For the first nearly 40 years of Watch Tower Society history, the organization was inextricably linked to the name Charles Taze Russell (hereafter referred to as CTR). CTR founded and edited Zion’s Watch Tower magazine (later The Watch Tower), was elected as Pastor by numerous Bible study groups, and wrote a theological framework for the Bible Students in his Millennial Dawn series of six textbooks (later named Studies in the Scriptures).
His work attracted the ire of orthodoxy as he promoted such concepts as no hell fire, no inherent immortal soul, no triune God, and a pre-millennial return of Christ, with a literal thousand year reign over a literal earth.
Instead of using scripture to question CTR’s position on belief and doctrine, increasingly the media - and especially the clergy of mainstream denominations - resorted to quite vicious ad hominem attacks. In the face of highly personal criticism, CTR had to make a choice – whether to just ignore it or to resort to litigation.
On several occasions he took to the latter course, suing both publications and individuals.
Sometimes he won a victory. Marley Cole’s book Jehovah’s Witnesses: The New World Society gave two examples. Both The Washington Post and The Chicago Mission Friend paid CTR damages and more importantly published an apology and retraction of specific attacks on him. Even J J Ross, the protagonist in the case we are going to consider, mentioned other church papers like The Megaphone and The Christian Armoury who likewise apologised and withdrew material in the face of legal proceedings.
But on other occasions CTR failed, and with hindsight, in some cases it might have been better to have just left matters alone. Today’s newsprint is often tomorrow’s recycling and the contents forgotten. Going to law draws media attention to an issue, and the results can be unpredictable. In the Watch Tower for October 1, 1915, when answering a question about why he, CTR, took someone to court, when Jesus didn't, he stated about the Ross case: "We are not certain that we did the wisest and best thing – the thing most pleasing to the Lord in the matter mentioned."
The biggest example of a case that went the distance but did not work out as hoped was the January 1913 case Charles T Russell vs The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, commonly known as the “Miracle Wheat” trial.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle was a populist newspaper that rarely had a good word to say about CTR and his ministry.
Miracle Wheat was a strain of wheat discovered – it was claimed – by a farmer named Kenton Ballard Stoner. Years after the controversy it was discovered that Stoner had marketed the wheat under several names, and done very nicely out of it. One of the names coined was “miracle wheat” and back in 1908 The Watch Tower magazine picked up a secular newspaper paragraph on it, and suggested this might be one of many indications of the forthcoming blessings in the millennium. A Bible Student named John Adam Bohnet later obtained some seed and grew the wheat on farmland adjacent to a cemetery the Watch Tower Society owned in Pittsburgh. Bible Students who were farmers could purchase seed if they chose as a way of donating to the Watch Tower Society’s work. When the scheme was criticised, CTR’s magazine offered readers their donations back if any were unhappy. No-one took up the offer.
Perhaps the most objective conclusion on miracle wheat – under its various guises – came several years after the trial. In 1916 the U.S. Department of Agriculture published a 28-page report entitled Alaska and Stoner, or “Miracle” Wheats. (United States Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 357, April 27, 1916). After extensive trials their considered judgment on page 27 was: “It is not as good as some and is somewhat better than others.”
In fairness to all concerned, comparing varieties of wheat was not always an exact science. So much depended on soil conditions, weather conditions and the time of year the seed was planted. The strain was later renamed Weber wheat, owned by the family of Henry Weber, who had been Watch Tower vice-president prior to his death in 1904. The New Era Enterprise for October 19, 1920, reported that it had won several prizes under that name.
Going back to The Brooklyn Eagle, the newspaper published a satirical cartoon in September 1911. The Brooklyn Union Bank had recently gone bankrupt, and The Brooklyn Daily Eagle had conducted a campaign against it accusing the directors of fraud. They published a cartoon, mocking the Union Bank as the Onion Bank, and making a reference to Pastor Russell and the offer of “miracle wheat” in the pages of The Watch Tower. The caption read: “If Pastor Russell can get a dollar a pound for ‘miracle wheat’ what could he have got for Miracle stocks and bonds as a director in the old Union Bank?”
CTR sued. The testimony is fascinating and the transcript of this trial from January 1913 has survived. But he failed to win the case. His comments on the verdict and his praise for the jury system (even though he believed it let him down this time) can be found in the February 15, 1913 issue of The Watch Tower.
The real issue was the suggestion that CTR was trying to defraud Watch Tower readers. However, the trial soon got bogged down into whether the wheat was any good or not. Numerous experts were called upon to say that the wheat was the best thing since sliced bread. But the case soon became a scattergun of attacks on all sorts of fronts. CTR’s estranged wife, Maria, turned up. CTR was in court, although not called as a witness since he admitted he knew nothing about the properties of wheat. So there in court were CTR and Maria, apparently looking at each other across the room. Maria was called to testify for the Eagle, but her testimony was so inconsequential, one can only assume that her appearance on the newspaper’s behest was to try and cause CTR maximum discomfort.
CTR’s attorney, Joseph F Rutherford, gave his view of the result in a booklet published in 1915 – A Great Battle in the Ecclesiastical Heavens:
If CTR had won his case against the Eagle it would probably have ended any need to sue Ross or others like him. But that wasn’t to be.
John Jacob Ross (1870-1935) was the Pastor of the James Street Baptist Church, in Hamilton, Ontario. In 1912 he published a tract: Some Facts about the Self-Styled “Pastor” Charles T. Russell (of Millennial Dawn Fame).
Ross’s background can be found in his obituary from 1935 (The Province, Vancouver, September 19, 1935). He was born in Quebec, and educated at Woodstock Baptist College and McMaster University, Toronto. He worked in various places in Canada, and also included a spell in Chicago, USA, where he was reportedly president of the Chicago Baptist Minsters’ Union. He was married and had one son, John Graham Ross, of Winnipeg, although it has not been possible to trace any descendants. He was a writer who produced several booklets on doctrine from the Baptist perspective, peppered with scriptural references. They included The Prophecy on Olivet or The Sign of His Coming (1909) and The Under-World of the Dead or The Abode of Departed Spirits (2nd edition 1914 from 1912 sermon). One may disagree with his conclusions, but at least there are Bible texts to reason on. Had Ross just attempted to use the Bible to try and refute CTR’s message there would have been no problem. Instead, he made a number of personal attacks with no scriptural references whatsoever, apart from one passing reference to “false prophets” (Matthew 7:15; 1 John 4:1) at the very end.
Ross’s academic credentials have been questioned by some writers, specifically Ditlieb Felderer, who we will come to later. However, if ad hominem attacks on CTR should be off limits, then the same should apply to Ross. All that is relevant here is that Ross admitted he had never met CTR prior to being sued by him. He also admitted that when, in June 1912, he published his anti-CTR tract there was very little original material in it. It was basically a copy and paste job from the Eagle newspaper. CTR had visited Canada and his speaking engagements included Hamilton, Ontario. Ross had rushed out his pamphlet (“50 cents per hundred, four dollars per thousand”) to warn his Baptist flock as he saw it.
So again, CTR sued. But this time there was one big difference. Rather than a civil charge of libel, as was the case with the concurrent Eagle situation, Ross was sued for criminal libel. What this meant and how it impacted on the outcome is covered in the next chapter.
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