Neutralizing a Perceived Subversive Threat

‘Neutralizing a perceived subversive threat': Censorship, threats, persecutions and prosecutions used to keep 'at arm’s length' a peaceable religious community in World War One America

Guest post by Gary

At 3pm on 24 February 1918, Pastor William A. Baker was due to deliver a Bible lecture entitled "The End of the World, Relation of the World War Thereto" at Grants Pass, Oregon. Accommodation had been booked in advance and advertised several days before in the local press. However, on arriving both the speaker and those invited to attend were surprised to find the doors "nailed up" and their access barred. Baker, a Portland resident small in stature but known to his friends as the “Little Giant," was invited to discuss the matter on the following day and appeared, with a colleague, at the court house before a committee of 30-40 men from the local counsel of defence along with the Mayor, the Sheriff and the Manager of the Opera House he was to use. His introductory 'good morning' greeting met with silence. He was promptly told to answer the following four questions with only a simple yes or no: Are you a member of the Red Cross? Are you a subscriber to the Liberty loan? Have you purchased thrift stamps or savings certificates? Are you wholeheartedly and unreservedly backing the government's war program? To each question he answered 'no', but when he attempted to qualify his answer to the final question, he was told that no debate would be tolerated. He was then instructed to leave the room and a vote was taken to deny him the right to speak at any event locally or to distribute literature in the city. (1)

 

William A Baker: the 'Little Giant'

So, what had led to the cancellation? The local counsel of defence had read newspaper reports concerning actions taken against members of the International Bible Students Association in Canada, which suggested, to their mind at least, that the 'Russellites' - as they were colloquially called in America - would be unsupportive of the war, perhaps disloyal, and even seditious. Consequently, the Ashland Tidings reported on the same incident a few days later using the heading 'Pro German Not Allowed to Lecture'. In many respects this minor episode in the life of an American city in the Great War mirrored the wider attitude of American society toward the Bible Students for the following year. Until it was over, and the national aim achieved, Bible Students such as Baker would barely be tolerated. Even after the conflict, when the attitude of many in society had softened, their reputation remained. It was not hard for Bible Students to contemplate a teaching they had held long before they had become so unpopular: they were "no part of the world" but were, rather, "citizens of a heavenly kingdom". (2)

 

Three days later the Rogue River Courier reported on its front page of the sudden investigation of the Brooklyn, New York, office of the International Bible Students under the heading 'Government Raids Russell Headquarters', noting that literature had been seized and turned over to the public attorney who was to determine if it was seditious. It commented that the raid was "said to have been made in connection with the arrest recently of followers of the Russell sect in Toronto, Ont., where five persons are on trial with publishing and circulating a book called The Finished Mystery". No mention was made by this issue of the paper regarding the earlier events in Grants Pass, but the connection was made in public consciousness, and for many the earlier decision now appeared justified by reason of the government's more recent action. (3)

 

By way of protest, a letter from Pearl Easterling, a local Bible Student, appeared in the Ashland Tidings on 4 March 1918 attempting to correct the 'Pro German' headline of a few days earlier. It explained that the Bible Students were not opposing the war measures but, since the US government saw reason to make allowance for those whose conscience didn't allow them to fight, simply making use of this right. It explained that it was "preposterous to suppose that the I.B.S.A. is pro-German when its members first suffered martyrdom at the hands of the German autocracy" where, it claimed, "over one hundred had been shot for their religious convictions." However, the protest fell on deaf ears as increasing newspaper reports appeared, in Oregon and elsewhere, of Bible Students being arrested for distributing literature that was under suspicion. (4) In Medford, Oregon, for instance, a crowd of several hundred threatened violence. George Maynard, whose house was being used as the centre of local Bible Student activity, was seized by a mob who stripped him and "painted a huge iron cross upon his body, giving him until Monday to leave" according to the Laramie, Wyoming, Boomerang, of 15 April 1918. The paper also warned locals of the imminent arrival of a certain Pastor W.A. Baker who was due to speak at the Lyric Theatre. The intention of the article, headed "100 Percent Americans. Awake!", was clear. (5)

 

"Suppressing one densely packed theological rant"

 

Bible Students could never be 100% American, and this was a time when anything less just wasn't enough. To many these reports justified the claim that Bible Students were seditious. Besides, even if this had not been the intent of the Bible Students, the increased public attention given to them served notice to any would-be traitors that Uncle Sam was not to be messed with. Religious historian Philip Jenkins noted that the setting involved one publication in particular:

 

In 1918, when federal and state authorities were deeply concerned about pro-German subversion and sabotage across the United States, much of their activity focused on suppressing one densely packed theological rant, namely The Finished Mystery. (6)

Indeed it was this Bible Student book which highlighted their premillennialist views and the profound indifference of Bible Students to 'Babylon the Great' and her daughters, the religions of the world which had too often compromised the standards of God in exchange for favors received at the hands of worldly governments. It is usually assumed that The Finished Mystery was an attack on all religions other than Bible Students. It is true that it was highly critical of the role of religion in supporting the war, but not all clergymen were condemned. In fact, it quoted from two at length who were as equally disgusted with those who praised the Prince of Peace on the one hand, while championing the God of war with the other. (7)

 

The authorities took great exception to pages 247-253, especially the following comment:

 

Nowhere in the New Testament is patriotism (a narrow minded hatred of other people's) encouraged. Everywhere and always murder in its every firm is forbidden. And yet under the guise of patriotism civil governments of the earth demand of peace-loving men the sacrifice of themselves and their loved ones and the butchery of their fellows, and hail it as a duty demanded by the laws of heaven. (8)

 

When the US Department of Justice termed distribution of the book a violation of the Espionage Act on 14 March 1918 it started their campaign at "Neutralizing a perceived subversive threat", as Lon Strauss has aptly commented. (9) It only became a matter of time before various states took action against Bible Students responsible for both its publication and distribution. Just three days later at Third Avenue, San Bernardino, California, a small number of believers met in a private house to discuss the Bible. On this evening something unusual happened. A knock was heard on the door and four men outside asked if they could join in with the study. They were welcomed in, given Bibles and joined in the conversation. Afterward, one of the men approached a female believer, Emma J. Martin a 48-year-old widow of a well-known local doctor, to request and receive a copy of The Finished Mystery book. What she did not know was that these men were working as government agents and had deliberately visited to spy on the group. Consequently, the following day she and three others among the group were arrested and imprisoned on charges of sedition. As a Christian, Emma Martin did not believe anything in 1918, a year after the United States entered the war, that she hadn't believed in 1916, a year before America joined the conflict. While she had determined her stand on war sometime before, she had not approached the men intent on converting them to prevent their involvement in the draft. Rather, they had deceptively sought her assistance. (10)

 

Emma J Martin

Her prison photograph

Threats, intimidation and invasion of the home and confiscation of Bible literature, usually at the hands of the American Protective League, became common. For example, on 27 March 1918, at Corpus Christie, Texas, Mrs Clara Hanke was threatened and attacked and her home raided with Bible study textbooks confiscated. On two occasions in the following month the raids were repeated, accompanied by more threats and by the invasion of her bedroom when she was resting on her bed. (11) Similarly, in March 1918, at Alba, Missouri, one hour before midnight the home of 71 year old Mary E. Thayer was invaded without warrant, her person threatened and her effects seized.(12) Likewise, Alta Randall's home at Tulsa, Oklahoma, was entered by officers who confiscated Bible study textbooks without warrant, accompanied by abusive, threatening and violent language. (13)

 

'Slackers'

Labelling individuals in small close-knit communities aggravated underlying tensions, of course, and it is not hard to understand why many citizens started to avoid Bible Students in case it was somehow thought they supported their views. The social and financial implications of such actions would create further hardship for the businesses, families and individuals involved in an event that foreshadowed the experiences of many Jehovah's Witnesses in America some 21 years later. And yet, as we know, many did face such acrimony. August Swanson, a farmer from Minnesota, recalled visiting Bible Students in Spring 1918:

 

These friends had refused on religious grounds to support the war in any manner. Consequently, their neighbors and fellow townsmen had begun a boycott against them. They could not buy or sell; they were threatened with mob violence and annoyed in various other ways. In the public square, close to the railway station, had been erected a large monument of concrete, painted yellow. Upon its four sides in large black letters were all their names, with the word “SLACKERS. (14)

 

Scarred for Life

 

Being interrogated concerning their beliefs and religious literature by self-appointed citizens with well-intended patriotic sympathies was unpleasant enough, but it pales into insignificance compared to the experience of others. Stanley Young, for instance, a physician's son from Reading, Pennsylvania, was arrested and interrogated by Bureau of Investigation agents for several hours for distributing Bible Student literature. During this a U.S. Attorney threatened that the government would shoot him, while a U.S. Marshall "was toying with his revolver and brandishing his blackjack." After releasing Young on bail, officials continued to harass him, with one individual, possibly an APL agent, assaulting him in a local restaurant. As a result of a concerted campaign, Young eventually suffered a nervous breakdown and confinement in a Harrisburg asylum. Ultimately the government filed no charges against him, but Young recalled that the experience "enlightened me as to the character of some Government employees and the shameful misuse of power given them." (15)

 

Others faced local vigilante groups. One being John Baltzer Siebenlist of Shattuck, Oklahoma. The Golden Age magazine of 29 September 1920 put the cause of Siebenlist's experience down to the fact he had visited a distribution collection centre to pick up literature for local Bible Students. But this over-simplifies a much more complex issue, as will be explained. There were a number of factors which aroused suspicion in the eyes of local vigilantes and had already thrown Siebenlist to top of their hit list. The first involved nationality. Born 10 July 1888 in Satov, Russia, on the boundary of the German border, Siebenlist immigrated to America with his family twelve years later so that he eventually become a naturalised American. However, while Siebenlist had a name that was obviously German - as is the case for many Americans - he continued to use German as his first language. As such he might easily have been considered an "enemy alien". Secondly, when he signed the draft form on 5 June 1917, he claimed a conscientious objection for religious reasons, stating also that he was an IBSA minister. But the local registrar seemed unconvinced and added a note, "He clerks in grocery practically all the time."(16) This likely triggered local problems for him since, in some people's eyes, it seemed as if he was trying to get a ministerial exemption, when his "real" job was grocery clerk. Thirdly, at school his son Theodore was known to have refused to buy a Red Cross pin as early as September 1917.(17) But the final straw, as far as the locals were concerned, came in 1918 when the Bible Students were perceived to be seditious as a result of The Finished Mystery ban. Retribution followed swiftly. Members of the local council of defence picked up Siebenlist at work and took him to Main Street where they publicly humiliated him by forcing him to stand on a copy of The Finished Mystery, kiss the flag, and swear allegiance to America. (18) But this display of forced loyalty satisfied the vigilantes only temporarily. Since Siebenlist was still a marked man, when he later visited a dispatch depot to collect literature for the local Bible Student class he was again in trouble. Theodore later recalled:

Dad was picked up again and held another three days. This time he was fed very little. His release this time was another story. About midnight three men simulated a jail ‘break-in.’ They put a sack over dad’s head and marched him to the west edge of town barefooted. This was rough terrain and full of sandburs. Here they stripped him to the waist and whipped him with a buggy whip that had a wire at the tip. Then they applied hot tar and feathers, leaving   him for dead. He managed to get up and walk and crawl around town toward the southeast. Then he intended to head north and home. However, a friend of his found him and brought him home. I never saw him that night, but it was a terrible shock to mom, especially with a tiny baby in the house, and Grandma Siebenlist fainted when she saw him. My brother John had been born only a few days before all of this happened. However, mom held up under all the strain very well, never losing sight of Jehovah’s protective power ... Grandma and Aunt Katie, dad’s half-sister, began nursing him back to life. The tar and feathers were imbedded in his flesh; so they used goose grease to heal up the wounds and gradually the tar came off. . . . Dad never saw their faces, but he recognized their voices and knew who his assailants were. He never told them. In fact, it was hard to get him ever to talk about it. Yet, he carried those scars to the grave.” (19)

 

Perhaps the most notable case of persecution occurred on 30 April 1918 at Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, and involved four male Bible Students imprisoned for selling The Kingdom News. Charles Franke, Edward J. French, CB Griffin and 61-year-old WB Duncan were taken from the jail, tarred and feathered, and driven far from town. Duncan was compelled to walk 26 miles to his home and barely recovered, while Griffin was virtually blinded and died from the assault a few months later. A Mrs D. Van Hoeson also had been jailed but appears to have been spared, while at a similar time, in Mammoth Springs, Arkansas, Charles Franke's sister, Minna B. Franke, was mobbed and compelled to close out a $10,000 stock in one day and leave town.(20) It is apparent that some local officials protected Bible Students from vigilante mobs providing sanctuary in local prisons until the fever-pitch mentality passed. Yet, in other cases, these openly encouraged individuals taking the law in their own hands. For instance, The Golden Age also recorded the experience of J. Eagleston, who had been jailed for 15 days in prison tanks, some with no bed or mattresses, insufficient covering or food, before receiving his trial. When the jury disagreed, 5 to 7, the Judge suggested in court that "if there is no law to settle these cases, they will be settled, if it is done by the American people themselves."(21) What did he mean?

 

Opposition faced by the entire community

 

All faiths holding traditional pacifist ideals experienced considerable pressure during this time, such as the historic peace churches of the Mennonites, the Society of Friends (Quakers), and the Church of the Brethren (Dunkards). And individuals from newer faiths holding fast to their pacifist convictions included members of the Christadelphians, Churches of Christ, Seventh Day Adventists and the Pentecostalists. But the IBSA appears to have been unique in that it grabbed attention for more than just the conscientious objection of its males of drafted age. These 'new kids on the block', with no earlier peace history to fall back on, experienced opposition affecting all levels of the group, young and old, male and female, from those some might consider 'rank and file' members to several leading directors serving at their Brooklyn headquarters. Ultimately government raids of the premises led to the trial of Joseph Rutherford, the president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, the Society’s secretary-treasurer, two co-authors of The Finished Mystery, three other members of the Brooklyn headquarters staff and the Society’s Italian translator, under charges of attempting to cause insubordination and refusal of duty in the armed forces and obstructing the recruiting and enlisting of men for war.(22)

 

At some public expense, Judge Harland B. Howe from Vermont was transferred in to officiate. His appointment was no accident. Earlier he had presided over the case of The United States v. Clarence H. Waldron, involving a Baptist minister with millenarian beliefs and strong Pentecostal tendencies. Waldron had become unpopular with a section of his congregation who held more traditional views and sought opportunity to alienate him from the community, finding reason in his pacifism to accuse him of attempting to undermine the U.S. government in a time of war. At the trial Judge Howe did not allow testimony regarding the anti-Pentecostal religious prejudice of Waldron’s accusers. As a result, the jury returned a guilty verdict and Howe sentenced Waldron to 15 years in federal prison. (23) It was apparent that something similar was expected of Howe in the Rutherford case, and he did not disappoint. The religious motivation of the Bible Student accusers was ignored and, not surprisingly, the IBSA directors were all found guilty of the charges made, leaving Judge Howe to conclude that that these Bible Students were "A greater danger than a division of the German Army". Consequently, the seven directors each received 20 year sentences to be served at the Atlanta Penitentiary. (24)

Judge Harland B Howe

Post-war the case was reviewed and recognised as a miscarriage of justice, so enabling Rutherford and his colleagues to be released. In 1919 Judge Ward concluded:

 

The defendants in this case did not have the temperate and impartial trial to which they were entitled and for that reason the judgment was reversed. (25)

 

Ironically the original trial and sentence had been heavily reported by the press throughout the United States, including excerpts from the forbidden book, to the extent that "the press did the very thing the Russellites had been sentenced to twenty years for doing, and gave it more publicity than the followers of Russell could possibly have given it."(26) Additionally, the miscarriage of justice supported their Biblical distrust of manmade governments (27) while their imprisonment made martyrs of the IBSA leaders and set their anti-war agenda for the following 100 years, starting with a resolution they sent to the Washington Arms Conference on 27 November 1921 making it clear that IBSA would not be involved in any future war, "in any form."(28) In 1931 they sent a further resolution to numerous world leaders stating that, "our faith forbids ... us from engaging in war or in any other enterprise that would work harm or injury to mankind." It also made rulers aware of the new name they had taken on, "Jehovah's witnesses." (29)

 

Heads held high above the parapet

 

By way of a corrective, it should be repeated that Bible Students were not, by any means, the only group treated adversely in war time America. Regular surveillance, bullying, public scorn promoted by newspaper propaganda, vigilantism and occasional mob violence were in no way limited to them. In the prevailing political climate any individual, religious or political, perceived through their actions as not being 100% behind the State initiatives aroused suspicion, especially if they had a German surname or origin and even if they maintained a low profile and displayed care in their speech. But the high profile ministry of active Bible Students, directors and colporteurs in particular, who saw themselves as "ambassadors for Christ", ensured their heads were always held high above the parapet and, in so doing, made them most vulnerable to attack. Given the wartime paranoia, their identification, investigation and persecution became inevitable.

 

The last word on this subject can be left to William Ray Walker who summed up the situation as follows:

 

The Justice Department's tenacious pursuit of the Russellites occurred in an environment   where society interpreted even slight deviations as threats to its survival. The government harassed and censured the Russellites for nothing more than expressing and teaching their religious doctrines. The case never would have progressed in an era when America felt secure within their communities because the Russellite divergence was strictly religious and did not challenge the social, political, or economic status." (30)

References:

(1) Rogue River Courier, 25 February 1918, 1

(2) Ashland Tidings, 28 February 1918, 8. For Bible Students self-perception see John 15:18, John 18:36, Philippians 3:11

(3) Rogue River Courier, 28 February 1918, 1

(4) Ashland Tidings, 4 March 1918, 4

(5) Laramie Boomerang, Wyoming, 15 April 1918

(6) The Great and Holy War, 141

(7) The two, both well-known pacifists, were Charles Edward Jefferson, the pastor of Broadway Tabernacle Church in New York City, and Rev. John Haynes Holmes, of the Church of the Messiah, Park Avenue and 34th Street, New York City. Holmes later became a leading light in the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and took delight in the numerous cases won by Witnesses at the Supreme Court which created precedents and, in so doing, established the civil rights of religious people of all faiths in America during the 1940s and early 1950s

(8) The Finished Mystery, published 1917, 247

(9) A Paranoid State: The American Public, Military Surveillance and the Espionage Act of 1917, submitted to University of Kansas for graduate degree 2012, 75

(10) The New Era Enterprise, Volume 11, No. 13, 13 July 1920, 4. TheGolden Age magazine, 29 September 1920, 717.

(11) The Golden Age, 29 September 1920, 713

(12) Ibid, 716

(13) Ibid

(14) Bible Student News, Summer 1936, Volume 2, No.1

(15) Young to the Attorney General, 5 April 1920. RG 60, Records of the Department of Justice. Quoted in Only the Heretics are Burning: Democracy and Repression in World War I America, William Ray Walker, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2008, 287

(16) Draft registration papers of John Baltzer Siebenlist, dated 5 June 1917

(17) 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, 99-100

(18) Boynton Index, Oklahoma, 3 May 1918, 6

(19) 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, 99-100

(20) The Golden Age, 29 September 1920, 715, 713

(21) The Golden Age, 29 September 1920, 716

(22) Details of the investigation and trial appeared in The Case of the International Bible Students Association, a 4-page tract written in 1919 by Bible Student Ernest Sexton.                           

(23) Espionage in Windsor: Clarence H. Waldron and Patriotism in World War 1, The Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society, Gene Sessions, Summer 1993, vol.61, No. 3

(24) The New York Herald, 22 June 1918, part 2, 5

(25)  Brooklyn Eagle, 15 May 1919, 1

(26) Preachers Present Arms: The Role of the American Churches and Clergy in World Wars I and II, with Some Observations on the War in Vietnam, by Ray H. Abrams, revised 1969, 183
(27) Psalm 146:3, Jeremiah 10:23, Daniel 2:44, Matthew 4:8,9, Revelation 12:9

(28) Resolution reprinted in The Golden Age, 7 December 1921, 138

(29) Watchtower, 15 September 1931, 278-279

(30) Only the Heretics are Burning, 287