He had noticed that over the years Brother Balzereit had grown a beard very similar to the one that had been worn by Brother Russell. His example soon caught on, for there were others who also wanted to look like Brother Russell. This could give rise to a tendency toward creature worship, and Brother Rutherford wanted to prevent this.
What a load of crap!!! What he was actually afraid of was that he was not getting the attention he wanted. So it was wrong to look like Russell, but it was ok to look like him. During my entire decade as a JW, I never had a positive opinion of Rutherford.
Donny