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Charles "Taze" Russellites arrested in 1918...
Charles "Taze" Russellites arrested in 1918...
Item # 715466
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May 09, 1918
THE CHICAGO DAILY TRIBUNE, May 9, 1918
* Rutherford & other Russellites arrested
* Opposition to World War I - WWI
* Pastor Charles Taze Russell followers
* Christian restorationist minister
* Founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses
The front page of section two (page 11) has a one column heading: "Pastor Russell's 'Heirs' Arrested Under Spy Law" (see image). They would go on trial and be found guilty of sedition the following month.
Complete with 22 pages, light toning and minor wear at the margins, generally nice.
wikipedia notes: In early May 1918, US Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory condemned The Finished Mystery as "one of the most dangerous examples of ... propaganda ... a work written in extremely religious language and distributed in enormous numbers". Warrants were issued for the arrest of Rutherford and seven other Watch Tower directors, who were charged under the 1917 Espionage Act with attempting to cause insubordination, disloyalty, refusal of duty in the armed forces and obstructing the recruitment and enlistment service of the U.S. while it was at war.
On June 21, 1918, seven of them, including Rutherford, were sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. Rutherford feared his opponents would gain control of the Society in his absence, but on January 2, 1919, he learned he had been re-elected president at the Pittsburgh convention the day before, convincing him that God wanted him in the position. On March 26, 1919, the directors were released on bail after an appeals court ruled they had been wrongly convicted; in May 1920 the government announced that all charges had been dropped..
Category: The 20th Century
No Longer Available
