Watchtower society had said a lie about Maria.

---- Other Shameful HALF-TRUTHS ---

On page 645 of book of "PROCLAIMERS", it is stated: "[Maria] sought to secure for herself a stronger voice in directing what would appear in the Watch Tower. When she realized that nothing that she wrote would be published unless her husband, the editor of the magazine, agreed with its contents (on the basis of its consistency with the Scriptures), she became greatly disturbed."

 

Here is Maria's own (though rambling) sworn trial testimony in which she gives her side of this story. Decide for yourself whether the above PROCLAIMERS statement is honest, or deceitful:

"I had been writing for the paper, and my husband had taken the liberty of writing into my own articles sentiments that did not represent my own thought, and which, to my understanding, were not true, and I did not want them to go out as my writing, and as I was reading the proof of such an article down in the office one day, it was about noon, and I came across this article. Thinks I, "I didn't write that,' and I looked at the copy, and it was his writing. He was sitting at another desk, and I said, 'Husband, you have written something into this article that I can't accept,' and I tried to show him the sentiment was wrong. He says:'That is the way I want it.'  I said, 'Well, this is my article. ... If you want to change anything in it ask me if I can approve it, and I will approve it if I can, but if I cannot, throw the whole article out Then he took me by the arm and shoved me out of the office, and said: 'Get out of here, you blasphemer.'He said to me I was blaspheming his name.

"I went upstairs to our home [by that time, on the top, fourth floor of the Bible House]. When he came up in the evening I said, 'What in the world do you mean acting this way? Don't you feel I have a responsibility hereafter for my own writing?'

"And he said: 'No. you haven't. When you have written an article it is mine; I am the editor.'

"I said: 'But I am the associate editor, and will write over my own signature,' and he said: 

"I said: "Well, I will not any longer be the associate editor.'

"He said: "Associate editor has no responsibility.'

"I said: I recognize, my own individual responsibility to God and man, and I will no longer be associate editor; I will just be a contributor.'

After the excerpt quoted above, without even starting another paragraph, PROCLAIMERScontinues: "He put forth earnest effort to help her, but in November 1897 she left him. Nevertheless, he provided her with a place to live and means of maintenance."

 

Other than the fact that this last statement is a LIE, as we have demonstrated in the top half of this webpage, PROCLAIMERS readers are left with the impression that Charles Taze Russell never published any more articles authored by Maria Russell.

 

In fact, this argument between Charles and Maria Russell occurred sometime around September 1896. Thereafter, starting with the November 1, 1896 issue of the WATCH TOWER magazine, everyWT issue through the June 1, 1897 issue (except for two consecutive issues in February and March - one of which contained a republished unsigned 1885 WT article that contained multiple "mother" references -- thus could very well have been authored by Maria), contained a LENGTHY and DEEPscripture exposition authored by Maria Russell. These articles can be found online simply by googling "Mrs. M. F. Russell". Readers are encouraged to read some of those articles, because doing so will impress on the reader that Maria Russell obviously had been the foundation stone of Charles Taze Russell's writings for the previous two decades.

 

***

 

On page 646 of PROCLAIMERS, the WatchTower Society counts on the IGNORANCE of its Jehovah's Witnesses readers regarding legal procedures in its' attempt to negate Maria Russell's trial testimony regarding the shenanigans between Charles Taze Russell and Rosa J. Ball. Readers need to fully understand that Maria and her attorneys were only seeking today's equivalent of a "Legal Separation". They did not go into court intending to completely and totally destroy the character of Charles Taze Russell. That might have won the battle, but it would have lost the war. "Adultery" would have been "grounds" for "Absolute Divorce". Maria Russell did NOT want an "Absolute Divorce". That is why Maria Russell and her attorneys wanted to make it absolutely CLEAR, and stated such for the court record, that they were NOT alleging that Charles Taze Russell had committed "adultery".

 

Maria Russell wanted a "separation", NOT a "divorce". Thus, Maria Russell's "Complaint" alleged"Cruelty" as her "grounds" for a "legal separation". The time period given in Maria Russell's original Complaint was from 1897 to the date of the Complaint -- April 1903. In order to prove "Cruelty"committed in 1897, Maria Russell reasonably had to be permitted to testify about events that preceded 1897. The trial judge ruled that January 1, 1896 was reasonable, but not before he first granted the Motion made by Charles Taze Russell's attorneys to STRIKE OUT Maria Russell's earlier testimony regarding the shenanigans between Charles Taze Russell and Rosa J. Ball -- after it was eventually learned that the most damaging events between Chuckie and Rose to which Maria Rusell had previously testified had occurred back in 1894. The authors of PROCLAIMERS knew all that, but decided to deceive their readers and make more of what Maria Russell's statement meant than what it did, and make more of the "strike of testimony" than what it was.