Orange County's Flaming Radical

February 14, 1967 Page 37, San Francisco Chronicle

Our Man Hoppe

Orange County’s Flaming Radical

By Arthur Hoppe

Orange County

I went over to the big modern plant of the Santa Ana Register—“Orange county’s Watchful

Newspaper”—to interview its 83-year-old publisher, Mr. Raymond Cyrus Hoiles.

On the top shelf of the bookcase behind his desk was a framed commendation awarded him last year by the Internal Revenue Service for giving the public “a better understanding of Federal tax laws.”

And that is nice because for 30 years Mr. Hoiles has been explaining to the people of

Orange county that compulsory taxation is “just plain stealing.”

“they gave it to me because they was hoping to get a story about it in the paper,” said Mr. Hoiles, happily nodding toward the commendation. “They didn’t.”

* * *

Mr. Hoiles turned out to be a thin, spry, alert native of Ohio who was wearing a rumpled suit, a fat purple tie slightly askew, a rosebud in his lapel and a great big grin. And he isn’t, like most Orange county leaders, a Conservative.

“I am a radical,” he says cheerily, “a radical for freedom.

“Taking a man’s money by the threat of force is stealing.” He says. “And that’s just what the government doers.”

As a radical for freedom, Mr. Hoiles is not only against forcing people to pay taxes, he’s against forcing them to do anything. “The Government,” he says., “ought to be supported on a strictly voluntary basis.”

This doctrine of “voluntarism,” as he calls it, makes him dead set against such tax-

supported institutions as parks, post offices and schools to name a few.

“You shouldn’t be forced to pay to educate somebody else’s children,” he says and he goes on to tell you how for a hundred years Government schools have been brainwashing children into thinking compulsory Government is a good thing.

You’d think Mr. Hoiles’ position and philosophy would make him the idol of Orange

county’s Conservatives. Instead, he makes them uneasy.

“I’m not 100 percent sure he isn’t right in theory,” says such leading Conservative as Mr. Walter Knott of Knott’s Berry Farm cautiously. “But he just isn’t practical.”

Of course, in carrying conservatism to its logical extreme, Mr. Hoiles is also dead against the draft, immigration quotas, outlawing Communists and supporting your local police with taxes. In fact, the more you talk to him, the more he sounds like a jolly anarchist.

* * *

Did he hope to achieve victory? “We never expect an ideal Government,” he says with a grin. “We just try to give a good example.”

A good example! And there he was with a commendation from the Internal Revenue

Service on his wall.

He eyed it speculatively, “You’re right,” he said. “Reach is down for me, will you.”

I handed it to him. He heaved it in the wastebasket, shook hands with a chuckle and went back to editing and editorial.

As for me, having done my part to straighten out the political thinking in Orange County, I’m going home.