"The next regular annual meeting of the corporation was scheduled for January 1917, which, that year, had the chief business of electing the president to replace C. T. Russell. There were 600 in attendance at this meeting on January 6, with approxcimately 150,000 votes represented either in person or by proxy to be cast.""In those days every $10 contributed to the Society entitled its donor to one voting share. That is why before this, Pastor Russell himself would cast 25,000 votes at most of these corporation meetings. He had contributed in his lifetime around $250,000. When he died, of course, according to law his votes died with hiem. So these 150,000 votes, active for the meeting in 1917, represented that those holding them had contributed, at one time or another, $1,500,000 to the Society for its preaching work. This voting method was amended in 1944, eliminating entirely this method of acquiring votes."
Very enlightening how wealthy Russell actually was. Kind of like Mark Cuban in his flair for the exotic.