Page:The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist.djvu/68

CHAPTER 4. SOCIAL WORK 55 towards a defeat of the principles of Jesus as given in His Sermon on the Mount: "Love your enemies... turn the other cheek..." This does not mean to kill them in war or to commit injustice in time of peace. Personally I wish to frankly admit my inconsistency in having worked for a branch of the government while being an Anarchist; however I did so openly. I refuse to register and will cheerfully accept the sentence of the court, desiring no probation or parole, but willing to sacrifice for what I think is right, as the soldiers and sailors are doing.
 * In 1917 I refused to register for a somewhat different reason. At that time I was a Socialist who believed in fighting in a revolution, but not in a capitalist war. I had never heard of a God of Love in the churches, and thought I was an atheist. During my two and a half years in Atlanta, I spent eight and a half months in solitary, where my study of the Bible convinced me that the most revolutionary teaching in the world was contained in the Sermon on the Mount. I saw that the Kingdom of God was within every person, but most of us had forgotten it. I felt it was futile to change the forms of society—that the biggest job before me was to change myself; this was the revolution most worthwhile. Later, when I read Jefferson, Thoreau, William Lloyd Garrison and Tolstoy I saw that all governments—even the best—were founded upon the policemen's club: upon a return of evil for evil, the very opposite of the teachings of Christ. I saw that all churches supported this essential wickedness of government and were therefore evil institutions-and that in time of war all churches, with isolated exceptions, supported this violation of the teachings of Christ. That is, except the historic peace churches: the Mennonites, Brethren, Quakers, and the Doukhobor, Molokon and Jehovah's sects. Therefore I belonged to no church but spoke in many churches, encouraging them to follow Christ. I became a Christian Anarchist. I saw that the first World War did not make the world safe for democracy, or end war.


 * In refusing to register, I want to make it clear that the great majority of the people who have supported the economic evils that make for war are acting logically in an all-out effort for war. As an Anarchist, I have taken no part in politics and am not bound to accept the will of a majority whose political battle I did not enter. I honor those who are sincere, sacrificing, war-like patriots. I am a peace patriot. I accept, along with others, whatever punishment is due this generation because of the mistakes of our forefathers. We lied to, and cheated the Indians, and broke nearly every treaty we made with them; we formed our great Southwest by stealing it from Mexico in what Grant and