Looking back now, it appears that – unknown to either party
– the case CTR brought against J J Ross never had any real chance of
succeeding, no matter what its merits or demerits were. To win, you had to pick
the right platform.
The platform for the case against The Brooklyn Eagle had been a civil suit for libel. In that case,
it had not worked. So for the suit against Ross, CTR received different advice.
This time it was go for criminal libel. CTR explained in a
letter to E J Coward in The Watch Tower for September 15, 1914:
In Canada they have just two laws
governing libel. Under the one the falsifier may be punished by the assessment
of damages and money. Under the other, criminal libel, he is subject to
imprisonment. I entered suit against Rev. Ross under the criminal act, at the
advice of my attorneys, because, as he has no property, a suit for damages
would not intimidate him nor stop him. The lower Court found him guilty of
libel… I could still bring my action for financial damages, but it would be
costly to me and impotent as respects Rev. Ross.
The case came up shortly after the Eagle trial. CTR’s
advisors may have thought there was more chance of success by making a criminal
charge. The idea was not for Ross to be fined in a civil case or even put in
jail in a criminal one, but rather to cause him (in legal terms) to “cease and
desist.” Ross did not.
Ross may have had powerful backers. Although the reason
given for pursuing criminal rather than civil proceedings was that Ross had no
funds – so a civil case would be no deterrent – his local Baptist Church
started a collection to help him. Somehow he (or his friends) managed to employ
three different lawyers, the most famous of these being George Lynch-Staunton
(1858-1940). Staunton would go on to become a powerful politician in Canada. He
probably did not come cheap.
It meant that on the docket the litigant was not Charles
Taze Russell, but technically “THE KING.”
If it had gone to full trial in the Supreme Court the case
would have been most interesting, especially since Ross had no personal
knowledge of the accusations he made. As we shall see shortly, in a repetition
of strategy from the concurrent Eagle
trial, he also planned to call CTR’s estranged wife as a witness.
From the start there were logistical problems of geography.
CTR was based in America, but toured the world in his ministry, and Ross was
based in Canada, which came under the laws of Great Britain, not America.
The first summons on J J Ross was on December 7, 1912, and at
the first hearing on December 9. CTR was present in person to identify himself
and dispute the contents of Ross’s tract. Going into the first week of January,
1913, Ross’s defence insisted that CTR had to be further cross-examined at the
preliminary hearing. He initially declined because he was not there in Canada,
and as a result the original summons was overturned. CTR promptly tried to have
the papers served again on January 13, but this time Ross delayed matters by
leaving town. According to The Ottawa
Citizen for January 15, this was “presumably on the advice of his counsel.”
Everything was postponed again for a number of weeks. Another new summons was
issued against Ross on February 7. The magistrate had previously denied the
defence permission to cross-examine all witnesses at this point, but the
divisional court quashed that, so finally, on February 27, a judge stipulated
that CTR should again give evidence in person. Unfortunately CTR was preaching
in Central America at the time so for the moment the point was moot.
On March 17, CTR at last made it to Canada to give more
evidence in person in a preliminary hearing in the Magistrate’s Court. Ross’s
legal team were allowed to take him word by word through the offending tract to
argue whether it was fair comment or, as CTR contended, libellous. After a two
hour session in the morning and one of similar length in the afternoon,
Magistrate George Jelfs committed Ross for trial on the charge of criminal
libel. The case was now referred to the Supreme Court of Ontario.
The matter was extensively reported on in the press. One
typical example was The Windsor Star newspaper for March 19, 1913:
The headline
was:
COMMIT HAMILTON PASTOR TO TRIAL ON LIBEL CHARGE
Defamatory libel
charged against Rev. J. J. Ross by Pastor Russell.
Hamilton,
March 19 - Police Magistrate Jelfs committed for trial Rev. J. J. Ross, pastor of James Street Baptist
Church, formerly of Toronto, on a charge of defamatory libel laid by Pastor C.
T. Russell. Defendant was committed several weeks ago, but now a preliminary
hearing has been held, as ordered by a higher court, because defence had not
been allowed to cross-examine plaintiff. Defence took full advantage of the
privilege of cross-examining Pastor Russell...(He) was on the stand for over
two hours this morning, and underwent a severe cross-examination at the hands
of the counsel of Rev. J. J. Ross, George S. Lynch-Staunton, K.C., J. G.
Farmer, K.C., and A. M. Lewis.
This particular
newspaper report was dated March 19, but the events had in fact taken place two
days earlier on Monday, March 17.
The newspaper
outlined the various subjects CTR was grilled over. They followed closely the
contents of the Ross tract. The paper made no judgment, and no-where was there
any suggestion that CTR had been anything less than truthful in his responses.
As noted above, after this lengthy interrogation, on the Monday afternoon the
magistrate committed Ross for trial in
the Higher Court.
So the case hadn’t been dismissed; it was now set to go
ahead to the Supreme Court in Ontario. Nearly two weeks later The Winnipeg Tribute for March 29, 1913,
published a photo of Ross with the caption: “Rev J J Ross – Baptist Ministry of
Hamilton, who has been committed for trial on the charge of libelling Pastor
Russell of Brooklyn.”
In the meantime, as reported in the Montreal Gazette for
March 24, 1913, CTR offered to close down the case. The heading read ‘Pastor
Russell would drop action on receipt of an apology.’ The paper reported an
offer to discontinue the action forthwith if Ross would simply apologise for
“assassinating his (CTR’s) character.” Attempts at scriptural refutation were
one thing, personal attacks were not.
This is supported by what CTR would later recall in the
pages of The Watch Tower for October
1, 1915:
My attorneys of course, were
obliged to bring their action in harmony with the law of the land. While the
case was still pending, I wrote Rev. Ross, assuring him that I had no unkind
intention, and proposed that I would discontinue the suit if he would promise
to discontinue his injurious, slanderous course.
He had no vindictive interest in Ross being fined or
imprisoned; he simply wanted the personal attacks stopped.
Ross’s response was not encouraging. The Gazette’s report concluded:
Mr. Ross could not be reached by
phone today, but it is understood he will insist upon the case going to trial.
Ross had probably increased in confidence after the result
in the civil case against the Eagle just
two months earlier. As already observed, he’d lined up the same stratagem as
the newspaper. Fresh from her appearance in the Eagle trial, Ross claimed that CTR’s estranged wife, Maria, was now
eager to appear for his defence.
Back in January The
Victoria Daily Times for January 23, 1913, under the heading CHARGED WITH
LIBEL, reported:
An interesting turn has been
given the case of the Rev. J.J. Ross, pastor of St. James Baptist Church here,
who is charged by Pastor Russell, of Brooklyn Tabernacle, with alleged
libel. Mrs. Russell, who lives near
Pittsburgh, has written to Alexis Lewis, lawyer for Mr. Ross, offering to come
here of her own free will and give evidence against her former husband. The
defence has accepted her offer.
Although the paper described CTR as her former husband, they
were still married, although legally separated. When he died she was rightly
presented as his widow.
In Ross’s later booklet Some
Facts and More Facts about the Self-Styled “Pastor” Charles T. Russell he
described how “our witnesses were all present for the trial” including Maria.
His description of her – hardly impartial – was that she was “a modest,
intelligent, charming devoted Christian woman” with a “vastly superior
intellect” to that of her husband.
As already noted, had it gone to full trial it would have
been a fascinating case, particularly with Maria there. But of course that
didn’t happen.
There was one final hurdle before the case could be tried in
the High Court. Similar to the USA, Canada had a system where a Grand Jury had
to render a verdict. Having heard a certain amount of evidence, along with the
summation of counsel, they were tasked with deciding which cases from the
police court went higher up the chain for a full trial.
As reported in the Canadian press on April 2, the Grand Jury
finally brought in a verdict. It was “no bill.” Thus, after four long months,
the action, THE KING vs. JOHN JACOB ROSS, came to an end.
Unsurprisingly, Ross claimed this as a great victory. In Facts and More Facts he wrote:
However, this version of events is patently false.
We only have to go to contemporary newspapers to see this.
We noted above that the press reported on the case on April 2, 1913. The
Toronto Globe for April 2, 1913 noted that a “no bill” verdict was returned
- but gave quite a different reason for it, which we will now explore.
It is worth emphasising what this newspaper says. The jury
may have heard several hours of evidence two weeks before this, but ultimately
they weren’t given any choice. They were told there was only one verdict they
could bring in.
To reiterate:
“Mr Justice Middleton in
addressing the Grand Jurors on this case stated that there could be no criminal
libel unless the peace of the community was disturbed, and that as the
plaintiff did not reside in this country this could scarcely have been the case.
It was upon this advice that no bill was returned.”
(Bold print mine)
This verdict and the reason behind it was a bombshell.
We have to ask, does this decision make any sense? When you
examine the law on criminal libel, it makes perfect sense. The lack of sense is
how the case ever got that far. All the legal proceedings up to that point had
been a waste of time. The issue should have been established at the outset, but
it obviously passed over the head of CTR’s Canadian counsel, S.F. Washington,
and then carried on though the police court, and the cross-examination of CTR
by George Lynch-Staunton and others. No matter how matters might have been
resolved, it appears the whole case was likely to be doomed on this
technicality. It also meant that a no doubt disappointed Maria Russell missed
another day in court.
CTR’s advisors had simply picked the wrong platform.
To understand the precise legal position we have to examine
British law, which Canada came under. This will be discussed in the next
chapter.