1975 was real all right......The exact wording might have been a little cagey , some of us thought that perhaps it might not be in the exact year,necesarily, but any delay was going to be no more than a few months maybe (that was the extent of any uncertainty) The very idea of us still being here in the 21st cent. was inconceivable .
As Len ( FF) said above, the '75 Yearbook was saying this to mitigate any potential problems
The year 1925 came and went. Jesus’ anointed followers were still on earth as a class. The faithful men of old times—Abraham, David and others—had not been resurrected to become princes in the earth. (Ps. 45:16) So, as Anna MacDonald recalls: “1925 was a sad year for many brothers. Some of them were stumbled; their hopes were dashed. They had hoped to see some of the ‘ancient worthies’ [men of old like Abraham] resurrected. Instead of its being considered a ‘probability,’ they read into it that it was a ‘certainty,’ and some prepared for their own loved ones with expectancy of their resurrection. I personally received a letter from the sister who brought me the truth. She advised me that she had done wrong in what she had told me. . . . [But] I was appreciative of my liberation from Babylon. Where else could one go? I had learned to know and love Jehovah.”
God’s faithful servants had not dedicated themselves to him only until a certain year. They were determined to serve him forever. To such persons the unfulfilled expectations concerning 1925 did not pose a great problem or affect their faith adversely. “For the faithful ones,” remarks James Poulos, “1925 was a wonderful year. Jehovah through his ‘faithful and discreet slave’ brought to our attention the meaning of the twelfth chapter of Revelation. We learned about the ‘woman,’ God’s universal organization; the war in heaven and the defeat and expulsion from the heavenly courts of Satan and his demons, by Jesus Christ and his holy angels; the birth of the kingdom of God.” Evidently, Brother Poulos has in mind the very noteworthy article “Birth of the Nation,” appearing in The Watch Tower of March 1, 1925. Through it, God’s people clearly discerned how these two great opposing organizations—Jehovah’s and Satan’s—were symbolized. They then learned, too, that the Devil has had to confine his operations to the earth since his ouster from heaven as a result of the ‘war in heaven’ beginning in 1914
As to the honesty of the above , and what they really had forecast for 1925, check the link below:
http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/1925.php
