Ja zauważyłem, że jak opisywali np. Wielką Brytanię po raz drugi („Rocznik Świadków Jehowy 2000”) to już wyczyścili historie z wcześniejszych afer i wojenek które opisywali w roku 1973 (1973 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses).
Przykładowo nazwisko Johnson, późniejszy założyciel Epifanii, w związku z aferą w Anglii, pojawia się się w Roczniku 1973 aż 49 razy. a w Roczniku 2000 ani razu:
*** yb73 pp. 101-107 The British Isles ***
On November 7, 1916, a cable from Brooklyn headquarters advised the London office that Brother Paul S. L. Johnson was about to leave for Britain. The purpose of his visit was to look into the difficulties involving the managers of the Society and the London Tabernacle. His real power in Britain would be no greater than that of any of the other pilgrim brothers who had come to these shores, and of this he was made perfectly acquainted before leaving the Brooklyn office. He made a tour of Britain, addressing public meetings on the subject “Britain’s Fallen Heroes—Comfort for Their Bereaved.” He recommended that congregations set up “Schools of the Prophets” to train brothers in public speaking. Backed by papers that appeared to give him plenipotentiary powers, he made a considerable impression in the congregations. With this newly acquired background he returned to London, and there his real aims soon became apparent.
On Sunday, February 4, 1917, the secretary of the London congregation read a letter from Paul Johnson that announced that Brothers Shearn and Crawford were no longer managers of the Society. Johnson as a “Special Representative of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society” took it upon himself to instruct the bank to reject the signatures of Shearn and Crawford and honor checks countersigned by Ebenezer Housden and Alexander Kirkwood. Then Johnson cabled J. F. Rutherford, who had recently become president of the Watch Tower Society: “Situation intolerable. Shearn, Crawford dismissed.”
As soon as President Rutherford heard of Johnson’s dismissal of the two managers, he sent a cable calling for their reinstatement. They, however, refused to be reinstated. At the same time Brother Rutherford appointed a commission to look into the trouble. Unknown to Rutherford, one of the members of that commission, Housden, was involved in the whole situation, being one of the new check signatories. Meantime, Johnson was quite undisturbed about Rutherford’s reaction. He was satisfied that Rutherford was “undoubtedly the victim of a cablegram campaign engineered by Shearn and Crawford.” Johnson therefore began one himself. His first cable ran to eighty-five words, later eclipsed by others, including a one-hundred-and-fifteen-word effort. The first cablegram identified himself and others with characters in Esther, Nehemiah and other Bible books. He himself was likened to Ezra, Nehemiah and Mordecai. He invited the president of the Society to be his “right-hand man.”
In the meantime Johnson instructed Hemery urgently to lay in stocks of food and store them in a place safe from men and from rats. He suggested a false ceiling lined with tin. Wheat and peanuts, he said, were specially needed. He based his demands, he said, on Elisha’s predictions of famine. The six elders who signed the October letter and were later reelected, Johnson said, were in fact “sons of Haman” whom Johnson “slew” the previous Sunday and who would be “hanged up” by him on March 4, 1917, by his dismissing them. About this time Hemery cabled Rutherford: “Johnson claims full control everything.” Next day, Rutherford cabled Johnson: “Your work finished London; return America, important.” And to Hemery, Rutherford cabled: “Johnson demented. Has no powers. Credentials issued to procure passport. Return him America.” On March 7, Johnson, in an eighty-seven-word cable to Vice-President A. I. Ritchie and W. E. Van Amburgh, repudiated Rutherford’s authority to recall him to America, claimed full support of the London congregation as against Shearn and Crawford, and appealed to the Society against Rutherford, who, he said, was not elected to the presidential position.
Johnson launched a campaign against the bank, threatening proceedings if they honored checks legally drawn and demanding recognition of his own nominees. He underlined his own plenipotentiary powers, withdrew authority from Alexander Kirkwood, suspended Hemery in a document formally witnessed by Ebenezer Housden, and made it known generally that he, Johnson, should have been the Society’s president but had declined to accept.
Johnson, resisted by Hemery, the remaining manager in the London office, co-opted Housden as his accomplice, obtained the keys of the London office and forcibly took possession. He confiscated the mail, opened the safe and took money belonging to the Society, and then instituted a lawsuit in the High Court of Chancery in London, in the name of the Society by himself as special representative, against the manager of the London office and against the bank where the Society’s funds were deposited. Acting through solicitors, Johnson obtained an injunction restraining the defendants from drawing on the funds of the Society. At this point Hemery wired Rutherford: “Johnson rampaging. He and Housden seizing mails and cash. Hasten sealed cancellation authority. Solicitor recommends Johnson’s forcible ejection.” In reply Rutherford cabled: “Resist Johnson’s injunction. Does not represent Society. Restrain him.” Written cancellation of Johnson’s appointment came over the signature of the president, the stamp and seal of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society and attested by W. E. Van Amburgh. Formal annulment of all Johnson’s acts and deeds accompanied the revocation of his authority.
Johnson’s lawsuit, for which he employed counsel, failed. His rebellion and attempt to seize the funds of the Society failed also. On March 10 Rutherford cabled Hemery to take full control. Hemery went immediately to the bank to safeguard £800 on deposit there. He was none too soon. Johnson arrived immediately after to use his letters from the head office to gain control of the money. A verbal and legal fight ensued. Frustrated, Johnson pursued his legal action. When the case came before the judge, Johnson’s counsel decided, after reading Hemery’s affidavit, not to proceed with his action. These developments, of course, deflated Johnson, and he was quiet for a time, but not for long. His illusions of grandeur revived. It soon became evident that his purpose was more than that of taking control of the office. He aimed to take control of the whole British field and its resources, and of the running of a separate edition of the Watch Tower magazine.
Johnson, balked and furious, conferred long with his fellow conspirator, Housden. On Wednesday, both went early to bed in their separate rooms. Hemery recruited Brother Cronk and four others. Two crept to Johnson’s room and silently but firmly secured the door. Hemery, Cronk and the other two tiptoed to Housden’s room and with some difficulty obtained the keys. Quickly, Hemery and Cronk went to the safe, unlocked it and swung the door. The money was gone. Johnson and Housden had scooped a deposit of £50 in gold, £190 in currency and the receipts from the mail during the days they held it. Besides this sum, a check for £350 was missing.
Hemery and Cronk made another trip to Housden’s room, but this time not on tiptoe. “Where is the money?” demanded Hemery. Housden refused to divulge any information, even under close interrogation. But he did promise he would help Johnson no more. In the course of the questioning Hemery pointed out the possibility of bringing in the police. At 11:30 p.m. the doorbell rang. There on the step was a police officer. He wanted an explanation of a violation of the very stringent London lighting regulations. An upstairs window was brightly lighted and had no blackout. The officer insisted on seeing those responsible and Hemery took him to the offending room and knocked. The door opened and there, framed in the doorway, was a man whose urge to meet policemen had never been at a lower ebb. “This,” said Hemery to the officer, “is Mr. Housden.”
Next morning at six o’clock the Bethel family awoke to sounds of violence. A banging and pounding and a final thud gave evidence that Johnson was not a man to be restricted by a door wedged with a sizable chunk of wood. Cronk warned Johnson that, though he could go to the bathroom if he wanted, he could not have things his own way. Cronk mentioned that a police officer had been up to see Housden the previous night, though no mention was made of the reason for the visit. So Johnson paid a visit to Housden’s room. But Housden, shaken by the events of the night, would not come out or even converse with him through the door. Johnson began then to share the worry that was clearly afflicting Housden. Desirable as he once regarded these premises, it now appeared to him to be time to leave, and that without delay. He returned to his room, one flight up, and dressed. Leaving his baggage open, he went out on the balcony overlooking Craven Terrace, climbed the balustrade and hung suspended for a moment before working his way down the face of the building.
As the front door of the Bethel was open, some might have thought there were easier ways of reaching the street than the way Johnson chose, and they would have been right. But had Johnson chosen the easy way, the milkman that morning would have missed a sight that made his day, that of a silk-hatted, frock-coated city gent, feet shod with rubber overshoes, shinning down a drainpipe.
During that day Housden delivered to Brother Gentle a package containing about £220 in gold, treasury notes and other paper. Gentle phoned Hemery to say that he, Gentle, would have to hold the money until a note from Johnson’s solicitors sanctioned its surrender. Hemery shocked Gentle by pointing out that he was handling stolen property. By evening Hemery received the cash. But the needed statement of finances was still missing.
Though President Rutherford all along took a strong and emphatic line with Johnson, he advocated with equal emphasis the need to deal with him in a kindly way. In seeking to find some reason for the tremendous disruption that had come upon the London branch and on the work generally in Britain, he advanced the view that the years of discord between the three managers was itself an inducing factor, Jehovah having “permitted the adversary to enter.” On March 16, 1917, Rutherford sent copies of new rules for the London branch and invited the three managers to go over them together and then, if agreeable, sign and return a copy to Brooklyn headquarters. The rules vested due authority in Hemery as the president’s representative.
The findings of the commission appointed to look into the troubles in London reached this country together with the president’s conclusions. Rutherford’s covering letter, however, gave the text of a cable from Housden to Brother Van Amburgh, which read: “JOHNSON UNEARTHED COLOSSAL EFFORT BY HEMERY SHEARN CRAWFORD DEFRAUD WATCH TOWER OF FINANCIAL CONTROL. RUTHERFORD’S CABLEGRAMS ENCOURAGING THEM. HAVE BOARD SILENCE HIM. Signed HOUSDEN.” This cable was dated March 18, 1917. As soon as it came to hand Van Amburgh turned it over to Rutherford. When the report of the commission reached Rutherford, he searched it in vain for information about this fresh conspiracy. Housden, a member of the commission and a signatory of the report, for reasons then not clear, had kept silent. Meantime the mystery of Johnson’s whereabouts following his unorthodox exit of the British branch office, was not cleared up until April 1917, by which time he was halfway to America. It is true that following his hasty departure there were one or two strange telephoned messages received at the Bethel home, and it was concluded that Johnson was standing beside the mystery caller on each occasion trying to get some information about his friend Housden.
Later, after two long sessions, Rutherford established that Johnson was perfectly sane on every point save one, namely, himself. Johnson contended strongly that he must return to Great Britain. President Rutherford’s reaction: “We will see to it that he does not return there.” Instead it was recommended that Hemery arrange a tour to explain matters to the congregations. The idea was for Brother Kirkwood to assist with this tour, Hemery himself visiting the larger congregations.
Quite apart from the reports on the recent and current frictions, Rutherford knew from his visits to Britain during the last seven years that, despite the phenomenal expansion of the work in this land, there was a spirit of pride among many whose knowledge of the Scriptures was seriously undermined by a poor condition of heart. It was therefore arranged for the brothers to be built up with the help of the pilgrim service, which had largely been disrupted by the world war. As to the eleven elders who signed the October letter to Russell, Brother Rutherford concluded that they had no ulterior motive; though at fault, their action did not imply any disloyalty to the Society. Indeed, Rutherford found good reasons for nearly everything that gave rise to complaint. In his report as well as in covering letters he made it most easy for everyone concerned to carry on or reassume his duties in the service of God in a happy way. The entire matter was handled through correspondence, since travel between Britain and America was still difficult. It followed that by June, Hemery had the pilgrim service going again, enlisting a number of able men in this activity. He himself made pilgrim visits too, and, on the whole, found the congregations in good shape despite the buffeting they had experienced.
Johnson did not give up his ambitious scheme easily. Back in Brooklyn he launched a campaign to get himself back to Britain. Rutherford reported that Johnson was really working to turn the Society’s directors against its president. He suggested that Hemery find out from the congregations what they would think about Johnson’s coming back and then let them write to Brooklyn setting out their views. In the meantime Housden, pressed by a committee of three for evidence to support his charge of conspiracy and being unable to furnish any, had written a letter of apology to Rutherford withdrawing his unsupported charge.
By this time America’s expeditionary force was already in France and a new military law, the Selective Draft Act, piled extra work on President Rutherford’s desk. In view of these increasing pressures, Rutherford informed the loyal ones in Britain: “I think I had better wait a while before coming to Britain and sit on the safety valve here in case they blow me clear out, which, by the Lord’s grace, I hope they will not be able to do.” This turned out to be exactly what Rutherford’s enemies were marshaling their forces to accomplish.
LIES VERSUS BITING TRUTH
It was easy in those troublous times to detect the enemies of truth no matter whether they had the thin veneer of Christendom’s representatives or the sheeplike clothing of disloyal ones among the Bible Students of those days. A special target that had the effect of drawing the fire of all these enemies and resulting in their exposure as enemies of the truth was the publication The Finished Mystery. Johnson’s faction attacked it in a four-page printed “Letter to International Bible Students.” Other opposition journals began to follow suit. One of them, entitled “The Herald of Christ’s Kingdom,” copied the format of The Watch Tower and some of its recurring features, even to the point of having the same subtitles word for word. Surely only frauds would descend to such deceitful methods.
