THE ROSS LIBEL TRIAL - TITLE AND INTRODUCTION

 

THE ROSS LIBEL TRIAL

The history of a 1913 legal case remembered

(badly) down through the years.

 

Print edition first published in 2013

Copyrighted. All rights reserved

 

INTRODUCTION

The Ross libel trial is one of those cases that hovered on the fringes of Watch Tower history for well over a hundred years. It raised comment at the time in the pages of The Watchtower magazine, and when resurrected by a critic in the early 1950s, prompted a Question from Readers in The Watchtower for May 15, 1953 to deal with it.

Charles Taze Russell sued a Baptist clergyman, John Jacob Ross, on the charge of criminal libel in early 1913. The resulting fall-out included the charge that Russell had committed perjury. The lack of a transcript of the relevant part of the case only added to the confusion.

This small book is to clear up the controversy with research and documentation discovered in recent years. I make no secret that to this author’s mind, the accusation that Charles Taze Russell was less than truthful is unfair and unfounded. If that is not to the reader’s liking, then of course you do not have to read on.

Some of the research was done with a fellow researcher about 35 years ago. My thanks to Roger and I will try not to leave it another 35 years… In more recent times, the discovery of part of the original transcript from a most unusual source helped the writer revisit the subject. The advent of research tools on the internet also helped considerably in unearthing material that would otherwise not have seen the light of day.

Images from pre-1923 are deemed to be in the public domain and under fair use are taken with acknowledgement from an active subscription to newspapers.com and other sources.