by Ammon Hennacy

Cartoon by Art Young, The Masses, 1917 and in Hennacy’s autobiography; courtesy wikipedia.org

Editor’s Preface: In the mid-1950s New York City was in the grips of a civil defense hysteria over fears of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Mandatory civil defense drills were instituted, wherein at the sounding of the alarm New Yorkers had immediately to rush to one of the designated shelters, such as a nearby subway station. Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker were among the first to refuse to comply and among the first to be arrested. Ammon Hennacy (1893-1970) was a Christian anarchist and pacifist and a great friend of Dorothy Day. He later founded the Joe Hill House of Hospitality in Salt Lake City, Utah. Those who knew Hennacy often commented on his wry sense of humor, readily seen in what follows. This unpublished article was found in the War Resisters’ International archive, which we are researching. Please consult the notes at the end for further information about Ammon, links, and acknowledgments. JG

In the spring of 1955 I saw in the paper that according to a new law there would be an air raid drill on June 15th and all were supposed to take part or suffer a penalty of up to a year in jail and a $500 fine. I phoned Dorothy Day, editor of the Catholic Worker and said we must get ready to disobey this bad law, for “a bad law is no better than any other bad thing.” She suggested that I contact other pacifists, so I phoned Ralph De Gia of the War Resisters League. We got in touch with leaders of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the American Friends Service Committee, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, so when the time came we had 28 at the City Hall Park, and I spoke on television about our coming civil disobedience.

Among other things our leaflet said, “We do not have faith in God if we depend upon the atom bomb.” A bootblack by the name of Rocco Parelli was sitting on a bench near us and seemed to be unaware of all the commotion. He was the first arrested and the indictment read, “Rocco Pirelli and 28 others.” It was entirely fitting that this common man, not a scholar, intellectual or radical should symbolically head the list representative of the workers of the world whom we were trying to dislodge from their patriotic prejudices.

The ignorant Irish police did not wish to admit that an Irishman like myself could be a radical, so in calling my name numerous times they pronounced it “Hennacky”. Several of the girls giggled. Judge Kaplan wanted to know what was the matter. Judith Beck, the actress and co-founder of the anarchist Living Theatre answered pertly without the usual “Your Honor” and “Sir” to which the judge was accustomed. Angrily he asked her if she had ever been locked up for mental observation. “No, have you?” she replied. That was a classic answer, which will reverberate through these musty halls until the time when courts and prisons will cease to exist. The judge cleared the hall and posted extra guards, later reading off a prepared statement to us saying, “Theoretically three million people have been killed in this air raid and you are the murderers.” He set our bail at $1500 each. Five of us from the Catholic Worker and two others pled guilty on the old radical principle of, “we did it once and we will do it again, with no legal quibbling.”

Two Catholic papers, Commonweal and Ave Maria, praised us but did not agree with us fully, and Catholic papers all around the country denounced our disobedience to the law, especially the German oriented St. Louis Catholic Register. But The Nation, The Progressive, the Pittsburg Post Gazette, the New York Post, and the Chicago Tribune praised us. Harpers in an editorial said, “Two of the group, Dorothy Day and Ammon Hennacy, of the Catholic Worker movement, have a long and honorable history for getting arrested for doing what ought to be done but no one else cares to do. In meekly running to cover, the rest of us have only compounded the dishonesty of a Civil Defense program that is neither serious nor safe.” The Boston Pilot, the oldest diocesan paper in the U.S. said after our arrest, “We cannot buy back our innocence with all the gold in Fort Knox . . . God is not mocked! We must wonder, however, how long He will wait for our repentance.” We all received a suspended sentence many months later.

On July 20,1956, came the next drill. This time 19 refused, as most of those in 1955 who refused pleaded not guilty and appealed the case, not desiring to prejudice their appeal by disobeying the law again. Jim Peck and Ralph De Gia of the War Resisters’ League, and Dorothy and I were the only ones of the 1955 group to disobey again. Four of us from the Catholic Worker, a Quaker, and Michael Graine, an atheist anarchist pled guilty, but the others stood trial. We had the same tough judge who told those of us who had pled guilty that he would “give us the works.” Coming back to be sentenced we found another judge who had been in the IRA in Ireland as a young man, and who greeted us kindly, listened to Mike’s long poems, and gave us five days.

On July 12,1957, there were ten of us, five from the Catholic Worker, and five others including Judith Beck and her husband Julian. We had a heartless Catholic judge who gave us all 50 days. When I was admitted to prison on July 15 I remembered that it was just 40 years ago that day when I had entered Atlanta prison as a conscientious objector in World War I.

On May 6,1958, there were 9 of us, five of us old timers from the Catholic Worker, and four others. A surprise came when a Negro judge set us free with a suspended sentence. The law says life for the fourth felony, but this was a misdemeanor.

On April 17,1959, four of us from the Catholic Worker, and the anarchist Arthur Harvey who had been with us the year before, were arrested and we got 10 days in jail. Fourteen others who had never broken the law before were arrested with us but were set free as this was their first offence. The Catholic judge asked me how many times I had been arrested on this charge. I told him, “Five times, next year it will be six.” He said “We should render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.” I told him Caesar was getting too much around here and God was not getting enough, and someone had to stand up for God.

On May 3, 1960, there were a thousand of us opposing the drill. The law only picked out 26 youngsters and did not bother us older leaders and repeaters. By this time even the conservative papers were getting tired of the farce, and the New York World Telegram had an editorial entitled “Exercise in Futility”. They said that the test could only be called meaningful and successful if a potential enemy’s plan was to drop marshmallow puffs on New York City, and to advertise in advance that they were coming. The success of this demonstration was due somewhat to the very few of us who had broken the law each year, but mostly to Janice Smith, a young married woman who brought scores of women with baby carriages to our protest. Our perseverance had also brought to the public the foolishness of hiding in doorways and cellars, or in the subway where you were sure to be drowned or burned alive if there was a bomb.

On October 3, 1960, Mary Lathrop, Jack Baker and I from the Catholic Worker, with others commenced to picket the civil defense office at 6th and Lexington for two hours each day calling on 3000 to break the law in 1961. We continued this until January 1st when Mary traveled south with Dorothy and I went north and west. Jack continued the picketing intermittingly during the spring of 1961. Once when there was a heavy snow we shoveled a walk so we could picket. The lazy attendants at the civil defense did not clear their sidewalk, although all along the street the snow had been removed. Finally we shoveled the entire walk for them. If they were so worried about clearing people from the streets in an air raid drill and couldn’t even get the energy to clean their own sidewalk it was time they folded up.

On April 28, 1961, two thousand of us filled City Park Square in our refusal. None of us older leaders were arrested, although the police spoke to us, but a few youngsters were. We picketed the jails where they were sent, day and night. Our leaflet was headed, “Brave Men Do Not Hide.”

The next year, 1962, there were no compulsory aid raid drills. We had won. During these latter years the appeal of those less radical refusing reached the highest court and they lost. It is obvious that if a government has the power and the accepted right to conscript men to war they also have the power and the right to conscript us all to hide in holes in the ground. They also have the right and the power to tax us for war. I, and many others, have refused to pay any federal income tax since 1943. It is only by such direct refusal, and not in writing letters and voting for phony peace candidates who support war when they are elected, that any advance will be made. When we expect great numbers to join us this can happen in an ad hoc atmosphere, but as a base we must have the spirit of that great American poet, Robert Frost, who said: “I bid you to a one-man revolution, the only revolution that is coming.”

Reference: IISG/WRI Archive Box 399: Folder 4. We are grateful to WRI/London and their director Christine Schweitzer for their cooperation in our WRI project.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ammon Hennacy published two versions of his autobiography. The first was The Autobiography of a Christian Anarchist, New York: Catholic Worker Books, 1954. The second, much expanded edition, however, is the one to be recommended, The Book of Ammon, Salt Lake City (Utah): Ammon Hennacy Publications, 1964, an eminently readable account of pacifist and nonviolence activism. Marcus Page has also made a documentary film about Ammon, A Peace of the Anarchy: Ammon Hennacy and Other Angelic Troublemakers in the USA. It is readily available on YouTube, at this link (accessed October 2015).