Obituary: Minneapolis pacifist went to prison three times for his beliefs

Orin Doty came from an antiwar family, and he lived his principles.

He went to prison three times: twice for opposing the draft and refusing to serve during the Korean War, a third time for not paying his taxes to protest the U.S. military budget.

"He was opposed to war in general," said old friend Colin Connel of Minneapolis. "He didn't think war was the way to solve problems."

A photo of Doty and his three brothers reporting to jail for refusing induction into the military was published on the front page of the Minneapolis Tribune on March 30, 1955. They were being led by their father, William, who was imprisoned earlier for his opposition to World War I.

Doty, 89, died of pneumonia in Rochester on March 27, said his daughter, Jenise Doty of Minneapolis.

"He used to say to me, 'One person doing something is better than a thousand people doing nothing,' " she recalled. "He never gave up on trying to educate and raise people's consciousness."

His letters to the editor appeared numerous times over the years in the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Rochester Post Bulletin, often on peace issues and women's rights. He was very proud that family members participated in the large women's rights march in St. Paul in January, according to a son-in-law, Doug Osmon.

Doty grew up in Fayette, Iowa, and graduated from high school in Virginia, Minn. He worked as a factory assembler for various companies and lived in Minneapolis most of his life.

In the early 1950s, during the onset of the Korean War, he and his brothers Joel, Paul and Sid refused to register for the draft and were convicted in federal court and sent to prison. Someone registered them, according to his daughter, so when they got out of prison, they received a military call-up notice. They refused to show up for induction, were convicted again and sent to prison a second time.

As they walked from the federal courthouse on March 29, 1955, to the Ramsey County jail to begin their two-year sentence, one brother, Joel Doty, handed reporters a statement reaffirming their belief that "conscription and war is wrong," and declaring that "we feel that we are going back to prison for the second time for the same offense."

The brothers were in several federal prisons together in Texas, Kentucky and Missouri.

"Prison unpleasant but meaningful experience," Orin Doty wrote in a note that his family found in an autobiography by another pacifist activist, Dave Dellinger.

Doty's activism was particularly dramatic because the peace movement was very small during the 1950s. "There were very few people willing to stand up," said a friend, Lionel Davis. "It was the McCarthy period," a time when there were many accusations of treason and subversion with little evidence to support them.

After Doty married his first wife, who was also a peace activist, he continued to protest, helping to organize antiwar demonstrations during the Vietnam War.

"He used to tell me he did not want to go to prison again," said Lisa Doty Osmon of Rochester, his other daughter.

Osmon said, "He'd wear a tie and dress up for the demonstrations. Police would usually pass him by and arrest people with long hair."

Osmon remembered him as a "good dad." He would come home from work and take his daughters for long walks or sledding in the winter. In the summertime, he'd buy a bucket of ice cream, dish it into Dixie cups and offer it to his daughters and their friends who were playing in the backyard of the family's home.

Survivors include two brothers, Sid of Roseville and Paul of Minneapolis. He is preceded in death by both his first wife, Laura Pheonix, and his second wife, June. A private memorial is planned.