Mennonites were taking and especially in our own neighborhood.
Myself and my brother had been exempted because of this farm — that wouldn’t be a furlough, what would that be called?
Q: Exemption? Farm exemption?
We were exempted because of participating in farming.
That was supposed to have been because of the fact that we could produce food, so our people, even that were in war-torn countries, even in our own country.
Well, the sentiment got so that in our neighborhood, that people couldn’t put up with some young men being exempted and others having to go and serve their time in military service.
Many had even went and never came home because of war service.
Well, it was during that time that a number of people came to my parents’ home when I was still at home and helping my father farming.
One night they came to my parents’ home and wanted to demand that my father buy war bonds and when he refused to do that because he figured that buying war bonds would be helping out in the war and promoting war, so these people that night said that, “We’re going to tar and feather you,” and my father was not well at that time, and my brother George stepped out — they were in our front yard — and my brother stepped out and said that they, that he would take my father’s place.
So that’s what happened that night.
My brother was tarred and feathered in my father’s stead.
Q: Give your father’s name.
My father’s name was Walter.
Q: How old were you and how old was George at this time?
I was twenty-one years old at that time and my brother George was twenty-five, and that seemed to satisfy this gang of people that night, and as quick as this was done, the whole bunch [word(s) omitted] as fast as they could go.
From here, he goes on to describe what happened when he was drafted, and sent to a detention camp where they tried to break down the conscientious objectors and convince them to take up arms — haranguing them, hosing them down with cold water, threatening them with execution, submitting them to various ordeals, assigning them work that was incrementally more-militaristic in nature to see how far each man would go.
(Still, he says he’s thankful he was drafted late in the war, as Mennonite objectors had been treated worse earlier on at the same camp — some beaten to a pulp.)
While he was in camp, the war ended.
He tells this story about what happened next:
[B]efore the armistice was signed, we were classed as some sort of a creature, you might say, instead of a human being, and after the armistice was signed, things changed altogether.
I think they thought more of us as a human being than what they had before.
I might just say here that a day or two before we were discharged, one of the top sergeants who had been the roughest and meanest and the… trying to get us to change our minds the hardest of any officer in the camp, we had gotten together and bought a Bible and presented him a Bible that morning at roll call and this man broke down and wept.
I thought he had such a hard heart and the way he had acted during the months before, I thought he couldn’t shed a tear, but this man broke down and wept, so it shows to me that, after all, he was simply carrying out his duties as a military officer and he really didn’t believe in the things he was doing himself.
The conversation came back around to Liberty Bonds and the pressure put on Mennonites and other pacifists to put their scruples aside and fund the war effort:
Q: You said the mob came to your house because they wanted your father to buy war bonds?
Did some of the Mennonites around here buy war bonds?
Yes, they did, And that’s the thing that made it a little harder, because some did and some didn’t, and there was a kind of a divided opinion as to what those war bonds were used for.
Q: Were there other incidents of this type around here where this kind of pressure was put on?
Not in our immediate community, but there was in the Canton, Kansas, community.
Same thing happened over there, to a minister there.
… Dan Diener, I believe was his name.
It seems like that that was after them [word(s) omitted] thing that they did, and they [word(s) omitted] that that satisfied them.
Q: Do you think that they were ashamed of what they had done?
It seemed to be that many of the people that were there that night eventually would tell part of their experience and they even named the people that were in the gang that night — mob, as it was called, and many of them were ashamed of what they did.
Q: Did the general community around here, do you think, support them, or were they more opposed to this kind of action?
I think the general community of our neighbors around here were strongly opposed to that kind of action.
He remembered this interesting detail from the conscientious objector detention camp:
I might say there was a question too that was asked so many times by the officers in the camp.
That was, “Did you vote?”
That was a very common sentence that was brought before these conscientious objectors.
“Did you vote?”
And the ones that did vote, said, “Well, it’s up to you to support your government.”
Of course, that was a little bit harder to answer.
Then how come you don’t support your government if you voted and helped to put in these officials?
I might say that I have voted once in my life, and I’m seventy-two years old.
Q: Is that the reason, you feel you have to support their…?
I think that’s the strongest reason I can put forth.
When the conscientious objectors were released from detention, they were issued paychecks for the time they had been officially in uniform.
[I]t had been decided amongst the whole number of men that were there that the money that we had would go into relief… to a relief fund, and none of it was kept individually.
We had one man, a representative of this decision, that collected checks from everyone that agreed to do this and this was taken in one… what should I say… one bunch, so we had no money whatsoever to spend from the government check.
Tax resistance campaigns have occasionally utilized buycotts and boycotts to
give businesses incentives to support tax resisters or withdraw support from
tax collectors. Today I’ll summarize a handful of examples:
The Addio-Pizzo Movement
Boycotts and buycotts are the signature tactic of the Addio-Pizzo movement
in Sicily, which is trying to encourage businesses to stop paying taxes to the
mafia. The movement launched when one hundred Palermo businesses announced
that they would no longer pay the tax (another 100+ businesses later joined
them), and 9,000 residents signed a pledge to only buy goods from businesses
that joined the refusal.
The movement also launched its own supermarket — “Punto Pizzofree” — that
stocked nothing but products grown or manufactured by resisting suppliers, and
it held a “pizzo-free” street festival. It called the strategy “Critical
Consumption” and encouraged consumers to break the back of the “pizzo” (mafia
tax) by changing their shopping habits.
Poll Tax Rebellion
During the poll tax rebellion in the United Kingdom in
(see ♇ 6 September 2012) the
government tried to recruit newsstands and convenience stores to be
collection points where people could pay the tax. Poll tax resister Danny
Burns recalls:
In Bristol, the city council identified twenty newsagents who they hoped
would collect the Poll Tax. Within weeks of the list being circulated six
pulled out. Local communities made it plain that they would no longer use
the shops if they continued to collect.
Liberty Bonds
The United States government raised money to fight World War Ⅰ by selling
“Liberty Bonds.” Some Americans who opposed the
U.S. entry into
the war were alleged to have threatened to boycott banks that handled the
bonds. According to one newspaper account:
Efforts to prevent banks from handling the bonds have centered chiefly in
Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Missouri and
Oklahoma. The President of a Wisconsin bank has advised the Treasury that his
depositors, mostly Germans, or of German parentage, have withdrawn many
thousands of dollars from his bank because he aided the First Liberty Loan.
These depositors, he added, had taken their accounts to two rival banks on
the understanding that those banks would not aid the second Liberty Loan. The
two banks, he reported, were not aiding the loan in any way.
The Carrotmob Model
A new buycott model has been developed in recent years that, though it has not
to my knowledge been used by a tax resistance campaign, may have some promise.
In this model, an organization holds out the promise of a mob of buycotting
activists swarming a business on a certain day to buy its products, then it
asks a number of businesses to bid for the right to be the targeted business
by promising to use the profits from that day’s business in a particular
way.
For instance, one liquor store won a bid by promising to devote that day’s
profits to improving the energy-efficiency of the store’s refrigerators.
Customers lined up around the block to make their purchases at the targeted
stores on Carrotmob day, and everybody came out a winner.
Tax resistance campaigns might use a similar approach to encourage businesses
to stop stocking goods with high excise taxes, or to stock alternative
tax-free goods, or to stop collecting or remitting certain taxes, or to stop
participating (as in the Poll Tax Resistance campaign above) in tax collection.
One way of spreading the tax resistance message and of targeting potential tax resisters when they may be most receptive to that message is to propagandize them at the time and place when they make their tax payments.
This tactic is prominent in the modern war tax resistance movement, which often conducts demonstrations and other outreach activities on the day when income tax forms are due (for instance, around April 15th in the U.S. nowadays).
Here are some examples from the modern U.S. war tax resistance movement:
“Instances have been brought to the attention of officials,” said a
New York Times article about “pro-German agents
in the United States” in ,
“where buyers [of World War Ⅰ ‘Liberty Bonds’] have been approached,
apparently in a spirit of great friendship, and advised not to buy the
bonds.”
War tax resisters in Spain held a
“chorizada,” or barbecue, in front of the Palacio
Foral in Biscay, to protest the “chorizada,” or swindle,
of military spending, passing out pieces of “chorizo”
(sausage) to passers by while promoting war tax resistance and
redirection.
Mary Stone McDowell is a rare — perhaps unique — example of someone who took a war tax resistance stand during World War Ⅰ and was also part of the post World War Ⅱ revival of war tax resistance in America.
Miss Mary S. McDowell, Member of Society of Friends, to Face Trial.
Miss Mary S. McDowell, a teacher of Latin in the Manual Training High School,
was suspended from duty without pay
as a result of charges of
pacifism brought against her several weeks ago by the Board of
Superindendents.
The order suspending Miss McDowell, issued by
Dr. Gustave Straubenmuller,
acting Superintendent of Schools, was approved formally by the Board of
Education at its meeting. In the formal notice the cause for suspension is
given as “conduct unbecoming a teacher.”
Miss McDowell will be called before a special committee of the School Board
to show cause why she should not be dismissed from the service. No date has
been set for the trial.
Miss McDowell, who lives with her mother at
No. 20 Crooke avenue, Brooklyn,
is a member of the Society of Friends and declares that by reason of her
faith she conscientiously is opposed to war and all its activities. It is
alleged she repeatedly refused to sign loyalty pledges circulated among the
teachers and refused to take part in Red Cross work and Liberty Bond sales.
Miss McDowell has been a teacher in the public schools for thirteen years and, in the opinion of Dr. Straubenmuller, is “a very estimable woman and an excellent Latin teacher, with unfortunate views regarding the war.”
,
but 70 pacifists throughout the country, including a former school teacher in
Brooklyn, will refuse to pay Uncle Sam who, they say, is spending his money
preparing for a war.
The group has grown since
when about 40 pacifists, objecting to the “war preparations,” refused to pay
either all or a part of their taxes.
Mary McDowall of 555 Ocean
Ave., a Quaker who taught
Latin at Abraham Lincoln High School until her retirement five years ago, is
a member of the group, known as the Tax Refusal Committee of Peacemakers.
“I’m Not Stingy”
Miss McDowall has withheld one-third of her total tax, claiming “at least
that proportion is used for war preparation.” The withheld amount, she points
out is donated to the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers).
“I don’t want the money I withhold,” she says. “I’m not stingy. I merely
won’t help in construction for war.
Miss McDowall’s Quaker principles caused her suspension from the faculty of
Manual Training High School in . She was
suspended for “disloyalty and insubordination,” having refused to take part
in the school’s patriotic aid program of World War Ⅰ.
She was cleared and reinstated in when it
was officially admitted that her Board of Education trial had been held “at a
time of great public excitement.”
Has Jaile[d] Confrere
The 70 “tax refusers,” in a statement issued at their headquarters, 2013
5th
Ave., Manhattan, announced
they “hail the courage of Katsuki James Otsuka,” who drew a three-month
Federal sentence and a $100 fine in Indianapolis earlier this month for
refusing to pay $4.50 in income taxes.
Otsuka also refused to pay the fine, choosing instead an additional sentence.
Among the organization’s Manhattan members is Sander Katz, 25, who served 19
months in jail for refusing to report for induction in World War Ⅱ and who
was sentenced to another year and a day for refusing to register under the
Draft Act.
Another Brooklyn Eagle article, from, I think,
around :
Mary S. McDowell, 74, retired public school teacher of 555 Ocean
Ave., wants it known that
again this year she is paying only two-thirds of her Federal income tax.
The reason, she advised during a call at the Brooklyn Eagle office, is that
she is opposed to war and refuses to finance the manufacture of war
materials.
“An estimated third of income tax collections goes for defense,” she said.
“So one-third of my tax payment, or what would be a third of it, I am giving
to a charity. I did it last year on my own initiative and this year I am
withholding one-third as a member of the ‘Peacemakers’.”
From its Manhattan office at 2013 5th
Ave. the Peacemakers issued a
press release in which it described itself as “a national pacifist movement”
and listed “27 men and 19 women in scattered parts of the United States” who
are not paying income taxes because they “refuse to finance war
preparations.” Miss McDowell is among those listed.
“I am a Quaker,” said Miss McDowell, the only Brooklynite on the Peacemakers’
list. “I have always been opposed to war. Not paying income tax is a
practical Way of expressing opposition to war.
“I was opposed to the first World War. I was teaching at Manual Training High
School then. Because of my expressed opposition I was fired. It wasn’t until
that I was reinstated as a
teacher.”
She was at Abraham Lincoln when she retired in
.
The Peacemakers’ list of tax rebels includes the names of the
Rev. A.J. Muste of 21
Audubon Ave., Manhattan,
described as secretary of the organization, and the
Rev. Ernest R. Bromley of
Wilmington, Ohio, named as chairman of the Tax Refusal Committee.
“One omission from the list,” the release explains, “is the name of Katsuki
James Otsuka, an earlham college student of Richmond,
Ind. He was released on
after serving nearly five months in the Federal Correctional Institution,
Ashland, Ky., for his
refusal to pay $4.50 income taxes. He was released even though he continued
to refuse to pay. His name does not appear because his imprisonment prevented
his earning a taxable income for .”
The Eagle covered her protest again in
:
Kansas Tax Conchies
Topeka,
Kan.,
(U.P.) — Kansas Internal Revenue officials
had two “conscientious objectors” on their hands today when Edith Aldis and
the Rev. Gerhard Friesen
defied Federal income tax laws on grounds that “too much of the money goes
for military armament.” Both have signed a statement issued by the tax
refusal committee of Peacemakers, a pacifist movement with headquarters in
New York.
A retired Brooklyn Latin teacher was one of 41 “Tax Refusers” across the
nation who deducted from their Federal returns — due
— percentages they said
would be used for present and future wars.
Mary S. McDowell of 555 Ocean
Ave., a Quaker who started
teaching in borough schools in and was
suspended from the school system for pacifist activities, in a letter to the local internal
revenue office said she was sending $237 — 60 percent of her return — to the
American Friends Service Committee, a charity, to keep herself from being
“involved in war preparations.”
The 76-year-old woman wrote: “All war is contrary to the essential principle
of Christianity and to the basic faith of democracy.” She inclosed a pamphlet
entitled “A Democratic Program for a Durable Peace” which she recently had
published.
, she said, she
deducted only 45 percent from her tax return. The increase this year, she
explained, was prompted not by inflation but by mounting Government spending
for rearmament.
Government Takes Lien
The income tax office , in a move to
collect the unpaid balance of her return, placed a lien on the elderly
ex-teacher’s pension.
A native of New Jersey, Miss McDowell attended Swarthmore College and taught
in Manual Training and Abraham Lincoln High Schools. She retired in
.
Her letter, in part, said: “I realize that I cannot entirely free myself from
being involved in war preparations; but I believe it is important to bear my
testimony in action as far as I can.
“Now that we are so largely devoting our men and our resources to war
preparations and taking part in an armament race, it seems clearer than ever
that our course may be leading toward world war and inconceivable slaughter
and destruction to our own country as well as the world.
“Accordingly, it would seem that not only religious pacifists, but all
intelligent true patriots should do everything in their power to halt
rearmament and vastly increase constructive activities looking toward
worldwide human welfare and durable peace.”
A 77-year-old former Latin teacher has taken a stand in which many of her
neighbors would like to join her ,
although for more personal reasons. Mary McDowell of 555 Ocean
Ave. has refused to pay her
income tax.
Member of the Tax Refusal Committee of Peacemakers — a group of individuals
scattered over the nation who withhold that part of their tax which they
believe will be used for armaments — Miss McDowell held back 70 percent.
Each year the tally grows. In , the elderly
teacher said, she deducted only 60 percent from her return.
it was 45 percent. It is her
custom to contribute the deducted amounts to the American Friends Service
Committee.
The Quaker lady has been fighting a war against war nearly all her life. She
started teaching in Brooklyn in but was
suspended from the school system because of her pacifist activities during World War Ⅰ.
Her defiance of the tax collector, Miss McDowell calls “the new patriotism.”
The popular idea, she said, holds up the soldier as a model of patriotism
but, against this, she matches her own method of “trying to prevent a
disaster to one’s country.”
Each year the U.S.
Government refuses to be persuaded and places a lien on her teacher’s
pension. Each year Miss McDowell tries, in the same way, to express her
belief that “war or threats of war cannot bring security.”
The Tax Refusers, she said, “strive not only to avoid assisting in
preparations for war, but also to point out constructive courses of action,
that will bring durable peace through human welfare, disarmament and solution
of world problems.”
Miss McDowell believes the great day of permanent peace “will come like
Spring,” suddenly but only as a result of slow preparation and a multitude of
just such efforts as her own small token resistance to the tax collector.
, McDowell was at it again, and
the Eagle was there:
Mary McDowell, 78, retired high school teacher of 555 Ocean
Ave.,
figured out her
Federal income tax.
It came to $300.
She promptly sent a check for $90 as her tax to the Internal Revenue Bureau.
“I’m paying only 30 percent of my tax,” she said
.” I refuse to pay the 70 percent
which goes for war purposes.”
She calls her tax defiance “the new patriotism.”
Miss McDowell is a member of the Tax Refusal Committee of Peacemakers — a
group of individuals scattered over the nation who each year withhold part of
their tax which they believe will go for armaments.
she has withheld part of
her tax.
Each year the Government refuses to go along with her and it places a lien on
her teacher’s pension.
She is a Quaker and has been fighting against war all her life.
“War is contrary to Christian principles and is contrary to democratic
ideals,” she contends.
Today, some clips from the morgue concerning “bond slackers” who refused to buy United States war bonds during World War Ⅰ, and the vigilantes who persecuted them.
Ottumwa, Iowa, — Leon Battig, an instructor in the high school at Albia,
who has been suspected of disloyalty, was dragged to the court house steps by
a mob and covered with a coat of yellow paint. Battig said war was against
his religion and he had refused to push the sale of Thrift Stamps. He was
asked to resign from the school.
Lincoln,
Neb.,
— Persons found guilty of
disloyal acts or utterances, with intent to hinder prosecution of the war,
are liable to a maximum punishment of twenty years in the penitentiary, under
the terms of Nebraska’s sedition law, recently enacted by the Legislature and
made effective to-day by the signature of Governor Neville.
Yellow paint was applied last night to the residence here of the
Rev. George Allenbach, one
of five German Lutheran clergymen of Lincoln and vicinity who recently
declined an invitation to participate in a patriotic Liberty Loan rally.
In Oklahoma a man is either a 100 per cent.
American or nothing. An extremely breezy account appears in the Oklahoma
Leader of the way they manage loan slackers down there. One man, reputed to
be worth $75,000, refused to buy a bond. The crowd got right after him with a
real rope, and he was very glad to kiss the flag and buy a $500 bond. Another
man, whose only offense was to have in his drug store window a sign “German
Herbs”, bought a $100 bond to pay for his indiscretion. Every man who
demurred at the idea of lending Uncle Sam a few dollars at good interest was
led straight up to the subscription booth. They didn’t argue with him what to
do, they told him what to do. And he did it, for there wasn’t room in
Oklahoma for him if he didn’t. No wonder Guthrie went right over the top in
the first week.
Liberty Bond Detractor Is Given Drastic Treatment.
Connellsville,
Pa.,
. — Stripped of his clothes
and turned loose without them after a coat of green paint had been applied to
his body was the fate of Tony Senkis, an employe of the Dickerson Run shops
of the Pittsburg & Lake Erie railroad, when he is alleged to have refused
to purchase a Liberty bond last evening.
Senkis is said to have been approached shortly before the men quit work by
Liberty bond solicitors and to have said, “To hell with the Liberty bonds.”
Fellow workmen heard him and a crowd of about 40 quickly gathered and pounced
upon the man. He was taken to the outskirts of the town, and, after the paint
had been applied, was released. The man has not been seen since. Irishmen in
the town are protesting against the use of green paint and a petition was
circulated asking that, if the same methods are used again, some other color
than green be used.
Sixty Employees in Bagley & Sewall Plant Said They Would Quit Unless
Slacker Did.
A shower of yellow paint greeted a Liberty Bond slacker at the Bagley &
Sewall plant afternoon and as the
result of 60 employees in the vise department of that shop refusing to work
with him , the slacker quit
his job.
During the past week the Liberty Bond drive has been at the Bagley &
Sewall plant in real earnest and all subscribed liberally but two men. One of
those men took the hint and
subscribed when things were getting a little too hot for him, but another
said that he had “enough money to buy a bond but wouldn’t.” When John
Pawlis[?], a member of one of the Liberty Bond teams there handed in this
man’s card, he wrote the work “impossible” on it. It was then that others
started the real drive which resulted in the slacker being driven out.
A hole was bored in the floor above his machine
and a squirt gun filled with
yellow paint was showered on him from above. He was so completely covered
with the yellow liquid that all of his clothes were spoiled.
When he came to work this morning, wearing a new outfit, he found cartoons and
signs all about his table bearing the words “pro-German,” “slacker,” and
others. An American flag was also placed on the wall near his machine and
when he attempted to take this down he was warned that if he did he would
receive a good beating. The employees of the room then gathered about him for
the attack, and he gave up his designs on the flag. Later 60 employees of the
room told their foreman that they would all quit if the slacker didn’t.
The man in question is said to be a member of the International Bible
Students’ Association.
The Liberty Bond drive is progressing speedily at the Bagley & Sewall
plant today. One man reported that he had sold eight bonds in one hour.
The final roundup of Liberty loan slackers will be made
by members of Company A and Company
C of the home guard. There are known to be six persons in the Tonawandas who
can afford it and have not taken out bonds. These people will receive a
personal call from the home guards who will make the round-up in uniform and
with full equipment.
Company C, in command of Capt.
August von Kliest, following its regular drill last evening called on a
liberty loan slacker whom every other person had been unable to bet
[sic] to buy a bond and succeeded in getting his signature
to an application and his first payment.
Capt. von Kliest’s company
is a 100 per cent organization in the loan, every member having taken a bond.
Schwainler Press Mailers Say Only Loan Slacker Is Slated for a Patriotic Act
Any one seeking a little patriotic excitement might drop around in front of
the big Schweinler Press building,
No. 421 Hudson street, at
and see a
German kiss the American flag.
He’ll kiss it, all right, because the Mailers’ Union says he will, and any one
who knows the rank and file of the Mailers’ Union knows that when they say
they will make a German kiss the American flag he’ll do it.
The Schweiler press is union from top to bottom, more than five hundred men
and women, and all but one man own Liberty bonds of the first, second, and
third issues. That one man, a mailer, has refused to buy a bond. All the other
mailers signed a statement on that
they would not work with that man if he did not buy a $100 bond.
Before the ultimatum reached the company the Mailers’ Union took up the matter
and to a representative the German said he had taken an oath which prohibited
him from aiding the United States in the war. He was notified that at the next
meeting of the union he would be expelled.
That did not satisfy the union employes of the establishment who served notice
on the German that if he had not purchased a $100 bond by
he would be taken into
the street in front of the building and there be compelled to kiss the
American flag, after which he would be lucky if he got away with a whole hide.
“The union employees of the plant are in an ugly mood about the matter,” said
an official of the union last night.
Pastor Explains His Refusal to Aid Loan
The hostile attitude that had been growing in the Bronx against the
Rev. Frederick Noeldeke,
pastor of St. Peter’s
Lutheran Church, No. 672 East
218th street, because of his alleged
unwillingness to support the Liberty Loan from his pulpit, came to an end
when the Executive Committee of
the Bronx Liberty Loan Committee accepted the explanations which Mr. Noeldeke
offered in a letter to Douglas Mathewson, chairman of the committee.
Mr. Noeldeke explained in the letter that he considered his sole duty was to
preach the gospel, and that he was in accord with the Scriptures, if not with
his congregation and Mr. Mathewson, in holding his church to be a place “not
of this world.” Upon learning that he was an American citizen and had
invested in Liberty bonds the committee members decided to consider the
incident closed.
Opposition to Mr. Noeldeke grew out of his refusal to co-operate with the
local committee and to take part in the recent parade.
Another article on the same page features Louis Krohnberg, a clothing
manufacturer, who dismissed all of his employees and gave them until six
o’clock the following day to buy a bond and to also recruit one other
bond subscriber. Only employees who fulfilled this demand would keep their
jobs.
Pastor Is German, and Used Language Exclusively in His Sermons, Regardless of Protest.
Lawrence, . — (Special) — The
Rev. Gustav Gastrock, pastor
of the Worden German Lutheran church, was taken from his home one mile north
of Worden, at by three men, who stripped him and smeared his body with tar. He
was then released by his captors, who would give no reason for their actions.
Residents of Worden say that in all probability the tar party was held as a
result of the alleged refusal of the
Rev. Mr. Gastrock to deliver
sermons in English on the Red Cross and Liberty loan campaigns, saying that he
conducted his services in German exclusively.
Three Men in Auto
The tarring was done by three
unknown men who appeared at the Gastrock home in an auto. One went to the
door and asked for a lantern. This was obtained by the pastor’s wife, who
handed it to her husband and then followed the men as they went to the auto.
Reaching the car the three men seized the preacher and threw him into the
rear of the machine.
Mrs. Gastrock followed the car a little way and then ran to the home of Henry
Hornberger, who, with others of the congregation of the church, went to the
rescue of their leader, only to find him returning smeared with tar.
Gave No Explanation
He declared that about a mile from his home the car had been stopped and the
three men proceeded to strip his shirt from him and smear his breast with
tar, using a flat paddle. He was released and the men left the place in their
car making no reply to the demands of the pastor that an explanation be given
as to why he was being treated so.
Undersheriff George Schultz made a trip to the scene of the tar party
, but could find no evidence as to
the identity of the members of the tar party outside a blue serge cap.
Mailer Who Refused to Subscribe Discharged, Finds Another Job and Hurriedly Quits.
The mailing room employe who refused to buy a Liberty bond, and thereby
spoiled the otherwise 100 per cent record of the mailing and binding
department of the Charles Schweinler Press,
No. 421 Hudson street, is
probably alive , but he is out of
the job he obtained after being discharged by the Schweinler management. If
he hadn’t made his escape he might not be alive, as open threats of lynching
him were made by other mailers when they found out who he was.
The man’s discharge forestalled members of the Mailers’ Union, who had
arranged to force him to buy a Liberty bond or to kiss the American flag in
front of the Schweinler Building in Hudson street. After leaving the
Schweinler establishment he sought work in a newspaper office.
He was taken in readily enough, but it was not long before the loyal mailers
in the place found out his identity. The “bond slacker” immediately scented
danger in the air and disappeared.
The man will be expelled from the Mailers’ Union at the next meeting,
according to John McArdle, business representative of the organization.
“To Hell With Liberty Bonds” Sends German to Hospital.
Because, it is alleged, he said “To hell with Liberty bonds, I won’t buy
any,” Henry Lattell, 56, of 128 Adams street, Hoboken, registered German
alien, is in St. Mary’s
Hospital suffering from a much battered head and may die.
Joseph McDonald, 43, of 132 Adams street, declares he overheard Lattell make
this statement. McDonald says that he demanded that Lattell retract and when
he refused McDonald hit him and didn’t let up until Lattell was badly beaten.
McDonald is held on a charge of assault and battery.
Pottawatomie County, Kansas, Contains Many Slackers
Yellow Paint, Tar and Feathers Are Employed to Persuade the Unsympathetic
to Aid in War Work.
But Pottawatomie County is on the yellow paint trail to loyalty. By
, the 100 per cent American assert,
the county will be a decent place for a patriot to live in. The loyalists
are going right down the line. It is either hush up, take a dose of yellow
paint, or get out. There is a pot of tar and an old feather bed stored
carefully away in a handy nook in Wamego for second offenders. Beside the tar
pot is a partly empty can of yellow paint and another full one.
“We have quit quarreling with folks because we are Americans,” said Floyd
Funnell, mayor of Wamego to a representative of The Star. “Until recently we
have tried to argue with the slackers and Huns. Every time we mentioned we
were Americans it brought on a brawl. Never again. Everybody in this
neighborhood is going to be an American or ostensibly an American
sympathizer. We can’t hope to change the heart of the Hun but we can and will
change his actions and his words.”
The ultimatum went forth some time ago. A lot of slackers laughed then. But
by the time the second Red Cross war fund drive was over there was beginning
to be a change of tune around Wamego. The tune is changing now throughout the
county and is spreading with considerable rapidity into Wabaunsee County, just
across the river from Wamego. Wamego residents may have some yellow paint and
some tar and feathers to spare for slackers and disloyalists in Wabaunsee
County if people there do not apply the proper medicine.
Thus far only yellow paint has been applied to slackers in Pottawatomie
County. But it has been smeared around over seven residences, one motor car,
and two business buildings. Its first use was at Westmoreland, where the
Schlessmann butcher shop was daubed when it was said Schlessmann failed to
the Red Cross. This was a wholesome lesson. It was asserted not less than 200
voluntary subscriptions to the Red Cross appeared suddenly in Westmoreland
after that.
Painted a Banker’s Car
In Wamego the first yellow paint was applied because of failure to subscribe
to the Liberty Loan. The process was carried through the Red Cross drive and
culminated in the painting of the motor car of Louis B. Leach, president of
the Wamego State Bank, since deposed and no longer an actual resident of
Wamego. Paint was applied on property of the following in Wamego:
Louis B. Leach, sidewalk in front of home.
Louis B. Leach, motor car.
John Kramer.
William Kolterman.
Ed Payne.
Henry Horst.
Nick Hirsch.
E.J. Fischer.
Emile Brunner, law offices.
Payne, Kramer, Kolterman, Horst, and Hirsch are alleged to have failed to
subscribe to the Liberty Loan. They were said to be fully able to do so.
After the application of the paint each subscribed. In the case of Payne there
is evidence some bad advice was given him by someone in Wamego. It is asserted
by friends he is loyal, but given wrong advice in making investments.
Louis B. Leach subscribed heavily to the Liberty Loan, but he refused to give
to the Red Cross, it is charged, except $1 a month for six months. Leach is
said to have told the committee which called upon him he believed the Red
Cross was a great graft. For that the sidewalk in front of his home was
painted with a big cross in yellow paint. A few days later, when Leach is
declared to have told another committee “You can tar and feather me, or even
kill me, I won’t give a cent,” his motor car was painted yellow. A cross was
painted on each side and the word “Slacker” cut in the paint.
A peculiarity in the statements of some of the banks of Pottawatomie County
was noted in the official statements of the condition of the banks on
, as published in county papers.
Most of the banks of the county showed ownership of United States bonds and
many showed war savings stamps on hand. These are all state banks. But one
bank at Onaga, patronized chiefly by Germans, and another at Fostoria, with
a large German clientele, did not disclose the ownership of $1 worth of
government bonds or war savings stamps.
Herman Uhlrig, president of the Farmers State Bank at Wamego and a large land
owner, was forced to bring his wheat to market this spring by an officer of
the Food Administration. He had several thousand bushels of wheat in his bins,
it is asserted, and had refused to sell all winter.
He did not delay when the order came to sell. Uhlrig is charged with giving
advice to many of his customers not to invest in the Liberty Loan and it is
asserted it was because of accepting his advice several of those in Wamego
found yellow streaks painted on their homes.
Threat of Coat of Yellow Paint Brings Them to Time.
Plants Now 100 Per Cent
Buffalo Bolt Company and Buffalo Steam Pump Company on Honor
Roll — Well-to-do Merchant Purchases Only $50 Bond.
Cleaning up the Liberty Loan bond slacker is a duty which patriotic citizens
of the Tonawandas have taken upon themselves. Several days have passed since
the time for volunteering expired and there is an increasing disposition to
use force instead of employing less drastic measures. Coaxing is no longer
considered necessary to get persons who are financially able to purchase
bonds to do their bit.
Among the instances where force has been used in bringing about subscriptions
from stubborn persons in the Tonawandas is one that occurred at the plant of
the Buffalo Bolt Company . Three
or four of the 1,000 or more workmen at the plant had refused to yield to all
previous efforts to get them to take out bonds. Several of the patriotic
workmen resolved to bring them to time. They decided that a coating of yellow
paint administered in a vacant lot adjoining the plant would perhaps have the
desired effect.
A wheelbarrow was secured and the first victim was led forth by the coat
collar, while others followed with a pail of paint. When the man in custody
realized that he was in for some rough treatment he changed his attitude. The
other men who previously showed no inclination to take out bonds fairly fell
over each other in reaching the office of the company where they subscribed
for bonds. Today the company reported 100 per cent in subscription.
A report was circulated that a coating of paint was applied to one of the
employes of the Buffalo Steam Pump Company before he subscribed to the
Liberty Loan. An officer of the company however, stated that such treatment
had not been resorted to, although some of the workmen had been rather
backward about taking out bonds. The company is now among those who are in
the 100 per cent class.
(By International News Service) El Paso, Texas, . — The
Liberty Loan committee of this city and county have organized a vigilance
committee of twelve men for the purpose of investigating all cases where it
is suspected person[s] are deliberately trying to evade the purchase of
Government war securities.
The committee is prepared to go the limit to force such people to do their
part, according to George Thiesen, chairman of the vigilantes. Yellow paint
is one measure which is depended upon to bring out the latent patriotism of
luke-warm Americans, and it is predicted that some well-known citizens will
come to the store some morning during the drive and find their places of
business painted a screaming saffron.
Fond du Lac’s first anti-slacker demonstration occurred the other day when
a group of citizens visited the farm of Joseph Buechtel, near Marshfield,
Wis., and smeared his
house, barn, outbuildings, automobile, and machinery with yellow paint and
German war crosses. On the sides of the buildings large signs were painted
accusing Buechtel with refusing to buy liberty bonds or contribute to war
charities. Buechtel is thirty-nine years old and unmarried. He recently was
arrested charged with failing to register for military service.
People walking along West Main Street noticed some yellow paint on the shop of Henry Freudenberg and upon inspection found the words “slacker” and “skunk” painted on the building.
The assumption is that the painting was done by some patriotic citizen or citizens whose indignation was aroused by the fact that Henry had not bought a Liberty Bond.
Investigation shows that Mr. Freudenburg had not bought a bond of any of the three preceding issues and refused each and all the Liberty Loan solicitors who endeavored to sell him a bond of the fourth issue.
two members of the Vigilantes from
Grand Rapids, accompanied by local Liberty Loan committee men, went to the
home of C.C. Thompson, of Solon, and made an effort to secure a subscription
from him for Liberty Bonds. Thompson’s well-to-do circumstances are known to
the whole community, and his refusal to back up the boys who are giving their
lives in the trenches to protect the welfare of men like him, has aroused the
most intense indignation in the community. The Vigilantes found him
impervious to any appeal to patriotism, and characterized him in vigorous
terms. a large number of citizens
found that patience had ceased to be a virtue, and went to his home and
brought Thompson to town. He was mounted on the dray in the presence of a
large crowd of citizens and faced with an American flag and a service flag,
where another appeal was made to his patriotism. Again he refused to
subscribe. After that he was given a liberal coating of bright yellow paint,
escorted up the middle of Main street and warned never to enter Cedar Springs
again. He has been requested by the State Bank to remove his account with
that institution. If Mr. Thompson possesses the most elementary intelligence,
he has probably grasped the estimate in which he is held by the community in
which he has prospered under the Stars and Stripes; if he has any good
judgment, he should take the hint contained in the request to keep out of
town, for the citizens are thoroughly aroused and propose to make it
interesting for his kind.
The scene was one of the most distressing ever witnessed in the community,
and it seems incredible that there could be an American who has lived in
this land of freedom for a long period of years who could be so callous to
the loyal service and sacrifice of the boys across the ocean. It brought a
scene of blistering shame to every red-blooded person present that such
discipline was necessary to teach a man of Thompson’s age where his duty
lay. Most men would gladly surrender all they possessed rather than be
seared publicly with the scorn and contempt of a whole community.
The Liberal sincerely hopes it will never find another occasion in which it
seems necessary to mention Thompson’s name in its columns — Cedar Springs
Liberal.
The Brookfield Courier :
A citizens’ “regulation” committee called at the home of a well-to-do Oxford
resident the other night and painted parts of the exterior of his residence
in streaks of yellow paint. The victim of the demonstration had refused to
buy Liberty bonds.
The Fairport Herald :
Because of his refusal to buy Liberty bonds of any of the four bond issues or
to subscribe to the Y.M.C.A. fund,
citizens of Oxford showed their disapproval of the disloyalty of
Dr. D.A. Cleason of that
village by liberally decorating the front of his house with yellow paint and
by painting the word “slacker” on the windows. The doctor is very unpopular
in Oxford on account of “nearness.” He and his wife have left town for the
West on a visit.
Court Vindicates Men Accused Of Punishing John Meintz As Disloyalist
Welcome home by a large delegation of Luverne
(Minn.) citizens, headed by
a band, was the sequel yesterday to the acquittal of 32 residents in federal
court at Mankato on the charge of kidnapping, tarring and feathering John
Meintz, according to dispatches from Luverne last night.
Meintz asked personal damages of $100,000 as balm for the treatment he
received on the night of .
The jury denied him any damages, after deliberating one hour and a half.
Judge Wilbur F. Booth, in charging the jury, said that the evidence was
overwhelming in support of the contention that Meintz was disloyal and that
there was a strong feeling against him in the community.
The action of the Luverne citizens in staging a celebration was taken as an
indication of strong approval of the acquittal verdict, according to
dispatches.
A man who read philosophy and politics, Herman despised all war and refused to contribute to its financing.
Finally a local “third degree committee” came to his farm west of town.
His wife watched while holding their infant in her arms as the men strung a rope over the limb of an apple tree.
When Herman continued to refuse to buy Liberty Bonds, the committee ran him into town and grilled him until early morning in the hall of a local fraternal organization.
A local lawyer sat on the arm of his chair and threatened to punch him in the face unless he agreed to buy bonds.
What Herman said in defense of his actions was used to prosecute him for sedition, The Billings Gazette editorialized that “he should be prosecuted to the extreme limit of the law.”
He was convicted in a 1½-day jury trial and served 28 months.
He was released .
Ruth Benn, coordinator of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, discusses how because war tax resisters are a largely individualist, idiosyncratic breed, they have difficulty congealing into a unified movement, in Individual Choices and Movement Building: Shall the Twain Meet?
The folks at Crimethinc have put together a well-designed and inviting anarchist appeal: “To Change Everything”
Notes on issues for war tax resisters crossing the border, glitches with the latest tax bill, the difficulty in understanding IRS interest rates, new estate tax exemption limits.
Advice on starting a local war tax resistance support group, writing letters of protest to the IRS, and a review of “Walden: The Video Game.”
Ilene Roizman tells us of her recent decision to begin to resist and redirect her taxes.
I started a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today I pick up where I left off, at the beginning of World War Ⅰ.
The United States entered the war, officially anyway, in .
I know that some Mennonites resisted the frenzy of pro-war patriotism that followed, but The Mennonite itself clearly did not.
The front page of the edition reproduced an extract from Report of Committee on Citizenship of the Eastern District Conference that, while it reaffirmed “our fundamental principles of peace and non-resistance” also counseled that:
There is abundant historical precedent of patriotic financial assistance given by Mennonite peoples to their governments in times of war in other countries to warrant us in recommending that our people subscribe liberally to government bonds as a means of financial assistance to our country.
We recommend that all our members who are able to do so, invest in government bonds.
An article on war taxes from the issue continued the trend of reporting on what would be taxed and how much without any hint that Mennonites should be troubled by this.
Articles about the “Liberty Bond” drives reported on their “overwhelming success” and made no mention of the people (including many Mennonites, though you wouldn’t know it from reading The Mennonite) who were refusing to buy them for conscientious reasons.
The issue reprinted A Short and Sincere Declaration, which was said to have been delivered on behalf of German Baptists to “The Honorable House of Assembly” in .
The declaration said that “we find no Freedom in giving or doing or assisting in Anything by which Men’s Lives are destroyed or hurt” but:
We are always ready, according to Christ’s command to Peter, to pay the Tribute, that we may offend no man, and so we are willing to pay Taxes and to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the Things that are God’s…
We are also willing to be subject to the higher Powers and to give in the manner Paul directs us:— for he beareth the Sword not in vain, for he is a Minister of God, a Revenger to execute upon him that doeth Evil.
Our small Gift, which we have given, we gave to those who have power over us, that we may not offend them as Christ taught us to pay the Tribute Penny.
This is an amalgam of three bible verses that are often used to excuse taxpaying and other concessions to government authority, and are the typical stumbling blocks for anyone trying to biblically justify tax resistance:
Matthew 17:24–27 — Peter pays the temple tax via a miracle from Jesus
Romans 13 — Paul says that worldly governments are God’s instruments and should be obeyed
Matthew 22:15–22 (et al.) — Jesus answers, “Render unto Caesar…”
In the issue, A.D. Wenger gave a report from Camp Lee, where some 130 conscientious objectors, including Brethren, Quakers, and Mennonites, were being processed.
“[Some] care for horses, work in kitchens, etc.
Some work in hospitals or do clerical work.
Others refuse to do any work that directly supports the war.”
Some were imprisoned, fed on bread and water or not fed at all.
“The lives of some were threatened.”
Parents of some of those imprisoned tried to bring food but were turned away.
Wenger and some others tried to intervene by speaking with a General Cronkhite and Colonel Hunt, who were “severe” at first “but later were more mild and genial as they saw our position more clearly.”
They appeared to be satisfied if our people do not bear arms if they will only help along in some other way.
They say the whole nation is in the war and that all are helping, whether soldiers or not, by special taxes, farm products, etc.
What the government requires of us we must give.
It is our duty to pay our taxes.
“Pay ye tribute also.”
It is not until the issue that I find some evidence that Mennonites (if not The Mennonite) are conflicted about financially supporting the war.
From the lead editorial of that issue:
The launching of the Fourth Liberty Loan has again reminded us that when once war is on its way, peace only comes at a terrible cost in men and means.
Nearly two million of our countrymen are now overseas.
Their return to peaceful vocations depends largely upon the support they get from home not only in munitions, but in the things that sustain life.
A failure to give them the proper support would unquestionably prolong the war and cause greater suffering.
The traditions of our church have been those of a peace sect and the question naturally arises in the minds of some “Can I consistently buy bonds now?”
Buying bonds is supporting a government which is at war, but so is raising wheat or wool, or mining coal, or manufacturing lumber, since the government has decided to just what use these commodities are to be put.
We know of Mennonites who refuse to have anything to do with bond-buying.
Whether they are right or not is a matter we must let between their God and their consciences, but if they believe themselves to be right, we warn them that they must hereafter never touch a bond since their conscience has pronounced it an accursed thing, neither must they have anything to do with an institution that builds up its endowment with Liberty bonds, be it a school, hospital, or other benevolent institution.
It is our opinion that bonds, like money which they represent, are things belonging to the secular government.
It is our duty as good citizens to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.
We claim the protection and demand privileges of our government and are therefore in no position to be lax when it is in need of the use of our money.
Mennonites have plenty of historical precedent in the matter of loaning money to the government in war times.
…[For example,] Mennonites, at the risk of life, sent a considerable sum of money to William of Orange to help him in his great struggle for Protestantism and liberty.
…[And] during the Napoleonic wars, the Mennonites of Prussia rendered financial assistance to their government.
No doubt the assistance given in both Holland and Prussia were important factors in determining the favorable treatment Mennonites were given after that in these countries.
Bearing arms and participating in bloodshed are matters upon which people differ as to their right or their wrong, but concerning the matter of rendering to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, that is, giving to the government that which already belongs to it, is a thing upon which the Master acted long ago.
He showed us what our attitude should be.
Does it become us to try and change or improve upon a course already laid out by our Lord?
The editorial was unsigned; the editor at this time was Silas M. Grubb.
The churches have also taken a very decided stand on the question of the war loan.
There have been two such loans made in Canada and the Mennonites have been approached each time.
The churches in Saskatchewan had a meeting and decided unanimously that they would have nothing to do with the war loan but instead would make a handsome contribution to the Red Cross.
The feeling was the same among the churches in Manitoba, but here the canvassers made some of our people believe that the proceeds from their bonds would be used only for buying grain, and under that impression some subscribed to the loan.
This year the government came to us with a definite promise that the money which came from the Mennonites should be used for relief purposes only, that a separate account would be opened in the treasurer’s books for this purpose, and that it should be stamped on the bonds taken by Mennonites that the money went to the relief account.
Under these conditions the churches all have recommended their members to buy bonds.
It is estimated that about half a million will be subscribed by the Mennonites of western Canada.
This is the third in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today I pick up in the period between the World Wars.
[I]n your further argument about supporting the war, you seem to make no distinction between money given with the sole purpose in view of giving it support, and other money given or paid, in the way of taxes, or gain raised for food.
You certainly ought to be able to make a distinction here.
I do not raise grain for the express purpose of supporting the war, but as a necessity of life.
If others misuse this grain for the purpose of destruction, that can not be properly charged to me.
But if I buy a Liberty bond, etc., I am doing it with the impression that it is for the express purpose of supporting the war, because that is the purpose of the aid asked.
It seems to me that you ought to be able to see a vast difference between those two motives.
But in general, The Mennonite and its readers seemed still to be very casual about the use of war bonds.
The first issue of included a report from the Berne, Indiana congregation that included this remark:
On we assembled in our church in large numbers…
Although the expenses were greater in than in any other year in this century, the people contributed for the promotion of God’s kingdom more liberally than usual.
Not only dimes and dollars, but also War Saving stamps and Liberty bonds were offered.
Other casual mentions of war bonds and stamps were scattered through various issues.
For example:
To date we have received $5,040.00 in Liberty bonds and War Saving stamps.
In accord with the expectation of our government, these papers will be held for maturity.
Later, we expect, our missions will find good use for the principal.
The board is always ready to receive such securities for the use of missions.
The issue included an article about the Funkite schism among Mennonites in the Revolutionary-era United States.
Christian Funk was of the opinion that Mennonite colonists like himself should be loyal to the rebel colonial government, while the establishment position was that they should maintain their loyalty to the King.
The article reproduces some of an booklet by Funk, explaining his position.
Excerpts:
A tax of 3£, 10s. was now laid, payable in Congress, paper money.
My fellow ministers were, however, unanimously of opinion that we should not pay this tax to the government, considering it rebellious and hostile to the king.
But I have it as my opinion that we ought to pay it, because we had taken the money issued under the authorities of Congress, and paid our debts with it.…
…Cæsar had not been considered by the Jews, as their legitimate sovereign, and though they owed him no tribute, and that they had tempted Christ to find a cause against him.
But Christ demanded a piece of their money, and asked what image and superscription it bore, to which they answered Cæsar’s; he then replied, ‘Render unto Cæsar that which is Cæsar’s, and unto God that which is God’s’ I remarked further — were Christ here, He would say: ‘Give unto Congress that which belongs to Congress, and to God what is God’s.”
This displeased Andrew Ziegler, and rising said I would as soon go into the war as to pay the 3£ 10s., if I were not concerned for my life, and departed in anger.
In the past war the Mennonites were not as steadfast as they or as any other true Christian should have been.
We bought liberty bonds because, oh, we thought we had to.
Do we realize that perhaps our money was used to make shells to kill some one?
One Mennonite made the remark during the world war, oh it is absurd to be a Mennonite in time of war.
If this be true it is absurd to ever be a Christian!
Let us therefore be steadfast and rely on Christ to stand firm in time of war as well as in time of peace.
We spend 72 per cent of our entire budget on wars past and future.
Such heavy war taxes leave little enthusiasm to grapple with social, educational, and industrial problems.
After studying the teachings and spirit of Jesus as we believe He should be interpreted many earnest disciples are concluding that no Christian can have a share in war.…
Shall we as Christians and as His church to accept the demands of a sub-Christian world or be true to the way of Christ at any material cost and any personal distress?
We believe this moral dilemma is the most important aspect of this problem.
Very true Jesus commanded “Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s” but He also spoke, “And to God the things which are God’s.”
The same section of the issue meandered a bit on the topic of the separation of church and state and the possible conflict of God’s laws with man’s laws.
Excerpts:
Separation of church and state has been a cardinal principle of Mennonitism.
The laws of God as revealed in Christ and His Word are superior to man-made laws.…
This well-defined and historic principle, however, has created some curious facts in practice.
We think it proper to pay taxes, but how a corrupt government may use that revenue is none of our concern.…
Is it not time to square ourselves with God and reality?
Whether or not we like it we are a part of a social, economic, and political order.
Living apart from it is impossible.
To find out how to live in it and still do our Christian duty is our major problem.
A “jotting” in the issue returned to the story of the Funkite schism, but this time pointedly told it more from the point of view of the orthodox tax resisting Mennonites, and represented it as a question of paying taxes “for military support” whereas earlier tellings had portrayed the orthodox resisters as having been motivated by stuck-in-the-mud royalism:
During the period of the Revolutionary War in Pennsylvania, Mennonites became divided on the matter of paying taxes imposed for military support.
A small faction in the Skippack District under the leadership of a minister named Funk took a liberal view of the matter and paid the tax.
This party established several churches, the last of which became extinct about .
One of those who refused to pay the tax owned a splendid clock of the “Grandfather” type.
The tax collector seized the works in payment of the levy, but left the case in possession of the owner who promptly furnished it with new works.
When a boy, the editor visited the home of a descendant of the owner of the clock and was permitted to examine it and the works with which it had been refurnished.
It was an excellent time keeper.
A “Sunday School Lesson” meant for and focused on that ever-grovelling Romans 13, insisted, as Paul did, that government officials are instruments of God, even if they don’t realize it, and that therefore we should be obedient, even if some government officials are bad.
There are some exceptions:
“Laws that interfere with one’s conscience, laws that make murderers of men, laws that are aimed at the breakdown of religion are not real laws.
They are counterfeit…”
However:
Special emphasis is placed upon the paying of tribute.
Paul commends it.
So did Jesus when He said, “Render unto God the things that are God’s and unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”
[sic]
It is important that each one who benefits by the law do his part in its support.
That means giving of our possessions toward that end.
Some have taken the position that they are not of this world and so have no obligations to the powers of this world.
Were that so it might mean that disobedience to all law were justified.
In such matters, as in other things, we must take the example of Jesus.
He paid His tax.
There were many things in the government of His time that He could not approve by any means, but that did not prevent Him from meeting the obligations that citizenship imposed.
As citizens let us bear in mind that there are two kinds of citizens, the good and the bad.
Any one who would be like his Master certainly would want to be numbered with the good citizens.
On , George S. Stoneback preached an Armistice Day Sermon, taking as his text Ⅰ Samuel 30:24 — “As is the share of him who goeth down into the battle, even so is his portion who remains with the baggage, they shall share alike.”
He said:
When David said it he was thinking in terms of spoils, but his principle is true in more aspects.
The same can be applied to the responsibility for war.
Nobody wants war — yet the world is full of actual and potential warfare.
Nobody wants war, and yet we are all actively preparing for it.
Who is to blame? Who is responsible? The Japanese war lords? Mussolini? Hitler? France?
To be sure — but they have a lot of company.
They do not bear the responsibility alone; the world is full of baggage watchers who share alike in the responsibility for wars and rumors of war.
Every wage earner in the country is helping to finance America’s newest bid in the armament race.
About a year ago this country launched a cleverly conceived system of wage tax.
One cent on each dollar earned goes into a social security fund.
We thought it would go into a separate fund, but even Senator Norris admits that the money is going in to the general treasury to “balance the budget,” to buy new battle ships, etc.
We thought our money would be put into sound investments.
If a rapidly depreciating battle ship is a sound investment, then we have not been duped.
The United States is now building four new sixty-million dollar battle ships.
It is hard to tell how much of your wage tax will be used to pay for them.
How many people have protested?
Some Mennonites in Lancaster protested, but only against receiving the fund once it comes due, not against paying the levy.
Finally, the Young People’s Committee were at it again in the issue, reinterpreting “Render Unto Caesar” in the other direction.
Instead of trying to say maybe sometimes we should refrain from giving Caesar our denarius, the article argued that perhaps we should be more eager to give Caesar our two cents:
Unto the Jew of that day this [saying] could hardly mean more than the payment of taxes to the Roman Emperor.
Caesar governed.
That system of government did not place upon the Jews the duty to help solve complex problems of state.
Caesar dictated, and the Roman legions marched.
The commandment had a narrow scope.
Today, unto the Mennonites of America, this is a vital and challenging commandment.
In a democracy the people are supposed to govern.
To voice their desires is their duty.
“Render unto Caesar” refers, then, not only to the payment of taxes, but also to the duty of informing our law-makers that the troops of the United States shall not march.
Such action does not interfere with our supreme allegiance to God; it intensifies this allegiance.
Let us step out of the shadow of inactivity and into the sunlight of creative, Christian action for peace — sunlight which will help to dispel the shadows of war.
Either write to your representatives in congress when you consider the time opportune, or get in touch with Public Action, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y.
This agency will inform you when critical measures are before congress and when and to whom you should write.
This same agency issues the excellent Washington Information Letter.
Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.
And here comes World War Ⅱ. Let’s see how The Mennonite copes with the taxes and bonds that will fund it… in our next episode.
This is the fourth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal of the (Old) Mennonite Church.
World War Ⅰ was another opportunity for Mennonites to refine their doctrines concerning nonresistance and conscientious objection.
When I went over the back issues of The Mennonite, I noted that from the looks of it, the General Conference Mennonite Church was utterly unconcerned about the implications of buying “Liberty Loan” war bonds, even as I knew from prior research that there were many examples of American Mennonites who were persecuted for refusing to buy such bonds.
I was eager to learn whether the Mennonite Church, at least as represented in Gospel Herald, would be different in this regard.
As it turns out, the two magazines were as different as night and day.
Read on:
An article on “War Problems for Nonresistant People” in the edition discussed the nuanced differences between conscientious objection to bearing arms in the military, to non-combatant military service, and to civilian support for the military by such means as paying taxes.
Excerpt:
Our objection to noncombatant service is not against the humanitarian work [such as service in military hospitals] but against the matter of serving as a part of the system the avowed aim of which is to kill and to cripple before there is any work for the surgeon and the nurse to do.
What is the difference between paying taxes and raising food for the support of the army and supporting it in noncombatant military service?
No difference at all — if that is your purpose in paying taxes and raising crops.
But if, as nonresistant people usually do, you pay your taxes in accordance with the command to pay tribute to whom tribute is due and cultivate your farm that you may have something to provide for your own or care for the needy or help evangelize the world, there is as much difference between that and noncombatant service as there is between day and night.
Beware of Fakirs. — Word reaches us that in certain quarters there were men around trying to compel people to buy “liberty bonds” by making them believe that the law made such purchase compulsory.
Such misrepresentation is enough to arouse suspicion.
If they misrepresent one point, what assurance have you that they represent the government at all and that their object is not to pocket the money and give you a worthless paper instead.
There is no law which dictates to any man how he should invest his money.
Whether it is conscience, lack of funds, or disinclination to invest that keeps you from investing in these bonds, it is your privilege to do as you think best.
Whatever may be the business of any agent soliciting your patronage, be sure that he carries proper credentials.
And in the investment of your means don’t fail to apply the scriptural injunction “Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”
Olivia G. Honderich penned an article on “The Sin of Indifference” for the edition in which she struggled to find the appropriate boundary for a conscientious objector to war, particularly when it comes to taxpaying:
The live question of the hour to us seems to be, How can I best obey the Bible injunction, “Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you?”
Some say to be strictly nonresistant we must do this, others say we must do that.
Is not the question rather one of the motive, in this instance, than of the deed?
To be strictly out of all work that lends aid to our armies, we must either be helpless invalids or else engaged in some mental or moral occupation and hopeless paupers.
Our tax money helps, our farm produce is a big factor in the proposition; in fact, we can scarcely live a normal, active life and not be a factor in the war proposition, even though we do not so intend to be.
[E]very citizen of the U.S. is called to do his part, and must do it, in support of our armies at the front.
Not one of us can escape war service in some form or another.
We must work to live and so we pay our tithes to the government whether we mean to do so or not.
The Scriptures teach that Christ’s followers should render therefore “to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom;” “not only for wrath, but for conscience’ sake.”
We are not to “despise governments.”
When Jesus was asked, “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not” He answered, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
…If, by the payment of taxes and being engaged in agricultural pursuits we become responsible for having part in the war, then God bears responsibility for this war.
Does He not send the rain and sunshine by which this earth is made fruitful and the human family is fed?
We need to produce the necessaries of life, not only for ourselves, but for others who will have need and cannot be producers.
There is a civil population of our own country — the working man and his family — and unless food becomes more plentiful prices will continue to advance until they will be beyond the reach of the common population.
Thousands of exiles destitute and paupers in Europe and Armenia, who have been driven from their homes with no earning power, need to be supplied with food.
How shall they be helped?
To continue in the peaceful pursuits of life cannot be wrong when by so doing we are supplying the necessities of life for ourselves and our fellowmen.
We hold that to become a party to wage carnal warfare, regardless of the kind of service we are asked to perform, we are guilty of violating the principle of nonresistance as taught by our Savior and His apostles.
A man cannot become a willing partner in business, crime or other association, without assuming full responsibility for what the other fellow does.
We do not mean to say that certain service, such as hospital, etc., is the same as killing men, but the principle that involves me, by willing association with and aid to those who do the killing, would morally bind me and I would share responsibility with them.
Even so in the case of war, I would share responsibility with those who bear arms and kill, even though I performed such service only that I was not required to bear arms but was necessary to the prosecution of the war.
Daniel Kauffman (who was by this time the editor of Gospel Herald, and as much as anyone expressed the orthodoxy of the Mennonite Church) wrote about “The Mennonite Church and the Present War” for the issue.
He also took the tack that taxes were different from voluntary contributions when it came to complicity in war funding:
It is one thing to make voluntary contributions to help win the war, and quite another thing, in submission to the powers that be, to submit to any levy of taxes or confiscation of property that may be imposed upon us by state or nation.
The President has so far honored our faith that he has already declared that we shall be exempted from what he designates “combatant service” and it is not likely that we as a people will be called upon to violate in any form the principles for which we stand.
In order to show our gratitude to government for this privilege some have suggested that we offer to assist the government financially in the form of helping to pay war bills, buy liberty bonds, etc.; but in my estimation this would be but an indirect method of helping to “win the war” and we would become a part of the great military machine.
Jonas S. Hartzler would later write the book Mennonites in the World War, or Nonresistance Under Test in which he described instances of mobs who attacked Mennonites who refused to buy war bonds.
In the edition of Gospel Herald he promoted a sort of passive resistance to military taxation (through reducing taxable transactions).
This was the first time I’d seen the notion expressed in the Gospel Herald that Mennonites ought to critically examine the taxes they pay because of the military spending such taxes fund, and should respond by trying to reduce those taxes out of pacifist motives:
How much will you pay in taxes, duties, and extra prices for necessities in which money will be used directly to help on the war?
In some of these things you have no other recourse, nor should you try to evade them except as you can do so through careful economy.
Does the Lord not have reason to expect just as much from you (yea, more) fully as much to carry on His work as you are giving to further the destruction of human life which is a direct violation of the Sacred Scriptures?
Will you willfully do less than the Lord expects of you?
With this staring you in the face, will you cling to your money and still continue to say, “Lord, Lord?”
An uncredited short editorial (probably therefore the work of editor Daniel Kauffman) in the described some of the pressure “bond slackers” were subject to:
A brother was approached recently about the sale of “liberty bonds.”
He tried as best he could to give the nonresistant position with reference to the support of war.
The solicitor wanted to know what he would do if he were forced to buy them.
The brother replied that if the money were forced from him he would not resist; that in case the government saw fit to do this and afterwards offered to return the money he did not see any wrong in accepting the return of the money but thought it wrong to take any interest for money taken for such purposes.
The brother had the true conception of the proper attitude of nonresistant people.
Our prayers continue to ascend, however, that soon the powers that be may recognize our convictions with reference to war and acknowledge in full our liberty of conscience.
An uncredited essay (probably also Kauffman’s work) in the issue tried to turn on its head one criticism of Mennonite conscientious objection: that Mennonites were hypocrites for refusing to support the war effort by enlisting while they continued to support it by paying taxes and through agriculture.
If this is true, he wrote, then why complain in the first place that Mennonites aren’t doing their part?:
Our critics… talk about the inconsistency of withholding all support of war measures when at the same time we pay taxes and raise crops — and thereby convict themselves when they charge that we are doing nothing in return for governmental protection and prove their insincerity when they refuse to recognize that we have not been lacking in effort to provide necessities and relief for suffering humanity through we decline to support war.
Approached by the Government with the request that they buy Liberty Loan Bonds, the Russian Mennonites of the Canadian Northwest declined to do this, but agreed to make a contribution to the Red Cross work.
In fifteen congregations the recent donations to this form of relief work amounted to $13,654.55. This shows what may be done with but a little effort.
In the States our people have not seen fit to support the Red Cross work as a body because of its close affiliation with the military.
But the work of war sufferers’ relief is entirely free from this objection and our people should readily embrace the opportunity to prove their willingness to help the cause of suffering humanity.
That issue also carried a story, about A.D. Wenger’s visit to conscripted conscientious objectors at Camp Lee, that The Mennonite borrowed (I described some of that story in ♇ 6 July 2018 when I was going through back issues of The Mennonite).
John L. Stauffer shared his “Reflections Caused by Present War Experiences” in the issue, and was unusually strong in taking to task Mennonites who were willing to purchase war bonds.
Excerpts:
The Money Question
“Nothing goes without money,” is a current saying.
Especially is this noticeable in the present vast expenditures of the nations of the world.
The missionary work of the apostle Paul needed funds and yet many people in these days seem to think that the Lord’s work will run on its reputation.
Wealth has been accumulating on every hand.
God has been prospering, especially this country, but contributions to the Lord’s cause have not correspondingly increased.
Wealth that is in excess of actual needs is rusting according to James 5 and will bring down the just judgment of God upon the holder.
Many Scriptural references show the folly of riches.
Hoarded wealth will net a heavy tax to the government.
It seems that many are seeking to evade this by investing in Liberty Bonds as they will be free of taxation.
Recently a workman in the shops was loud in his denunciation of Mennonites who refused to fight and yet purchased government bonds.
He said, “They’re not consistent.”
He thought it did not seem fair that the people who could not conscientiously assist in the prosecution of this terrible war and destruction of human life, could still loan their money to the Government at 3½ or 4 per cent. interest when the money is invested in manufacturing and maintaining the necessary accessories to taking human life, making children fatherless, women husbandless and widows.
A member of the Church would come into disrepute if he loaned his money to a saloonkeeper or rented a building for the operation of a saloon, yet some members have been known to have invested in the greatest war of the world and draw interest from that source.
Note that you wouldn’t know from reading The Mennonite that Mennonites had any issues with buying war bonds at all.
So there was a very stark divide on this question between the two magazines.
To the present time the churches have not seen fit to purchase Liberty Loan Bonds.
We can not consistently take part in the military service of the country and be true to the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We can not send our boys to the trenches, the ammunition plants nor any other services which contributes directly to the killing of our fellowmen.
The principle of non-resistance is fundamental in Christian faith and can not be denied by the church if we would live.
But we are called “slackers,” because of religious convictions, we refuse to go to the trenches, buy Liberty Bonds, etc.…
Every member of the church should do more than a soldier on the firing line.
We should do more than buy Liberty Bonds.
We must do more than simply contribute to the Red Cross fund.
We must go the “second mile,” and as a church we must do more toward relief and reconstruction than can possibly be done through military avenues.
If the church will start something soon we can relieve the anxiety of hundreds of brethren who are sure to do something.
Some brethren have purchased Liberty Bonds because they felt it the best and only way to make contributions at this time.
If the church will start something soon we can have both money and men and the world will have no occasion to point the finger at us and say “Slacker.”
Brethren, whether the term “slacker” as applied to nonresistant people be just or unjust let us be up and doing.
Let us not content ourselves in walking with the “be good” fellows who passed by the man who fell among thieves.
Let us join hearts and hands with the “do good” man who came with oil and wine and carried the half dead man to the hotel and paid all his doctor bills.
The good Samaritan was non-resistant but he did a service which the world shall never forget.
No people on earth are in better position to do a similar service just now than are the Mennonites.
In the issue, John H. Mosemann wrote about the difficulty in finding ways to donate or invest money in ways that would be helpful to sufferers during the war without also aiding the prosecution of the war:
Our Church has been approached again and again from various angles with strong and determined effort to have her take part in some way in the greatest slaughter of human lives ever recorded in history.
Individuals here and there among us, for the sake of friendship with the world, love of fame, safe investment of money, etc., have yielded, seeking to do a “little” evil that “much” good may come.
Since the Church has tenaciously clung to her Lord and His Word conscientiously refusing any compromise to assist or lend encouragement to war in any form she has been looked upon as being stingy, miserly, unpatriotic, slackers, etc., by such who are of the worldly kingdom and some also who are professors of the religion of Jesus Christ.
It was necessary in order to maintain consistency with the teaching of Christ and the Apostles on the doctrine of nonresistance to hold aloof from buying “Liberty Bonds,” Red Cross Work, Y.M.C.A. Hut Fund, all of which has been found to be a part of the war machinery.
(The writer himself gave to the Red Cross fund, not thinking that it was a part of the war machinery for the furtherance and successful prosecution of the war.)
An unsigned editorial (likely Daniel Kauffman again) in the issue also addressed that theme:
We are under pressure to do many things in support of war which as believers in nonresistance we can not conscientiously or consistently do…
While those who favor the support of war are purchasing liberty bonds and contributing to such organizations as army Y.M.C.A., Knights of Columbus, Red Cross, etc., let us be equally zealous in our support of work along lines which we can conscientiously endorse.
Let us not forget the principal object of our contributions.
While it will be convenient to be able to say to the next government solicitor that comes around that we are giving more to the cause of relief for the needy than most people in similar financial circumstances who have no conscientious scruples against war are contributing towards war support, that is simply incidental.
Our giving should be out of a heart overflowing with sympathy for suffering humanity and our reward looked for “at the resurrection of the just.”
“As every one purposeth in his heart, so let him give.”
Another unsigned editorial
in the issue tried to walk the fine line — Mennonites want to support the government, perhaps even more during wartime when the government faces such challenges, but they are unwilling to support the government’s war effort itself in any way.
The writer also urged Mennonites to draw that line in the sand and defend it, as compromise could end up eroding conscientious objection entirely:
There are many things we may do with a clear conscience, and these duties we should not hesitate to perform.
The nonresistant attitude on war is this: Since we have no part in war, we can not consistently have any part in support of war.
At the present time this is expressed in the phrase, “no service under the military establishment.”
But this does not mean that we have no obligations to government or no increased burden because of the world’s great suffering brought on by war.
If we can not serve under the military establishment, there are other ways in which we may serve, if called upon.
If we can not subscribe to the Red Cross while that organization is enlisted in the work of the war, we can contribute to relief work in other lines.
If we can not subscribe for liberty bonds, we can subscribe for farm loan bonds or other government bonds not floated in support of war measures.
Compromise means later disaster or surrender.
A generation ago many of the Mennonites accepted noncombatant military service as a compromise to satisfy the government.
Today their sons are at the front, killing and being killed.
This war is perhaps the first war in history in which there were Mennonites on opposite sides.
The paramount question is not “noncombatant service,” “liberty bonds,” “Red Cross,” or any other side issue mentioned in the present struggle, but Shall we as followers of the Prince of Peace have any part in carnal warfare?
To compromise on any of these side issues means to surrender the whole question later on.
Militarists make no secret of their position that all these things are a part of the grand scheme of destructive warfare — except when in the work of winning over nonresistant people step by step.
Keep straight o.n the entire nonresistant program — no military service, combatant or noncombatant; no part in the support of any war measures — if you mean to preserve for yourself and your posterity the precious faith for which thousands of our forefathers gave their lives.
But, says some one, shall we invite persecution by refusing to do what we are asked to do?
No; don’t “invite” persecution, but stand by your convictions, whether that brings persecution or not.
We say, “God bless you, stand firm,” when our boys in camp meekly but firmly take their stand against military service.
And should not we outside the camp do the same thing?
In the end you will fare better if you stand by your convictions and suffer for it than if you keep on giving way bit by bit until you see that you must stop compromising or surrender the whole nonresistant ground.
Then you will face the alternative of either suffering worse than you would have done had you remained firm from the beginning or of surrendering your nonresistant faith entirely.
Better keep a clear conscience, make a clear record, and save a clear faith for yourself and your posterity.
Imperfect man is liable to err.
Sometimes our overseers are asked, “What are you going to do with the boys who accept noncombatant service? or the man who buys liberty bonds? or the member who does other things not according to the nonresistant faith?”
The faithful overseer invariably replies, in substance: “We mean to help every one in trouble.”
These are trying times.
Many have done things they ought not to have done because they were intimidated, or misinformed, or compelled to act unwittingly on the spur of the moment.
They need sympathetic help rather than censure.
It is not so much a question, What did they do under circumstances when they were not normal? as, What will be their attitude after they come to themselves and will have time for sober reflections?
Here is the practical point: If you find yourself in error, arm yourself for the next test, that you may be able to stand.
One attempt to find a way for Mennonites to contribute to the common cause along with their neighbors, without contributing to the cause of bloodletting, was with “Farm Loan Bonds” — like Liberty Bonds, these were loans of money to the government, but they were not as obviously connected with the war effort.
Here is how this was described in the Gospel Herald:
Farm Loan Bonds.
Several weeks ago Bro. [Aaron] Loucks sent out several hundred circular letters to about as many brethren, discussing some of the problems of the war, and asking the judgment of the brethren in the matter of purchasing Farm Loan Bonds — something that would aid the Government fully as much as the purchase of Liberty Loan Bonds would, and something that nonresistant people could consistently do without feeling that in so doing they would have a direct part in aiding and abetting war.
The response to this letter has been quite free, the brethren from all sections manifesting a unity of spirit and purpose similar to that manifested at our General Conference .
Following is a sample letter, giving an idea of what many of our brethren are thinking about and how they feel:
Dear Brother Loucks: — I am in full harmony with your suggestion for our people to buy Land Bank Bonds to help the U.S. Treasury.
I think every congregation should appoint a committee to see that food laws are observed, that War Relief Fund is properly supported, that Land Bank Bonds are bought by those able, that all are encouraged to not break over in violation of the nonresistant faith.
⁂ Put it up to the people through the Gospel Herald.
The Mission Board discussed this option at their annual board meeting on , and the Gospel Herald reported:
A special meeting of the Bishops present was held during an intermission and the following resolution was prepared and submitted to this meeting.
It was unanimously accepted.
Recognizing in the Farm Loan Bonds an opportunity for our people to aid the Government in a financial way without violating the principles of the non-resistant faith, we recommend that, in addition to generously supporting the War Relief work, through the Mennonite Relief Commission for War Sufferers, those of our people who are financially able to do so, invest in these Bonds, and that Aaron Loucks prepare a circular of information, and instructions to send to the various congregations.
The Eastern Amish Mennonite Conference met on and considered their own plan:
Mr. Crooks of Columbus, Ohio, gave a talk on the advisability of our members availing themselves of the opportunity of the Bank Loan System of Liberty Bonds, after which the following was passed: “The plan submitted to the Eastern A.M. Conference by Mr. Crooks, a representative of the Fourth National Bank, Cleveland, Ohio, by which our brethren would be permitted to loan money to their Local Banks in lieu of Liberty Loan Bonds.
We respectfully submit the following resolution by the above representation:—
Resolved, that since the above plan was favorably received, yet because the proposition was new to most of the congregations represented by this Conference, a committee of three be appointed to take up the matter with our local congregations, and representatives of sister conferences and the General Conference and report within 30 days.
An unsigned editorial
in the issue tried to sum up the latest thinking on how Mennonites ought to respond to the demands placed on them to cooperate with the war effort.
Here are some excerpts that touch on war bonds and other such financial support:
It has been the editor’s privilege to spend the past two weeks in fellowship with his brethren from many fields in a prayerful effort to help solve some of the problems confronting us as a people… As near as we were able to comprehend what was in the minds of our brethren concerning the war situation it may be summarized as follows:
That the withholding of our support from such war measures as Liberty Loan Bonds, Thrift Stamps, War Chests, etc., is based upon the same convictions [“that such… would be bearing the noncombatant end of an organized effort to take human life and overcome the enemy by means of violence — a service that nonresistant people can not consistently render”].
That nonresistant people may consistently purchase Farm Loan Bonds or any other government bonds floated in support of a cause which we can conscientiously support.
That the purpose of such purchases, is not (or ought not to be) to “do our bit” in an indirect support of war but to lend our mite in supporting our government in a cause which we can endorse without doing violence to our convictions of right and wrong.
That for nonresistant people to go against their convictions and lend support to any war measures is a surrender and a compromise which would eventually end in a surrender of the entire nonresistant ground.
That our danger is not in a complete surrender of the whole ground, but a giving away bit by bit until there is nothing left worth standing for.
It’s hard to overstate how much more thoughtful this is than anything I could find coming out of the General Conference Mennonite Church at this time.
Owing to the critical condition brought to bear upon the church because of our nonresistant principles, a plan was submitted wherein our brethren would be privileged to loan money to their local banks to be used for local purposes in lieu of buying liberty bonds, the following resolution was submitted: Resolved, that since the plan submitted in no way involves a violation of any principle of our faith, we commend the plan, and that a committee of three be appointed to co-operate with other committees appointed in further developing the plan.
Bro. Aaron Loucks of Scottdale, Pa. gave a plan of depositing money in the local banks for local use in lieu of the purchase of Liberty Bonds.
Conference passed the following:
Whereas a plan has been submitted to our brethren and acted upon by several of our sister conferences whereby our brethren would be privileged to loan money to local banks for local use only in lieu of purchasing Liberty Bonds, be it,
Resolved, That a committee of three of which Bro. D[aniel].
D. Miller shall be one, be appointed to work conjointly with brethren appointed by other conferences to work out the details of said plan, or to find a better plan and submit their findings to the brotherhood of this conference as soon as possible.
Decided that the moderator appoint other two.
Brethren S.S. Yoder and J[onas].S. Hartzler were appointed.
That Brethren Aaron Loucks and Daniel Kauffman be appointed a committee to correspond with Mr. Crooks of Westerville, Ohio, and such others as may be deemed advisable, relative to a proposed plan whereby Mennonites may aid the government by loaning money to local banks for local purposes in lieu of buying Liberty Bonds; and that the information they receive be given to the committees appointed by the different conferences on this subject.
Many of our people have been waiting for a circular of information concerning Farm Loan Bonds, which Bro. Aaron Loucks prepared some time ago.
These are times of fleeting changes.
About the time this circular was completed it developed that the plan would not work as satisfactory as had been hoped for, and another proposition whereby we might loan money to local banks was submitted by a government official to the Eastern A.M. Conference.
This proposition has been taken under advisement and a committee appointed by representatives of the Eastern A.M. Conference, the Illinois Conference, and the Indiana-Michigan Conference is working on a plan which they hope will be more satisfactory than that of the Farm Loan Bonds.
As soon as these plans have been perfected the committee wishes to submit its work to our people for their consideration.
We will likely hear from this committee within the next two weeks.
In the meantime let us remember this committee and its work before the Throne.
[Every minister should feel himself divinely called upon… t]o give his congregation faithful instruction as to what is the nonresistant’s consistent attitude toward such war measures as Liberty Loan Bonds, Thrift Stamps, War Chests, etc.
Lest some one should give this a twist and read into it a meaning which was not intended to be put into it, we might explain that we are emphatically against any active, open, defiant attitude of opposition toward any government enterprise.
We are totally out of sympathy with the attitude of I.W.W.’s and kindred organizations whose opposition to the present war is backed up by war-like resistance.
“The servant of the Lord must not strive.”
We should at all times maintain a submissive attitude toward government even if it is to submit peacefully to any punishment that may be meted to us because our understanding of God’s Word will not allow us to comply with the directions of Government with reference to military service, combatant or noncombatant.
But in these trying times there are many perplexing questions that arise, and our members have a right to expect that their leaders throw some Gospel light on these problems by giving faithful instructions concerning each issue as it arises.
This is a right that is conceded by all intelligent people, both inside the Church and out of it.
It is a duty which no minister should neglect.
[W]hen a person is truly nonresistant in heart and life it does not take a master mind to understand that if it is wrong to fight it is also wrong to encourage or help others to fight.
People who profess nonresistance but at the same time declare it their duty to “do their bit” in the support of war by means of money contributions or of noncombatant service are either misled or insincere.
A… waste of energy is going on… in an endeavor to force nonresistant people to support such war measures as Liberty Loan Bonds, War Chests, etc. We are not discussing the merits or demerits of the nonresistant position with reference to these matters.
But recognizing conditions as they are, we raise the question as to whether it would not be the part of wisdom to look for a solution of present problems in a way that would provide for a service on the part of all men along lines which they can conscientiously render.
Let us view this matter from a constructive business standpoint.… Would it not be better to come to an understanding with “conscientious objectors” whereby they may invest their money in a way which their conscience approves and at the same time be of service to their nation and humanity in general, rather than to try to force them to violate their conscience in the support of enterprises in which they feel they should have no part?
— In other words, would it not be the part of wisdom to use conscientious people in a way in which their conscience would be a help rather than a hindrance to their usefulness?
Even if it were possible to force every nonresistant draftee into noncombatant military service and compel every nonresistant man out of camp to support war measures (something which few men believe to be possible) it would be a waste of effort because it would be forcing abnormal conditions, since man is never at his best when compelled to live in violation of his own conscience.
The solution of this problem is not a difficult one, since nonresistant people have never refused to serve, have never asked for easy places, have repeatedly declared their willingness to bear more than their share of the burden resting upon humanity, making the single reservation of being permitted to serve in a capacity which their conscience approves.
So far as the Government and nonresistant people are concerned, all friction could be removed instantly on two conditions:
That the convictions of nonresistant people be fully recognized.
That provisions be made whereby they might make their contributions to causes not connected with the military establishment but equally important to Government — and sufficiently large that no one could reasonably entertain a charge of favoritism.
American Mennonites, Amish, and Hutterites were severely tried and tested during World War Ⅰ when the nation was swept up in a wave of patriotic hysteria and intolerance.
This was a time when lack of support or criticism of the war effort, any form of dissent, and all things German were viewed with much intolerance and suspicion.
Especially Mennonites and other Anabaptist sects became objects of severe criticism and harassment.
Their patriotic neighbors could not understand why many Mennonites, Amish, and Hutterite young men did not want to perform military or even noncombatant service.
They were angry when they learned that Mennonites and other nonresistant groups were very reluctant to contribute to the Red Cross, purchase Liberty Bonds, or give to local war chests.
Furthermore, they could not comprehend why Mennonites refused to display the flag at home or in their churches and continued to speak German or some related dialect.
Because of their nonconformist stand and behavior many Mennonites, Amish, and Hutterites were harshly treated in military camps or in their local communities.
In the camps many were tortured or ridiculed.
Of those at home some were tarred and feathered or otherwise physically abused.
Considerable abuse.
One who suffered considerable mental and physical abuse was Niles M. Slabaugh, pastor of Howard-Miami Mennonite Church, located about 12 miles northeast of Kokomo, Indiana.
Slabaugh was born in and ordained in .
He served his church until his death in .
Much to the anger of his fellow citizens, Slabaugh, like many other Mennonites, refused to contribute to the Red Cross, purchase Liberty Bonds, or contribute to war chest funds.
That kind of unpatriotic behavior came to the attention of the Loyal Citizens Vigilance Committee of Miami County, which decided to question Slabaugh as well as his brother-in-law, Joseph B. Martin, on .
During World War Ⅰ many local communities established committees to ferret out “unpatriotic” citizens and to ensure “one-hundred percent loyalty.”
In the Vigilance Committee of Miami County counted almost 2,500 members, including some of the most prominent citizens of the area.
Its meetings were well attended, and on , when Slabaugh and Martin were interrogated, “the hall was crowded and every bit of seating capacity used.”
Apparently, Slabaugh offered no resistance when they came to his home, but Martin hid in his bed where members of the Vigilance Committee found him.
Later when Slabaugh was being interrogated Martin jumped up and ran away.
However, he was caught and brought back.
Unlike his brother-in-law, Martin finally agreed to contribute to the war chest.
During the questioning Slabaugh acknowledged he had not contributed to the Red Cross and the local war chest fund, nor purchased savings stamps or liberty bonds.
He admitted he did not want to help the country in the war effort and did not believe in killing human beings.
Instead of violence, Slabaugh suggested prayer as a means of winning the war and bringing the boys home.
Slabaugh’s attitude provoked the anger of the Vigilance Committee as well as the local reporter of The Peru Republican, who concluded that within a few minutes the former had demonstrated Miami County was not the place for him to live.
Yet, surprisingly, the committee allowed Slabaugh to leave.
Slabaugh’s letter.
After the ordeal of , Slabaugh appealed to Aaron Loucks, chairman of the War Problems Committee of the Mennonite Church, for help.
In the letter below he describes his experiences of that fateful day.
(The original spellings and punctuations have not been changed.)
Dear Bro:
I will this evening write you in regard to the way the Miami County Ind. Vigilance Com. is doing and wondering whether it would be possible or advisable for you to bring this before the attention of Secretary Baker at Washington with the hopes he would in some way show his disapproval of the same and also whether it would be possible to have those of our brethren who have been scared into signing the Miami War Chest to become released.
several men came to my home and Joe Martin’s home who is my brother-in-law and demanded that we go with them to Peru our county seat.
We wanted to know why but they said they were U.S. Deputys and showed their Star and demanded that we go with them or they would take us by force so we went and were brought before a mob of about 700 people mostly masked who questioned us inside about an hour asking all kinds of questions regarding our stand in not supporting the war.
I answered as best as I could but they just ridiculed me and finally when I refused to sign the war chest card for conscientious reasons they took me down a dark alley, shook me by the neck called me a damn S. of B., a dirty cur, said I was not even a human and threatened to take my life but I wouldn’t yield so they finally in about two hours sent me home stating that I couldn’t live in the county.
They treated my brother-in-law similarly and finally got him to sign up just because he was scared.
Now they are taking others the same way.
I am satisfied that the U.S. government is not pleased with such outlaws.
Of course they then took parts of our answers and made it sound as though we were working against the U.S. Government.
Please let me know what you think best regarding this.
yours, Niles M. Slabaugh
Newspaper account.
Unfortunately, Slabaugh’s troubles were not over.
On , a group of twelve individuals went to his home to punish and frighten this Mennonite pastor.
This is how The Peru Republican describes the event of that day:
A week or more ago when Nicholas [Niles] Slabaugh was arraigned before the Loyal Citizens’ Vigilance Committee of Miami County he insisted he would do nothing towards helping his Uncle Samuel in winning the war from the Huns.
It will be remembered he said he would let the enemy destroy his home before he would offer any physical assistance.
Slabaugh would have another story to tell had he been interviewed but the alleged slacker citizen was not to be found.
The chances are he will be under cover for a while to come and thereby hangs a story.
Twelve citizens, one-hundred percent loyal, called on said Slabaugh about and putting the story as briefly as possible they acted thusly.
Slabaugh had retired as had the other members of the family.
Slabaugh was taken, partly dressed about twelve miles from his home.
His head and face were shaved and a coat of yellow paint applied to his body.
The manner in which the paint was used would cause one to believe it was the work of an artist and that it was a masterpiece, so skillfully was the job done.
Slabaugh threw himself on his knees and with his hands upraised begged for forgiveness and prayed aloud to be spared the punishment.
Of course no attention was paid to his pleadings.
The captors worked fast and like clockwork.
Last seen of Slabaugh with only an old hat to cover his bald pate he was seen running down the road as fast as his two legs could carry him…
The identity of the masked men could not be learned other than they were loyal citizens and in no way connected with the Vigilance Committee.
It appears the Vigilance Committee is not the only committee looking after Miami’s loyalty.
Aaron Loucks — who was involved in trying to come up with some alternative to Liberty Bonds that would be acceptable to Mennonite consciences and also something that “bond slackers” could point to as their own contributions to the commonwealth as a way of deflecting mob violence — answered some queries at the meeting of the “Committee of War Questions”:
In your investigations what have you found to be the mind of the United
States Treasury Department in regard to the purchase of Liberty Loan Bonds?
The question of finding some method of bearing our share of the burden
in these times of world distress has received prayerful consideration by many of our people.
Several plans have been proposed by which those who could not conscientiously support war measures could contribute to causes which would be a direct help to our Government and to humanity in general and yet would be consistent with their faith.
One of these was to purchase Farm Loan Bonds or other Government Bonds not floated in support of war.
At first the plan was considered with favor both by our people and Government officials, but upon further consideration was not considered feasible.
Next, a Government representative, Mr. W.L. Crooks, submitted to the brethren of Fulton County, Ohio, a plan during the third Liberty Loan drive which gave our people an opportunity to loan money on time deposits to the local banks in lieu of purchasing Liberty Bonds, such money to be used for local purposes only.
This plan seemed to have some advantages over the Farm Loan proposition.
This plan was endorsed by several conferences and committees were appointed to work conjointly with the various other committees and with Mr. Crooks in getting the matter before the proper officials at Washington.
Since that time we have been diligently at work to get this plan, or some other feasible one adopted so that it might be generally accepted.
We were informed that this plan would receive official endorsement by the Treasury Department, but later in direct communication with the Department we were advised by wire that the plan would not be officially endorsed, that, since it is not compulsory to purchase Liberty Loan Bonds, the Treasury Department cannot give any official sanction to such a plan, as this is a matter of private contract between the depositor and the bank.
The Department, however, will not interfere with any arrangements which may be made between congregations or conferences and local institutions or Loan committees.
The situation at present, warrants the following observations:
Up to this time no official arrangements have been made whereby our people may contribute financial aid to the Government, in lieu of supporting War Measures.
L.B. Franklin, Director of the War Loan Organization makes the following statement: “The Treasury Department is strongly opposed to the sale of Bonds by methods not strictly in accordance with the law and does not countenance threats of violence or compulsion of citizens.”
Where there is a question of conscience regarding the support of war measures a meeting may be called to discuss the situation.
If thought advisable a committee may be appointed to confer with the local Liberty Bond Committee and if possible arrive at a conclusion satisfactory to all concerned.
We should always be willing to contribute to causes which we can support in amounts greater than those asked of us for the support of the war.
We should not shrink from hardships or sacrifices, but show that it is wholly a matter of conscience with its.
Let us prove our sincerity.
It should be kept in mind that many persons who have felt they could not consistently “aid or abet war” by investing in securities in direct support of war, are willing to support the Government in other ways such as lending money to local banks, purchasing Farm Loan Bonds, or other measures not directly in support of war.
They have also contributed liberally by donations to War Sufferers Relief.
Donations for the past eight months for this purpose alone were over $165,000.00.
In all cases it is essential that everyone concerned clearly distinguish between persons who act with Government authority and those who do not.
We should ever be ready to obey the requirements of the Government so far as we can conscientiously do so.
We are deeply grateful for the consideration accorded us by those in authority.
However, there may be those who do not appreciate our position, look upon us as disloyal, and therefore feel called upon to resort to threats of violence, and methods of compulsion to bring about their ends.
Not only the Government but all reputable citizens condemn and deplore such methods.
Unpleasantness may in most cases be avoided by coming to a tactful understanding with the local Government authorities, for we believe that when our position is fully understood, our fellow citizens will accord us such respect as will correspond with the high ideals for which our country has always stood.
An unsigned editorial in the issue, titled “War Measures and Nonresistant People”, spelled out what all this meant for Gospel Herald readers in light of the upcoming fourth Liberty Loan drive:
In common with most people, we wish that this subject would never need to be mentioned again.
But we are face to face with living issues, and it behooves us to face them with open eyes and act as intelligently, as wisely, and as scripturally as we know how.
A few weeks more, and we shall be in the midst of the fourth Liberty Loan drive… In response to numerous inquiries concerning the present status of affairs, especially with reference to the question as to whether an agreement has been reached whereby nonresistant people who can not conscientiously support war measures can contribute to other Government enterprises which they may conscientiously support, we submit the following:
So far, all efforts to get official Government sanction to any agreement whereby “conscientious objectors” may have an opportunity to contribute to other Government enterprises not connected with war (in lieu of Liberty Bonds, Thrift Stamps, etc.) have failed.
The position of officials at Washington (if wee have the right conception of their attitude) is as follows: Since there is no law compelling any one to contribute to such war measures as Liberty Bonds, Thrift Stamps, War Chests, etc., there is no ground for any agreement, officially, whereby certain classes may be excused from such contributions.
The Government, however, has put itself on record as “strongly opposed to the sale of bonds by methods not strictly in accordance with the law, and does not countenance threats of violence or compulsion of citizens.”
The Government is not opposed to any local agreement which might be made between local congregations or conferences and officials or committees representing counties or districts which are satisfactory to all concerned.
This means two things: (1) The impressions that gained such widespread credence that people were compelled by law to contribute to these purposes were not in accordance with fact, as the support of these measures has from the start been upon the voluntary basis.
(2) Whatever arrangements are made that will be satisfactory to all concerned must be between local congregations or conferences and local committees or officials, rather than between any Church and the Government at Washington.
Our general attitude before God and man should include two things: (1) a conscientious regard for all truth and loyal obedience to God in all things; (2) a spirit of sacrifice that does not shrink from hardships or self-denial.
Whether it is nonresistance, nonconformity to the world, faithful service, or any thing else that is under consideration, we should know but one thing — to seek and to do God’s will.
“What saith the Scripture?” should settle all questions of right or wrong.
That point settled, there should be no hesitation on our part to do the right.
We should know no other course but to live or die for the faith of the Gospel and hope of eternal salvation.
Sefishness should have no part in our makeup.
Self denial lies at the very gateway of Christian service.
Living in luxury is a sin, especially so in a time like this.
There is no such thing as a “conscientious profiteer” from war conditions, neither can any man in whose heart the love of God abounds live in ease and luxury while millions of his fellow creatures are facing starvation and millions more are dying without the Gospel.
Your attitude as a “conscientious objector” will receive more ready recognition as people see that your voluntary sacrifices are greater than the sacrifices called for in the support of war measures.
These are among the marks of every self-sacrificing child of God: (1) supreme devotion to God and His Word; (2) economy and simplicity; (3) generous contributions to charitable and religious purposes; (4) hard work; (5) no hoarding of wealth; (6) “in honor preferring one another;” (7) the Golden Rule in business.
There should be an early understanding between local congregations or conferences and local communities whereby all bitterness may be avoided as much as possible.
Much of the bitterness which existed in former drives might have been avoided if an amicable understanding could have been reached between nonresistant people and the communities in which they live.
It should be understood, (1) that it is obedience to God and His Word and not selfish desire that prompts nonresistant people to take the stand that they have; (2) that they are not unwilling to bear their full share of the burden imposed upon common humanity, looking only for an understanding providing for an opportunity to contribute to causes which they can conscientiously support; (3) that in former drives many conscientious people yielded to pressure and did what they would not have done if they had not been intimidated; (4) that with the single claim of full recognition of their conscience our people are willing to co-operate with the powers that be in the support of the Government and the uplift of humanity.
While there are some people who can not be reached by reason there are others who can, and to this end all should be done that can be done to reach an understanding that will satisfy all reasonable minds and provide an opportunity for our people to bear their full share of the burden without violation of their own conscience.
Care should be taken that nonresistant people manifest their peace principles in the way they deal with these perplexing problems.
“A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger.”
There is a difference between “speaking the truth in love” and “fighting for peace.”
If our judgment disapproves of the course of nations in their efforts to obtain peace, we must not imitate the course which we disapprove.
“The servant of the Lord must not strive.”
With hearts full of love, words softened by the tone of kindness, and hands ready to minister to the wants of the needy, there are many opportunities of showing to the world that nonresistance as the principle of love in action is more than a mere tenet of our faith.
Read
Rom. 12:17–21.
Remember the Espionage Law.
There is nothing in this law that any child of God should dread.
One of the things which our church has always taught is that as “strangers and pilgrims in the earth” we should be submissive to the Government under which we live and should in no way seek to interfere with the enforcement of its laws.
The Espionage Law, therefore, is simply a law which provides for the punishment of people who are guilty of certain things which we have always taught against.
But some have placed a construction on this law which Avould make it a crime punishable by fine and imprisonment for nonresistant people to do that which the Bible commands them to do and which the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees them the right to do.
We are persuaded to believe, however, that in the final test this construction of the law will be declared to be a wrong application of the law and that it was not intended to question any man’s freedom of speech or of religion.
But it is important that we give full consideration to the law, that we may not unwittingly violate it.
While we should never hesitate to obey any of the commandments of God even though obeying it would cost us our liberty or our life, and while we should do our full duty by our people in the way of teaching them the full Gospel and freely giving information which our members seek, we should be careful that we do not unnecessarily offend or violate this or any law of our land.
To surrender to the mob and, for the sake of avoiding persecution, do that which we believe to be wrong, is not only dishonoring God and disobeying His Word, but it encourages mob violence.
It should be borne in mind that this is a question of conscience, a question of duty, a question of right or wrong; not a question of getting through the easiest way or of standing for our “rights.”
There are only two considerations that should prompt us in our actions in this or in any other case: (1) What is the right thing for me to do?
(2) What course may I take in order to accomplish the best possible results?
In other words, duty and results should determine our course of action in everything we do allowing God’s Word rather than expediency to determine our convictions of duty.
In this connection it may be well to notice that the better classes of people deplore and discourage mob violence.
They recognize in the mob the power of anarchy; and while for the time being it may be used in support of a cause which popular opinion approves, no cause is safe and all kinds of outrages are liable to be perpetrated when law and order are set aside to make way for the passions of the mob.
In his timely address denouncing mob violence, President Wilson struck a responsive chord in the hearts of all liberty-loving people, as was shown by the chorus of approval coming from many reputable newspapers as well as religious periodicals, many of which printed the address entire.
Let there be no confusion of issues.
In this connection we hear of some who advise: “Buy Liberty Bonds, and turn these bonds over to some religious or charitable institution or enterprise.
By so doing you will satisfy Government, and at the same time you will be making a contribution to a worthy cause.”
Let us take a good, square look at this advice.
In the first place, let it be understood that in this discussion we are not saying yea or nay to the proposition of buying Liberty Bonds.
What we do say is that that proposition should be decided upon its own merits.
Should you invest?
Do you say, Yes?
Then invest, regardless of what you meant to do with the Bond after you have it.
Do you say, No?
Then the worthy disposition of the Bond has nothing to do with the principles involved in its purchase.
The plea we wish to make at this point is that the issue be not clouded by some other issues that have nothing to do with the principles involved.
Let us keep close to God at all times.
Not only when the trial of our faith is most severe should we keep near to God, but at all times we should have a conscience void of offence toward God and men.
The taking of our cross should be a daily hourly experience.
We should “come boldly unto a throne of grace,” remembering the promise that God will sustain those who cast their burden upon Him.
Though at times we may suffer for conscience’ sake, as millions of others have, yet walking with God in prayerful, faithful, trustful, loyal service, we can hope for but one result: the overcoming life in time and the crown in eternity.
Special provisions were made by the Minister of Finance of Canada granting to “conscientious objectors” the privilege of making their contributions “for relief work only” during the drive for the Government Bonds.
In response to our appeal for a ten thousand dollar building fund which appeared in the issue of the Gospel Herald, one brother from Minnesota has obligated himself to furnish the first thousand in Liberty Bonds.
Who will be second on the list?…
This is the thirty-sixth and last in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal of the (Old) Mennonite Church.
Today I’m going to try to sum up what we’ve learned along the way.
(Similar disclaimers apply to those I mentioned when I did this exercise for back issues of The Mennonite.)
First, the background: the (Old) Mennonite Church was a major Mennonite branch in the United States and Canada, distinct from the General Conference Mennonite Church (whose house organ, The Mennonite, I went over with a fine-toothed comb earlier this year), and from other Mennonite, Amish, and Brethren groups.
It has roots in America that go back into the late 17th century, but began to coalesce as a distinct organization in the late 18th century.
The original publication of this Church was called The Herald of Truth.
Another publication, Gospel Witness, began publishing in , and the two merged into Gospel Herald in .
At least in the early years, editors of these magazines had a great deal of authority in shaping and reinforcing Mennonite doctrine.
The Herald of Truth began publishing in the middle of the American Civil War.
This is helpful for us, as it is during war time that Mennonite doctrine about abetting war and bloodshed is most likely to come to the forefront and be made explicit.
As best as I can determine, the orthodox Mennonite practice during the American Civil War was neither to serve in the military nor to purchase a substitute to serve in one’s place if one were drafted, but instead, to take advantage of the (Northern) government’s policy that allowed draftees to be exempt from service on the payment of a $500 “commutation fee.”
Mennonite congregations were urged to organize fund drives among their membership to pay the commutation fees of Mennonite draftees who could not themselves afford such a sum.
This policy is in contrast to that of the Quakers, who discouraged members from paying such commutation fees and instead counseled them to refuse military service outright and accept the consequences.
(Some Quakers did exactly that, though others bucked the orthodoxy to serve in non-combatant roles or pay the fees.)
Mennonites were also discouraged from raising money to use as encouragement for non-Mennonites in their area to enlist (a technique meant to cause the local enlistment quota to be met and thereby stop the government from drafting others).
This was considered to be too close to “hiring substitutes” and therefore also forbidden.
Those stands formed the baseline from which Mennonite war tax resistance would later develop.
But at the time, it was accepted as a given that Mennonites should pay all of their taxes without question or complaint.
Indeed this was often put forward as one of the reasons why governments should tolerate Mennonite conscientious objection to military service — after all, they’re good taxpayers.
This doctrine was supported by the “two kingdoms” interpretation of the Render-unto-Caesar episode and the thirteenth chapter of Paul’s letters to the Romans.
In that interpretation, Christians were to be primarily loyal to the Kingdom of God, but were to mostly leave worldly kingdoms to do their own thing.
The kingdoms of the world were not meant to be reformed or to become Christian exemplars; instead, they were meant to wield the sword in a good old fashioned, eye-for-an-eye sort of way.
Christians could and should pay their taxes to such governments without blinking an eye, as the governments had every right to exact tribute on their terms from their subjects, and what they did with the money afterwards was their own problem, not that of the Christian taxpayers.
For this reason, for instance, many Mennonites would not vote — thinking it not to be their concern to try to direct the government in any way.
While I never saw any articles in the Mennonite Church magazines at this time promoting tax resistance, I did notice that some of the articles promoting taxpaying seemed to be doing so with an implied audience of pro-resistance heretics in mind.
So there may have been an underground current of tax resistance already running at this time.
World War Ⅰ brought the next big test for Mennonites.
In my study of back issues of The Mennonite, it seemed that the General Conference Mennonite Church was utterly unconcerned about the implications of buying “Liberty Loan” war bonds.
This puzzled me, as I knew from some earlier research that there were many examples of American Mennonites who were persecuted for refusing to buy such bonds.
I was eager to learn whether the Mennonite Church had been different in this regard, and from what I read in Gospel Herald, indeed it was.
Gospel Herald readers were counseled in no uncertain terms that they were not to purchase Liberty Bonds or in any other voluntary way to assist in supporting the war effort (which would include, for instance, even donations to the Red Cross).
However, they were to continue to pay all of their taxes as usual, and should not resist if attempts were made to confiscate their property.
Mennonites were under a great deal of pressure (frequently amounting to violent coercion) to buy war bonds.
As a result, there were a variety of attempts to find a way that Mennonites could demonstrate their contributions to the common cause in a way that would appease their oppressors without irritating their consciences.
Some gave to relief efforts, and others tried to find some form of government bond (e.g. “Farm Loan Bonds”) that would not be so tainted by war.
These had mixed success: the former had the disadvantage of being donations rather than loans, so it was harder for Mennonites to give in sufficient quantity to appease the mob; the latter was often frustrated — the Farm Loan Bonds never materialized, but some Mennonite groups were able to loan money directly to certain local banks in lieu of purchasing Liberty Bonds in a way that apparently was somewhat satisfying all around.
In Canada, Mennonites took the easy way out, purchasing their government’s war bonds, but with a provision that their contributions would be spent “for relief work only.”
It was not specified how such an intention was supposed to be put into practice.
For the first time in this period I read a Mennonite suggesting that paying war taxes is problematical, and that perhaps a conscientious Mennonite ought to take legal steps (reducing income, buying fewer goods and services subject to excise taxes) to avoid them.
Little changed in the period between the World Wars.
When I saw mention of war taxes, it was usually in the context of reinforcing the doctrine that Mennonites should pay any tax demanded under the “two kingdoms” principle.
During World War Ⅱ, Mennonites were again challenged by the pressure to buy war bonds.
This time the Mennonite Church did not hold up so well, though by all accounts the pressure was much less severe (I don’t know of any examples of mob violence being directed against Mennonites who refused to buy war bonds during this period).
Instead of whole-heartedly refusing to participate in funding the war by purchasing government bonds, the Mennonite Church went through a long and largely pointless process of trying to get their hands on government bonds that weren’t labeled “war” bonds so that Mennonites could purchase those instead.
This so-called “Civilian Bonds” program was a total fiasco, and resulted in Mennonites pouring millions of dollars into the U.S. war effort while at the same time congratulating themselves on witnessing to their “testimony of nonsupport of war.”
That said, during this period some of the rigidly pro-obedience-to-government interpretations of Romans 13 and the Render-unto-Caesar story began to be questioned.
Writers might drop the hint that paying war taxes was not something Mennonites ought to do cheerfully, but that they must do regrettably.
A secular (or at least non-sectarian) philosophy of pacifism began to assert itself in Mennonite circles, and traditionalist Mennonites were at pains to distinguish the Mennonite doctrine of “nonresistance” from this seductive impostor
In the post-war period I start to notice writers urgently defending the traditionalist line on Romans 13 and Render-unto-Caesar when it comes to taxpaying — so hints that there were war tax resisters emerging among Mennonites came before they were permitted to speak for themselves in the pages of Gospel Herald.
In the magazine begins to mention war tax resisters from outside of the Mennonite community, for instance from the Peacemakers group and the Society of Friends (Quakers).
These mentions are typically neutral, neither condemning nor recommending war tax resistance, but they indicate a curiosity about the practice.
Beginning in I also began to see periodic mentions of how much “of the taxpayer’s dollar” was being spent on the military.
The combination of these suggested an atmospheric shift in favor of war tax resistance, but it took a long time before Mennonite authors endorsed war tax resistance or Mennonite war tax resisters were mentioned.
Mennonites may have been given a bit of a nudge by hearing about the tax resistance campaign waged by some Amish people who objected to the social security program.
That campaign was covered in a series of Gospel Herald articles from and ultimately resulted in the government making some concessions to their conscientious scruples.
In the dam burst.
The Church of the Brethren and Mennonite Central Committee each formally addressed the problem of paying war taxes — which is to say that each considered that it was a problem, which is a far cry from the former Romans 13 orthodoxy which held that Christians should pay all of their taxes without concern or complaint.
There was a great deal of concern expressed, and one author tried to find a suitable legal path for conscientious objectors to military taxation by means of legal charitable deductions.
But it wasn’t until that an actual war tax resisting Mennonite surfaced in the Gospel Herald.
When John Howard Yoder’s “Why I Don’t Pay My Taxes” was published, Gospel Herald was aware that it was crossing the rubicon.
It preceded the essay with a lengthy disclaimer pointing out that it was a heterodox opinion but one that “deserves prayerful consideration.”
At that point, the debate came out into the open, as did other war tax resisters.
There was tension from the beginning between arguments for war tax resistance as a form of conscientious objection — that is, not wanting to participate in warfare by paying for it — and as a form of “witness” — that is, civil disobedience as a way of demonstrating to the government the seriousness of one’s concern.
Yoder’s influential essay was firmly in the “witness” camp, and much Mennonite war tax resistance — particularly what involved refusing and redirecting what was uncritically called “the military portion” of one’s income tax — is most-easily interpreted as a “witnessing” sort of resistance.
After the initial flurry of interest excited by Yoder’s essay and the reactions to it, there was a lull in coverage of war tax resistance that lasted .
In , though, the Mennonite Church met in General Conference and asked its Committee on Peace and Social Concerns to investigate how Mennonites ought to deal, in an acceptably Biblical way, with “the payment of taxes collected explicitly for war purposes and such other similar involvements in the war effort that they may find among us inconsistent with our profession as a peace church committed to Christ’s way and to suggest such remedial measures that will underscore our conviction and witness.”
An editorial titled “Dare We Pay Taxes for War?” followed shortly after, and the debate was reopened, but on much more favorable terms for the pro-resistance faction.
As the Vietnam War became more obviously awful, and the anti-war and civil rights movements erupted all around them, Mennonites began to be worried that they were missing the boat — that their timidity had kept them from making their vision of a peaceful and inclusive Christian community harmonize with what should have been a favorable moment for such a message.
Ought they to become more assertive with their message of peace and brotherhood?
To become activists?
Mennonite war tax resistance advocates became more bold, some asserting not only that war tax resistance was an acceptable Mennonite practice but that paying war taxes ought not to be — or going so far as to promote coordinated mass tax resistance on the part of Mennonites as a whole.
Don Kaufman gave respectable theological and historical cover to war tax resistance promoters with his book What Belongs to Caesar? At this point, the traditionalist arguments for taxpaying take on the aspect of tired clichés, and even the traditionalists tend to concede that paying taxes for war is something regretful even as they insist the Bible commands Christians to go along with it.
Mennonite Church-related colleges, subcommittees, and other institutions were increasingly taking up war tax resistance as a topic of discussion (or even instruction).
The Gospel Herald editor came out in favor of war tax resistance in an editorial.
The dream of some sort of government-certified way for conscientious objectors to pay their taxes without paying for war — the equivalent of World War Ⅱ’s “Civilian Bonds” — congealed in the form of the World Peace Tax Fund Act.
Early concerns about its value were soon stifled, and it would continue to attract attention from ostensible “people of conscience” throughout the years that followed.
In the Mennonite Central Committee created a “Taxes for Peace” war tax redirection fund, so to some extent war tax resistance was being formally endorsed and organized by a Mennonite body.
War tax resistance spread to other religious groups and to other countries (including, notably, a briefly-popular war tax resistance movement started by an Anabaptist pastor in Japan) during the 1970s.
Now with support from Gospel Herald editors, the pendulum had swung so far in war tax resisters’ favor that conservative foes were reduced to arguing “if you refuse to pay taxes for war, you should refuse to pay taxes for abortion and other bad things too.”
The magazine formally entered the lobbying game when it included pre-printed cards in one issue that U.S. readers could send to their Congressional representatives to urge them to support the World Peace Tax Fund legislation.
Peace Tax Fund lobbying would become a Mennonite Church project, with paid staffers working alongside (or as part of) the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund.
War tax resisters from the Mennonite Church, General Conference Mennonite Church, and Church of the Brethren began to coordinate their efforts, and then, through the “A New Call to Peacemaking” initiative and in other forms, they began to coordinate with Quakers and other Christian war tax resisters.
While there were many examples of Mennonite war tax resisters during this period, and while sympathy for the war tax resistance opinion seems to have become the dominant opinion in the pages of Gospel Herald, I don’t get the impression that the majority of Mennonites are actually practicing war tax resistance.
Whereas the Mennonite Church was way out ahead of the General Conference Mennonite Church when it came to conscientious objection to purchasing Liberty Bonds during World War Ⅰ, in this period they are largely playing catch-up to their General Conference cousins when it comes to war tax resistance.
In the Mennonite Church issued a statement “on militarism and taxation” that encouraged Mennonites to reduce their tax burden through simple living and charitable deductions, that endorsed some sort of legislation that would allow conscientious objectors to pay their taxes without paying for the military, that urged “careful biblical study” about taxpaying, that “recognize[d] as a valid witness the conscientious refusal to pay a portion of taxes required for war and military efforts,” and that encouraged Mennonite institutions “to seek relief” from the requirement that they withhold taxes from the salaries of objecting employees.
Conservatives regrouped, began to organize, and in the “Smoketown Consultation” of , issued a statement condemning tax resistance among other modern innovations.
Conservative criticisms of war tax resistance began to become more sophisticated and more critics of war tax resistance started coming out of the closet.
By , Mennonite Church bodies were under increasing pressure to take a stand one way or the other, and some did decide to endorse, to participate in, or, alternatively, to refuse to endorse war tax resistance.
The board of directors of the Mennonite Church voted to support the General Conference Mennonite Church in its lawsuit in which it was trying to free itself from the requirement that it withhold taxes from its war tax resisting employees.
This is the case even though the board was not willing to take any such action regarding its own employees.
That lawsuit died in infancy, leaving compliance or civil disobedience as the last tenable options for Mennonite employers.
When the General Conference Mennonite Church met in its triennial, the (Old) Mennonite Church was also meeting nearby, taking baby steps toward the eventual unification of the two groups.
But while the General Conference voted to begin a corporate civil disobedience action by refusing to withhold taxes from its conscientiously objecting employees, the Mennonite Church more meekly called for “continued study and discernment on the issue of war taxes” while affirming both conscientious tax resistance and conscientious tax paying as valid Mennonite behavior and begging the government for a Peace Tax Fund law.
Another General Assembly of the Mennonite Church was held in , and war tax resistance was again back-burnered.
The momentum of war tax resistance was already flagging by the time the Mennonite Church general assembly met in to again take up the issue that the General Conference Mennonite Church had taken the lead on.
They again put in a good word for Peace Tax Fund legislation, again urged Mennonites to “prayerfully examine” the issue of war tax withholding and to “continue to support” conscientious objectors to war taxes.
But there was no real meat on those bones.
They asked their board of directors to come up with a recommendation for what to do about withholding taxes from the salaries of objecting employees.
The assembly moderator spoke aloud a sentiment that I think was implicit in a lot of the noncommittal buck-passing: “Personally, I think the Peace Tax Fund is a way out of this.”
The process of deciding what to do about the withholding question bordered on the ridiculous.
First, as noted above, the general assembly asked the board to present them with a considered recommendation at their next () assembly.
The board conferred with other denominations who were wrestling with the same issue, and then took testimony at a General Board meeting in before voting (unanimously!) to recommend that war taxes not be withheld from the paychecks of conscientiously objecting employees.
Sounds like a done deal, right?
Not so fast.
When the general board met just before the assembly, they abruptly did an about-face, blaming this on the lukewarm-support their recommendation had gotten from district conferences.
They replaced their recommendation with one that removed any suggestion of refusing to withhold taxes, and instead called for more “study of the… issues” and, of course, more hope that a Peace Tax Fund bill would make the problem go away.
In other words: the same old same old.
But then when the General Assembly met, they surprised everyone by losing patience with this nonsense and calling the board’s original recommendation back for a vote — it passed with 59% of the delegates’ support.
Now it’s a done deal, right?
Nope.
When the general board met again soon after the assembly, rather than implementing the Assembly’s vote, they decided that “they would take a clear stand on military taxes and submit another recommendation to the next General Assembly sessions in ”!
In the general board tabled a motion to put the Assembly’s mandate into practice, instead deciding to wait until the conclusion of a “congregational study process.”
When the general board met again later that year, after that study process was complete, the new excuse was that “[b]oard members noted a lack of clarity on what the [General Assembly’s] decision meant.”
At the board’s first meeting , they finally agreed to honor requests from conscientiously objecting employees who did not want war taxes withheld from their paychecks, but only subject “to development of acceptable policies for implementation approved by the board.”
I saw no indication in Gospel Herald that any such policies were ever presented to the board for approval.
My guess is that the stonewalling tactics worked and the Mennonite Church never implemented the will of its General Assembly delegates.
When the General Assembly met next, at least as far as I can tell from the Gospel Herald coverage, the topic did not come up.
The foot-draggers had won.
By this time the war tax resistance tide was clearly receding.
Peace Tax Fund talk and attempts to get people to engage in safe, symbolic mini-resistance acts was swamping what conversation remained about whole-hearted conscientious objection to military taxation.
The Gospel Herald editorial page shifted gears again, from promoting war tax resistance to a more standoffish on-the-one-hand / on-the-other-hand vagueness — and would eventually say of war tax resisters that “we generally dismiss [them] as too zealous.”
By things had gotten so bad that not only was paying war taxes no longer seen as particularly worrisome, but even serving the military as a uniformed soldier was seen as something a Mennonite Church member in good standing could do.
Gospel Herald merged with The Mennonite in .
As I mentioned , Jonas S. Hartzler wrote a book about Mennonite conscientious objection during the first World War.
This book, Mennonites in the World War, or, Nonresistance Under Test, was published in by the Mennonite Publishing House and Hartzler was “Assisted by a Committee Appointed by Mennonite General Conference,” so this was something of an official endeavor, akin to the “books of sufferings” produced by Quaker meetings to commemorate the travails of those who held fast to the faith while under threat of persecution.
There are sections of the book that concern themselves with Mennonite conscientious objection to the purchase of Liberty Bonds, and I’ll reproduce some of those today.
Misrepresented Motives
Some have made capital of the position of the nonresistants, charging that they would not work in the [training or detention] camps because they were lazy, stupid, dull, bovine, or because of a number of other reasons not very complimentary; that they would not buy liberty bonds nor war savings stamps, not donate to the Red Cross, Y.M.C.A., etc., because they refused to part with their money.
This is so far from the truth that it would be useless to try to refute it.
Witnesses to the contrary can be produced by the hundreds.
The issue was not money, not work, not mental incapacity, but the unscripturalness of war.
A few did not take this position.
A small percent considered it a duty to buy bonds and donate to Government.
Some of the young men thought that they owed it to their government and to their fellowmen to take some part, even though they could not kill.
They applied for noncombatant service on arrival at camp.
There were members who did not live up to the standard of nonresistance upheld by the Church.
Here and there were those who thought it their duty to support such war measures as the purchase of liberty bonds, war stamps, etc., some of the draftees took noncombatant service willingly.
On the other hand there were those who put a more rigid construction upon the doctrine of nonresistance than the body of the Church was willing to do, even questioning the right of nonresistant people to register, and in camp absolutely refusing to do anything, even to keep their own quarters clean or to prepare their own food.
Application of the Principle
Some of the brotherhood made stringent applications of the nonresistant doctrine, refusing to sell horses for war purposes or to sell their produce to parties who were known to buy expressly for the war.
They refused to in any way support war measures except in the payment of taxes, etc. Some of the young men in the camps refused to do anything, even to keep their own quarters clean or prepare their own food.
(The latter were principally from one of the smaller branches of the Mennonite Church.)
All along the line between these two extremes the greater body of the Church was to be found.
Some with very little persuasion were ready to donate to war charities or purchase interest-bearing war papers; others yielded only at the threat of violence, while the great majority stood for the principle of doing nothing which would have for its prime purpose the helping along of the war and suffered rather than yield to what they believed to be wrong.
All believed in the main issue — nonresistance — but in minor details they did not all make the same application of that issue to the conditions at hand.
President Wilson asked the people of this country to refrain from all mob violence, but in spire of the request during the drives for the Y.M.C.A., Red Cross, Liberty Bonds, etc., mobs were quite frequent.
At first private homes, business places, and church buildings were daubed with yellow paint.
Such expressions as, “Slacker,” “You love the Kaiser,” “You are stingy,” and other things of a worse character were written on the doors and windows.
Like other cowardly acts, these things were usually done at night.
These acts were intended to anger, to cause some unbecoming remarks, and immediate action to remove the paint.
In most cases where it was put on church buildings it was simply left.
One church thus daubed had a large Sunday school conference in it which brought all classes of people to the meeting.
The paint was still on.
Public sentiment branded it as a disgrace to the community, and the paint became a reprimand to those who put it there.
Several brethren in Jasper County, Missouri, received yellow slips of paper with the following printed on them:
First and Last Warning
You have been reported to the All American Squad as a person who has failed in your obligation.
Your Country Is at War!
This committee does not tolerate slackers.
Do your full duty to your country now! Or get out of Jasper County or suffer the consequences.
All American Committee Strong Arm Squad
It would have been more in keeping with the spirit manifested in the paper, as well as the way they were sent out to have used the word “mob” instead of squad.
As the feeling became more intense, mobs were more frequent and more violent.
It is sad to know that some of our brethren who plead conscientious scruples against the support of war measures, when they were facing the mob supplied with tar and feathers or a rope, or both, they yielded to buying war papers or donating to some war charity.
In some cases they claimed that they yielded because some of the other members of the family plead so hard, but whatever the cause, they yielded to that which they felt was wrong, or they were not true in making the claim of conscientiousness against it.
An opportunity was lost, but let us cover it all with the mantle of charity.
Both the perpetrators of the deeds and those who yielded need our sympathy.
At the same time let us look closely to the admonition of Paul, “Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”
A few experiences are given herewith.
They are taken from widely different localities and show the different methods used.
No one claims perfection for the sufferers nor are the things recorded here to hold them up as objects of glory and virtue.
You may see some weakness in their actions, but in most cases decisions had to be made quickly and under very unfavorable circumstances.
Two things should be considered: First, one is not quite sure what he will do under pressure, hence the need of being thoroughly grounded in Christ Jesus so that character is so deeply rooted that only the right thing will be done even if there is no time for careful, premeditated decision; Second, in many cases at least some of these perpetrators are known.
Many of them have had time to consider their actions and are now thoroughly ashamed of them — and surely they should be ashamed — but the highest good will be attained by showing that there is absolutely no ill feeling harbored but that all persecutors have been fully forgiven.
The following speak for themselves:
.
Dear Brother M⸻
I was asked several times during the liberty loan campaign to buy bonds… I gave the same reasons for refusing to buy in every interview — that I could not possibly loan money to carry on war any more than I could give my boy or go myself.
The next to the last day of the fourth drive, five or six men came to our home and when the girls told them that I was not at home they seemed very angry.
They left papers and said that I must sign them and send them that day so they would get them in the morning.
I ignored them, and on Saturday we thought that we were through the trial for this time; but about seven o’clock in the evening three automobiles came, and four men came to the door.
When my wife opened it they bolted in, and one of the men began to use abusive language and to say that I had refused just as long as I could, that the time had come when I must.
I tried to reason but got little chance to have a say until I flatly refused.
Several shots were then fired outside, and one of the men went to the door and called, “Come on, George.”
Then two or three others and “George” came in.
He threw off his overcoat, laid his revolver on a chair and shouted and stormed like a mad man, calling me all the abusive names that came to his mind, such as, “liar,” “thief,” “slacker,” “pro-German,” “income-tax-dodger,” “dirty dog,” etc.
Among them was one who claimed to be an officer from Washington, sent to see whether these men did their work right, and he sat down beside my wife urging her to try to persuade me to buy, as there was no telling what they will do, for they were making all kinds of threats — to tar and feather me, take me to jail, drive away my cattle, burn my barn, and compel my boy to take up military service, etc.
The officer pretended to check them at times but they told him to keep quiet till they were through, then he should have his say.
When his turn came he asked us to go into another room where he began to “taffy” us and said that I should sign up this note for five thousand dollars, and that I might write across the end of the note, “To be used for Belgian relief work,” and promised that it would be used for that.
I decided to do that since it was to be used for relief.
After that they treated me fine.
They deplored the necessity of doing such work, but said that it must be done or Germany would come over here and destroy our property, take our men, drive out our women and children.
We told them that was just what they threatened to do, and asked where the difference was.
They claimed to be hungry.
My wife told them that our Bible teaches us to feed our enemies, and that if they would wait she would get supper for them.
But they refused.
Your brother, …
.
Dear Brother, Greeting:
After the bond drives became quite insistent I received some threatening notices that unless I supported all these war measures I would suffer for it.
I always gave Gospel reasons for not doing so, but showed that I gave freely to war sufferers through our own Church channels and through the Friends.
About the middle of , I was called by telephone by a government officer at Kansas City, demanding my reasons for not supporting war measures.
I gave him the same reply that I did the others.
On , a flag was nailed to our church, and , possibly fifty masked men drove into the yard of my former home, then occupied by my son C⸻.
The mob called him out of bed and asked where I lived and several questions about the flag.
They then compelled him to remove his underwear and smeared him over with tar after which they applied the feathers.
They next went to the church and daubed the door and steps with tar, after which they came to my house and called me to the door.
Two men grabbed me and pulled me out.
They demanded that I buy bonds and support the Red Cross and other war measures.
I replied that I could not conscientiously do that but would give to war sufferers through channels not under military control.
I was then tarred and feathered and left with threats of a repetition if I did not support war measures.
On the night of , a second mob of thirty-five or forty came to my home, called me out and threatened to pound me to pieces, using most abusive and ungodly language.
They demanded that I sign a check at once for the Red Cross.
Because of the condition of my wife, who was nearly prostrated, and who at this writing is still suffering from the shock, I signed a check for fifty dollars for the Red Cross, but stopped payment on it in the morning.
The next day, in company with one of our bishops, I met our banker and the county officials of the drive, and they agreed to accept a check for the Friends Reconstruction Service.
I gave them a check for seventy-five dollars.
I thought that this would settle the matter; but on the night of , another masked mob of about twenty-five came to my home and called me out.
They said that they would daub my entire premises with “dope” if I did not promise to support war measures.
On my refusal they ransacked the house from cellar to garret.
They took my watch and what money they found.
They daubed my new house with yellow paint, inside and out, and did the same to the automobile.
They tore off my underwear, struck me a dozen times or more with a large strap, bruising my flesh and cutting the skin open.
I was dragged to the barn and abused, after which they applied carboline roofing paint to my body followed by feathers.
The carbolic acid in the paint made me very sore, and my body, face, and hands were badly swollen.
I was left with the threat that they would hang me the next time.
The men then went to the home of my son, C⸻, and used him in a similar manner, ransacking the house, daubing it and the automobile with yellow paint, and applying carboline and feathers to his body.
Yours in His service, …
Dear Brother ⸻, Greeting:
A very unfortunate thing occurred in our community between an over enthusiastic patriotic school teacher and some pupils with reference to saluting the flag.
This created considerable prejudice which spread from school to school… When the different drives came on we were watched very closely, especially leaders.
Newspapers misrepresented our position.
I was visited only a few times by solicitors and usually when my position was stated it was accepted and respected, but one came who held a prominent position, and he would not be convinced; failing in his undertakings, determined to get even some way.
He created still more envy and hatred.
We endeavored to do our part by giving liberally for relief work through our own channels.
When the fourth liberty loan drive came, we took bank certificates in lieu of bonds in an amount equal to our supposed share of the third and fourth loans.
After the signing of the armistice another drive was made, and on a solicitor came to my home.
I wrote him a check for ten dollars and filled out my card, designating that my money should be used for the support of the Salvation Army work.
a mob came, consisting of forty or fifty men, unmasked, crowded around the door and rapped.
I opened the door wide.
The leader admitted that I had given to the cause but claimed it was not enough, and demanded a check for one hundred dollars.
I tried to reason with them and showed that I had done more than my share.
They began to hiss and gnash at me, took hold of me and pulled me out into the yard.
With the crowd and a part of my family around me the conversation continued.
I was accused of influencing people, going to camps and encouraging the boys not to wear the uniform, and they called me Kaiser.
I was given one more chance to sign up or suffer the consequences.
I flatly refused, stated my position, and said that if they wanted my life they could have it; but that I would give nothing to a crowd like that, quoting a number of scriptures and referring to the President’s message, but to no avail.
They pulled me away from my wife and daughter who had hold of me and took me across the road where horse clippers were applied to my head, taking everything clean.
My life and buildings were threatened.
They claimed to have lots of work and must make haste, so they went to their machines and the entire crowd went east, stopping at two other places before disbanding.
A number of young people were at our home, learning some new songs, and when they saw what was going on they held a prayer service before leaving the room; but one of the young sisters present was obliged to take treatment for four months because of the shock upon her nervous system.
We praise God for still caring for His own.
Fraternally, …
.
Dear Brother, Greeting:
I was solicited for the various war measures, but usually an explanation of my position was all that was necessary.
I made a bank deposit in lieu of buying liberty bonds in the fourth drive.
When the war-chest-drive was on an organization was formed with the motto, “Every man a subscriber.”
Two men came to my home one evening the latter part of , called me out and asked me to go with them to the county seat.
I told them that I could not go because my wife’s mother was very sick, and that I must help her and the children to get to her bedside; but they showed me the silver star on their vests, claiming to be United States deputies, and said, “You must go.”
They went to the home of my brother-in-law and got him.
Other automobiles joined in.
On the way back past my home they asked me to take my machine.
We did so, and with two others in my machine we proceeded to the county seat.
On reaching the city we were ordered to leave my machine near the police station and get into their machine.
They took us through a dark alley and into a large hall where from six to eight hundred men were assembled.
All except a few in the back part of the hall were masked.
I was to answer questions only.
I was questioned as to why I could not sign up for this fund.
When I explained that I thought it was wrong to support war measures, they asked me whether I did not sell produce at war prices and said that I could not hide behind the cloak of religion.
They had no respect for my convictions and decided that I must sign up for a specific amount.
Some said one thousand dollars but finally agreed on fifty dollars.
I told them that I had some money along and that they might take that, but they said that they wanted my voluntary signature.
I refused.
The card was made out and I was given one minute to sign it.
The chairman, also masked, held his watch in one hand and his pen extended toward me in the other, but when they found that availed nothing I was ordered to go back to the machine, followed by many epitaphs [sic] too vile to put on paper.
Kicks and cuffs were in evidence.
After I was out my brother-in-law was taken into the hall… He yielded, and that made them more fierce toward me… Finally we were taken back to our machine and allowed to go home.
On , near midnight,… A man wanted some oil.
I got up and got it for him.
Then he wanted me to hold the lantern while he poured the oil into his machine.
He and several others caught hold of me, put me into the machine.
I had very little clothing on and was barefooted.
They went about a mile to a woods and asked each other whether this would not be a good place to string me up.
After a time they drove very fast.
I got very cold and asked for some extra clothing.
They answered me by putting me under their feet while they drove wildly on.
When they stopped, about seven miles away from my home, they placed a rope around my neck and led me to the side of the road.
They asked whether I wanted to pray before being hung.
I knelt down and prayed.
References were made to the war-chest but they intimated that it was too late now.
They asked me whether I was sorry that I had not signed before.
I said that I could not do it even now… They took off my shirt and painted the upper part of my body.
They clipped from the front to the back of my head, and from ear to ear, the strip being about an inch and a half wide.
They cut so close that in several places they took off the skin.
Then they put on my shirt and took off the rope, and told me to make tracks toward home.
About half a mile from the scene I inquired the way home… After going about a mile farther I inquired the way to my cousin… I awoke him, told him the whole story.
He gave me clothes and took me to my home.
We praise God for His protection, and for permitting us to meet again as a family after such a siege.
Your brother,…
The case of Brethren L.J. Heatwole and R.W. Benner will be given somewhat in detail.
The first is a letter which Bro. Heatwole wrote and which was the basis for prosecution [under the Espionage Act]:
Dale Enterprise, Va. .
Dear Brother Benner, Greetings:
Your letter of is here… The clipping I enclose is no doubt a similar proclamation by the governor of your state.
The tenor of this proclamation is that all people of the state and nation exercise the spirit of self-sacrifice.
(Good).
To pledge themselves to economy and thrift for the balance of the year.
(Also good enough).
To buy to the extent of their means as an evidence of their patriotism, war saving stamps for the support of boys in France.
(Here comes the test.)
The advice given by our brethren of the General Conference Committee is that our brethren–
Do not aid or abet war in any form.
Receive no pay while held in detention camps.
Contribute nothing to a fund that is used to run the war machine.
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.
I have continued to give the advice of the General Conference committee to the brethren here, and would do the same to the brethren in West Virginia were I there, and take the consequences whatever they may be.
Some of our brethren here have yielded under pressure, others have subscribed to Red Cross funds and taken out war saving stamps, but of these so far as I know there are only a few.
If our brethren in camp can stand true to the faith of the Gospel, why should not we at home bear part of the pressure…
Hurriedly, L.J. Heatwole.
Bro. Benner acted upon the instructions of Bishop Heatwole, advised his members as to what is the position of the Mennonite Church on these questions, with the result that both were later brought before the U.S. district court at Martinsburg, W. Va.
A description of the case, which was heard on , follows.
The district attorney, Stewart W. Walker, said that the above correspondence, and Benner’s action in conveying the instructions to his congregation, were sufficient such that “the grand jury finds a case in which the honor and dignity of the United States government has been disregarded in maintaining its Espionage laws.”
State Senator George N. Conrad was the attorney for the defense, and entered a guilty plea, urging clemency.
The prosecutor reduced the penalty he was seeking from tens of thousands of dollars to “one thousand dollars and costs for each, with the understanding that the offense be not repeated,” which the defendants’ attorney agreed to.
However neither of the defendants themselves pled guilty or agreed to the terms of the sentence.
Heatwole was not even in attendance.
He had been informed that the trial was to occur by Benner’s attorney and went to Martinsburg on his own to attend the trial (Benner had been arrested and released on bail), but found that a guilty plea had been entered on his behalf before he got there!
Conrad, allegedly attorney for the defense, tried to explain himself thusly:
There was no dispute as to what the facts were.
Inasmuch as the representatives of government had concluded that the writing of these letters and mailing them was a violation of the law, it was considered proper for both Rev. Benner and Bishop Heatwole to accept the conclusions that government officials had reached, and to pay such fine as might be placed upon them.
A plea of guilty was therefore entered and a fine of one thousand dollars each with costs was placed upon Bishop Heatwole and Rev. Benner respectively, granting them thirty days, however, within which to pay the fine and the costs.
It was considered by representatives of the government that these fines should be imposed, not so much as a punishment to Bishop Heatwole and Rev. Benner, but as aa precedent and a warning to all other persons belonging to the Mennonite Church, or persons holding similar doctrines.
It became necessary to employ an attorney in behalf of Bishop Heatwole and Rev. Benner in connection with this matter, and the fee to be paid to the attorney, together with the costs and the fine amount to two thousand two hundred fifty six dollars.
Hartzler continues:
Mine, yet not Mine
Before the war it was a common thought that if one had money, that he was at liberty to use it as he pleased so long as he did not violate the laws of the land.
Independence was prominent.
“This is mine,” was a common expression and usually meant that no one had any right to dictate in regard to the use that was made of it, and if someone was presumptuous enough to try to do so, no attention would be given to the demands.
When liberty bond or Red Cross drives were on, regardless of one’s conscientious scruples against abetting war, others came and said, “You will donate so much to the Red Cross,” or, “You will buy so many bonds.”
To refuse, in many cases, meant persecution.
In some cases cattle were driven away, homes ransacked, houses daubed with paint inside and out, bodies covered with tar and feathers or otherwise tortured, and all done in the name of “loyalty.”
But it was a kind of loyalty which received no sanction from the war department nor from any right-thinking people.
At the same time it showed how insecure was all that was earthly.
The sad part about it is that it took the horrors of war to teach such a meager lesson — one that all should have realized and acted upon without a war, either small or great.
In our perusal of Brethren periodical archives, we now reach the point of the U.S. entry into World War Ⅰ.
The U.S. funded its participation in the war in large part through the Liberty Bond program, in which citizens could loan the government money to carry on the war by buying specially-issued bonds.
The program was legally voluntary, and so an obvious way for pacifists to decline to participate in funding war, but the record in the U.S. peace churches is mixed.
I found little evidence that Quakers resisted the temptation to go along with bond drives, for example; while among Mennonites it differed from congregation to congregation, with some Mennonites suffering mob violence for their refusal to go along with the bond drives.
Now we’ll have a chance to look at how Brethren fared.
I warn you: it’s not pretty.
The edition of Our College Times, the campus newspaper of Elizabethtown College (which was founded as a Church of the Brethren college, and which still claims to “foster the values of peace, non-violence, human dignity and social justice” today), included this sad note (source):
The Alumni Association decided to purchase two one hundred dollar Liberty Loan Bonds with part of the Endowment Fund which is lying idle.
An article pointed out that “[m]any brethren and sisters solicited thus far have given us their Liberty Bonds for the permanent endowment fund.
Have you thought of doing the same?
Give them and thereby help to maintain a Christian college that will send out church workers at home and abroad.”
And a note about the Endowment Campaign early the following year read: “Hold your Liberty Bonds for us and get credit for their face value.”
A late- issue of that paper included some rah-rah about the Music Department that tried to explain the value of music to society by noting, for example, how “[t]he soldier goes to the front with song, his spirit is stirred, and he does not falter in his purpose” and “[t]he Community Singing is doing much to unite communities in thought and effort in the Red Cross Work and Liberty Loan Drives.”
In short, I saw no evidence of shame, pushback, or dissonance about the Liberty Bond program at Elizabethtown College.
Meanwhile, at the Gospel Messenger, the U.S. entry into the war arrived with regret (editorial, ):
Through increased taxes and living cost we shall, whether we will or not, make our share of the money offering.
But for many of us, since we are an agricultural people, this will be more than offset by the war prices the farmer will receive for his produce.
How do you feel, brother, about coining money to your own profit out of your neighbor’s blood and the anguish of the widow and the orphan?
Can you contemplate the prospect with a comfortable conscience?
How to soothe such a conscience?
By “giving freely of our money and, as opportunity offers, of the service of our hands, for the relief of that tremendous load of human suffering which now weighs upon the world,” or, you know, by donating to church fundraisers.
In a article, A.B. Miller explained the conscientious objection status that Brethren draftees were applying for on “Registration Day” when draft-eligible men across the country were required to register.
He reassured America that in “this day of the nation’s sore need”…
We request no exemption from our share of taxation, that the people of this nation will be called upon to shoulder because of the stupendous expenditures incurred.
The Things That Are Cæsar’s was the lead editorial of the issue.
It at least addressed taxpayer complicity, but with a what-can-you-do shrug of the shoulders:
How far shall a Christian, who holds war itself unchristian, give his support to a government at war?
If he can not bear arms himself, can he do anything that helps to make it possible for others to bear arms?
Does it not seem that the only logical answer to this question is an unqualified “no”?
But you will not have followed out your logic very far, in that case, until you will see that you “must needs go out of the world.”
Not only can you not pay your taxes, nor sell the produce of your farm, you can not even buy your groceries, without contributing, in some measure, to the war’s support.
But for the payment of tribute we have the high sanction both of Jesus and of Paul, while the buying and selling of foodstuffs are bound up with the very necessities of existence.
It is folly to talk of doing nothing that can help along the war.
That the logic of our position seems to make such a conclusion desirable, merely shows that, in our reasoning, we have been unable to take account of all the facts.
In such a world as we are living in, the right course for us must often involve a choice of the least of two or more evils.
Much as we deplore the war, we are obliged to admit the impossibility of avoiding all indirect participation in it.
But we can avoid direct participation in it, — thanks to the good government under which we live, — and by so doing, we can be a constant protest against war.
At the same time, we can and must leave no ground for question of our sincere desire to be good, loyal citizens.
In the matter of taking up arms, the position of the church is clear, as it has been from the beginning of its organization.
Beyond this, she has, not seen fit to prescribe the course of the individual member in time of war.
Hence it is left to the conscience of each one to decide for himself his duties in this regard.
“How far one may go in serving the Government, at this time, without violating the Gospel doctrine of peace is one of the important problems to be solved,” wrote editor D.L. Miller in the issue (source).
How far?
Pretty far, it turns out.
Excerpt:
Our Government brings us in close touch with the war.
We must pay our taxes, and the money will be used to carry on the war.
The farmer must raise grain, and much of it will be used to feed the soldiers.
These men had to be fed before they were in the army and it takes no more to feed them now than it did before.
Always keep in mind that it is never wrong to serve the Government, so long as no Gospel principle is violated.
This was reiterated by H.H. Nininger in the issue (source).
Excerpt:
[O]ur nation is at war.
Against our wish it is at war; and in many ways we are assisting in that war.
We may succeed in securing the exemption of our boys from the bearing of arms, but we must aid the war machine.
We are paying the taxes and supplying the food which makes possible our army’s success in this wholesale killing of our fellows.
We might refuse utterly and throw ourselves as a burden upon society by going to prison, but this would only be aiding the enemy by lowering our own national efficiency.
Is it inevitable that we take a part in this warfare which we believe to be wrong?
Is there no way out of this terrible dilemma?
And ringing in our ears, more and more loudly, comes the unwelcome reply to this question.
For the edition, Leo Blickenstaff wrote “A Plea to the Drafted” in which he tried to draw the line thusly:
We, as Christians… can not willingly enter into anything that would help war in any way… We will only contribute to war when we can not help ourselves… as from necessity of circumstances, — such as buying our daily bread at the high war prices; or when forced by the Government… to pay war taxes or buy revenue stamps… The Government can take our money and property from us, but we dare not give our services in any way that will help war, except when forced to, and only then in the things in which we can work with a good motive.
Were that even that much had been true.
Instead, the Messenger kept ratcheting the argument in the other direction, until finally it would endorse the enthusiastic voluntary funding of war by Brethren.
Referring to a request for a statement of the church’s attitude to the purchase of Government bonds we give herewith the latest action of the Conference, bearing on the subject.
It was passed in and in response to a request for a reconsideration, was reaffirmed .
This is the decision: “Is it right, and according to the Gospel, for a brother to invest money in Government bonds?
Answer: We consider it not wrong to do so.”
In the issue, J.M. Henry again touched on the complicity of noncombatants (source).
Excerpts:
[I]t is maintained by some that we should have absolutely nothing to do with any service under military control.
A very sharp distinction is made, in the mind at least, but not so clear, sometimes, in action, between civil duties and duties controlled by military power.
The fact should not be overlooked that most of our civil duties, as citizens, are now made subservient to winning the war.
You buy a postage stamp, make a note, purchase a railroad ticket, etc., and in each case you pay the revenue, which is no longer for civil but military necessity.
Finally, Liberty Bonds are purchased.
Well, why not? — says the noncombatant to himself or his banker.
The investment is safe and the interest fair.
In a “Peace Address Delivered at the Hershey Conference” that led off the issue, an H.C.E. sidestepped the war-funding issue this way (source):
I shall make no effort to settle the question as to whether noncombatants should support the war, financially, or the difference, if any, between financial and personal support.
Already fabulous sums have been spent, and there is an unprecedented demand for more money to win the war.
There is confusion in the minds of some.
However, it may be said that members of the Church of the Brethren have bought Liberty Bonds and War-Saving Stamps.
But the question can not be regarded as a proper subject for discussion here, and so it must rest.
The issue warned Brethren that “[a] man is entitled to his opinion and to the exercise of his own conscience, but he is not always at liberty to give utterance to or exploiting his opinion, or to urge his conscience on the attention of others” and that in particular “advice or reference to Liberty Bonds that could, in any sense, prejudice their sale, may involve one in trouble.” Following this were printed excerpts from the Espionage Act that said “Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall… say or do anything except by way of bona fide and not disloyal advice to an investor or investors, with intent to obstruct the sale by the United States of bonds or other securities of the United States or the making of loans by or to the United States… shall be punished…” (source).
So it’s worth keeping in mind that the absence of evidence of resistance to the Liberty Bond drives may partially be because such talk was legally suppressed.
D.W.K. wrote a piece on “The Moral Problem” for the issue.
After giving the reader a whirlwind tour of the history of ethical philosophy, he says that what ethics all boils down to really is choosing the lesser evil.
During the war, therefore, the dilemma for Brethren in the U.S. is that you either support the war effort or you support the Kaiser.
“That is all that is left to us.”
Clearly, supporting the war is better than supporting the Kaiser, so support away without regret!
“I think the Brethren did right in helping, cheerfully and liberally, the Red Cross, the Y.M.C.A., and the Liberty Loan. This does not mean that all that is connected with this work is the Divine Ideal. But we are in a world where the ideal can not always be realized. I believe it is better to help these causes than not to help, because not to help is helping the enemy, — a much greater evil.”
The issue surrendered all qualms and gave full-throated editorial support for buying War Savings Stamps (source):
The President Calls for Volunteers
He does not ask for fighters in this call, but for volunteers in the home line.
Every-one, from the oldest man to the youngest child, is eligible. is the day set for the completion of the recruiting all over the United States.
It is the army of thrift, of war savers, that is being recruited.
Appealing to “every man, woman and child to pledge themselves on or before June 28 to save constantly, and buy War Savings Stamps as regularly as possible,” the President asks that “there be none unenlisted on that day.” War Savings Stamps can be purchased at every postoffice and from every mail carrier.
There is scarcely a bank which does not handle them.
As loyal citizens, and in obedience to the “powers that be,” it is but just and right that each one do his share in the task allotted
The issue extended this to Liberty Bonds (source):
“The Things That Are Cesar’s”
the Government of the United States will start its Fourth Liberty Loan campaign, and the most systematic arrangements are being made to have every citizen assume his share of the burden.
During the days of the Civil War many of our members assisted the authorities in that way, and no criticism was urged against it by our Annual Conference.
As citizens of the United States we enjoy great privileges, and now it would seem but right to show our appreciation in a fitting manner. “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.
For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God.… Ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.
For this cause pay ye tribute also, for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.”
And an follow-up went further in tangling the church with the war bonds:
A Good Investment
Just now, while the Government of our country expects every one to come to its assistance by the purchase of as many Liberty Bonds of the Fourth Loan as possible, no one who is able to help, should refuse his assistance in some way.
At the same time let us not forget the claims of the Kingdom, which, as some one suggests, may be amply met by a “Liberty Loan for Soul Freedom.” To advance that most desirable work, you simply purchase a Liberty Bond and donate it to the General Mission Board for World-wide Missions.
In many churches that practice is rapidly gaining in favor, and we see no reason why the Church of the Brethren should not follow that plan.
It is a splendid way of helping your country and also aiding the extension of the Kingdom.
I believe that a great many Brethren purchased Liberty Bonds.
Whether a direct or indirect violation of our well-established and well-known peace principles, is not the question for discussion now.
Brethren have them, and will doubtless keep them until they fall due.
It would not be surprising if the Government today should have a million dollars borrowed from Brethren.
A regional report from Rocky Ford, Colorado, carried in the issue, noted that “[m]uch assistance is being given to the War Savings Stamps, Liberty Loan and other movements” by the church in that district.
Continuing the shame, on the front page of the issue was “A Thank Offering” from the General Mission Board, exclaiming its gladness that the war had finally come to an end, but mostly being a plea for money, including this: “Since your Liberty Bonds have helped to assure the peace of the world, why not turn them over to us, to assist in liberating the world from the thralldom of sin and heathenism?”
As far as I could tell from what was published by Brethren periodicals during World War Ⅰ, the ostensible pacifism of the Church of the Brethren became a cowardly retreat in the face of public pressure to join the war bond purchase drives.
Today I examine the archives from the post-war period to look for signs of soul-searching in the wake of this capitulation.
The Annual Report of the General Mission Board, as found in The Missionary Visitor (source) crowed that “the war is over” and even went so far as to say that “Possibly the historian of future years will look back and recount, through numberless proofs, that the war was not fought in vain.” The Board compared its own struggle against Satan with the Allies’ victory in Europe, and said Brethren contribute to each: “[W]hile we have contributed our funds for Liberty bonds, and freed the world from autocracy, we must not cease our vigilance.”
In this vein, the magazine decided to market Brethren fundraising efforts as “God’s Liberty Loan”.
It is staggering to think of the amount of money that has been raised to finance the war, reaching the great sum of twenty-three billion dollars.
It is interesting to wonder how much of this large amount has been subscribed by the Church of the Brethren.
“Interesting” but not pauseworthy.
The author goes on to make an estimate, by assuming that the typical member of the church makes a little more than the average national income and that “it would be expected that we contribute our proportionate share” to the war bond drives.
The earliest issue of The Brethren Evangelist that I found in the archives comes from (41 years into its run).
By then, anyway, it seems that they saw no inconsistency in Brethren and Brethren institutions trafficking in war bonds.
The initial issue of that year noted that “The first Liberty Bond given to Kentucky Mission work was received as a Christmas Gift on Christmas morning,” named the donor, and asked that others follow their example to “send Liberty Bonds to be used to further the Home Mission work of the Brethren church” (source).
A later article compared a mission fund drive with the Liberty Loan, saying “We [emphasis mine] raised billions for Liberty Bonds time and again.
Now we are starting another drive.”
The Business Manager of Ashland College (a Brethren institution) wrote in to encourage donations in the form of Liberty Bonds, writing that “[d]uring the past year more than $20,000 in Liberty Bonds have been assigned to Ashland College in this way” (source).
By this amount had risen to more than $50,000 (source).
The Brethren in Falls City “could see that it was only good business to kill two birds with one stone, so they bought those Liberty Loans and gave them to the college” (source).
An accounting of the endowment of that college, in a later issue, indicated that it held $29,800 in Liberty Bonds and $1,256.62 in War Savings Stamps (source).
A note in a issue tried to explain what happened: “Did we buy Liberty Bonds?
We did.
Not because we were especially in favor of war; not because we were investors.
We gave because the spirit of giving and sacrifice was abounding.” (source)
A fundraiser for a Brethren project being pumped in a edition, on the other hand, said that “Liberty Bonds were bought, in a large measure not as an investment but to save the country’s credit” — so why don’t you donate them to us since you don’t really need the money (source).
By issue, a sanctimonious pacifism had returned, as shown by a reprint of a letter from another magazine in response to National Defense Day (source).
The editorial note before the letter said that “[t]he Christian patriot who has a true vision of world peace and of the only way to its attainment will not remain silent and passive and allow national propaganda for militarism to go on unrebuked.” The letter itself told the story of a Belgian family, some members of which had been killed by poison gas in an American bombardment: “American gas shells, made by American girls, paid for by your grandmother’s liberty bonds [emphasis mine], handled by skilled American artillerymen, blessed by American clergy, valiantly gassed this Belgian maiden.”
But aside from this pointed mention, the subject of the Liberty Loan, Liberty Bonds, War Stamps, and things of that nature was for the most part just quietly dropped in the Brethren Evangelist, and writers went on preaching peace as though nothing had happened.
(But Iremember them that are in bonds.)
Meanwhile, what was going on over at the Gospel Messenger?
A article by I.V. Funderburgh on “Our Response” (to the war).
He described the response of Brethren in part this way: “We pledge to the Red Cross; we subscribe for Liberty Bonds; we buy thrift-stamps; we conserve food, clothing, and fuel. Sacrifice! Yes, we do. ¶ But what of the summons, ‘Serve’? Oh, yes, we have served in responding to our country’s demand for money…”
In the issue, D.E. Cripe confronted the theory of war tax resistance more directly than I had seen done to this point (source):
Though we be strangers and pilgrims, while we are in the flesh, we can not avoid living in an earthly kingdom or nation, and therefore we have duties which can not be evaded.
One of these is paying tribute or taxes.
Even Jesus, through Peter, paid tribute, “lest we should offend them,” and he never asked what use would be made of the money.
Paul says we should pay tribute, not only for wrath but for conscience’s sake.
Very likely this tribute was turned into the treasury to support the Roman army, but Paul did not question this.
After the Christian has paid his tribute, he has done his duty, and he is not responsible for the use that the Government makes of it.
In the issue, J.A. Vancil urged Brethren who had purchased war bonds to “put those Liberty Bonds to work for the cause of Jesus Christ?
It was really the Lord’s money that purchased them, anyway.” (source) “If those Liberty Bonds were turned over to the church, there would be sufficient funds, from the accruing interest, to carry on all departments of the work of the church for the next five years.
Then, at the maturity of these Bonds, there would be a vast available amount.”
The General Mission Board, in a fundraising notice in the issue (source), wrote:
Liberty Bonds
A brother writes and asks: “Can you accept Liberty Bonds in the Conference offering?
Some of our brethren can give considerably more, if you can.” Most surely we can accept Liberty Bonds.
Through them you have helped to free the world from autocracy.
Now let us use them to free the world from the autocracy of sin.
Send them in to us!
We will put them to the Lord’s use.
An interesting note in the issue said that the following query had been sent to the Annual Conference (source):
We, the members of the Empire congregation, ask Annual Meeting of through the District Meeting of Northern California, to restate and define the position of the church upon war in all its phases, including the bearing of arms, drilling, buying war bonds, etc.
If the Annual Meeting took up this invitation, I haven’t yet found record of it.
The issue included an article entitled “In the War on War” by George Fulk.
Fulk wrote that “[t]o a very considerable number of highly patriotic Christian citizens, perhaps no question of ethics more difficult of solution ever presented itself than that of the proper relation which they should personally bear toward service in the World War… With [some] it became a question as to the purchasing of liberty bonds, which meant the furnishing of the sinews of war.”
This at least put buying war bonds back on the agenda as a problem and didn’t try to wave away what buying war bonds meant.
Fulk was back in to tell Brethren that they really must take a stand, because by default they were supporting war (source):
It is a stern fact also that persons are volunteering on both sides, and those who fail to volunteer, are being drafted on the side of war.
Circumstances, speaking in very general terms, are doing the drafting.
That is to say, circumstances have always been such, are now such, and promise indefinitely to be such, as to lead unfailingly to war unless counter-forces are brought to oppose.
If we fail to join the counter-forces, we not only offer circumstances a clear road to war, but we contribute directly, through taxes, and other means, which necessarily conform to the present system of war, as a method of settling disputes.
But in general, war taxes were presented as something to be regretted, not resisted.
The Messenger would sometimes allude to estimates that 93% of federal taxes being raised were going to pay for the expenses of the recent war.
But rather than wonder whether anti-war Brethren ought to pay such a bill, this was usually just a lead in to a sales pitch about how Brethren ought to be just as willing to contribute to the latest church fundraising campaign.
A note in a issue concerned Kees and Beatrice Boeke, the European Quaker pacifists who were pushing the limits of nonviolent action.
The note said that the couple “are likely to have their property seized again this year as last, because they can not, as a matter of conscience, pay their military tax.”
The couple’s “unflinching testimony against war, and their fearless preaching of the Gospel of peace and good will to all men” was described in nothing but flattering terms (source).
A lengthy article by L.R. Holsinger on “The Christian’s Duty to the State”, from the issue, attacked war tax resistance more or less directly, which at least suggests that somewhere off the pages of the Messenger that heresy was alive:
The matter of paying taxes has been considered obligatory ever since government has been a realization.
It was true thousands of years before Christ said, “Render, therefore, unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.”… We therefore believe that in order to “Render… to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom”…, it becomes necessary to pay over our portion of the necessary funds to facilitate the effective and harmonious administration of the government of which we are a part.
There come times, however, that the government engages in activities such as war which their consciences justly raise a question about, but the experiences of the recent war have been of such a nature as to cause many to feel that the awful cost, not only in money, but in morals, happiness, and life, is the penalty for their neglect and indifference both in religious and civic affairs.
We are persuaded that if the amount of money and zealous effort that was expended each month during the war to promote it, had been expended during the ten years previous to the war to propagate the Gospel and promote the cause of the Prince of Peace, the history of the “world war” would never have been written, and the future generation would have “heroes” to admire and to emulate whose influence would not create a false patriotism which will result in a periodic repetition of a similar or worse upheaval but would hasten the day when “Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”… The fact that we find ourselves a part of a government that engages temporarily in war may be blamed on us as Christians as well as others, and though we may be justified in absolute refusal to take the life willfully of any individual, we cannot find justification in refusal to pay taxes as long as the government functions as such, not only for the purpose of war which is incidental, but “for the people.”
I’ve left out some references to war savings stamps and liberty bonds listed as donations or as parts of the holdings of Brethren institutions.
I saw very few signs that members of the Church of the Brethren — at least those who were represented in the periodicals of the period — had second thoughts about church-members or institutions trafficking in war bonds during World War Ⅰ.
There were many complaints about the continuing arms race, and many of these highlighted the burden placed on the taxpayer, but this was never presented as something that a conscientious taxpayer could or should confront directly.
Today I share the results of my hunt for war tax resistance sentiment in the archives of Brethren periodicals from the 1930s up to the point of the U.S. entry into World War Ⅱ.
A lot happened in this period, which came as a surprise to me after having viewed the vanishing of opposition to personal funding of war during and immediately after World War Ⅰ.
Gandhi’s Indian independence movement was frequently mentioned in columns of Brethren periodicals, and usually in a sympathetic way.
In the edition of The Brethren Evangelist, his tax resistance campaigns got a skeptical look in the light of Brethren teaching (source):
The Word of Christ inculcates obedience to the powers of civil government, the payment of tribute and tax money even to the emperors of Rome, the rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. Ghandi [sic] asks his followers not to pay certain taxes and foments a campaign of “civil disobedience.”
As a matter of fact, the “Way of Ghandi” is more like the method used by the English suffragettes of some years ago. And in some respects it is very successful as a political means.
George H.
Jones saw the writing on the wall in a article that began: “That the United States is nearer war now than at any time in the past twenty years, no one doubts” (source).
He urged conscientious objectors to war to prepare for the tough times ahead, and reminded them what had happened in the last war, for example:
The churches in many cases became simply the sponsors for drives to win the war by appeals for cigarettes and socks or chocolate and sweaters or Liberty Bonds to end the War for Democracy.
These were the major needs that sounded to the dome in many Christian churches.
The Gospel Messenger was also publishing at this time, and had absorbed the previously independent Missionary Visitor.
In the issue of The Gospel Messenger, Ben Stoner announced the “20,000 Dunkers for Peace” campaign.
The campaign aimed to get 20,000 Brethren (and other varieties of German Baptist and related sects) to sign a peace pledge.
This brief pledge explicitly mentioned war taxes (source):
I, ⸺, as a part of my program for peace, refuse ever to bear arms or to coöperate, in any way, in armed conflict; and, only under protest to pay taxes for military purposes.
In the accompanying article, Stoner explained that the tax portion pledged the signer “to do all within his power to keep his tax money from being appropriated for purposes which are inconsistent with Christiantiy and the basic laws of our land.” However, this stopped short of tax resistance: “At present perhaps the best way of protesting the use of tax money for military purposes is through petition to Congress when appropriations are being considered.”
The issue printed the following query from one congregation, and noted that it had been passed up for consideration to the Annual Conference (source):
We, the Eglon congregation, petition Annual Conference through District Meeting of the First District of West Virginia to tell us how we can best protest against paying taxes for military purposes.
A report on the conference carried in the issue explained what happened next (source):
The paper protesting military taxes resulted in several speeches before it was decided to make the answer of Standing Committee the answer of Conference.
And this was that the matter be referred to the Board of Christian Education for study and a report in .
This seems a fair disposition of the problem in view of the fact that the question is involved and study needed.
The answer from the Board of Christian Education came (source):
All lawful taxes should be paid. As Christians we differentiate between taxes for constructive and taxes for destructive purposes. Because war is unchristian, taxes for military and naval purposes should be protested.
Not less than 70% out of our taxes paid to the federal government goes directly or indirectly for military and naval purposes. Some of these federal taxes are: income taxes, estate taxes, federal stamp taxes, and the federal tax on gasoline, etc.
Ways of protesting against taxes for military and naval purposes.
Paste a small sticker on your income tax returns and other payments made to the federal government, which reads as follows: “That portion of this tax devoted to armaments and war preparedness is paid under protest.” The Board of Christian Education will furnish these stickers.
Write a letter once a year to your congressmen protesting against the appropriation of funds for military and naval purposes.
Protest personally when paying federal taxes, such as the federal gasoline tax.
Protest through resolutions from local churches, district, and Annual Conferences.
We favor a further study of this problem with the purpose of helping to develop a sound theory of taxation.
A later report on the Annual Conference noted that this “Protesting Against Military Taxes” committee report was adopted by the conference “after a single question… There was no argument.”
A front-page editorial by J.E.M. in the edition, entitled “I Hate War”, touched on personal war funding in a couple of places:
Later in the seventies I saw the war stamps on match boxes, and learned of other stamps and taxes that had to be paid because of the depression caused by the Civil War. My hatred of war increased, for those stamps and taxes in hard times seemed stained with human blood and reeked with human flesh.
I have seen university students being trained for war, trained with money that you and I pay, and I hate war.
I am paying taxes to help pay for past wars and to prepare for the next war, and I hate war.
In a article, Kermit Eby tried to explain that when the war comes, the pacifist position, if taken earnestly, will be see as a threat to the war effort and dealt with accordingly, and that Brethren should prepare themselves with this in mind (source):
The major task in the last war centered in the task of keeping up the will to win; no effort was spared in its achievement.
Most authorities on the “next war” believe that a greater effort will be made to mobilize the national sentiment needed.
If this is true, several significant developments may be expected concerning which members of pacifist churches should be aware.
Membership in the Church of the Brethren means that each member is opposed to the use of war as a means of achieving the policies of his nation; that because of religious, economic, social, and other reasons he is unable to give intellectual assent to the war system.
Having come to this conclusion, he refuses to support his government when to do so goes contrary to his conscience.
The assumption of such a position automatically places one in opposition to the government at war.
It is a situation in which there is no neutrality, no grey, simply white or black.
The mere intellectual assent to a pacifist position amounts to intellectual sabotage, for it implies an unwillingness to go with the group.
…[T]he success of war depends on the intellectual and emotional support given it, as much as on the material.
Hence, the pacifist position is the first step in blocking the successful termination of the war.
Furthermore, the greater the number of those who take the position of opposition, the greater the danger to them as individuals.
A few pacifists could be tolerated as religious fanatics; many pacifists become a stumblingblock to the war machine, and, as such, they must be removed quickly.
Frankly, members of a pacifist church should know that such a position may mean their removal from society, loss of jobs, persecution, and even death.
The only hope in a pacifist move lies in the possibility of it becoming a mass movement of such proportions that no government would dare risk annihilating it entirely.
Membership in the Church of the Brethren is not a passive act.
It puts one on record as an opponent of war.
It classifies one as a public enemy in war time, along with enemy aliens, deserters, labor and professional agitators.
The statement in the resolution concerning the refusal to support war by the payment of taxes adds to the similarity with the left wing labor groups who oppose international war for economic reasons.
The only distinction remains in the mind of the pacifist who ignorantly thinks that refusal to give economic support is non-aggressive in its opposition to the government at war.
It is, in fact, a most dangerous form of obstruction.
Since this is the case, a pacifist should be willing to accept the logic of his position and refuse all economic aid for support of war.
To put the case simply, no Dunker farmer dare ask his son to support the position of the church by risking death in opposition to war when he is guilty of selling his farm produce at a profit.
Wheat is as vital to war as soldiers, and we dare not refuse the former and advance the latter.
Finally, we must face the fact that even relief means support of the war system, for it releases others from the necessity of affording relief, it encourages the soldiers who are in need of relief, it gives support to the war by rehabilitating wounded for further service, it denies simultaneous aid to the enemy — no government would permit relief for its enemy.
Relief supplies are secured by independent funds; thus direct economic aid is given which would otherwise not be supplied.
More seriously than any of the above is the intellectual support which relief gives.
To be consistent, we must intellectually sabotage the entire system even to relief and bravely accept the consequences.
This was such a radical departure from everything I’d read before that at first I wondered whether it had been intended as a sort of Modest Proposal meant to exaggerate the pacifist position to logical conclusions that would be unpalatable to the typical reader.
But I think Eby was sincere.
The Annual Conference reaffirmed “our purpose not to participate in any war, and our protest against the application of such a large proportion of our taxes to military purposes” but did not elaborate (source).
In the Conference Committee on Counsel for Conscientious Objectors made a series of recommendations for that year’s Annual Conference “on the positions that our people should take in the event of war” (source).
These included the following three varieties of “peace testimony to register our convictions and to avoid our participation in war-related activities:”
The refraining from the purchase of such as Liberty Bonds to finance war.
The renunciation of, or the sacrificial use of, profits derived from industry, farming, or invested securities as a result of war; sacrificing always during war periods to build a fund for the furtherance of good will and for the support of families who suffer because of their conscientious objections to war.
The protesting against federal income taxes if used for military purposes.
This is the first explicit renunciation of the Church’s embrace of Liberty Bonds during World War Ⅰ that I have spotted.
A later report on the Annual Conference was difficult for me to interpret, but I think the gist of it was that this set of recommendations passed.
Rufus Bowman was a member of that Conference Committee, and in a later book on The Church of the Brethren and War he says that this was the high point of official Brethren opposition to war, at least up to the book’s publication in .
In the issue, Lorell Weiss predicted the trouble ahead, and how Brethren would be communicating their values to their children by their actions (source):
[T]here is a strong temptation to compromise principles for expediency’s sake.
Furthermore, the choice between principles and expediency must be made not once but often, by both parents and children.
We have not only to decide whether it is right to kill.
Other questions press for an answer.
Shall we buy defense bonds? Shall we assist in aluminum drives or patriotic demonstrations? Shall we remain discreetly silent and let our neighbors assume that we share the general war fever, or shall we boldly testify for what we believe?
A letter to the editor from Homer D. Kimmel (source) printed in the edition read:
This evening we heard a radio announcer advertising the sale of defense savings bonds with these words, “Buy a defense saving bond.
The $18.75 that you spend for a $25 defense savings bond will buy five bayonets.”
What a picture that calls to one’s mind! Five bayonets for five soldiers to tear the entrails out of five fellow men left lying helpless with their life blood flowing out on some ghastly battlefield! Yet all such are fellow men who love life no less than you and I.
Buy a defense saving bond!
Buy some death, some pain and suffering, some heartache, tears, hunger and privation.
An article by James L. Houff in the issue noted how frequently the government was tapping people for war funding (source). Excerpt:
Every time we go to the movies we pay three cents to the government for defense.
When we take a Sunday afternoon motor ride, about six cents out of every twenty goes to the government for tax.
At the post office we are reminded by our postmaster that he has defense bonds for sale.
Children are told they might help protect their country by buying savings stamps with their money instead of candy.
In the Bible Monitor of , B.F.
Masterson tried to put all this talk of protesting war taxes to rest (source).
Masterson advocated a strict distancing of the Christian believer from politics, of a sort that was going out of fashion elsewhere in the church.
Excerpts:
Paul did not suggest to the churches to write letters to Ceaser instructing him how to manage his naval tactics, that is the chief commander of the army’s business.
The church is not supposed, from a New Testament view point, to take part in the transaction of civil government.
The Jews who were under the Roman government, but not on good terms with it, conspired to draw Christ into politics when they asked Him, if it is lawful to pay taxes to Ceasar.
He said, render unto Ceasar the things which are Ceasar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s, He did not suggest to the Jews to make a protest against paying a certain per cent of the taxes.
He knew better than to get His foot in the trap.
[I]t does not pay for the church to enter into a confederacy with the world and for a Christian organization to advise, unsolicited, the commander of an army is beyond its jurisdiction and to protest against taxes that are applied for one[’s] protection is ungrateful to say the least, and would not coincide with the tenor of Christ’s doctrine.
Jesus was entirely free from the spirit of nationalism.
Although a Jew, He never protested against the Roman rule nor incited in His followers the spirit of rebellion.
The Bible Monitor also reproduced an article from the Gospel Herald (a Mennonite publication) in on the proper relationship between the Christian and the government (stand-offish for the most part), that included this section on taxes and Liberty Bonds (source):
Christians have the obligation to pay tribute and custom to and to fear and honor the “powers that be.”… This principle came acutely under test during the World war.
The problem did not arise with reference to the payment of taxes some of the proceeds of which were definitely used to carry on the war, but with reference to the purchase of Liberty Bonds which was voluntary, the proceeds of which directly supported the war program.
Here the nonresistant conscience asserted itself.
The former was clearly within the teaching of scripture, but the latter was voluntary and became a measure of one’s wartime patriotism.
Men who were physically unable on account of the rigors of warfare could render their bit toward the winning of the war by the purchase of bonds.
To sum up: the Church of the Brethren has come a long way since the willful blindness of the World War Ⅰ period, when Dunkers seemed happy to buy up war bonds with abandon.
Now there is explicit precedent for refusal to buy war bonds, and even some hints of emerging tax resistance, or at least tax reluctance.
But it remains to be seen whether this trend will survive Pearl Harbor.
As the millennium came to a close, the chorus of war tax resisters that had sung strongly in the Church of the Brethren through the sixties, seventies, and eighties faded to a handful of crickets, and then, finally, to nearly nothing.
In the on-line archives of the Messenger and Brethren Evangelist give out at Internet Archive.
But maybe that’s just as well.
In there was almost nothing in either magazine touching on war taxes or war bonds.
a Peace Tax Fund advertisement from the Messenger
I was able to find a couple of things in the on-line Messenger archives at brethren.org.
A article profiled David R. Bassett and his war tax resistance and his work with the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund.
The page containing this article also has an audio interview with Bassett.
A article on “The Brethren in World War Ⅰ” noted that “the Sedition Act… criminalized speaking out against purchase of Liberty (war) Bonds, which resulted in charges against Brethren pastors J.A. Robinson of Iowa and David Gerdes of Illinois.”
The Pilgrim recounted this story in its issue (source):
In the Old Brethren had existed as a separate brotherhood for only five years.
One of the elders of the church in Carroll County, Indiana, then was a brother named John Leedy.
He was known as being very firm in his views.
When neighbors came to persuade John to buy war bonds, he refused.
How could he do such a thing when he believed this was so opposite the Gospel of our Lord?
John would not use a gun to take his enemy’s life.
How could he willingly and purposefully finance someone else to do so?
This was not understood by the patriotic neighbors of Brother John.
They could not understand how he could think it was right just to let the enemy go on without resistance.
But we think Brother John would rather have given up all his possessions and been mistreated than to be unfaithful to the Lord Jesus and the example of the small flock of Jesus through the centuries.
We as Christians are called to actually love our enemies.
So not only is this a matter of legalistic obedience.
But how could a Christian want to take part in warmongering or support others to do?
One evening as John and his wife were about to retire for the night, they heard a knock on the door.
John opened the door, and when he saw the men, he prepared to go outdoors.
His wife begged him to stay indoors, but John knew that the men who bid him come outdoors were angry, so he motioned his wife to stay indoors.
He stepped outside and closed the door.
Someone said, “Grab him!” They took John and roughly set him in then midst.
Someone produced scissors, and they cut large pieces of his beard and hair, but left parts of it in a grotesque pattern.
John offered no resistance.
The men prepared to go, and one said to him, “John, you buy bonds or we will return, and you will be handled worse the next time.”
John stood quietly in the doorway.
I imagine his lip trembled as yours or mine would have done.
I imagine he felt sorry for the men, as you and I should feel.
Then he said in his characteristic way, “Well, men, when you return I expect you’ll find the same John.”
The next day John went into the local village.
Respectful businessmen in town were enraged that someone would treat their fellow neighbor in such fashion.
In spite of John’s protests, they put a guard around his house for awhile to protect them.
When I ask some old folks today, “Do you remember John Leedy?” they invariably smile and say, “John was a firm man.”
— From Fred Benedict’s The Same John printed in the , Vindicator.
Christians have the obligation to pay tribute and custom to and to fear and honor the “powers that be.” (Rom. 13:6–7) This principle came acutely under test during the World War.
The problem did not arise with reference to the payment of taxes some of the proceeds of which were definitely used to carry on the war, but with reference to the purchase of Liberty Bonds which was voluntary, the proceeds of which directly supported the war program.
Here the nonresistant conscience asserted itself.
The former was clearly within the teaching of scripture, but the latter was voluntary and became a measure of one’s wartime patriotism.
Men who were physically unable on account of the rigors of warfare could render their bit toward the winning of the war by the purchase of bonds.
![Is this you? I wish to inform you [blank] street, who never has bought a Liberty Bond and who says he never will. He is a moneyed man. We wish him to help his country. Please get after him. Say nothing about this notice.](isThisYou.png)
