,,  ,	HOW WE DEFEATED COMPULSORY aIR RAID DRILLS IN N*I.CITY
(  Amnion Hennacyj>  Trx^xi in the spring of 1955 I saw in the paper that according to a nevv 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 %i>500 fine.I phoned Dorothy Day, editor of the Catholic ..orker ,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 ueGia of the ,,ar Resisters League. w£- got in touch with leaders of the .fellowship of Reconciliation, the American Friends service Committee, and the Jomans International League for Peace and Freedom, so when the time came we had 28 at the City Hall Park, l spoke on television about our coming civil disobedience. Among other things our leaflet said,"we do not have faith in uod if we hapend upon the atom bomb."A bootblack by the name of kocco Parelli was sitting on a bench near us and seemed to be unaware of all the commotion, tie was the first arrested and the indictment read,uRocco Pnrelli 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 iwnorant Irish police did not v;ish to admit that an Irishman like myself could be a radical,so in callin" my name numerous times they pronounced it "Hennacky."Several of the girls giggled. Judge ivaplan wanted to know what was the matter. -Judith iieck, the actress 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?"sh.e replied.That was a classic answer which will reverberate through these musty halls until the time when courts and prisons will cease to exist, ihe judge cleared the uall 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, live of us from the Catholic .jorker and two others pled guilty on the old radical principle of, "we did it once and we -.'ill do it again, with no legal quibbling."
Two Catholic papers praised us but did not agree with us fully: the comaion-weal and Ave riaria, but Catholic papers over the country denounced our dis-obediance to the lawtespecially the German oriented ot.Louis catholic Register. The Nation, the Progressive, the Pittsburg irost Gazette, the II. Y. Post, and the Chicago Trj-bune praised us. Harpers magazine in a long semi-editorial s;-id,"Two of the group-Dorothy way and Amnion Hennacy,of the Catholic ..orkers movement-have a long and honorable history for getting arrested for doing what ought

-2--Air raid drill-Hennacy to be done jut no one else cares to do.xn meekly running to cover,the rest of us have only compounded tne dishonesty of a Civil uefense program that is neither serious or safe." The .boston Pilot, the oldest diocesian paper in the U.S.,said after our arrest,"We cannot buy back our innocence with all the gold in Fort Knox.. .(iod is not mockedl We must wonder,however,how long He will wait for our repentance." We all received a suspended sentence many months later.
On July 20,19^6 came the next drill. This time 19 re fused,as most of the 1955
refusers had pled not guilty and appealed the vase,not desiring to prejudice
their appeal by disobeying the law again, oim Peck and Ralph ueGia of the War
Resisters, and Jorothy and I were the o#ly ones of the 1955 group to disobey
again. Four of us from the CW, a -maker, and Michael Grainejan atheist anarchist
pled guilty,but the others stood trial. vJe had the same tough judge who told us
e
who had pled guilty that he would "give us the works." Coming back to be sentencei we found another judge who had been in the IRA in Ireland as a jroung man,and who greeted us kindly,listened to nike's long poems,and gave us only five days.
06tf/ ouly 12,1957 there were ten of us,five from the catholic worker,and five others including Judith Beck and her husband uulian. We had a heartless Catholic judge who gave us all 50 days, when I was admitted to prison July 15 I remembered that it was just ^0 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 we 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.
un April 17,1959 four of us from the catnolic worker and the anarchist Arthur Harvey who nad 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 1 had been arrested on this charge. 1 told him,"five times, next year it will be six,/He said"we should render unto ^aesar what was Caesar's and unto God what was ijod'S." I told him Caesar was getting too iiuch around here and God was not getting enough,and someone had to stand up for Goct.
un May 5119^0 there were a thousand of us opposing the drill, xhe law only picked out 2b youngsters and did not bother we older leaders and repeaters. By this time even the conservative papers were getting tired of the farce,and the N.Y.,.'orId Telegram had an editorial entioledy&xervise in Futility-xesterday"s test cam ue called meaningful and successful only if a potential enemys plan is to arop marshmellow puffs on B.Y.City-and to adveBtise in^. advance that they are 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

-3- Air Raid Drill- Hennacy •soman'who brought scores of women with baby carriages to our protest. Our persevei ance had also brought to the public the foolishness of hiding in doorways and cellers,and in the subway where you were sure -co be drowned or burned alive if there was a bomb.
On uct.3, i960 Mary Lathrop, Jack .baker and I from the Catholic  orker, with others commenced to picket the civil Defense office at ^6th and Lexington tor two hours each day at noon calling on 3000 to brrak the law in 1961. j'e continued this until January First when Mary traveled south with Dorothy and I traveled north and west speaking. Jack continued the picketing intermittingly during the spring. Once when there was a heavy snow we shoveled a walk for us to picket in. The lazy attendants at ihe civil defense  i  not clear their sidewalk,although all along the street the snow had been removed. Finally we shoveled the entire walk for them. If they are so worried about clearing people from the streets in an air raid drill and cannot even get the energy to clean their own sidewalk it is time they folded up.
im April 2b,19"l two thousand of us filled City Park Square in our refusal. lione of we older leaders were arrested,although the police spoke to us, but a few youngsters were picked off. ,Ve picketed the jails where they were sent, day and night. Our leaflet was headed,"Brave Men Do Not nide."
The next year there were no compulsory aid raid drills. We had won. During these latter years the appeal of the less radical refusers reached the highest courtf§hd they lost. It is obvious that if a government has the power and the accepoeS 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 I the power to tax us for war. jpiyself and a few others have openly refused
tojav any federal income tax since 19*0« It is	only by such direct refusal
ana hot in <riting letters and voting fur phony	peace candidates who support
v/#''wben they are electee? that any advance wilx	be made. When we expect great
numbers to join us this can happen in an ad hoc	atmosphere, but as a base we
ust have the" spxrit of that great American poet,Robert Frost, who said:" I
La,, you to the* one-man-revolution, the onlv one	that is coming."
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Dear C.bmrade liucht:      iT
Dorothy Day suggested that I write you the above account.The sd|gect is Viven in detail in pages 286 to 295 in my Book of Ammon. The Freedom Press has a copy,as uoes gthel Mannin. iwo young men in Germany sent for a copy, ^j0  victor1-Cotton in I.^lgium and a book store in Amsterdam.Please send me a copy of the issuf in whichfTSi^' is printed.I have been running ihe Joe Hill House of -■ospitalitjg^ior Transients here in Salt ^ake City the past 5 years.Currently 1 am picketing .for eo days agoinst the execution of a prisoner who is guilty of murder.
yj       .^0^"	For peace and freedom
P.O.B x 6Mj|»lt Lake City,Utah.	Ammon Hennacy
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