Testing and Sifting

In the United States, trouble began not long after Charles Taze Russell died. At issue was how the affairs of Jehovah’s servants would be administered. Brother Russell had incorporated Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society in 1884 and served as the president of this legal corporation until his death in October 1916. When Joseph F. Rutherford began taking the lead, a few prominent men in the organization, including four who were on the board of directors, exhibited an ambitious spirit.

These four, along with several others, did not like the way Brother Rutherford directed matters. One of the issues concerned the work of Paul S. L. Johnson, who served as a pilgrim, or traveling overseer.

Shortly before Brother Russell died, he had arranged to send Johnson to England as one of the organization’s traveling representatives. There, Johnson was to preach the good news, visit the congregations, and provide a report on the work in that territory. When he arrived in November 1916, the brothers in England welcomed him warmly. Sadly, the adulation he received began to warp his judgment, and he became convinced that he should be Brother Russell’s successor.

Without authority, Johnson dismissed some Bethel family members in England who opposed him. He also tried to seize control of the organization’s bank account in London, at which point Brother Rutherford recalled him to the United States.

Johnson returned to Brooklyn, but instead of humbly accepting the correction he had been given, he repeatedly tried to persuade Brother Rutherford to let him return to England to continue his work there. Failing in this endeavor, Johnson tried to influence the board of directors, four of whom sided with him.

Anticipating that these men would try to seize the organization’s funds in the United States, as Johnson had attempted to do in England, Brother Rutherford acted to remove them from the board of directors. The law required that each member of the board of directors be elected annually by members of the corporation. However, at the annual meeting of the corporation on January 6, 1917, only three members of the board, Joseph F. Rutherford, Andrew N. Pierson, and William E. Van Amburgh, were elected. They filled the positions of president, vice president, and secretary-treasurer, respectively. No election was held for the remaining four positions on the board of directors. The men who had held those positions, the four opposers, had been elected to the board in the past, and it was understood by some that they would hold those positions for life. However, because they had not been reelected at the annual meeting, they were actually not legal members of the board at all! So in July 1917, Brother Rutherford exercised his right to appoint four faithful men to fill the vacant board positions.

As can be expected, the four ousted directors were furious and began a campaign to reestablish their positions. But they failed. While some Bible Students sided with them and formed other organizations, the vast majority of the Bible Students stayed faithful, and the four did not regain their positions on the board of directors.

Testing and Sifting Not Complete

The opposers had been cleaned out of the organization, and the results of a referendum of the congregations, which were published in The Watch Tower, showed that the vast majority of the brothers supported Brother Rutherford and the faithful men at Bethel. But the testing of these men was not complete. Although 1918 began on a positive note, it would herald the darkest hour in our modern-day history.