This post will be somewhat lengthy, but I would like to lay out quite deliberately what is contained in the first few pages of Rutherford's 1933 booklet The Crisis, as it relates to the interesting confluence of above posts regarding Rutherford's rantings about a Catholic "Hierarchy" conspiracy, and the possible influence of other conspiracy minded groups (such as the Ku Klux Klan) on Rutherford's views.
All quotes are from
1933 The Crisis, explained in Three bible Treatises
by J. F. Rutherford
The entire 64-page booklet is available at
http://www.reexamine.info/reex/download.php?url=/30s/1933%20The%20Crisis.pdf
To frame how Jehovah's Witness readers were expected to view this work, and the place Rutherford set for himself, notice the Preface, p. 3:
. . . It discloses the
reason for oppression and suffering, why it
must end, and why it will be succeeded by a
better condition. It is not the expression of
a man's opinion. Based upon the indisputable
evidence it shows that the crisis of the Ameri-
can government is now at hand.
On page six, however, we find something which, if factual, is news to almost everyone:
Big Business has no regard for the rights
of the common people. The Civil War of 1863
was fomented and carried forward for the pur-
pose of creating a condition by which Big Busi-
ness could obtain a strangle hold upon the na-
tion. To free the land from the traffic of hu-
man flesh and blood was the ostensible reason
for that war, but the real reason was to enable
a selfish company to control the finances and all
the business interests of the nation. . . .
As a matter of fact, this is the sort of thing you are likely to hear from those who have had fairly close and friendly contact with the Ku Klux Klan. Moving onward to page 7, another conspiracy awaits...
Today Big Business owns practically every-
thing visible. . . . A few ultrarich men
fix the prices of the food produced. . .
Typical conspiracy theory boilerplate, not that uncommon during the Depression of the 1930s. At times in his writing, when Rutherford says "Big Business" he clearly means "Jews," but at other times he does not, so it's hard (I think purposefully) to pinpoint who he means here. Any listener of an hysterical mindset could apply the code words to whichever nighttime menace most appealed to their venom.
Big Business, which is composed of a very
few big men, owns and controls the telegraph and
telephone lines, the radio, the electric and pow-
we lines, and it owns and controls the mines that
produce the fuel and the building material
which all the people are compelled to use. It
owns and controls the banks, and most of the
money that is in them. It is in possession of the
greater portion of the gold that rightfully be-
longs to the government. . . .
Don't forget Rutherford started out for W. J. Bryan.
. . . Big Business has... the most astute lawyers... controls the
army and the navy, the guns and the ammunition, and the
police power of the nation.
And so on. This is all generally Populist fare.
Big Business... owns or controls almost all of
the newspapers and magazines.... The same selfish
interests own and control the professional clergymen. . .
And so on. Big Business surely was Big. But then--
...In 1917 the pred-
atory element that rules the nation created the
slogan, "The war that will make the world safe for
deomcracy," and then caused its propaganda
press and hypocritical clergymen to sound
this false slogan throughout the land.
This could be a veiled reference to E.L. Bernays (Jewish-- Freud's nephew) and the Committee on Public Information (CPI), who coined the phrase. Bernays is found throughout
conspiracy works as the inventor of propaganda, mind-control, and advertising, and the one who conned the public into accepting the horrors of fluoridation.
Now
after fourteen years democracy has disappeared
from the earth. There is at this very time a
concerted movement by those few men who con-
trol the commerce of the land to have America
ruled by a dictator,
Although one might leap to the conclusion that this has to do with the "dictatorship" of Roosevelt that is still being claimed by many far-right types, and the overwhelming percentage of the Jewish vote he received, it doesn't. This radio address was made in 1932.
which means the setting
aside of all constitutional law and the putting
into force such orders as the dictator may deem
necessary. The public press has been instructed
to diplomatically educate the people as to the
necessity of a dictator before the step is ac-
tually taken and the dictatorial power disclosed. . . .
And now the really interesting part:
. . . Big Business maintains paid
lobbyists at Washington, which lobbyists con-
duct also a bureau of information for the spe-
cial benefit of their employers. Each week a
letter goes from that bureau of information to
the executive heads of Big Business corpora-
tions. From one of these communications, dated
May 14, last, I quote the following:
It is beginning to be apparent that some substitute
for a coalition government will have to be formed to
handle the situation after adjournment of Congress.
. . . There are several plans, but one revolves about
the idea of assembling in Washington, or subject to
quick call, a group of a dozen or more men . . . Dic-
tatorship, which is being advocated more from week
to week, would be avoided, but some of the practical
merits of dictatorship would be obtained. At least
this is the hope behind the idea, which is an adapta-
tion of the set-up represented by the war-time Council
of National Defense. . . . One practical objection is
that the public might be unduly alarmed by implica-
tions in the summoning of a council of advisers. . . .
We have reason for believing the plan will materialize,
and we advise you [executive business heads] in ad-
vance to consider it a good sign.
First off, this is not just crackpot dementia, it is grade-D. Secondly, this story of the secret communications has to have a source (I am unaware of any point of Watchtower history where they actually invented something--their habit has been to borrow, cobble, and distort). Thirdly, Rutherford actually quotes something to support his assertions. Although published in 1933, this radio address was broadcast 26 June 1932. Therefore, this secret letter "dated May 14, last" would have been 14 May 1931. Unless Rutherford actually wrote it himself, he cribbed it from somewhere else, and that somewhere else could be extremely revealing.
Unfortunately, I have spent this day searching, and have yet to come up with even a clue as what that source might have been. Any help? Suggestions? At present, I do not have online university library access.
