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

I’ve been re-reading Ammon Hennacy’s autobiography in preparation for something I hope to write about the “one man revolution” theory as he and Thoreau sketched it out. Along the way, I noted the mention of a handful of war tax resisters from that first generation of the modern American war tax resistance movement (roughly 1948–1962) whom I haven’t otherwise had opportunity to mention at The Picket Line:

Dorothy DaPonte: “About this time [early 1950] I had a letter from a teacher in Fairhope, Ala. where I had taught in 1924. Her name was Miss DaPonte and she had refused to pay taxes. She told of some boys, Quakers whose parents I had taught when I was there, who had refused to register. The judge in Mobile told the boys: ‘Well, you pay your taxes, don’t you? And a large amount of our taxes goes for war purposes. If you were consistent in carrying out this belief, you would also refuse to pay your taxes.’ ”; “I had the address of Dorothy DaPonte, a tax refuser in Mobile. She had moved but when we drove into Fairhope across the bay where I had taught history in the high school 26 years before we found that Miss DaPonte was a teacher there. She came of an old southern family and nearly caused her father to have a nervous breakdown last year when she refused to pay taxes and had bravely escorted a young Negro girl to the front seat with her in a Methodist Church. By now her father was getting used to her, only deploring that there were no others in the community who also refused to pay taxes. Two teachers at the school planned to fast with us [during Holy Week 1950, when some nuclear disarmament activists were fasting at the White House] although they had to stay there and teach. Miss DaPonte would have liked to have come along but had to stay as a witness in some trial about segregation. As many do who are new in a movement she asked why I did not fast-to-the-death on the White House steps against the H-Bomb.…”
Margaret Dungan: Among the fasters in 1950: “Margaret Dungan was an elderly, smiling lady who taught in a high-class girls school. She is also a tax refuser with whom I had corresponded. She was a good sport in picketing and stood up in fasting much better than the super-vegetarians whom I expect watched their loss of weight too morosely.”; “Miss Dungan felt that if a person led a life of voluntary poverty he would miss the aesthetic values: music, beauty, etc.…”
Kenneth Patton: “One Sunday morning [in 1952 I think], waiting at the Fairgrounds [somewhere in Arizona] for a bus I was talking to a man who was the brother of a Universalist preacher by the name of Kenneth Patton, who had refused to pay taxes for war but had had the tax taken from his bank account. I gave this man extra copies of the CW to send to his brother.”
Ned Richards: [Also 1952, in Philadelphia] “I also spoke to the War Resisters League and met Ned Richards and family, COs and tax refusers from away back.”
George Yamada: [1951] “George Yamada, Japanese CO who did time in Civilian Public Service and in Danbury Penitentiary visited me for a week. Aside from Scott Nearing, and my friend Max Heinegg of New Zealand, George is the only vegetarian I have met who is a good worker. Likely this is because he is Japanese and not because he is a vegetarian. George cleaned ditches ten hours a day that week. He kidded and said it was not such hard work for him because he did not have far to stoop as he was built close to the ground. ¶ George had a print shop on the Coast but gave it up rather than pay income taxes for war. He is an expert linotype operator, but will not take the excellent pay this occupation gives, for a withholding tax for war is taken. He has been visiting the Hopi and helping them plant corn. Never a harsh word of Hopi parents to their children he reports. He feels that the Hopi represent a way of life that is an oasis in the world of gadgets. He did not mind my wood stove, oil lamp, and lack of an icebox or air conditioning, for the Hopi cannot afford these things either.”; [1951] “The night before we were to make the signs George Yamada came over and we discussed the content of the signs.”; [1951] “I needed a little rest so we took half an hour off and drove to the ranch where George Yamada was working and told him of the events of the week. Each time I fasted and picketed because of Hiroshima I had sent my leaflets and an air mail to the Mayor of Hiroshima. This year George mailed the letter for me with his own greeting in Japanese.”; “My Hopi friends brought along a copy of Jan. 1952 CRISIS which had an article on the Hopi by our mutual friend George Yamada. Here the land question is discussed…”

Many other war tax resisters from that era also get mentions, for example: Ernest & Marion Bromley, Horace Champney, Lloyd Danzeisen, Dorothy Day, Ralph DiGia, Saunders Dixon, Richard Fichter, Walter Gormly, Art Harvey, George Houser, Emily & Walter Longstreth, Bradford Lyttle, Milton Mayer, Karl Meyer, A.J. Muste, Juanita & Wally Nelson, James Otsuka, James Peck, Eroseanna Robinson, Max Sandin, Ralph Templin, and George Willoughby.

I give excerpts from the book for the above five only because they have otherwise been as yet unsung here.

While I wasn’t paying attention, someone scanned in many back issues of Friends Bulletin, the journal of the Pacific Yearly Meeting and Pacific Coast Association of Friends. This has allowed me another window onto the state of American war tax resistance, Quaker war tax resistance in particular, in the last half of the 20^th century.

Here, for example, from the April, 1951 issue, is an article on an early Peacemakers tax refusal pledge that includes a complete list of signatories, including several I hadn’t heard of before:

Tax Refusal

On March 15 there were among those who did not pay their Federal income taxes the following 59 persons who joined together to support a statement distributed by the Tax Refusal Committee of Peacemakers, 2013 Fifth Ave., N.Y., N.Y. Reverend Ernest Bromley is chairman of this subcommittee of Peacemakers: A.J. Muste is secretary of Peacemakers. A part of their statement is: “Feeling that war must inevitably come unless something drastic is done by individuals to show their unwillingness to go along with war-making policies of their governments, we the undersigned state hereby that we are not going to pay our federal income taxes due March 15. For some of us this means that we will not pay that percentage which corresponds to the nation’s outlay for militarism; for others of us it means we will not pay even the first cent for the maintenance of a government whose main business is preparation for annihilation…”
The signers were: Ernest and Marion Bromley, Golay Rd., Gano, Sharonville, Ohio; Lindley and Emma Burton, Low Buildings, Bryn Mawr, Pa.; Horace and Ava Champney, 512 Phillips St., Yellow Springs, O.; Sara Chase, 1525 Sutter St., San Francisco, Calif.; Samuel and Clarissa Cooper, 214 Eastbourne Terr., Moorestown, N.J.; Dorothy DaPonte, Rte. 4, Box 374, Mobile, Ala.; Margaret E. Dungan, Wallingford, Penna.; Arthur Evans, Awbury, Penna.; Rebecca Winsor Evans, Radnor, Penna.; Fyke Farmer, Bellevue Dr., Nashville, Tenn.; Rev. Marion Frenyear, So. Hartford, N.Y.; Henry and Beatrice Dyer, Yellow Springs, O.; Walter Gormly, 412 N. 3^rd St., W., Mt. Vernon, Iowa; Konrad Halle, 76 Pinehurst Ave., New York 33, N.Y.
Gerald Haynes, R.R. No. 3, Freeport, Maine; Ammon Hennacy, Rte. 3, Box 227, Phoenix, Ariz.; Rev. George Houser, 21 Audubon Ave., New York 32, N.Y.; Woodbridge O. Johnson, Jr., 106 W. 3^rd St., Parkville, Mo.; Sandy Katz 232 W. 29^th St., New York 1, N.Y.; Ruth C. LaBarrer, 6 Nutt Ave., Uniontown, Pa.; Sarah B. Leeds, 28 E. Main St., Moorestown, N.J.; Walter and Emily Longstreth, 140 N. 15^th St., Philadelphia 2, Pa.; Mary Bacon Mason, 31 Pleasant St., Newton Center, Mass.; Rev. Maurice F. McCrackin, 1111 Dayton St., Cincinnati 14, O.; Mary S. McDowell, 555 Ocean Ave., Brooklyn 26, N.Y.; Rev. A.J. Muste, 21 Audubon Ave., New York 32, N.Y.; Ax Nelson, 501 Benvenue, Los Altos, Calif.; Wallace and Juanita Nelson, Golay Rd., in Gano, Sharonville, O.; Ray and Jean Olds, Yellow Springs, O.; Raymond F. Olds, Monterey, Mass.; Storrs F. Olds, Monterey Rd., Great Barrington, Mass.; Jim Otsuka, Rte. 1, Cloverdale, Mich.; Mrs. Gordon Parker, 1401 Wood Ave., Colorado Springs, Colo.; Mabel G. Parker, 1804 Wood Ave., Colorado Springs, Colo.;
James and Paula Peck, 552 Riverside Dr., New York, N.Y., Miriam Pennypacker, 6420 Drexel Rd., Philadelphia 31, Pa.; Grace Rhoads, Box 90, Moorestown, N.J.; Elizabeth and Edward C.M. Richards, Nur Mahal, R.D. 3, West Chester, Pa.; Francis and Valerie Riggs, 23 Coolidge Hill Rd., Cambridge 38, Mass.; Margaret Schauffler, 100 S. Cedar St., Oberlin, O.; Robert and Marjorie Swann, R. 1, Cloverdale, Mich.; Ralph and Lila Templin, Box 125, Yellow Springs, O.; Caroline F. Urie, 128 S. Walnut St., Yellow Springs, O.; Ellen Winsor, Radnor, Pa.; Abraham and Jean Zwickel, P.O. Box 232, Pismo Beach, Calif.

And here’s an early example of a plea for a “peace tax”-style accommodation for conscientious objectors to military taxation, from the January, 1951 issue:

Tax Petition

On Saturday, December 9, in Whittier, Calif., there was combined with the annual meeting of the southern California office of the Fellowship of Reconciliation a program sponsored by the Peace Board of California Yearly Meeting. One of the results of the day is the following petition:

To the Congress of the United States of America

We the undersigned citizens of the United States of America believe:
That present tensions between the free enterprise and communist group of nations are the result of reliance upon military force as an instrument of political determination;
That the threat or use of such force can never result in a just or mutually satisfactory resolution of these tensions;
That the labor and material expended in building up military might would have and still might lead to a peaceful and mutually satisfactory solution if used instead indiscriminately to rebuild the homes and industries destroyed in the last war.
We further believe:
That the military way violates the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” and the Golden Rule by which a Christian must live.
That to supply the means to induce of compel another to do that which we cannot do is equally a violation of those Commandments.
Therefore relying on our Constitutional Bill of Rights which our nation is this week honoring, and the Right of Petition thereby guaranteed, we humbly pray your august body that you pass legislation exempting all of like religious belief from income tax to be used in support of military establishment and substitute the use of that portion of our tax which is to our total tax as the amount used for military is to the national total, to that committee of the United Nations seeking a peaceful abatement of these tensions, thus giving the citizens of the United States the opportunity of paying taxes for the support of war or peace according to the dictates of their own conscience.