Page:The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist.djvu/162

CHAPTER 7. DOROTHY VISITS PHOENIX and Paula Waxman, and Juanita Nelson, wife of Wally were active in setting our leaflets done on time. Katie Voorhies was an elderly, blind Negro woman from Tracy, Cal. who took money she had saved for burial and came here. Dave Mason was an old time wob. I went to mass with him mornings. Madge Burnham made fine precise posters. Walter Longstreth came down to greet his wife who had weakened somewhat physically while fasting. Elizabeth Haas, a young Quaker librarian from Baltimore who was fired because she refused to sign a loyalty oath, was a part-time faster also. I had met Louise Haliburton in Camp Mack, Indiana when I spoke at a Brethern Conference there in 1938. George Houser, non-registrant and tax refuser whom I had met in Cleveland in 1945 also came late. A young Quaker girl who works as a playground assistant brought her sleeping bag for the last three days.

There was an attempt at the fast to evaluate what we were doing. Some felt that there was too much activity and not enough discussion. Others felt that there should be more prayer. Miss Dungan felt that if a person led a life of voluntary poverty he would miss the aesthetic values: music, beauty, etc. I spoke up and boasted of the scenery and sunsets of desert Arizona which cost nothing and which I liked better than the canned music and organized beauty of the cities. I am reminded here of Dorothy's saying that she liked the chirping of the desert thrush, the cooing of the mourning doves and the varied song of the mocking bird at Desert Ranch just as much as a symphony.

I was asked to give in detail my methods of propaganda. At another meeting on tax refusal Ralph Templin explained to some of the elderly ladies who refused to pay only part of their income taxes that the amount they did pay would be prorated for war, so the only way was to pay nothing at all. Bayard Rustin gave smart answers to questions from outsiders. I felt that this was too much of a varied group to do any one thing very well, although the meeting of so many kinds of people ought to be an education to all.

I did not have a headache during the week and always was nearly last to bed and among the first to get up. I was in good physical condition from my hard work and good care of myself. One night I had supper with my old friend, Francis Gorgen of Baltimore, and it did not bother me a bit to sit by and watch him and his family eat. He drove me over to see my cousin Marie, whom I had not seen since we were youngsters in Ohio. Her father had been a Congressman in the old days of McKinley. I met Fred Libby of the National Council for the Prevention of War, with whom I had corresponded for years but whom I had not met before. The lady from Baltimore who had picked Rik and me up when we were hiking to our first Snake Dance, came over and took the Hopi out to supper. They brought home a pear and an orange for me to eat after my fast was broken.

A few minutes after midnight on Saturday we all had orange juice and/or V juice. The Hopi had brought some piki bread which is like cornflakes and I gave some to each person. Bayard and Bill Sutherland and Bent sang some songs. The next morning A.J. Muste read a poem and asked me to read a letter from Gandhi. None of us were the worse for the fast. We kidded Joe about sleeping half of the time, but this is his normal state, and not due to fasting.