JeffT, based on this portion of the transcript of the Walsh trial, how do they separate money from Society "family" and Society "Corporation"? And how were they legally obligated to handle shares of stock when members sent money to buy shared, and instead of being legal tender, it sounds as though they issued "Voting" rights instead. Am I seeing this incorrectly?
1954 Walsh Trial
Hayden Cooper Covington/CROSS
Pages 81 – 92 of Transcript
Q. Each of these bodies has its own Charter or, as we say, Memorandum and Articles if Association?
A. Yes.
Q. Are you a Vice President of both the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Societies?
A. Yes, the Pennsylvania Corporation, and the New York Corporation.
Q. Are you also a Director on the Board of Directors of both Companies?
A. Yes, as Vice President of each I am on the Board of Directors.
Q. Are you on the Board of Directors of the International Bible Students Association?
A. No.
Q. To become the Director of, if I may call them, the two Watch Tower Societies, is there a form of election?
A. There is a form of election at the annual meeting.
Q. Is that the Annual General Meeting of the Company?
A. That is the annual meeting of the membership of the Society, and all who want to are privileged to attend.
Q. But all who want to attend, I suppose, must be shareholders in some way of the Company?
A. No, the members of the Corporation attend either personally or by proxy, but the annual meeting is announced by law in the columns of the Watchtower, and whoever want to attend this annual business meeting can attend and see the proceedings.
Q. At one time members of the Companies were shareholders, weren’t they?
A. Whoever had given a contribution of 10 Dollars is entitled to one share.
Q. That was originally in the Articles of Association, was it, of the Incorporation?
A. Yes.
Q. And in return for his contribution of 10 Dollars did the member get a Share Certificate?
A. He was notified, a receipt of his contribution was given to him, sent to him, and he was informed that he was entitled to one voting share, and therefore, when the election of the organization of the Society was to take place he was informed that he was privileged to be present, or to have his vote cast by proxy.
Q. Privilege to be present wasn’t really a privilege, but a right in virtue of his shareholding?
A. Yes, certainly, but he could be there by proxy.
Q. Quite, so that the member didn’t require to vote himself, but could provide a proxy?
A. Yes.
Q. Had the proxy, the person who voted in place of the member, to have any special qualifications to do so?
A. He must be one also who was a voter.
Q. That is to say when there was a contribution of 10 Dollars, or whatever it may be, the voter, the member of his proxy, must be a shareholder?
A. Yes, he must be a shareholder.
Q. Was that true of both Societies?
A. No, the New York Corporation was a different Society, but it was a membership corporation.
Q. Do you mean that the New York Society never had a contribution basis of membership?
A. No.
Q. What was the basis of membership of the New York Society?
A. Well, the member of the Corporation was appointed by the Society and there was one thousand dollars put to his credit.
Q. The member was appointed by the Society?
A. Yes.
Q. And instead of paying anything, do you say he was credited with a thousand dollars?
A. If he was not possessed of that himself. For instance, I was made a member of the New York Corporation and there was a credit made to my account.
Q. Was that simply a book entry or did cash in some way pass to the credit of the Company?
A. Well, it was credited, as I say. There was a book entry.
Q. Was a pure book entry, or was it represented in any form by cash or capital?
A. Well, I never handled the cash.
Q. You cannot tell us about that?
A. No.
Q. Did you have to pay up your thousand dollars in any way?
A. No. I was already a member of the headquarters family.
Q. By that do you mean that you were already a director?
A. No.
Q. Well, I am just a little adrift to know what you mean by the phrase, a member of the headquarters family?
A. A member if the family that operates at 124 Columbia Heights. That is the headquarters staff.
Q. Is that something different from the Incorporation?
A. Different from the Incorporation.
Q. From the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, New York?
A. Different from the Incorporation? The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was incorporated in 1909 in New York City and that was before I was a member of the Bethel Family at headquarters.
Q. Where was thus Bethel Family located? Not in the registered office of the Company, was it?
A. No, but they had their main office there at Brooklyn. New York. But they had a registered office in Pittsburg, none the less, and we always held our annual meetings – you mean, of the New York Corporation?
Q. Yes?
A. Yes. In the New York Corporation the offices are there in the Bethel Home.
Q. I am sorry, but I just wanted to get this clear. You said that you were credited with one thousand dollars?
A. Yes, that is my recollection.
Q. To make you a member if the New York Corporation?
A. That accompanied it.
Q. That is so though, isn’t it?
A. That is my recollection of it.
Q. But you said that you were already a member of the headquarters family?
A. That is right.
Q. Is the headquarters family something distinct from the New York Corporation?
A. Yes. The membership of the New York Corporation does not include all the family members.
Q. What is the headquarters family and who are its members?
A. Well, the headquarters family to day comprises some 430 men who are engaged in the various operations of the organization there, the office work and the legal work and the printing work and the shipping work, and all the housekeeping that requires to be done.
Q. There are, are there not, big printing presses operated by the New York Company?
A. Yes, at 117 Adam Street, Brooklyn.
Q. Do the employees who, among other things, operate these printing presses live in the headquarters family?
A. Yes.
Q. Is that a kind of hostel so far as the building is concerned?
A. No, it is a home for the lodging of the members if the family, to keep them together, and also to provide for their sustenance at the most economic rate.
Q. Are they sustained from the physical point out of the resources of the New York Incorporation?
A. They are sustained by contributions that are made to the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.
Q. Would you answer the question? I am trying to keep apart the Brooklyn Incorporation and the Pennsylvania Incorporation. Are those who are in the headquarters family sustained from the physical point of view by the New York Incorporation?
A. The New York Corporation holds the properties there in New York.
Q. Who pays the people living in that headquarters family?
A. Specifically you will have to ask the Secretary-Treasurer, who knows directly about that.
Q. In addition to being a Director of both Incorporations, I think that you said that got in on the editorial capacity with a Committee?
A. Yes.
Q. Am I right that you are chiefly responsible for the books and tracts and other publications of the Incorporation?
A. I have to examine them and carefully check them, and nothing is passed without my O.King them.
Q. At the present moment what size is the Committee which assists you?
A. That is something that is not disclosed. We do not disclose names.
Q. I am not asking at the moment for names, but I am asking for numbers?
A. Well, it consists of a number of men.
Q. How many?
A. That may vary according to the amount of work that is to be done.
Q. How many at the moment?
A. Well, there are a number who contribute and the number is not static.
Q. Pardon me, but I am asking you a very simple and direct question. How many serve on your Editorial Committee at present?
A. Well, I will have to compute them. I will say seven.
Q. Plus yourself?
A. Including myself.
Q. At meetings of the Committee do you preside?
A. No, the President presides.
Q. Mr. Knorr?
A. Yes.
Q. Is that Committee convened prior to the issue of each tract or book?
A. No, but the Editor (myself) and Mr Knorr have to put the final O.K. to the material that is submitted for publication.
Q. By the Committee?
A. By the Committee.
Q. Does that Committee perform functions of translation as well as interpretations in English of Scripture?
A. No, it does not perform matters of translation. We have translators there who translate the material that has already been published in English.
Q. In so far as translation of the Bible itself if undertaken, are you responsible for that?
A. I have been authorized to examine a translation and determine its accuracy and recommend its acceptance in the form in which it is submitted.
Q. Are the translators members of the Editorial Committee?
A. That is a question which I, as a member if the Board of Directors, am not authorized to disclose, because when the translation was donated to the Society at a meeting of the Board of Directors there, the Translation Committee made it known that they did not wish their names to be disclosed, and the Board of Directors, acting for the Society, accepted the translation upon that basis, that the names would not be revealed now or after death.
Q. Are the translators all members of Jehovah’s Witnesses?
A. That again is part and parcel of the agreement that their names shall not be revealed. They are consecrated men as the forward to the translation discloses.
Q. It is awfully important, isn’t it, to beware of false prophets?
A. That is right.
Q. Is it the view of your theocratic organization that the qualifications of the translators and interpreters of the Scriptures should be kept secret?
A. That is the business of the Translation Committee. They can make a donation on their own terms and we can accept it. The Society can accept it on their terms.
Q. You are speaking now of donations?
A. Yes. The translation was donated to the Society on the understanding that it would be published.
Q. But surely by arrangement with the Editorial Committee. People don’t come forward and say “I wish to donate you a new translation, for example, of the Book of Daniel”, do they?
A. A Committee can do that.
Q. The Committee must arrange with somebody, mustn’t they, to come forward with a translation, if the Committee decides that translation is desirable?
A. Well, it was the President of the Society who presented this translation to us, the Board of Directors, and he had it examined there, and then the Board of Directors was the one that voted to accept the translation.
Q. The Committee and the Board of Directors discussed beforehand the desirability of having a translation?
A. The matter was presented fresh to the Board of Directors and the President of the Society, as it has already been published in the Watch Tower and stated in the public meeting in Yankee Stadium, had portions of the translation read to the assembled Board of Directors as instances of the style or translation and of its accuracy and of its modernity, and it is on that basis the Board of Directors signified their wish with regard to the translation.
Q. Did the Editorial Committee itself, that is by its individual members, know the qualifications of the persons who were giving translations?
A. No, that is something that that the Editorial Committee is not concerned with. The Editorial Committee does not determine for the Society whether a translation shall be accepted or not. It is the Board of Directors who are the advisory and governing body who determine that.
Q. In fact it is the Board of Directors in both the Pennsylvania and New York Incorporations which decides upon and authorizes the issue of either translations of the Scriptures or books or pamphlets interpreting the Scriptures?
A. In this case the Board of Directors voted to accept the translation.
Q. I am now asking you a general question, if I may. (Question repeated)
A. No, the Board of Directors of the New York Incorporation do not decide on those matters.
Q. Well then, which body decides?
A. It is the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania that decides in these matters.
Q. Is there any difference in personnel between those who are Directors of the New York Incorporation and those who serve the Pennsylvania Corporation?
A. Some of our members are members of both Corporations and Directors of both Corporations.
Q. The president and vice-president are members of the Board of Directors of both Corporations?
A. Yes.
Q. And the same with the secretary and the treasurer?
A. yes.
Q. You yourself are multilingual?
A. Yes.
Q. At what age did you go to Cincinnati University?
A. I entered the University in 1913 after graduating from Woodward High School and I continued there until 1914.
Q. When did you go to University?
A. In 1911, and I continued there until April 1914.
Q. Did you graduate?
A. No, I did not. I left the University in 1914 because I realized according to Scriptures that that was the crucial year which was to be marked by the outbreak of a great trouble, and I realized that the ministerial work was the most important thing in the world to do and I wanted to get into the ministerial work before the great trouble broke, and so I wanted to get in earlier but my father refused to permit me to leave the University because I was still under 21. In April of 1914 he acceded to my wishes and allowed me to leave the University, and I immediately entered full time ministerial service as a pioneer.
Q. What subjects were you studying at Cincinnati University?
A. I was studying in the Liberal Arts College and among other things taking up Chemistry, English, Latin, Greek and German.
Q. Had you done any Hebrew in the course of your University work?
A. No, I had not, but in the course of my editorial work my special research work for the president of the Society, I found it was very necessary to have a knowledge of Hebrew, so I undertook a personal study of that.
Q. What subjects did you hold passes in when at Cincinnati University?
A. Passes?
Q. I do not know whether you work there the same as we do here, but after the anguish of examination you got a certificate saying you have passed certain subject. Do you work that was in America?
A. Well, I passed the junior year of the University, and I did not complete the third year. I left in April and the term terminated at the beginning of June.
Q. What subjects did you have passes when you left the University?
A. I had passed through Greek and Latin and I had also taken two terms in German.
Q. Did you do Helennic Greek?
A. Yes, as well as ocined(sp?) Greek, the Greek of the New Testament.
Q. Were you yourself responsible for the translation of the Old Testament?
A. Again I cannot answer that question, in harmony with the gentlemen’s agreement made by the Board of Directors and the Translation Committee.
Q. Why the secrecy?
A. Because the Committee of Translation wanted to remain anonymous and not seek any glory or honour at the making of a translation, and having any names attached thereto.
Q. Writers of books and translators do not always get glory and honour for their efforts, do they?
A. But I believe translators are generally acclaimed and go down in history as the translators. Furthermore….see page 93 of transcript for further testimony.
