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The Rise and Fall of the Montana Freemen

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The Rise and Fall of the Montana Freemen Every Man a King: The Rise and Fall of the Montana Freemen Last Modified May 6, 1996. Copyright May 1996 by Mark Pitcavage. No duplication or commercial use of this document may be made without the express consent of the author. Introduction: In terms of America's ongoing struggle against antigovernment extremists, only the Oklahoma City bombing of April 19, 1995 has surpassed the saga of the militants of "Justus Township" in remote eastern Montana in terms of media coverage. In terms of actual importance, what the Montana Freemen have done--and what similar groups across the country continue to do--may well eclipse a solitary act of terrorism by a few angry individuals. For the Montana Freemen have been waging a quiet war against the rest of the nation for several years now, a war fought with computers and comptrollers' warrants, liens and legal briefs. For the first time, here is their complete story. Every Man a King: The Rise and Fall of the Montana Freemen "Every man a king, every man a king, you can be a millionaire." So went the catchy campaign tune for Louisiana Senator Huey Long. Long, in the troubling economic times of the 1930s, won a following with his "Share the Wealth" plan, in which he proposed to alleviate people's suffering by using the power of the federal government to redistribute the nation's wealth. Now, in the troubling economic times of the 1990s, a new group of people have arisen to give a new, contemporary meaning to Long's famous song. People can become kings--or "sovereign citizens"--not by embracing the federal government but by rejecting it, along with most other forms of authority. And groups of these sovereign citizens have come up with a novel way by which any person can become a millionaire--by issuing their own money. The most infamous of these right-wing anarchists are the Montana Freemen, who spawned an extralegal empire in the wilderness of Montana, using not AK-47s but legal briefs, not military uniforms but the Uniform Commercial Code. But they wavered between between being patriotic paralegal-guerillas and simple frauds, and ended up bringing down upon themselves the enmity not only of the hated federal government, but friends and neighbors as well. Federal and state governments, once besieged by the filings of the Freemen, now were laying siege to the Freemen themselves, at a little compound labeled "Justus Township" near Jordan, Montana. ROOTS To understand the roots of the Montana Freemen, like so many other elements of today's so- called "patriot" movement, one has to go back to Posse Comitatus, the nebulous antigovernment movement founded in 1969 by retired dry cleaner Henry L. Beach. Beach, a former Silver Shirt (a 1930s-era pro-Nazi group), argued that the only legitimate government was local government. The highest legitimate elected official in the country was the county sheriff, who could form juries and call out the able-bodied men of the county to enforce the law. Naturally enough, Beach and other members of the movement were strongly opposed to the federal government, especially those parts of it which dealt with money, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Every Man a King: The Rise and Fall of the Montana Freemen Reserve System. The IRS draws its authority from the Sixteenth Amendment, which Posse members (and other tax resisters) believe was not lawfully ratified; thus, it is unconstitutional. Moreover, suggests the Posse, the revenue laws, if examined carefully, say that income tax is voluntary for individuals. The Federal Reserve System, on the other hand, was not a lawful arm of the government at all, but rather, as one Posse publication put it, "a private monopoly which neither the people nor the states authorized in the constitution." It printed paper money which clearly was not allowed by the Constitution. The racist elements of the Posse--which did not include the whole movement, particularly after it expanded in the early 1980s--went further, to argue that the Federal Reserve was controlled by a small group of international Jewish bankers, who profit by destroying the United States in a mire of debt and paper money. Many Posse members adhered to the virulently racist sect Christian Identity. Related to the Posse was the township movement, led in part by Walt P. Mann III, of Bloomington, Utah, which took root in Utah, Wisconsin, and other states. Township advocates argued for setting up small sovereign communities, over which no other level of government could have power. In Wisconsin, the Posse set up a "constitutional township" on a 1400-acre plot at Tigerton Dells; there, warning signs posted "Federal Agents Keep out; Survivors will be Prosecuted." The Township appointed its own judges and foreign ambassadors. Accompanying the quasi-anarchistic attitudes of the Posse was a no-holds-barred attitude as to what should be done to those seen to violate the principles held dear by the Posse. Henry Beach recommended punishing government officials "who commit criminal acts or who violate their oath of office" by having the posse remove them "to the most populated intersection of streets in the township and, at high noon, be hung by the neck, the body remaining until sundown as an example to those who would subvert the law." Many Posse members began to wear small gold handman's nooses on their lapels. In the 1970s, the Posse was a small but irritating extremist group. Dispersed across the country, but finding support primarily in the Northwest and the Great Plains states, it numbered in the thousands (a 1976 FBI report suggested that membership could range from 12,000 to 50,000). Particularly troublesome was the Wisconsin Posse, headquartered at Tigerton Dells (where, in the form of Family Farm Preservation, it still operates) which disrupted government meetings and assaulted public officials. In the early 1980s, however, a severe farm crisis which resulted in financial loss and foreclosures for many small farmers allowed the Posse to reach out to a more mainstream--and thus larger--audience. Farmers in Kansas, Nebraska, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, and elsewhere, looked to the Posse for help. The Posse offered up targets for people to blame: the courts, the money system, the federal government, the Jews. Illegal activities--including counterfeiting, paramilitary training, bombmaking, threats against public officials, and tax resisting--greatly increased. The movement found a martyr in tax resister Gordon Kahl of North Dakota, who died in a shootout with law enforcement officers after being tracked down for his participation in another shootout which killed two federal marshals and wounded three others. Shootouts, however, were rare. Far more common were the legal battles waged by Posse members, which included two basic strategies. One was the placing of frivolous liens on the property of public officials who opposed or angered them, notably IRS agents. Since the liens were without cause, they had no legal weight, but until they were removed, they could damage Every Man a King: The Rise and Fall of the Montana Freemen credit ratings or interfere with the buying and selling of property. The second was the simple tactic of flooding the courts with legal documents, filings, motions and appeals, often using convoluted and archaic language, which clogged the court system and frustated judges and prosecutors. Associated with this was the tactic, practiced in some areas, of establishing so-called "common law courts," which were vigilante courts that often threatened public officials. Typical of many others was David Scott Clark, in 1986 a 78-year old automotive garage operator in Phoenix who, along with several others who called themselves "freemen" and "sovereign citizens," filed so many frivolous suits that a Maricopa county judge issued a court order restricting court responses to them. Foreshadowing the rhetoric of the mid-1990s, Clark suggested the order was the work of people who wanted a "one-world government." However, by the late 1980s, Posse activity had died down. Many of its leaders were dead, in prison, or lying low. Few found tax resisting particularly profitable, except those who taught the theories to others for a price. Because it never had a strong organization or national focus, it died out in some areas, stayed alive in others. Perhaps the best way to characterize it would be as a dormant volcano, manifesting little activity on the outside but possessing a fiery heat deep down, just waiting for some shaking of the earth to open up a new channel through which lava could once again flow. FOUNDERS Among the states in which the Posse was active was Montana, sparsely populated and inhabited by people who believed in minding their own business--and that the government should mind its own. "With our Democracy deteriorated into hypocracy [sic]..." read one recruiting notice in Montana for the Posse in 1974, "the time has come for action." Other organizations such as the Montana Vigilantes continued the Posse ideology. It is unclear whether any such groups lasted into the 1990s, but clearly there was a part of Montana's small population that was receptive to such beliefs. They were susceptible to the siren songs of people like Roy Schwasinger, head of the tax protest group We the People, based in Colorado. Schwasinger travelled the country, including Montana, relating his theories--for the small sum of $300--on how the Federal Reserve was illegitimate, the money system worthless, and debts irrelevant. Schwasinger would later get his own come-uppance, on charges of fraud, but not before he had managed to convince a great many people that much of government was unconstitutional and illegitimate. Among the converts were numerous Montanans.
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