thank you Leolaia. marking
Rutherford's smear campaign (a must read)
by Leolaia 198 Replies latest watchtower scandals
-
-
cantleave
This needs to go into "Best of.." section.
-
Phizzy
I second that Cantleave ! thank you so much dear Leolaia for tidying this up into a sensible order.
For some more background the thread by poster "RR" entitled "The Curious Case of Olin Moyle" makes interesting reading. The claim is made there that the WT never actually paid to Moyle or his Estate the damages awarded by the Court.
I wonder if they are hoping to get away with doing the same in the Conti case ?
-
Leolaia
Gossip started to fly in Milwaukee Company, provoked by the statement in the Watchtower, and zone servant Fink asked Moyle to make a public statement about his loyalty to the Society. This is Moyle's statement.
#21Olin R. Moyle to JWs of Milwaukee Company, 7 Sept. 1939: "The Sept. 1st Watch Tower contains a notice stating that my connections with the Society were severed because of unfaithfulness to the Kingdom interests and to the brethren. This statement does not conform to the facts. The facts are as follows: On July 21st I gave Brother Rutherford thirty days notice in writing of my resignation as the Society's counselor. This resignation was given as an emphatic protest against certain conditions which had arisen at Bethel. I had no personal grievance against the Society's President but I protested strongly against some of his actions, such as ill treatment of the Bethel family; scolding and lambasting them at the dinner table; discriminating against them in the matter of comfort and conveniences; undue exaltation to the use of alcohol, and the use of filthy and vulgar language. On August 8th, immediately following vacation prompt action was taken concerning the matter. The Board of Directors was called together and my letter of resignation read to the members thereof. The Board recommended that my connections with the Society be severed immediately. I was branded as a religionist, a member of the evil servant, and in all seriousness it was claimed that I was a Jesuit, presumably in disguise. The Moyle family was thereupon given half a day to pack up its goods and get out. Since leaving Bethel other stories have mysteriously come to the front, to the effect that I betrayed the brethren in the courts and that I instructed brethren in Massachusetts that it would be all right to send their children to a military school. These claims and stories are false and apparently made with an ulterior purpose.
I have never been disloyal to the Society or the interests of the Kingdom. My position was stated in a letter to Brother Rutherford on August 21st from which the following is quoted: '...I am loyally supporting the Society in this area and expect to continue to do so regardless of the attitude of the Society toward us. Neither am I waging any personal warfare against you. I have never questioned or denied that the Lord is using you as his earthly director of Kingdom work'....I am now a part of the Milwaukee Company of Jehovah's witnesses and engaging wholeheartedly with it in the advancement of the Kingdom interests. This statement is made to personal friends so that they may have a clear understanding of the matter".
When Moyle arrived to Wisconsin in August, he was generally quiet about what happened at Bethel but some people had suspicions about why he left Bethel. C. Hilton Ellison testified during the trial: "There were many questions that were asked by different ones as to why he was in Wisconsin when there was so much legal work to be done in Brooklyn and he belonged there to take care of the Society's legal work". Then when the September 1st Watchtower came out, those questions intensified. Zone servant Harvey Fink said during the trial that after the magazine was received, "quite a few [brethren] came to me and asked me what that was all about". With people speculating as to the nature of Moyle's "unfaithfulness", Fink asked him to make a statement on where he stood in the next meeting, which he read. This is Ellison's account of the meeting: "I was presiding at that meeting as company servant, and during the meeting Mr. Fink took over part of it and said that because of the fact that he had received so many inquiries as to why Mr. Moyle was in Milwaukee, he would give him a chance to tell the Milwaukee friends why he left Brooklyn." After the meeting, some wondered how Moyle really "was in perfect harmony with the Society" if he left his work and moved to Milwaukee to resume secular work. Ellison says that the brethren in the company "took sides, some with Moyle and some with the Society". -
TheOldHippie
there are quite a few mistakes in the second and third post, as to what is Q and what is A.
-
Leolaia
Indeed. Sorry about that. It was a lot of typing.
-
Leolaia
Upset at what the Watchtower published about her brother, Laura Rouse mailed a copy of the resignation letter to three nearby companies:
#22
Laura (Olin's sister) and Leland Rouse to the Companies of Waupun, Columbus, and Horicon, 8 Sept. 1939: "We were home to Lake Mills last Tuesday and got our latest Towers. The little paragraph called "FOR YOUR INFORMATION" was the first thing that hit me — and right square in the face! Perhaps you got a shock too????? Of course, I knew that my brother had been 'pitched out', as he expressed it, and that the reason for it was a letter he had written to Bro. R. — about the conditions there. I knew that he had resigned, too, and was expecting to come to Wisconsin and again practice law after Sept. 1st. He came two weeks earlier on account of the hasty action of the executives there at Bethel. Well: For your further information, and because I believe you are fair-minded enuff to get both sides of any question before passing judgment, I am sending you a copy of the letter my brother wrote to the judge, and including some of the FACTS that followed it. He says he sees no harm in letting the FACTS be known, and has given me permission to use the letter for that purpose. We should FACE THE FACTS, should we not? You may copy the letter if you wish. If you do not care for the letter after reading it, you may return it to me. I am sending a copy to each of the four companys that were formed in our former territory. Will you, the company servant, please see that each member has an opportunity to read this letter carefully? And if you wish to pass on this information to others in the truth, that is your privilege. It is a very sorrowful 'DAVID' who has written this letter to our dear 'JONATHAN' friends".When Moyle gave a copy of the letter to his sister, "she asked me if I had any objections to sending the letter to two families with whom we were acquainted, a family by the name of Early and another by the name of Rounds. They were pioneers. I told her I had no objection to sending it to them" (p. 245). She ended up sending the letter to three companies and asked if the publishers in each company could read it. Meanwhile Moyle was overwhelmed with requests from people to see the resignation letter, thanks to the Watchtower article: "People wrote in to me after the September 1st 'Watch Tower' came out, many here and there, asking for my side of the story. I had those names and addresses. I sent copies to them" (p. 241).
-
Leolaia
Zone servant Harvey Fink then wrote to Rutherford to keep him abreast of the situation:
#23:
Zone servant Harvey H. Fink to J. F. Rutherford, 12 Sept. 1939: "Bro. Moyle, Sr. Moyle, and Peter have been regularly attending all of the meetings in the Milwaukee Company and have been engaging wholeheartedly in the kingdom service. Up to the time the Statement came out in the recent Tower about his alleged unfaithfulness, the friends here were all under the impression that he had left voluntarily to resume practice having about life East rather strenuous. I, of course, knew that he had written a letter to you, and having known him for a good many years, asked to see a copy of it. Until recently, he refused to show me a copy, claiming that the matter was a personal matter between you and him and he felt that the less said about the whole matter the better, is it might possibly disturb some and jeopardize the Kingdom interests. Since that time, of course, I have seen the letter. Naturally I am not in a position to pass upon the truth or falsity of any of the statements contained therein and neither am I in any sense of the word interested.However, that statement in the Tower provoked quite a bit of speculation and gossip on the part of the friends here and at the very next service meeting I as zone servant publically demanded to know of Bro. Moyle whether his association with this company meant that he was wholeheartedly in favor of the work of the Society and intended to cooperate with the company individually in all matters in which case we would be only glad to have him do so, otherwise we wanted an explanation of the statement found in the Tower. We were all gratified to hear him publically express his full and complete conviction that the Society was the Lord's instrument in the earth today, that he was fully and completely in harmony of its work, that he agreed the Tower articles were the meat in due season for the Lord's people and assured us of his and the Moyle family's full determination to engaged in the witness work....I assured him on behalf of the company as well as myself that if these were his sentiments we would be only too glad to have him in our midst and that even if he had been wrong, which of course I cannot say dogmatically, the Lord as well as we as a company would be only too glad to let bygones be bygones....
Naturally some friends are somewhat puzzled over the statement found in the Tower and the apparent inconsistency with it in Bro. Moyle's actions. I however think it is to his credit to take the attitude that he has rather than to engage in a campaign of hate over what may only be, in the final analysis, a misunderstanding. Even if, however, he was dead wrong in what occurred in Brooklyn, I think it becomes our Christian duty to lend a helping hand to one who might have made a mistake but is still willing to serve the Lord, humbly and enthusiastically. My grand dad used to say that the more one stirs a pail of mature, the worse it stinks. Under the circumstances, I think the less said about this whole thing the better, but I felt that you might be interested to know that Bro. Moyle is not out here raising a lot of HELL and poisoning the minds of the friends against the Society, its work, and even you in particular".
-
Leolaia
Olin's wife, Phoebe, tells her story to a friend:
#24
Phoebe Moyle to Sister Hattie Dilly, 16 Sept. 1939: "Doubtless by this time you have seen the statement in the Sept. 1, Watch Tower, accusing Olin of being unfaithful. To those of our friends, we wish to state that neither of us were ever unfaithful to Jehovah, his organization, or any of the brethren. Last May, we decided we did not wish to continue living at Bethel, because of conditions there, which we could not approve. We decided that by Sept. 1, of this year Olin would have the many cases in various courts of appeal, so arranged that we could handle them from an office in Milwaukee. One of the rules of the organization is that anyone leaving Bethel should give a 30 days' notice. This we did 35 days before Sept. 1. Olin tabulated all the pending cases giving statements of the progress of each & offered to handle them just as he had been doing. He also wrote a personal letter to Bro. R. stating our reasons for leaving. This angered the Judge, who called a meeting of the board of directors, after speaking at length. J. F. R. called Olin one of the evil servant, etc. Since we left stories have circulated that Olin is a Jesuit that he advised parents to send their children to military schools, that he was unfaithful, all statements are untrue. At the dinner table, the letter Olin wrote was read to the family & J. F. R. ordered Olin to leave Bethel at once. Later he included Peter & myself. It was a terrible hot day. We had to pack our personal effects, find a moving van & get out before night. This we did. We had our trailer parked on Bro Van Ness's farm, about 30 miles from Brooklyn, in New Jersey....Then we came to Milwaukee, where Olin will engage in private practice again. Bro. H. Fink, a broker of vegetables, is giving us the use of his office free and Bro. and Sr. Newman are giving us a home free until May or June. When we went to Bethel over 4 years ago we sold our home & business & all belongings. We could not keep a car, pay for garage & upkeep on $10 per month. Each of us drew $10 each month of our savings for the four years besides using money as we needed it. Never have any of us been unfaithful. The Milwaukee company have welcomed us, we have our part in the house to house work, model studies, back calls, etc. and in spite of all stories to the contrary we desire to continue serving".
-
bats in the belfry
Leolaia >> Can Lady Lee or someone remove the two posts by bats in the belfry.
Leolaia, I am very sorry - mea culpa.
I started reading with the last page of that post (page 2 at the time). Seeing it to be some write-up of a September 1939 issue about Moyle, I added the October issue.
On a forum like this it's best to sputter out a timeline completed and implemented in one post. Nevertheless, now seeing what you tired to do I apologize and second that motion to remove the two posts of mine.