CHAPTER 3 - THE LAW AND THE PERJURY CHARGE

 This chapter will examine exactly why a charge of criminal libel in the case of THE KING vs. JOHN JACOB ROSS was doomed to failure.

If the reader is not wildly enthusiastic about the minutiae of the law, then you can skip over the early part of this chapter, but I believe the details are worth considering.

CTR would later comment on this turn of events. In the September 15, 1914, Watch Tower, he explained what had happened and why his action had not succeeded. We have already extracted part of his letter where he explained why he went for criminal rather than civil libel in the first place. CTR’s letter goes on to explain how it went wrong:

(all emphasis in bold mine):

The lower court found him guilty of libel. But when the case went to the second judge he called up an English precedent in which it was held that criminal libel would only operate in a case where the jury felt sure that there was danger of rioting or violence. As there was no danger that myself or friends would resort to rioting, the case was thrown out. I could still bring my action for financial damages but it would be costly to me and impotent as respects Rev. Ross.'

He then went on to discuss at some length the issues raised on Biblical languages and ordination and presented his side of the case.

So CTR states he was advised to try for criminal libel, but because of an English precedent relating to resulting 'rioting' and 'violence', it was thrown out. The English law (obviously governing Canada at this time) is put simply in Reader's Digest Family Guide to the Law (1971 edition) page 675: (again emphasis mine):

'Libel is normally a civil wrong - what the law calls a 'tort' -·but it can be also a criminal offence if the prosecution shows that the libel caused, or was likely to cause a breach of the peace. Such prosecutions are rare because the person libelled normally prefers to seek damages in a civil action; for even if someone is found guilty of criminal libel the person defamed does not get any damages.'

In discussing how certain rare circumstances allow for criminal libel of the dead, it states:

'If the dead person is libelled in such a way that his relatives are understandably angered into a breach of the peace, the writer might be prosecuted for criminal libel.'

So the key point in law is, will the one libelled be likely to cause a breach of the peace, or will his relatives?

This is backed up by Stones Justice Manual, 1985 edition, Section 4-5671. After the definition of criminal libel, and various decisions on whether or not the dead could be so libelled, we have the British precedent to which CTR referred:

Lord COLERIDGE CJ, directed a grand jury at Berkshire Assizes, Reading, February 1889, that there ought to be some public interest concerned, something affecting the Crown or in guardians of public peace, to justify the recourse by a private person to criminal libel by way of indictment. If either by reason of the continued repetition or infamous character of the libel a breach of the peace was likely to ensue, then the libeller should be indicted: but in the absence of such conditions, a personal squabble between two individuals ought not to be permitted by grand juries, as indeed it was not permitted by sound law to the subject of criminal indictment, and he invited them to throw out the bill, which, in accordance with his suggestion, was done (33 Sol Jo 250).

In summary – if no breach of the peace was actually caused by, or threatened by, the one libelled, a private individual bringing a charge of criminal libel would have it thrown out – irrespective of the merits of the case. Readers of The Watch Tower were not going to riot or cause any civil unrest – the case had not even been mentioned in its pages at the time. Had CTR brought a civil action against Ross it may have been a different result. This is what he did with actions against the Washington Post and Chicago 'Mission Friend mentioned earlier, where both cases were decided in his favour. The issue of CTR’s 'divorce/separation' was a common theme in all cases.

The whole object of the exercise was to silence Ross, which is why CTR wrote to him while the case was pending offering to withdraw the suit if Ross would discontinue his (quote) "injurious slanderous course". (Watch Tower, October 1st, 1915). On this occasion the strategy backfired!

In hindsight it would appear that CTR received flawed legal advice to go for the rare charge of criminal libel, rather than civil libel as before.

We return to a quote made earlier on in this work. In The Watch Tower for October 1, 1915, CTR 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 initial fallout was small. Those who read The Watch Tower knew CTR and the various issues had been well explained in its pages. There was also an issue of the tract series, Bible Students Monthly that reviewed the main criticisms made in the case (Volume 6, issue 5).

Ross’s pamphlet would have just been one of many. Of course, Ross would go on to claim that he’d won and that CTR had lost the case. He quickly reprinted the offending tract in the first part of his longer booklet, Some Facts and More Facts about the Self-Styled “Pastor” Charles T. Russell. In reality, the case was never tried in the higher court for the reasons stated above.

However, the issue now went in a whole different direction. Leaving aside the details of the original tract, which had been well covered in different issues of The Watch Tower, Ross now focused on one particular event from March 17, 1913.

This is when CTR had been cross examined by several counsels, the most famous of whom was George Lynch-Staunton.

Ross made the claim that CTR had committed perjury. He claimed it was backed up by the official transcript of the hearing. This accusation is the one that has stuck, down through the years.

It came in quite an early exchange. According to the Ross version, CTR claimed he knew Biblical Greek, but when faced with a Greek text of the Bible was unable to read from it. From that have come claims and counterclaims involving missing transcripts, doctored transcripts and hidden away transcripts.

The surrounding material in Ross’s booklet questioned his schooling and how he understood ordination, and these matters were dealt by CTR in The Watch Tower shortly afterwards.  (See Appendix 1 for details)

But it was this claim to know Greek that was picked up and repeated by those unfriendly towards CTR and the Watch Tower message. We will look at some of those who have quoted Ross in a later chapter.

To solve the issue of what happened we would ideally need to see the original transcript and then be able to analyse exactly what was both said and really meant in a feisty exchange between CTR and a skilled lawyer who Ross freely acknowledged was charged with trying to trip him up.

Today we have a good idea of what was really said. Admittedly it is not from an original transcript but from a secondary source, but nonetheless, one that had no brief to defend CTR; in reality quite the opposite. For this, we have to introduce another of CTR’s foes from the era in the next chapter.

Welcome to Mr Philip Sidersky.