New York (UPI) — At least 360 persons, including a Nobel Prize winner, a leading
folk-singer, and a controversial Yale professor, have refused to pay all or
part of their federal income taxes for in
protest to “illegal use” of
U.S. forces in
such areas as Viet Nam and the Dominican Republic.
A statement issued by the group said some of the protestors will leave their
tax money in banks where it can be seized by the Internal Revenue Service.
Others, it said, will contribute the money to charities.
The Federal Revenue Code provides for jail sentences of up to one year and
fines as high as $10,000 for conviction of willful refusal to pay federal
income taxes.
Among the protestors who signed the statement were
Prof. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi,
nobel prize-winning bio-chemist; folk singer Joan Baez;
Prof. Staughton Lynd of
Yale, who made an unauthorized trip to Viet Nam last December; veteran
pacifist the Rev. A.J.
Muste; Helen Merrell Lynd; co-author of “Middletown;[”] poet Lawrence
Ferlinghetti; publisher Lyle Stuart;
Prof. William Davidon of
Haverford College; Prof.
Carroll C. Pratt of Rider College; editor Dorothy Day of The Catholic Worker,
and Prof. John M. Vickers
of the University of Illinois.
A version of the same story in
The Milwaukee Journal has some minor wording
changes, lists CARE and
UNICEF as two of the charities some of the
resisters are redirecting their taxes to, notes that “Almost every state in
the union is represented in the group,” and adds a couple of paragraphs about
Wisconsin resisters:
Dr. Carl M. Kline, a Wausau
psychiatrist who formerly practiced in Milwaukee, was one of the signers. He
said: “I am just going to refuse to pay a part of it, and I will leave that
money in my bank account. I realize you can’t beat this thing, but it is a
matter of expressing my feelings. I am a Quaker, and I am against war
altogether, but I feel particularly that our action in Vietnam is wrong, and
this is my way of protesting. I wish I could do more.”
Another Wisconsin signer was Kenneth Knudson, of Madison. Knudson picketed
the Madison internal revenue office in and
to protest use of federal funds for
military purposes.
That article also adds this detail:
Miss Baez earlier had refused to pay 60% of her
federal income tax to protest government
expenditures for armament. The internal revenue service collected more than
$34,000 from her after attaching a lien to her income and property.
The time has come, and that time was .
350 Balk at Taxes in a War Protest
Ad in Capital Paper Urges Others to Bar Payment
Washington, — Some 350 persons who disapprove of the war in Vietnam
announced that they would not
voluntarily pay their Federal income taxes, due
. They urged others to join them
in this protest.
The Internal Revenue Service immediately made clear that it would take
whatever steps were necessary to collect the taxes.
The group announced its plans
in an advertisement in The Washington Post.
“We will refuse to pay our Federal income taxes voluntarily,” the
advertisement said. “Some of us will leave the money we owe the Government in
our bank accounts, where the Internal Revenue Service may seize it if they
wish. Some will contribute the money to
CARE,
UNICEF or similar organizations. Some of us
will continue to pay that percentage of our taxes which is not used for
military purposes.”
Joan Baez, Lynd, Muste
The first signature on the advertisement was that of Joan Baez, the folk
singer. Others who signed it were Staughton Lynd, the Yale professor who
traveled to North Vietnam in violation
of State Department regulations, and the
Rev. A.J. Muste, the
pacifist leader.
The advertisement contained a coupon soliciting contributions for the protest.
The ad said that further information could be obtained from Mr. Muste at
Room 1003, 5 Beekman Street, New York City.
Those who placed the advertisement — which bore the heading “The Time Has
Come” — said that those who sponsored it “recognize the gravity of this step.
However, we prefer to risk violating the Internal Revenue Code, rather than
to participate, by voluntarily paying our taxes, in the serious crimes
against humanity being committed by our Government.”
The advertisement mentioned not only the war in Vietnam “against hungry,
scantily armed Vietnamese guerrillas and civilians” but also “the spectacle
of the United States invasion of the Dominican Republic,” an event the
sponsors said “will go down in history alongside Russia’s criminal
intervention in Hungary.”
Cohen Is Determined
The determination of Internal Revenue to collect the taxes the Government is
owed was expressed in a formal statement by the Commissioner of Internal
Revenue, Sheldon S. Cohen.
He said Internal Revenue would take “appropriate action” to collect the
taxes “in fairness to the many millions of taxpayers who do fulfill their
obligations.”
The Government has been upheld in court on all occasions when individuals
have refused to pay taxes because of disapproval with the uses to which their
money was being put, revenue officials said.
Ad Prepared Here
The headquarters of the Committee for Nonviolent Action, 5 Beekman Street,
said that it had prepared the
advertisement carried in the Washington newspaper after receiving 350
responses to invitations it had sent out soliciting participation in “an act
of civil disobedience.”
A spokesman for the committee said that Mr. Muste, the chairman, was out of
town and would return in about a week. The spokesman said that although
monetary contributions in response to the advertisement had not yet begun to
come in, the committee was prepared to mail literature explaining its program
to those who responded to the advertisement.
The spokesman said that the tax protest had been intended to represent “a
more radical and meaningful protest against the Vietnam War.”
The committee announced that members would appear at
in front of the Internal
Revenue Service office, 120 Church Street, to distribute leaflets concerning
the tax protest.
It also said that a rally and picketing would be staged from
, in front of the Federal
Building in San Francisco under the sponsorship of the War Resisters League.
The league also has offices at 5 Beekman Street.
With press coverage like this, including even the address to write to for
more information, Muste hardly needed to pay for ad space in the
Times (assuming they would have printed the ad — many
papers rejected ads like this).
Some other names I recognize from the ad are Noam Chomsky, Dorothy Day, Dave
Dellinger, Barbara Deming, Diane di Prima, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Milton Mayer,
David McReynolds, Grace Paley, Eroseanna Robinson, Ira Sandperl, Albert
Szent-Gyorgyi, Ralph Templin, Marion Bromley, Horace Champney, Ralph Dull,
Walter Gormly, Richard Groff, Irwin Hogenauer, Roy Kepler, Ken Knudson,
Bradford Lyttle, Karl Meyer, Ed Rosenthal, Maris Cakars, Gordon Christiansen,
William Davidon, Johan Eliot, Carroll Pratt, Helen Merrell Lynd, E. Russell
Stabler, Lyle Stuart, John M. Vickers, and Eric Weinberger.
The text of the ad (without the signatures and “coupon”) is as follows:
The Time Has Come
The spectacle of the United States — with its jet bombers, helicopters,
fragmentation and napalm bombs and disabling gas — carrying on an endless war
against the hungry, scantily armed Vietnamese guerrillas and civilians…
this spectacle will go down in history alongside the unforgivable
atrocities of Italy in Ethiopia.
The spectacle of the United States invasion of the Dominican Republic — again
pitting our terrifying weaponry mainly against civilians armed with rifles…
this spectacle will go down in history alongside Russia’s criminal
intervention in Hungary.
But the spectacle of the indifference of so many Americans to the crimes
being committed in their names, by their brothers, and with their tax money…
this spectacle reminds us more and more of the indifference of the
majority of the German people to the killing of six million Jews.
The United States government has not reacted constructively to legitimate
criticism, protests and appeals:
by world leaders including the Pope, U Thant and President De Gaulle —
by United States leaders including Senators Morse, Gruening, Church, Fulbright, Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy and Stephen Young —
by hundreds of thousands of citizens including 2,500 clergymen and countless professors who placed protest advertisements in leading newspapers —
by innumerable students, many tens of thousands of whom have taken their protest to Washington on several occasions —
by celebrated individuals such as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Robert Lowell, Arthur Miller and Dr. Benjamin Spock —
and by leading newspapers, including the New York Times.
We believe that the ordinary channels of protest have been exhausted and that
the time has come for Americans of conscience to take more radical action in
the hope of averting nuclear war.
Therefore, the undersigned hereby declare that at least as long as
U.S. Forces are
clearly being used in violation of the
U.S. Constitution,
International Law and the United Nations Charter…
We will refuse to pay our federal income taxes voluntarily
Some of us will leave the money we owe the government in our bank accounts,
where the Internal Revenue Service may seize it if they wish. Others will
contribute the money to CARE,
UNICEF or similar organizations. Some of us
will continue to pay that percentage of our taxes which is not used for
military purposes.
We recognize the gravity of this step. However, we prefer to risk violating
the Internal Revenue Code, rather than to participate, by voluntarily paying
our taxes, in the serious crimes against humanity being committed by our
Government.
