Now, should they do their own printing? They endeavored to purchase a rotary magazine press but were told that there were only a few of these in the United States and that there was no chance of getting one for many months. Nevertheless, they were confident that if it was the Lord’s will, he could open the way. And he did!

Just a few months after their return to Brooklyn, they succeeded in purchasing a rotary press. Eight blocks from the Bethel Home, at 35 Myrtle Avenue, they leased three floors in a building. By early 1920 the Society had its own printing shop—small, but well equipped. Brothers who had sufficient experience to operate the equipment offered to make themselves available to help with the work.

The February 1 issue of The Watch Tower that year came off the Society’s own press. By April, The Golden Age was also being produced in their own printery. At the end of the year, it was a pleasure for The Watch Tower to report: “During the greater portion of the year all the work on THE WATCH TOWER, THE GOLDEN AGE, and many of the booklets, has been done by consecrated hands, but one motive directing their actions, and that motive being love for the Lord and his cause of righteousness. . . . When other journals and publications were required to suspend because of paper shortage or labor troubles, our publications went smoothly on.”

The factory space was quite limited, but the amount of work done was amazing. Regular runs for The Watch Tower were 60,000 copies per issue. But The Golden Age was also printed there, and during the first year, the September 29 issue was a special one. It carried a detailed exposé of the perpetrators of the persecution of the Bible Students from 1917 to 1920. Four million copies were printed! One of the factory pressmen later said: ‘It took everyone but the cook to get that issue out.’

In the first year of their use of the rotary magazine press, Brother Rutherford asked the brothers whether they could also print booklets on that press. Initially, it did not appear to be feasible. The makers of the press said that it could not be done. But the brothers tried and had good success. They also invented their own folder and thus reduced their need for workers for that aspect of the work from 12 to 2. What accounted for their success? “Experience and the Lord’s blessing” is the way the factory manager summed it up.

It was not only in Brooklyn that the Society was setting up printing operations, however. Some of the foreign-language operations were supervised from an office in Michigan. To care for needs related to that work, in 1921 the Society set up a Linotype machine, printing presses, and other necessary equipment in Detroit, Michigan. There literature was printed in Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, and other languages.

In that same year, the Society released the book The Harp of God, which was written in a manner suitable for beginners in Bible study. As of 1921 the Society had not tried to print and bind its own books. Should they endeavor to undertake this work too? Again, they looked for the Lord’s direction.

Dedicated Brothers Print and Bind Books

In 1920, The Watch Tower had reported that many colporteurs had been forced out of that service because printers and bookbinders had been unable to fill the Society’s orders. The brothers at headquarters reasoned that if they could be free from dependence on commercial manufacturers with all their labor troubles, they would be in a position to accomplish a greater witness concerning God’s purpose for humankind. If they printed and bound their own books, it would also be more difficult for opposers to interfere with the work. And in time they hoped to be able to save on the cost of the volumes and so be in a position to make them more readily available to the public.

But this would require more space and equipment, and they would have to learn new skills. Could they do it? Robert J. Martin, the factory overseer, called to mind that in the days of Moses, Jehovah had ‘filled Bezalel and Oholiab with wisdom of heart to do all the work’ needed to construct the sacred tabernacle. (Ex. 35:30-35) Having that Bible account in mind, Brother Martin was confident that Jehovah would also do whatever was needed so that his servants could publish literature to advertise the Kingdom.

After much meditation and prayer, definite plans began to emerge. Looking back on what occurred, Brother Martin later wrote to Brother Rutherford: “Greatest day of all was the day when you wanted to know if there was any good reason why we should not print and bind all our own books. It was a breath-taking idea, because it meant the opening of a complete typesetting, electroplating, printing and binding plant, with the operation of more than a score of unfamiliar machines, mostly machines we never knew were made, and the necessity of learning more than a dozen trades. But it seemed the best way to meet the war prices charged for books.

“You leased the six-story building at 18 Concord Street (with tenants on two floors); and on March 1, 1922, we moved in. You bought for us a complete outfit of typesetting, electroplating, printing and binding machinery, most of it new, some of it second-hand; and we started work.

“One of the great printing establishments which had been doing much of our work heard of what we were doing and came, in the person of the president, to visit us. He saw the new equipment and sagely remarked, ‘Here you are with a first-class printing establishment on your hands, and nobody around the place that knows a thing about what to do with it. In six months the whole thing will be a lot of junk; and you will find out that the people to do your printing are those that have always done it, and make it their business.’

“That sounded logical enough, but it left out the Lord; and he has always been with us. When the bindery was started he sent along a brother who has spent his whole life in the binding business. He was of great use at the time he was most needed. With his assistance, and with the Lord’s spirit working through the brethren who were trying to learn, it was not long before we were making books.”

Since the factory on Concord Street had ample space, printing operations from Detroit were merged with those in Brooklyn. By the second year in this location, the brothers were turning out 70 percent of the books and booklets required, besides magazines, tracts, and handbills. The following year, growth in the work made it necessary to use the remaining two floors of the factory.

Could they speed up their book production? They had a printing press built in Germany, shipped to America, and put into operation in 1926 especially for that purpose. As far as they knew, that was the first rotary press used in America to print books.

But then, during a period of intense persecution in 1918, while officials of the Society were unjustly imprisoned, their headquarters (located in Brooklyn, New York) was dismantled. The plates for printing were destroyed. The greatly reduced staff moved the office back to Pittsburgh to the third floor of a building at 119 Federal Street. Would this bring to an end their producing of Bible literature?

Should They Do Their Own Printing?

After the release of the Society’s president, J. F. Rutherford, and his associates from prison, the Bible Students assembled at Cedar Point, Ohio, in 1919. They considered what God had permitted to occur during the preceding year and what his Word indicated that they should be doing during the days ahead. Announcement was made that a new magazine, The Golden Age, was to be published as an instrument to use in pointing people to God’s Kingdom as mankind’s only hope.

As it had done in the past, the Society arranged for a commercial firm to do the printing. But times had changed. There were labor difficulties in the printing industry and problems in the paper market. A more dependable arrangement was needed. The brothers prayed about the matter and watched for the Lord’s leadings.