I stand by my reasonably-formed opinion.
Per the American Heritage Dictionary,
pedophile, n.
An adult who is sexually attracted to a child or children
Well, Russell was an adult at the time in question. So, was he sexually attracted to a child? Note from the definition that I do not have to prove he had intercourse with one to show he was a pedophile. I can't prove sexual intercourse. But I can and will prove sexual attraction to a child. Note that in the place concerned (Pennsylvania, U.S.A.) and at that time (1880s and 1890s) all those under 21 counted as children. By the way, I would use a narrower definition of child as one who is legally incapable of giving valid sole (i.e. without that of a parent or guardian too) consent to his or her own marriage. Society changes, and now the term pedophile would certainly not be applied today to someone who had the hots for an 18-year old!
Russell was a man of money, power and fame, and was not hesistant to misuse any of these towards his own ends. It is undisputed that he packed off the star witness on a ship to Australia! One has therefore to read between the lines a little. Remember how the Brooklyn Eagle referred to his Bethel, complete with underage girls, as being a harem. Russell sued them for libel over this and other statements. Russell lost absolutely, despite the burden of proof falling on the paper and his having as his star assistant a man who had been a Judge (well, for a few days). Also, had even one of the Eagle's statements been held to be false, his action would have succeeded.
What follows are extracts from the Russell v. Russell separation action. Note that while Rose Ball had attained the age of consent, the servant girl into whose room Russell used to creep and then lock himself in had not. She was a CHILD, PERIOD.. "Fear The Lord!" indeed. Who was the discreet slave, one need not ask.
ATTORNEY: The last year you were on Clifton Avenue, how many employees would be at the Watch Tower on Arch Street?
MRS RUSSELL: Oh. half a dozen or so.
ATTORNEY: With whom did they board or live?
MRS RUSSELL: They had their home with us.
ATTORNEY: When did you have your first material disagreement with your husband?
MRS RUSSELL: The first serious trouble with my husband was what you stated this morning, the first indignity with this woman who was in the office and in our home [Objected to]
ATTORNEY: We don't mean to charge adultery. You don't mean by that your husband was guilty of adultery?
MRS RUSSELL: No..
ATTORNEY: What was the name of the girl?
MRS RUSSELL: Rose Ball.
ATTORNEY: That is the girl you spoke of a few moments ago?
MRS RUSSELL: Yes, sir.
ATTORNEY: How long had she been with you before this trouble arose?
MRS RUSSELL: She came to us in about 1884.
ATTORNEY: That would be just about the time you moved on to Clifton Avenue?
MRS RUSSELL: No, we moved on to Clifton Avenue in 1883. It was about 1889 [sic] when she came, just shortly after we moved to Clifton Avenue.
ATTORNEY: Did she live with you?
MRS RUSSELL: Yes, sir.
ATTORNEY: How long did she live with you?
MRS RUSSELL: She was with us for about ten or eleven years - oh, she was with us about twelve years.
ATTORNEY: Just state what you observed about your husband's conduct with this girl in your presence in your home.
MRS RUSSELL: Previous to this time my husband had suggested to me the idea of separation, and he said if I would agree to a separation, he would give me the house in which we were living. He said we were incompatible.
ATTORNEY: When was that?
MRS RUSSELL: That was shortly before this objection was made, about 1893. We were still living on Clifton Avenue..
ATTORNEY: I want you to tell us what your husband did in company with this woman Rose, in your presence and in your home.
MRS RUSSELL: In the first place, I considered it.. [Objected to by Mr Russell's attorney]
ATTORNEY: Tell us what you saw and what he said and what was done.
MRS RUSSELL: One evening I spent the evening downstairs, and our library and our bedroom were next to each other upstairs on the second floor, and I spent the evening downstairs reading, and I went upstairs about ten o'clock to my room, and I supposed that he was either in the library or had retired, and when I went up there I found that he was in neither place, and I stepped out in the hall, and I found that he was in his night robe, sitting beside Miss Ball's bed and she was in bed. On other occasions I found him going in there and I found she called him in and said she wasn't well and wanted him in, and I objected to this, and I said that it was highly improper, and I said 'We have people about the house, and what kind of a name will be attached to this house if you do that kind of thing?' and he got angry.
ATTORNEY: You state that you found him doing this at other times. How often after that?
MRS RUSSELL: I found him a number of times, I don't remember how often.
ATTORNEY: In her room?
MRS RUSSELL: Yes, sir. And I found him in the servant girl's room as well, and I found him locked in the servant girl's room.
ATTORNEY: Did he make any explanation why he was in the girl's room?
MRS RUSSELL: No, he did not; he just got angry.
ATTORNEY: What did you say to him about this conduct, and what did he say?
MRS RUSSELL: I said to him, 'We have a great work on our hands' and I said 'in this work you and I have to walk very circumspectly before the world, and if you are going to do things like this, what will happen? Suppose you are all right, don't you suppose people will talk about things like this?' and I said, 'I am not satisfied with it' and he said he wasn't going to be ruled by me. But I felt distressed about that.
ATTORNEY: What did Rose do at the Watch Tower?
MRS RUSSELL: She attended to the correspondence.
ATTORNEY: Where was her desk with reference to the desk of Mr. Russell of the Watch Tower Society?
MRS RUSSELL: It wasn't near his; it was in the office.
ATTORNEY: When would he go to the Watch Tower, in the morning?
MRS RUSSELL: I don't remember; he generally went down alone.
ATTORNEY: Who would return with him?
MRS RUSSELL: She came with him in the evenings, and they came home about eleven o'clock and the young men that were in the office - she was the only girl, and the young men would go home, and he wouldn't allow her to go home with them, and she must wait and always go with him. [Objected to by Mr Russell's attorney]
ATTORNEY: I want the mere fact. Did this girl Rose go home with your husband?
MRS RUSSELL: Yes, sir.
ATTORNEY: And the young men came home ahead of them?
MRS RUSSELL: Yes, sir.
ATTORNEY: State to the Court and jury what talk, if any, you had with this girl Rose, in regard to her relations with your husband, which you communicated to your husband. [Objected to by Mr Russell's attorney]
ATTORNEY: We propose to prove by the witness upon the stand that the plaintiff after observing the conduct as stated by her, of her husband with Rose Ball, she went to the girl and secured from her statement that Mr. Russell at various times embraced and kissed her; that he called her his little wife and jelly-fish, and told that a man's heart was so big he could love a dozen women, but a woman's heart was so small she could only love properly one man: that after receiving this statement from Rose Ball, the plaintiff told her husband that, and he admitted that is was true. [Objected to by Mr Russell's attorney, but overruled]
COURT: We will not permit you to show what Rose Ball told her. We will permit you to show that she went to her husband and told him that Rose Ball had told her that he was keeping her and telling her she was his dear little wife, and that he said that is was true.
ATTORNEY: You understood the ruling of the Court? You are to tell what you stated to your husband that Rose had said, and his reply to you.
MRS RUSSELL: I told him that I had learned something that was very serious, and I didn't tell him right away. I let a day elapse, until I felt I had control of myself and would talk, and then I told him that I had something very serious to tell him about this matter, and he said: 'What is it?' and I said, 'Rose has told me that you have been very intimate with her, that you have been in the habbit of hugging and kissing her and having her sit on your knee and fondling each other, and she tells me you bid her under no account to tell me, but she couldn't keep it any longer. She said if I was distressed about it she felt she would have to come and make a confession to me, and she has done that.'
COURT: What did he say?
MRS RUSSELL: He tried to make light of it first, and I said, 'Husband, you can't do that. I know the whole thing. She has told me straight, and I know it to be true.' Well, he said he was very sorry: it was true, but he was sorry. He said he didn't mean any harm. I said, 'I don't see how you could do an act like that without meaning harm.'
COURT: What year was that?
MRS RUSSELL: In the fall of 1894.
ATTORNEY: Did you state to your husband at this meeting any endearing terms?
MRS RUSSELL: Yes, sir.
ATTORNEY: What were they?
MRS RUSSELL: I said, 'She tells me that one evening when you came home' - I asked her when did these things occur. I said to him, 'She says they occurred down at the office when she stayed down there with him in the evenings after the rest had gone, and at home at any time when I wasn't around.'
ATTORNEY: Now, about the endearing terms.
MRS RUSSELL: She said one evening when she came with him, just as she got inside the hall, it was late in the evening, about eleven o'clock, he put his arms around her and kissed her. This was in the vestibule before they entered the hall, and he called her his little wife, but she said, 'I am not your wife,' and he said, 'I will call you daughter, and a daughter has nearly all the privileges of a wife.'
ATTORNEY: And what other terms were used?
MRS RUSSELL: Then he said, 'I am like a jelly-fish. I float around here and there. I touch this one and that one, and if she responds, I take her to me, and if not, I float on to others,' and she wrote that out so that I could remember it for sure when I would speak to him about it. And he confessed that he said those things. [Mr Russell's attorney seeks to strike out the testimony of Mrs Russell in relation to misconduct between Mr. Russell and Rose Ball, on the technical ground that Mrs Russell had stated she had discovered this in 1894, but the libel complains only of offences beginning in 1897]
COURT: You have not mentioned that in the libel. I will grant the motion and strike out that testimony. You must begin your testimony about seven or eight years ago..
ATTORNEY: This suit was brought by you in April 1903, and we will be compelled to confine the testimony to what has happened subsequent to April, 1896, a few days one way or the other is not material.
COURT: We will allow you leeway of a year if you want.
ATTORNEY: Begin in January, 1896. Did Mr. Russell and you ever discuss this Rose Ball matter after say January 1, 1896, did it ever come up?
MRS RUSSELL: Yes, sir.
ATTORNEY: What was said by you or your husband in relation to this girl Rose after January 1, 1896, and where? [Objected to by Russell's attorney on the grounds that it being an attempt to reintroduce the time-excluded testimony. In this way, relying on the technicality that the misconduct with Rose Ball had occurred too long ago, Russell managed to get the evidence re Rose Ball suppressed.]
- Pennsylvania Superior Court Reports, Russell vs. Russell; April 26 1906, vol. 37 (Paper Book of Appellant No. 202), with Mr Porter as the Attorney for Mrs Maria Russell (the appellant) and C.T.Russell the Respondent.
Mrs Russell's account was believed, else in those days she would not have been granted a divorce. Russell's appeal to the Judge to overturn the verdict also failed.
This account was repeated and added to in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper of October 29, 1911:
"GIRL KISSED PASTOR AND SAT ON HIS KNEE But Mr. Russell at the Tabernacle: Only Submitted to it to be Kind. MAY HAVE FELT HER PULSE He Sometimes Ministered to the Sick, Locked in Another Girls Room Innocently (Special to The Eagle) Pittsburg, October 27 - The suit for a separation brought by Martha [sic] F. Russell against Charles Taze Russell, her husband, popularly known as Pastor Russell, who has just entered a libel suit against The Brooklyn Eagle, is remembered here as one of the most sensational court proceedings in the history of Allegheny County. Pastor Russell's Advertising methods had already attracted a good deal of attention to himself, and while many referred to him as 'the crank preacher of Allegheny,' his unusual lectures and effective publicity methods drew good-sized crowds to his Bible House on Arch Street. When the fact that Pastor Russell's wife was suing him for a separation became public much general interest was aroused and the courtroom was thronged during the proceedings. The testimony which elicited the most comment concerned the relations of Pastor Russell with Rose Ball, a young woman stenographer employed by Pastor Russell in the Bible House on Arch Street. This testimony was given by Mrs. Russell on direct examination on Thursday, April 26, 1906. It was ruled out by the court on the ground that the incidents to which reference was made were said to have occurred on a date which precedes the dates mentioned in Mrs. Russell's bill of complaint. Pastor Russell referred to the incidents when he went on the stand several days later, and gave his version of what had happened. Rose Ball was not called to the stand, as she left for Australia shortly before the case came to trial. The verbatim record of this testimony taken from the official report of the case on file in the office of the Prothonotary of Allegheny County is as follows .. Pastor's Wife Tells of His Alleged Nightly Visits .. Mrs. Russell Says Girl Told Her of Pastor's Caresses".
Final judgement in Mrs Russell's favor was granted in 1908.
Sorry, dungbeetle, I can't produce the Biblical two witnesses. They are all dead now, and Russell had suborned, scared off or sent away the witnesses while they were alive.
I take it I have "passed".
--
Focus
(Anti-PEDOPHILES Class)
Edited by - Focus on 19 July 2002 0:3:53
