CHAPTER 7. DOROTHY VISITS PHOENIX 142
- 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? I don't believe it! And I don't believe I need preachers or policemen to make me behave, either.
- I do believe in personal responsibility, and that's why I am picketing. Why aren't you?
- Ammon A. Hennacy, R. 3, Box 221, March 14, 1950
Many people told me to go back to Russia. The wind blew and I was tired out, holding the big sign. The other sign told of the taxes that went for war and my refusal to pay taxes. The police did not bother me. A few people were sympathetic. One Catholic stopped me and said that Catholics had a bad enough time without my getting them in worse with such radicalism. I told him that I was not a Catholic but if I was I had a right to picket. He wanted to know if any priests supported my activity. I told him that Father Dunne did not agree with my ideas but had announced this very picketing at mass on Feb. 5th. "God bless you, then!" he smiled as he went on his way.
I was very tired by night and was glad when Rik drove me home. Joe had waited until my picketing was over and returned to Chicago the next day with his painting of the airplane that I had carried, The next day the ARIZONA REPUBLIC had a column by Columbus Giragi, old time newspaper man, deriding my picketing and saying that I should be locked up. I wrote to him and told him of two prominent men who disagreed with me but who were my good friends, and advised him to ask them about my sincerity. He did so and asked me to call upon him. I said I did not have time as I was going to Washington with the Hopi, but would see him when I returned.
Fasting in Washington, D. C.
Joe Craigmyle felt poor after his release from prison, so he departed from his ordinary life of fruit stand operator to help me rassle 65 pound cement blocks under the beams of the frame house of the Old Pioneer. This was only a job for thin men so Joe and I qualified. We snaked here and there among the gopher holes and skunk apartments for ten& days until the job was finished. Meanwhile we had notice from pacifist headquarters in New York that all varieties of pacifists were going to fast during Holy Week and picket the White House in Washington, D.C., against the piling up of atom bombs. If it had been just ordinary picketing I would not have bothered for I could always do that in Phoenix. The CW would be represented which would lend some spirituality to the project; and this would be an opportunity for me to picket the head of the U. S. Revenue office in Washington.
