The Russells' Music Publishing Business

As well as the haberdashery stores, the Russells (Joseph Lytle and son Charles Taze) were involved in various business ventures, some of them detailed in the booklet A Conspiracy Exposed (1894). One of the more unusual ones was music publishing. While long forgotten today, it is curious that it was mentioned in a court case in 1913.

The case was the famous 1913 Russell vs. Brooklyn Eagle trial, generally known as the “miracle wheat” trial. In a review of Russell’s various business ventures, W E Van Amburgh included a music business. The reference is in the transcript on page 320, section 959.

 

Van Amberg (sic) did not become a director of the corporation until 1901, and this exchange took place in 1913. He would have had no first-hand knowledge of the Russell stores. Yet out of all of the past business ventures it is curious that the music store should still be referenced.

The one known example of the Russells’ connection with the music business dates from more than 40 years before, from 1872. The book Separate Identity Volume 1 by Bruce Schulz and Rachael de Vienne reproduced the cover of The Evening Prayer, a piece of sheet music written by Blessner and Pershing for a local Pittsburgh college.

 

If you examine this facsimile of the cover, you can see the music was published by J. L. Russell and Son of the Pittsburgh Music House. The full document with words and music can be accessed from the Library of Congress website for any who really want to see what it is like.

The words were written by Rev. Dr. I. C. Pershing of the Methodist Episcopal Church and President of the Pittsburgh Female College. The music was by G. Blessner.

It was dedicated to the Rev. Bishop M. Simpson (1811-1884) who was president at one time of the M.E. Church Missionary Society.

The Pittsburgh Female College was founded in 1854.

 

Although it was described above as a sectarian institution under the control of the Methodist Episcopal Church, their charter stipulated that students were to be accepted from all religious denominations.

The Rev. Israel C. Pershing (1826-1898) became principal of the college around 1860 and remained so until 1886 when he was accused of fraud.

Gustave Blessner (1808-1888) was head of music in the 1870s, and the college had a choir and put on musical concerts.

Blessner was a highly prolific composer and a lot of his music can still be accessed today. It covered a wide spectrum, from the Sacred (To Thee We Pray – 1879) to the less than sacred (Silly Dilly Dally Dolly – 1872). One of the latter oeuvre, Nanny’s Mammy (1850) starts off…

    A spinster of uncertain age

    (But somewhat past the middle stage)

    Who thought herself extremely sage…

You get the picture. There are shades of Gilbert and Sullivan here.

Blessner’s modern claim to fame is that he wrote the music for the first known song to have the word “Blues” in the title: “I have got the blues today” (1850). The chorus goes:

    I was the gayest of the gay

    But I have got the blues today.

It’s about a singer who gets drunk.

Of course in these instances Blessner wrote the music but was not the lyricist.

However, one wonders if his music lessons at the straight-laced-ladies-only M.E. College were sometimes rather fun.

Anyhow, although a great amount of Blessner’s music was published and can be found online, the Evening Prayer is the only composition so far found that was published by the Russells, and then only in tandem with other music publishers. It could be it was the only item they did publish, maybe because it was a local item sung by the college choir for one of their concerts.

 

Pittsburgh Daily Post (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)  16 Dec 1872 

But if anyone can find more examples, please do say.

Debates

Debates sometimes featured in the early Bible Students’ witnessing efforts. CTR was featured in two famous ones, against E L Eaton in 1903 and later against L S White in 1908. The text of both debates was transcribed and published. In 1915 J F Rutherford engaged in debate with J H Troy. Again the text was published, originally in the 1915 convention report, transcribed in the main by Rutherford’s son Malcom. 

In the UK a debate was held in Scotland in 1896 between Bible Student Charles Houston and a Scottish Free Church clergyman Donald Davidson which was extensively reported. Houston would have probably become a well-known name in UK Bible Student history, but he died young. For the story of this debate you can check back in this blog or download the book on it on the Lulu site (search terms: The Houston-Davidson debate). (I know this is a shameless plug, but the download IS free).

 However, not all invitations to debate were accepted. Following the Russell-Eaton debate, CTR received a challenge through the pages of the Christadelphian Advocate magazine. The strand of the Age-to-Come movement that developed into the Christadelphians was to split into several different fellowships. An original statement of belief was later “amended” by a sizeable group, leaving those who disagreed as “unamended” Christadelphians. The unamended group was responsible for the Christadelphian Advocate, founded in Iowa in 1885 by Welsh immigrant Thomas Williams.

As you can see from the main article in this issue, CTR was not their favorite person. A member of the Christadelphian ecclesia started publishing materials the editor viewed as heresy. In a swipe at him, the beliefs of CTR and ZWT came in for attack. Amongst the issues that clearly marked out the differences between Christadelphians and Bible students were two mentioned in the paragraph below from October 1903:

 

In 1904 CTR was challenged by one of their members to debate with the Advocate’s editor.

 

CTR’s response was polite but negative.

It was also noted that the invitation had not come directly from the editor but just one of the paper’s readers, although the paper had chosen to publish the correspondence.

In 1906 the attempt was made again. CTR’s response was published in the Advocate:

Much as those outside the Christadelphian fellowship tended to lump different Christadelphian groups together, so to a degree did Christadelphians when looking at the developing Bible Student movement. So John H Paton appeared on their radar.

From 1905:

 

This shows that while Paton’s magazine had a more limited circulation than ZWT (and they confused his magazine title World's Hope with his book Day Dawn), he was still quite well known in these sort of circles.

Having failed to tempt CTR, Williams challenged Paton to a debate. Paton accepted and the two men and their adherents squared up to each other in February 1906.

The results were published in a booklet by the Christadelphian Advocate.

CTR’s debates tended to dwell on conditional immortality and whether or not there was a hell-fire. Paton’s debate centered on his main Universalist platform.

How much the event influenced the respective sides, other than confirm their existing positions, is debateable. But the Christadelphian Advocate felt confident enough to publish the results. Although they did choose to cry “foul” in their introduction.

The May 1, 1915 WT published an article from CTR on the subject of ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF DEBATES. In it CTR wrote:

"Although the Lord's providence did seem to open up the way for the "Eaton-Russell Debate" and later, for the "White-Russell Debate," and through these Debates led the way on to the publication of the Sermons in hundreds of newspapers throughout the world, nevertheless the Editor is not, and never was, much of a believer in the advantages of debating. The Debates mentioned were valuable chiefly as entering-wedges for the newspaper work…So far as the Editor is concerned, he has no desire for further debates. He does not favor debating, believing that it rarely accomplishes good and often arouses anger, malice, bitterness, etc., in both speakers and hearers. Rather he sets before those who desire to hear it, orally and in print, the Message of the Lord's Word and leaves to opponents such presentations of the error as they see fit to make and find opportunity to exploit.--Hebrews 4:12."