Ammon Hennacy

“ WHY AM I PICKETING?
Well, why aren't you? Do the A-Bomb and the H-Bomb make you sleep any better at night? Do you trust our politicians to protect us from destruction in an atomic war? Does it make good sense to foot the bill by paying income taxes?
I am not paying my income tax this year, and I haven't done so for the last seven years. I don't expect to stop World War III by my refusal to pay, but I don't believe in paying for something I don't believe in—do you? Do you believe that anyone ever "won" a war? Or that any good can come from returning evil for evil? ”

“ The Hopi, like Atlas, hold the world upon their shoulders. Every good deed makes for harmony of nature, not only on this earth but in the universe. Every bad deed makes for storms, drought, earthquakes, wars and misery. Prayers accompanied by eagle feathers and proceeding from one who is not a two-heart can overcome evil. As with Gandhi, all true deeds make towards a build-up that is invincible. In fact one good Hopi can save a pueblo from destruction, which the Hopi have predicted from old time will soon come. ”

“ The next morning after breakfast I wrote on the wall that I was beginning to do the "good time" that I had lost when the door opened suddenly and old Johnson smiled for once, saying, "Going out of this jail, Hennacy." I did not believe him; and even while the barber was shaving me I thought it was some trick to bedevil me. I was given my outgoing suit and an overcoat. It is customary for the warden to shake hands with those who leave and to admonish them to live a good life out in the world. ”

“ So when Dorothy left, I felt a new reason for continuing my One Man Revolution.
I had become a radical the same year that Tolstoy died. I had a letter and a card from Gandhi in 1934 when he was in prison. I had written to him, "Gandhi. India" and he received it. I had never met these great spiritual leaders yet loved them. How much more then should I appreciate one such leader who was a contemporary and whom I had known for thirteen years. At any age in life the fact that she was a woman did not make as much difference as it would have twenty years before. ”

“ He said that I would have to go to jail if I did not pay. I told him that I had been there before and was willing to go again.
"Do you think you are right and every one else is wrong?" he asked. "Just about!" was my quick reply. "How could that be?" he queried. "I already have figured it out; it is up to you to figure it out," I replied. "What kind of a country would we have if everyone thought like you?" he asked. "We would have a fine country; no government; no war; no tax man; no police; everyone living according to Christ and the Sermon on the Mount!" ”

“ As a Christian anarchist I refuse to support any government, for, first, as a Christian, all government denies the Sermon on the Mount by a return of evil for evil in legislatures, courts, prisons and war. As an anarchist I agree with Jefferson that "that government is best which governs least." Government is founded to perpetuate the exploitation of one class by another. ”

“ I said that this was a Catholic paper that did not believe in war, and taught that all men were brothers and should not kill each other.
"The skin may be different color," he answered, touching his tanned arm, "but the Great Spirit is in the heart of everyone. The Sun is the father that gives light and makes the corn grow. If it seems to shine too much for us, we must know that it shines for everybody; for some who need it more than we do. A man who curses the good Mother Earth because the crop does not grow is sinful. We must plant good seed, and God and Mother Earth bring us good food. ”

“ Why should he be praised for facing death when millions of men better than he are facing it in the trenches every day for their country? You have the evidence before you where he has ordered his co-defendant to print the treasonable leaflets calling this a Wall Street war and advising young men to refuse to register for the draft. I am only sorry that two years is the limit which can be given; he has said that he would go to jail rather than rot on a foreign battlefield; then give him the jail which he desires. ”

“ To have to argue with Christians that God would take care of those who seek first the Kingdom; to have to try to prove to a priest that Jesus really meant the Sermon on the Mount; to have to tell so-called metaphysical leaders that their Mammon worship was not important and that "all things work together for good to those that love God"—all this might seem superfluous but it is part of being fools for Christ's sake; part of trusting in God rather than in the social security and old age pension of a war-making state; it is part of that "Life at Hard Labor." ”

“ Coming to the fire built along the curb for the prospective workers to keep warm while waiting for a truck, which fire consisted of an old tire burning and smoking, I discussed the prospects of work with young and old, male and female, white, colored, and Mexican who were there. One burly, middle-aged man in a bright mackinaw came with his bedroll over his shoulder, a small package of clothing, and a three-cell lantern in his hand.
"Can't leave this stuff laying around. Folks will rob me. Damn working class is their own worst enemy," he muttered as we stood with our backs to the fire. ”

“ Love without Courage and Wisdom is Sentimentality, as with the ordinary church member. Courage without Love and Wisdom is Foolhardiness, as with the ordinary soldier. Wisdom without Courage and Love is Cowardice, as with the ordinary intellectual. Therefore, one who has Love, Wisdom and Courage is the one in a hundred million who moves the world, as with Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi. ”

“ I am writing this preliminary statement of my reasons for not paying my income tax ahead of time, as I was recently informed by your office that I would be imprisoned for my constant refusal to pay taxes. Upon my arrest I will give you the correct report of my earnings to date in 1948. My belief in the iniquity of government, which exists primarily to wage war, has been stated this last six years in my statement to your department when I refused to pay any tax, and also in articles in the CATHOLIC WORKER. To briefly sum them up again for your possible edification: 1. ”

“ O my friend, why do you, who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth? ”

“ In and out of prison I have refused to honor the jingoistic Star Spangled Banner. Truly America the Beautiful means much to me. I refuse to desert this country to those who would bring it to atomic ruin. It is my country as much as it is theirs. ”

“ To change the world by bullets or ballots was a useless procedure. If the workers ever did get a majority of either, they would have the envy and greed in their hearts and would be chained by these as much as by the chains of the master class. And the State which they would like to call a Cooperative Commonwealth would be based on power; the state would not wither away but would grow. Therefore the only revolution worthwhile was the one-man revolution within the heart. Each one could make this by himself and not need to wait on a majority. ”

“ Fido and Borso follow us to the orchard and it seems they must lie under the very tree where limbs are falling, gnawing a bone or a bit of frozen and dried apple; but they lead a dog's charmed life and are never hurt. Soon it is noon as Paul goes to the dairy to eat his lunch with Fred, Frank and Karl, and the guard who carries a gun but never uses it. I have cooked a kettle of pinto beans, and not having planted any chili peppers last summer I have added some vegetable shortening and onion for flavor. ”

“ He should live from day to day with confidence that God will not let him starve, spiritually or physically. He should not send his children to the devil worship of the public school, accept rations or gifts from the government, register for the draft, vote, or pay taxes to the war-making state. Preferably he should work hard with his hands and be ready to live or die at any time for the True Hopi Way of Life—knowing, that perhaps he alone might be left to save the city when destruction comes and he cannot save it or himself when his mind is chasing after the dollar. ”

“ I had borrowed a bicycle from Lipa's brother Joe, and after attending to the irrigation of the orchard I started down the road to the Indian reservation in which is located the Pueblo of Isleta, seven miles to the south. The road was uphill and down and quite sandy, so that progress was slow. Here it wound along the edge of the bluff overlooking the two ribbons of the Rio Grande with a wide expanse of sandbars between. Horses grazed on the lush grass along the river in the lowlands near the Santa Fe bridge. ”

“ I predict that we will not conquer Fascism, although we may defeat Hitler; we will have a Fascist dictatorship under the name of Democracy upon us I predict that Germany and Russia will make a separate peace and that England, as always, will fight only for herself and we will be left to fight the world. ”

“ Early one spring morning, having no work in the date grove or for the Old Pioneer where I live, I walked down the lateral. I went toward the carrot field of the big company for whom I had worked before the tax man caused me to quit in order not to have my wages garnisheed for my share toward the Bomb. This carrot work was piece work and workers were paid as the crates of carrots were filled, so I would have no trouble with Caesar today. Soon my Basque friend picked me up in his truck. Even then I was late, for scores of Mexican families were singing, laughing and working. ”

“ Only it is not his increased income that is squandered but the heritage of the American people. The Republicans are not better for they advocate such policies as pouring money into the dead-end of Formosa. Meanwhile big trust funds and Democratic politicians are relieved of full payment of taxes and the poor man has his taxes withheld to pay for the atom bomb and future and past wars. The only reason that the Fascist Franco has not been officially blessed is that our politicians do not feel that they can put it across. There is a way of life that is not at the same time a way of death. ”

“ One employer who paid low wages said it was difficult to get a worker whose mind was concerned with the work all of the time. Did he want both mind and body for $5 a day? Aside from the natural greed of the bourgeois one reason for the importing of Mexican Nationals was the difficulty of getting sober white men by calling for them at daylight at the slave market in Phoenix. With employers passing a "Right to Work" law in Arizona and church authorities refusing to back up labor it would seem that the worker should not worry about the work problems of the boss. ”

“ Courage is the most important virtue, for, as Johnson said to Boswell, if you do not have it you cannot practice the other virtues. Voluntary Poverty, the fundamental means of the Catholic Worker and Tolstoy, keeps the radical from becoming bourgeois and selling out. Pacifism and the Sermon on the Mount I had learned in solitary and they provided a basis for a worthwhile personal life and for a philosophy upon which to meet all other social problems. Anarchism is the negative side, but necessary to keep one from the treadmill of politics. ”

“ Here I met a man about ten years my senior who was a Socialist, Ed Firth. He was also a Sunday School teacher. He was an expert pottery worker. I would have treasured his friendship during all these years, as we had much in common, but he died in prison in World War I. He was indicted with the Communist Labor Party group.
That winter I milked eight cows, morning and night, and worked all day Saturday. I sat behind a huge wood stove nights and studied, taking five subjects. Apples, and cider from the barrel in the dark cellar form the pleasant memory of that winter. ”

“ I rode horses bareback after the cows to the lower farm in the evening. At daylight I walked the mile to the night pasture and warmed my bare feet where the cows had been lying. It seems impossible that a boy could have eaten a dozen or more buckwheat cakes for breakfast—but those were the days!
"Go to sister Randolph's; she's a good woman," was the direction given for miles around to tramps who asked for food. ”

“ The racket of the capitalist and the clergy has been exchanged for the racket of the Commissar. Real communism was practiced by the early Christians, who also refused allegiance to Caesar in the army and refused to go to court, one who did so being denied communion. There is no communism in Russia today, only state capitalism. They have not been used to freedom so do not miss it. In this country we are free to talk but few pay attention because or the noise of the Mammon Arts. Capitalism is doomed. It cannot last because its machinery produces more than the wages given to workers can buy back. ”

“ Who teach contentment with your lot— Unless you run the game— And wink at sin and grab the tin In lowly Jesus'name. I wonder if the devil laughs, And adds oil to his fire, To make a warm reception for That saintly son and sire, Who teach love and the golden rule, While practicing the same ”