Someone who refuses to pay
taxes on the grounds that the money they send to the
government is being used for
immoral purposes.
....I report my earnings each year but refuse to pay my tax.
I am not doing this to embarass or coerce government officials, but to awaken those timid ones who perhaps may know better
but who pay income taxes for war....
I do this as a Roman Catholic , a daily communicant who believes in penance for, not only
my own sins, but for the social sin of war of which we are all more or less guilty. I do this as a pacifist, as one who refused to
register for the draft in both World Wars, who believes like Gandhi in nonviolent resistence to evil. I do this as an anarchist like
Tolstoy and Thoreau who do not believe in government of man by man, but in government of man by God, and the understanding
of The Sermon on the Mount.
I have worked as a migrant worker and at odd jobs where no withholding tax is taken out of my pay; also lecturing in churches
and colleges and writing aritlces and books. After my daughters graduated from University I gave my earnings to help feed the
poor near the Bowery in New York City. This winter I will open a House of Hospitality here in Salt Lake City to feed those hungery
who come to us. There will be no "singing for your supper." No questions or prayers forced upon anyone. We call our place Joe
Hill House of Hospitality and St. Joseph Refuge ....
Ammon Hennacy
Salt Lake City, Utah
August 6 to 21, 1961
See also Ammon Hennacy and War Resisters League