Page:The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist.djvu/116

CHAPTER 6. LIFE AT HARD LABOR—THE HOPI 103 received a sentence of one year, so my picketing had not hardened the judge. The paper again quoted the import of my sign as it reported Joe's sentence. Thomas Acosta, the young Mexican who had refused to register but who had afterward been frightened into registering because he knew of no pacifist group, got 6 months. In 1944 the Federal Judge in Santa Fe, N.M„ sentenced Jehovah's Witnesses to 5 years and bemoaned the fact that he could not hang a Mexican who had refused to register.

I gave Joe a copy of Dorothy Day's On Pilgrimage to read in jail. In discussing non-registration with Bryant before this he felt that if one refused to register nothing would come of it, but the picketing had placed the issue dramatically before the people, where otherwise there would have been but a small item about it.

About this time I sent the Collector of Internal Revenue the following letter, which was later printed in the CW.


 * 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. 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. In our case it is the exploitation of the poor by a parasitic owning class living on tariffs, subsidies, rent, interest and profit, and held in power by crooked politicians, subservient clergy, blinded educators and scientists, and a prostituted press, movie industry and radio.
 * 2. Jesus said "forgive seventy times seven. " We make retroactive laws and hang our defeated enemies.
 * Jesus told His Disciples not to call down from heaven to destroy those who would not listen to His gospel. We have no concern with any gospel but the dollar and with our atom bomb bring fire, not only to destroyed enemies, but to whoever is in the way.