John M. Pratt

John Morgan Pratt (March 23, 1886, Sharpsville, Indiana – June 15, 1954, Chicago, Illinois) was a tax resistance leader, activist in the Old Right, publicist and newspaper man. Along with James E. Bistor, he led what was probably the largest tax strike since the Era of the American Revolution.

Pratt was born into a background of wealth. His father owned a tomato cannery and extensive farmland in the Sharpsville area. He attended Marion College, where he studied to be a teacher. In this period, the family lost most of its money because the cannery business failed. As a result, he permanently shelved a teaching career and moved to homestead farmland in northern Saskatchewan. Eventually, it became one of the largest farms in the immediate area. In 1913, Pratt began a long political career when the counselors of Lost River, a rural municipality, elected him as their secretary treasurer. One of his duties was tax collection. The irony was not lost on Pratt who often joked about it during his stint as a tax rebel in Chicago.

The life of a tax collector did not suit Pratt who moved to Winnipeg in 1917 to accept a position as municipal editor of The Grain Growers Guide, which spoke for the nascent cooperative movement in Canada. Pratt's views on taxation as reflected in his columns reflected an affinity for theories of Henry George. Like George, he supported the replacement of the predominant local tax on acreage with a "system of taxing the unimproved values of land."

In 1921, Pratt moved permanently to Chicago where he took a job with the Universal Feature and Specialty Company, a national newspaper syndicate. From there, he went on to become advertising manager of the Chicago Herald and Examiner, one of the two newspapers of William Randolph Hearst in the city. In addition to his other duties, he organized public relations for the Hearst-sponsored tour of Queen Marie of Romania.

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