Publicity

There is no such thing as bad publicity is a phrase sometimes attributed to Barnum. Sometimes it is adapted to “All publicity is good publicity.” It probably goes back to Oscar Wilde, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

These criticisms brought CTR to people’s attention. Fair-minded or at least curious people might be tempted to see what their minister was getting so apoplectic about.

It shows how early on CTR’s work became known – far and wide. In connection with another project I was sent a cutting from the Elkhart Evening Review (an Indiana newspaper) from 11 April 1879:

Allowing for the sensationalist nature of the journalism, it is still not a bad description. And 150 converts already! In those pre-Internet days, this was written three months before ever there was a Zion’s Watch Tower, and published in a paper about 360 miles away from Pittsburgh.

By at least 1882 the pejorative “Russellism” was in use.

I would say that the clergy’s efforts to attack CTR’s work backfired spectacularly.