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Jehovah's Witnesses and distribution of literature in the 1930's...
Jehovah's Witnesses and distribution of literature in the 1930's...
Item # 724784
May 26, 1932
THE NEW YORK TIMES, May 26, 1932
* Bergenfield, New Jersey Jehovah's Witnesses
* Distribution of literature on public streets
* Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society member
* Jehovah's Witnesses movement arrests
* Charles Taze Russell followers - Bible Students
Page 2 has a small one column heading: "Sermon Salesman Jailed" with subhead. (see images)
I suspect this to be an extremely rare item because there was really no reason to save it at the time.
Complete with 52 pages, light toning and minor wear at the margins, generally in very nice condition.
background: The arrests of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Bergenfield, New Jersey, on May 25, 1932, served as a pivotal flashpoint in the burgeoning legal conflict between municipal "peddling" ordinances and the exercise of religious liberty. On that day, local authorities detained several members of the faith for distributing literature—such as the Golden Age magazine—without a commercial permit, a move the Witnesses viewed as a direct infringement on their divinely mandated ministry. This specific incident was part of a larger, coordinated legal strategy spearheaded by the Watch Tower Society's president, Joseph F. Rutherford, who intentionally sought to challenge these restrictive local laws by flooding "hostile" towns with canvassers. While the Bergenfield arrests initially resulted in convictions and local hostility, they were essential building blocks for the organization’s legal department; the persistence shown in these early New Jersey skirmishes eventually compelled the U.S. Supreme Court to establish, in the 1940s, that the First Amendment protects the right to proselytize door-to-door without the burden of government-issued licenses or taxes.
Category: The 20th Century
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