ALEXANDER H. MACMILLAN

by bj 23 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  MacHislopp

  Hello Bj,

  I've also the book, and yo're right… no further mention of his wife!

  Maybe some of the friends - Kent, Ozzie, Farkel, AlanF, Simon, Maximus etc. will provide

  us with …the latest!

  Agape, J.C.MacHislopp
• 

  hippikon

  Maximus: Yes quite right my mistake.
• 

  Skimmer

  I remember reading Marley Cole's _Jehovah's Witnesses - The New World Society_ many years ago. The first time I saw the title of the book was on a literature servant's WTBTS literature price list back in 1973 during my brief association. The book was published by Vantage Press, a vanity publisher paid in full by the WTBTS. I was told by a ministerial servant that the WTBTS deliberately hid its sponsorship so that the publishers would have a book to place in households where any official WTBTS literature was unwelcome. (Just another instance of theocratic information warfare.) To my knowledge, the book was never distributed to bookstores for sale, but may have been placed in public libraries as donations by JWs acting as agents of the WTBTS.

  I remember that the book had a relatively long chapter on the Miracle Wheat scandal that was much more revealing than anything officially published by the WTBTS. It seems like a rebuttal of sorts, but I had not read _Thirty Years a Watchtower Slave_ so I didn't know who they were rebutting.
• 

  JAVA

  Thanks Maximus, anglise, and hippikon for the information. Anglise, it's Friday and you came up with the author's full name; that's more than I could do. I'm not sure how you removed 10 years from Schnell's book, but after reading his story, he should have been sentenced to 10 years for no documentation and poor writing.

  Maximus, I wonder how many at the Society looked at Cole's manuscript before it was released?

  --JAVA

  ...counting time at the Coffee Shop
• 

  ros

  As a matter of interest, I understand from what I consider a very reliable source, that Schnell upon discovering that he had a terminal illness applied by letter to WTS headquarters for resinstatement--and was denied (or the appeal was ignored).
• 

  JanH

  What is MacMillan's significance to the organization?

  
  As Penton says: Machiavellian!

  Without MacMillan, I doubt Rutherford would have made it to the top. MacMillan had the money and the contacts. Otherwise, he seems a bit mysterious, but I don't think his importance should be understated.

  - Jan
  --
  Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil´s Dictionary, 1911]
• 

  JAVA

  ros,

  I could just about believe anything that involved Schnell. On the other hand, humors in the Tower can be bazaar, even from reliable sources. However, we're talking about Schnell here . . .

  --JAVA

  ...counting time at the Coffee Shop
• 

  JAVA

  Jan--Maximus made an interesting comment:
  

  Mac was very outgoing, forceful in personality and in private made no bones about his distaste for the Judge, in comparison to the "saintly" Pastor.

  If MacMillian didn't really care for Rutherford, I wonder why he promoted the scoundrel? Did his dislike for Rutherford surface after the monster was already created?

  --JAVA

  ...counting time at the Coffee Shop
• 

  Farkel

  : I'm not sure how you removed 10 years from Schnell's book, but after reading his story, he should have been sentenced to 10 years for no documentation and poor writing.

  He claimed in the forward to his book that he was an uneducated man and that his book was not going to be scholarly. Although he provided very few actual references (page numbers, and often books), I've hunted down several of his comments and they were in Rutherford's books just as he claimed.

  Schnell was not a historian and never pretended to be. I most fault his book for his bitterness and often fanciful theories (like the number of the beast [666] was the WTS). That said, I've never seen a better wealth of anecdotal evidence about the society and Rutherford during the 20's and 30's. From all the other documented sources I've seen there is nothing that Schnell said that seems the least bit out of line about how the society and especially Rutherford operated.

  There is a well-researched book about Rutherford coming forward soon now, from what reliable sources have told me. It would be interesting to compare Schnell's stories with this book when it comes out.

  Schnell did as much to show the WTS for what it really was in his day as Ray Franz has done in our day. When I was a boy growing up, the mere mention of "Thirty Years a Watchtower Slave" sent shivvers up everyone's spine and any man who possessed it was indeed possessed by demons himself. The WTS was very concerned about the damage that book did to their little pet cult and made sure all R&F dubs wouldn't go near it.

  Farkel
• 

  wasasister

  I own a copy of the Marley Cole book, if anyone is interested.