I think, a copy (with little corrections and additions) of an extremely
biased oversensationalistic research isn't a research. It also looks like the OP
didn't even try to check the facts and conclusions and to add notes and references
despite he had 2½ years to do so.
On the merits:
Since the conviction of Rutherford and others was reversed and annulled,
and charges against them were dismissed on May 5, 1920 by federal judge on motion of US attorney Leroy
W. Ross [1], they were, under presumption of innocence, legally not guilty and
didn't need to be acquitted.
There are also different ways to interpret the Circuit Court's decision
(available here, p. 100-107). For example, that the incident with
Hudgings and two other witnesses was used as a pretext, the simplest way for
the Court to reverse the conviction that could be deemed unjust or too harsh [2]
— and was possible only during the wartime hysteria [3] and “spy mania” [4] —
and to avoid deciding on the issues of whether the trial was fair [5] and
whether the punishment was too severe. This is a common judicial tactic; compare
the IBSA case with the Masterpiece
Cakeshop one.
Don't also forget that the DOJ “reviewed the sentence of nearly every
Espionage and Sedition Act prisoner who was sentenced to more than a year in
prison, and a few sentences of those who were sentenced to less than a year.”[6]
John Lord O'Brian, the chief of the Justice Department's War
Emergency Division, and Alfred Bettman, who served in that division under
O'Brian, examined a large number of the Espionage and Sedition Act convictions
from all across the nation, and recommended pardons or commuted sentences in
what they saw as deserving cases. In 1919, these two officials secured pardons
for 200 people (…) Additionally, between 1919 and 1924 many of those
convicted had their sentences commuted, which showed that the government
considered them much less a threat once the war was over (…) in June 1924
the last inmate held under the Espionage and Sedition Acts was released from a
federal prison [7]
For example, a preacher in Vermont sentenced by Judge Howe in March 1918
to 15 years in prison was pardoned by President Wilson and spent only one year
behind bars [8]. More specifically, Judge Howe “has written to the Attorney General,
urging the sentences [of Rutherford and others] be commuted”.[9] So,
unless you have carefully examined the possibility of reversal of the
conviction on other grounds and of securing pardon in 1919 (or subsequent
years), you cannot certainly conclude on the real impact of the testimonies of
Hudgings and others.
As to Joshua “Jehovah” Sykes, it should be
noted that we have little information about him and his church — no recorded
sermons, no printed publications, and probably only one academic paper [10]. AFAIC,
the only primary sources are multiple newspaper reports, criminal trial files (brief description of indictment against Sykes
is available here) and
few documents from ACLU archives.
In addition to lack of information about Sykes
and his followers, I want also to note that no proofs of any connection between
Sykes and Rutherford and any influence of the former on the org were presented.
It is interesting also to compare different
accounts on the 1926 case provided by ACLU. Elmer Clarence May wrote, citing
Roger Baldwin’s letter to Carl Whitehead (April 24, 1926, ACLU Archives, vol
299, "Colorado."):
The Jehovites, or "children of Israel"
were a small sect of approximately six hundred members, concentrated in the
area around Denver, Colorado and held together by the strong personality of
their leader, "Joshua Jehovah." The Jehovites viewed flag exercises
and other ceremonies as idolatrous and hence opposed participation in such exercises.
Although the flag exercise ceremony had been used only infrequently in the Denver
public schools, in 1926, the Jehovites announced that their children would refuse
to give the salute. The school board told at least twelve Jehovite students to
salute or stay home. By April of 1926, fifty Jehovite children were out of
school. In the fall of 1926, after the dominant school board figure had moved
away, the Jehovite children enrolled in school without incident” [11].
According
to ACLU brochure “Free speech in 1926”, the expelled children “were readmitted, however, when their parents put aside
their religious scruples against recognizing “earthly courts” and showed a disposition
to contest the ruling of the board” (p. 21-22). Finally, according to 1931
brochure (p. 13) “the religion of the Jehovites
does not recognize earthly courts, and consequently the parents refused to take
legal action, as attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union advised. Negotiations
finally brought the school authorities around, and they allowed the children to
return to school without requiring them to join in the patriotic exercises.” No
major contradictions, but it would be interesting to know certainly and in
details what happened in Denver in 1926.
__________
[1] NINE RUSSELLITES GO FREE. Eight Had Served
Part of 20-Year Espionage Sentences. New York Times; May 6, 1920. P. 6.
[2] For example, "[w]hile denying that
the Department [of Justice] had prosecuted people solely on the basis of their
ideology, [US Attorney General Thomas W.] Gregory entertained the possibility
that some people had perhaps been unfairly punished [in its February 1919
circular to US attorneys]: “...it may be that during the war some individuals
in close cases have been convicted upon inadequate evidence of their wilful
intent to interfere with the war program, and others have undoubtedly received sentences unduly
severe” (Wiiliam H. Thomas Jr. (2002).
The United States Department of Justice and dissent during the First World War. Ph.D. thesis, University of Iowa. P. 220-221).
[3] For example, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
wrote to Harold Laski in March 1919: “The federal judges seem to me (again between
ourselves) to have got hysterical about the war. I should think the President when
he gets through with his present amusements might do some pardoning.”
[4] John Lord O'Brian
(1919). Civil liberty in war time.
P. 5.
[5] On the possible procedural
shortcoming and the judge's bias see: Lon J. Strauss (2012). A Paranoid
State: The American Public, Military Surveillance and the Espionage Act of 1917.
Ph.D. thesis, University of Kansas. P. 105-111.
[6] Scott A. Merriman (2003). Ordinary people
in extraordinary times?: Defendants, attorneys, and the federal government's policy
under the Espionage and Sedition Acts during World War I in the Sixth Circuit
Court of Appeals district. Ph.D. thesis, University of Kentucky. P. 388.
[7] Ibid. P. 17-19.
[8] Gene Sessions (1993). Espionage in Windsor: Clarence H. Waldron and Patriotism in World War I. P. 149-150 [18-19].
[9] APPEALS FOR RUSSELLITES. 20-Year Espionage
Sentences Too Severe, Says Federal Judge. The Washington Post; Mar 16, 1919. P.
17.
[10] Johnson, A. S. (2016). A Shudder Swept
Through Them. Pneuma, 38(3), 312–329. doi:10.1163/15700747-03803002. Funny
quote: “By 1920 many church members had changed their last names to Jehovah.
The 1920 Denver directory listed over sixty households with the Jehovah name.
(...) By 1925, there were over one hundred Jehovah households” (p. 326). Read
also a journalist article on the subject: https://denverite.com/2016/12/14/joshua-sykes-colorado-cult/
[11] Elmer C. May
(1995). An investigation of the relationship between the First Amendment to the
United States Constitution and public school patriotic expression (freedom of),
policy and practice. Ph.D thesis, George Mason University. P. 122
