Why was Rutherford sent to prison?

by Alfred 29 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  TD

  I'll let you decide whether the “Sedition” charges were false or not.

  This isn't a matter of how inflammatory the statements appear to be several generations later. A meaningful opinion today would require an understanding of the specific charges

  Rutherford and his associates were charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 with interfering with the ability of the United States to raise an army during wartime. (As Borgia points out above.)

  The exact verbiage in the indictment was, "...did conspire, combine, confederate and agree together, and with divers other persons to the said Grand Jurers unknown, to commit a certain offense against the United States of America to wit: the offense of unlawfully , feloniously and wilfully causing insubordination, disloyalty and refusal of duty in the miltary and naval forces of the United States of America when the United States was at war..."

  Although the convictions today are regarded as the product of wartime hysteria, technically they were arguably guilty.

  Even today this is illegal and the concept of "Disassocation" as opposed to "Disfellowshipping" was dreamed up to circumvent that fact. If JW's were actually punished by church tribunal for joining the military, the leadership could conceivably wind up in hot water again. By making it a matter of willful disassociation, their role becomes entirely passive.
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  VM44

  "...Espionage Act of 1917"

  I believe that law is still in effect in the United States!
• 

  james_woods

  Rutherford if you recall hated politics and religion. Many of his booklets denounced politics, the war, the Catholic Church (although he did include all "Christian" religions as spawn of Satan), and everything else he didn't like.

  in 1915-16 it seems he delivered a talk called How Will Militarism be Destroyed? Present Day Events Reviewed in the Light of Divine Prophesy. by the Hon. J. F. Rutherford no less. and yes it says Hon. on the title page. He pretty much castigates the US government for even considering getting involved in the conflict.

  Rather ironic that he claimed to hate politics, and then got himself thrown in jail for being intensely political (and against the U.S. Government to boot).

  I have said this before (and some on the far left deny it), but this is why I think that Russell/Rutherford started what is essentially an anarchist religion: they accept absolutely NO AUTHORITY whatsoever - except for themselves. This is not far different from the politically self-proclaimed anarchist rebels in Spain during the 1930s who were fighting Franco.

  Of course, they may claim that their Jehovah is running their religion, but with Jehovah being AWOL, it is actually themselves.
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  Lady Lee

  Agreed James

  I think that for some very peculiar reason they didn't realize that being against all governments is in itself a political statement..

  When you look at the list of books and booklets that Rutherford wrote while he was president it is phenomenal how many of them were political diatribes. He was incessant and dragged everyone along with him.
• 

  Vidiot

  Alfred - "Why was Rutherford sent to prison?"

  Because he was a prick who pissed off too many people.
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  VM44

  
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  moshe

  Hmm, VM44- he looks like someone who would spend the rest of his life trying to get even with the Govt- except Jehovah didn't lift even one teensy finger to punish the worldly governments, even for all their crimes against humanity in WW2-
• 

  GLTirebiter

  Eventually, reason prevailed.

  I understand it was not because of "reason" (if by that you mean a finding that Russell et al did nothing illegal). Rather, their appeal was based on errors during the proceedings, and a finding of mistrial--they could have been tried again on the same charges, but because the war was over the prosecution saw no point in spending the time and money to retry him and the other WT leaders (note this was in 1919 and 1920, the first year of Prohibition--and the enforcement problems that came with it). So charges were dropped and Russell was released, being neither convicted nor exonerated: in the eyes of the law, there had never been a proper trial to determine guilt or innocence.
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  Anony Mous

  It's the same reason they're getting in trouble in France, Russia and some of those other countries - the overt political message they're sending is pushing the wrong buttons so far they can't be classified as a religion anymore but more as a political extremist organization.
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  Terry

  I use to have some documents that are now probably not retrievable on an old crashed Hard Drive......

  In essence, some of the Bible Students (followers of Russell) who were serving in the Military wrote to the Society and asked

  clarification on whether serving their country in a time of war was okay. The letters sent FROM the Society directly back in answer

  amounted to coaching and admonishing derelection of duty. This propaganda was on the Society's letterhead and it painted a big target

  on the leaders when the Sergeant (of the men who wrote) got a look at those letters.

  That was the SPECIFIC reason for the indictments, as far as I recall.

  This is why when I was to go before a District Judge, the local Draft Board and the F.B.I. in 1966 my local Overseer and Assistant Overseer

  coached me to emphatically DENY anybody from the Kingdom Hall or the Watchtower Society had ever given me instructions that I should REFUSE to be inducted into the United States military.

  They knew not to go down that road again.