JW Insider

Isn't the scripture clear? They would banish, treat as tax collector, avoid, hand to Satan, stop keeping company, not even eating with, remove, neither greet nor receive into their homes or say a greeting to. Do you need more?
Ezra 10:8."he would be banished from the congregation of the exiled people." (For comparison).
Matthew 18:17 "let him be to you just as a man of the nations and as a tax collector"
Rom.16:17 "keep your eye on those who create divisions and causes for stumbling contrary to the teaching that you have learned, and avoid them."
1Cor.5:5 "hand such a man over to Satan"
1Cor.5:9, 11 "stop keeping company", "not even eating with such a man."
1Cor.5:13 "Remove the wicked person from among yourselves.”"
1Tim.1:18 "Hy·me·naeʹus and Alexander are among these, and I have handed them over to Satan so that they may be taught by discipline not to blaspheme."
As stated above: 2John v11
So work it out and apply it, if you are a Christian that is. It doesn't have any application to those who are not.
Oh, and remember though,  there is a purpose in it as alluded to by Jesus at Matt.18:11 "If he listens to you, you have gained your brother", and directed by Paul at 2Cor.5:6-7  "This rebuke given by the majority is sufficient for such a man; now you should instead kindly forgive and comfort him".
You should be able to work an application process from this.
 

I just watched a recording of this and the previous debate at about 3am this morning. What a mess. LOL. I don't trust a one of them, but Tulsi Gabbard at least prepared with some material on Kamala Harris that was very easy to obtain, and should have been easy for others to find, too, if they wished to pile on. The articles about Harris hiding DNA evidence that would have freed an innocent man was in the NYTimes. (As was material about her hypocrisy on marijuana, harshness on drug offenses, etc.) I'm surprised that there is so much "opposition info" on everyone, but that these politicians only treat the data superficially when it really COULD "demolish" opponents if they really took time to understand the whole picture and press these issues. Perhaps they are still interested in being another's vice president in case those opponents win.
Curiously, the number one set of related trends on Twitter yesterday included "Assad" "Tulsi" and "Kamala." Why was "Assad" there? It's evidently because Harris attacked back by claiming that Gabbard had been no more than a defender of Assad. Getting Assad so high in the trends probably implies some help from bots, either foreign or domestic.  (This was based on the fact that Gabbard had done a fact finding mission in Syria and determined that things were not as the official US propaganda would have us believe. Being correct on this point will probably result in her downfall as a potential candidate.) The one thing I appreciated is that Gabbard, a former soldier, was concerned about overuse of war and US empirical policing around the world. But Gabbard herself has unfortunately shown inconsistency. I think she's one that voted for a recent hugely increased Pentagon budget last week.

Ah! I remember it. It wasn't necessarily about a sister at all. All this time I thought it was about a sister in a congregation who relied too much on her husband or something like that.
*** w17 January p. 12 par. 1 Treasure Your Gift of Free Will ***
WHEN faced with making a personal choice, one woman told a friend: “Do not make me think; just tell me what to do. That is easier.” The woman preferred being told what to do instead of using a precious gift from her Creator, the gift of free will. What about you? Do you like making your own decisions, or do you prefer that others decide for you? How do you view the matter of free will?
 

@JW Insider got it. Also realizing this was the thread lol.

The lawyer is not lying if he is referring to family members STILL living at home. The problem is, most people understand family members to mean anyone who was originally born into the family, but not necessarily still all living together.
The legal definition of family (even immediate family) is: 
Father Mother Parent’s spouse, if a parent has remarried Child (by blood, adoption, or marriage) Brother Sister Spouse Grandparent Grandchild Further, a person’s immediate family for legal purposes also includes the spouse of his child, brother, or sister, as well as the father, mother, brother, and sister of his spouse.
Obviously, rarely do all these members live together all of the time, with the exception of the spouse and underage children. 
I haven't seen the rest of the video, but had the Judge asked specifically if he is referring to family living outside of the home, then the lawyer would have had to clarify this. However, if there was no further clarification established, then technically and legally the JW lawyer did not lie, but allowed others to assume something else, therefor it could be said that he was misleading.

 
Someone's spouse, parents and grandparents, children and grand children, brothers and sisters, mother in law and father in law, brothers in law and sisters in law, daughters in law and sons in law. Adopted, half, and step members are also included in immediate family

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/immediate-family.html

On the contrary, the org should value the people who can respectfully discuss and critically examine doctrine like what is done here...Berean-like ones that test out the expressions they hear against the Bible. Instead, direction is not up for debate and people are told to even submit to “illogical” direction from the organization. So what the org will become is a bunch of yes-men who don’t know how to think for themselves.

Rutherford and his associates were not released in 1919 because they had been declared innocent. They were simply being released on bail, because the case was on appeal. A payment of $10,000 each gave them release until the case would be fully retried. Note that even up to January of 1920, they were still being told the case was going to be retried on April 7, 1920. (This is the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from January 20, 1920.)

But by April it was looking less and less like they could ever get a conviction. The "Proclaimers" book presents the situation like this:
*** jv chap. 29 p. 654 “Objects of Hatred by All the Nations” ***
Nine months after Rutherford and his associates were sentenced—and with the war past—on March 21, 1919, the appeals court ordered bail for all eight defendants, and on March 26, they were released in Brooklyn on bail of $10,000 each. On May 14, 1919, the U.S. circuit court of appeals in New York ruled: “The defendants in this case did not have the temperate and impartial trial to which they were entitled, and for that reason the judgment is reversed.” The case was remanded for a new trial. However, on May 5, 1920, after the defendants had appeared in court, on call, five times, the government’s attorney, in open court in Brooklyn, announced withdrawal of the prosecution. Why? As revealed in correspondence preserved in the U.S. National Archives, the Department of Justice feared that if the issues were presented to an unbiased jury, with the war hysteria gone, the case would be lost. U.S. attorney L. W. Ross stated in a letter to the attorney general: “It would be better, I think, for our relations with the public, if we should on our own initiative” state that the case would be pressed no further.
On the same day, May 5, 1920, the alternate indictment that had been filed in May 1918 against J. F. Rutherford and four of his associates was also dismissed.
Obtaining an appeal does not mean that they would win on appeal, but it does (at least temporarily) "reverse the judgment" of the first trial. The next trial could have turned out even worse for them. But soon after the war was over on November 11, 1918, other appeals of 1918 Espionage/Sedition cases were losing their "teeth" and being overturned, and sometimes just being dropped altogether, so it was becoming more difficult to successfully try such cases in late 1919 and early 1920. (Eugene Debs was a glaring exception, and unrelated to religion.)
Judge Howe, himself, makes it sound as if he knew all along that they would be released much sooner and Howe was in agreement that they should get bail, and even says he expected the President to commute their sentence after the war. (Howe had played up his support for President Wilson for years, and had communication and contact with him while running for Governor of Vermont, which is apparently why Wilson appointed him to a Federal judgeship as soon as Howe lost the election for Governor.)

Those 5 calls to have the defendants come to Brooklyn was not such a hardship on most of the defendants, because they lived at Brooklyn Bethel -- except for Rutherford who lived in Southern California. He complained that he was dying. Only a couple of months after his release on bail, he got sick and developed pneumonia. This was more than 20 years before he actually died, but he really was seriously ill back in 1919. This could even have been tied to the conditions in the Atlanta penitentiary, or perhaps in the worse conditions of the local jail back in 1918 before they were transferred. Some newspapers reported that Rutherford said he was "dying" and the courts stopped forcing Rutherford to make the trip from California to Brooklyn.
This is a bit out of order but the situation by October 1919 made it look like the Feds were not quite ready to give up on the case, but were already being pushed to declare it a non-case (abandonment of action, "nolle pros"). It doesn't mean they think you are innocent, but they are giving up trying to prove it, and it becomes as if the case never happened.

BTW, when the Proclaimer's book says "As revealed in correspondence preserved in the U.S. National Archives" these are the same archives I am quoting from, although most of the newspaper quotes are coming from clippings from Newspapers.com. Also, archives of the "Brooklyn Daily Eagle" are available for free online. 

Any data that an organization keeps with respect to a policy or prior practice is always considered fair game in a lawsuit, because these lawsuits seek to find out whether the prior practice matched the stated "public policy." The claim, if one goes after an organization for damages, is that the practice has been different from the policy.
For example, a particular city or jurisdiction claims that their policy is to always change the lead (Pb) pipes in all areas where the levels of lead reach a certain threshold, and they have kept data on all lead level complaints, and data on every area where they have changed pipes (or fought against changing the pipes).
If the city is proud of their record, and wants to prove that their stated policy was honest, they would be happy to have this record made available to the courts. And even if the courts say that they only need it to determine the probability of organizational wrongdoing in one particular case, there is a chance that this document/database will be leaked, or that the knowledge of such a document/database will cause it to be requested for multiple future cases, for as long as it is still viable to sue the water district or organization. If the water district has done a commendable job, they might even be happy that the document/database gets leaked. They might even leak it themselves.
Of course, no organization is perfect, and there will always be items in such a database that make organizations concerned, or even ashamed. The fact that over a thousand cases of abuse in the Australian Branch were NEVER reported to authorities, and that not even one was reported, produced powerful circumstantial evidence that there may have been pressure from somewhere to keep such crimes unreported. It may have shown that almost any excuse will be grasped at to keep such crimes unreported, even in areas where reporting is not only ethical, but mandatory. The Australian database was therefore very important to show a pattern, in the event that a new case would claim that such a pattern actually existed.
The other concern, of course, is that, if the database cannot be redacted, that some well-known names of brothers at the highest levels of responsibility in the organization could be revealed, bringing shame on the organization, and the families of those brothers. The Australian database had two names, I'm told, that went to the very top of the Branch in Australia (still living), and one name that went to the very top of the US Branch (a person no longer alive who was moved around after accusations surfaced). If this is true, it would give a whole new dimension to why it is suspected that the US Branch will never release the US database.

[on the OTHER topic of Yugoslavia/Serbia/etc]
Srecko, It's about the same take that Edward Hermann has on the topic: https://monthlyreview.org/2007/10/01/the-dismantling-of-yugoslavia/
I can no longer locate the Parenti essay as it is down, but just got it from the "wayback machine."
https://web.archive.org/web/20190331172008/http://www.michaelparenti.org/yugoslavia.html
I reference Parenti, rather than Hermann, because Parenti is so much more succinct.

The 1975 Yearbook had mentioned that Howe was immediately ready to have the sentence commuted, not to exonerate them, which, as you say, was never the point:
*** yb75 p. 116 Part 2—United States of America ***
On March 2, 1919, the trial judge, Federal District Judge Harland B. Howe, sent a telegram to Attorney General Gregory in Washington, D.C., recommending “immediate commutation” of the sentences imposed on the eight imprisoned Bible Students.
Had the Society's defense attorneys known this in advance, I wonder if they would have gone for the immediate appeal. It's quite possible that the Fed Dept of Justice figured they should ignore this immediate commutation request and just let Rutherford's attorneys have the appeal they wanted. The appeal might have been what kept them in prison for so long, although the way it worked out in making them "seem" exonerated was probably better for the Watch Tower Society in the long run.

"Never at Rest" by Richard Westfall is a biography of Newton that covers his "Observations upon the Prophecies" and contains the idea expressed earlier that he was clearly not asserting these dates, but just trying to put a stop to the rash conjectures. The scrap is evidently from a time later in his life, and the FOUR big mistakes in the last 12 words showed how much he cared, in my opinion. I think he was falling asleep around the last two lines.

...


One thing that Newton said that might be worth considering is his view on parts of Revelation, which rings true.

 

I just watched a recording of this and the previous debate at about 3am this morning. What a mess. LOL. I don't trust a one of them, but Tulsi Gabbard at least prepared with some material on Kamala Harris that was very easy to obtain, and should have been easy for others to find, too, if they wished to pile on. The articles about Harris hiding DNA evidence that would have freed an innocent man was in the NYTimes. (As was material about her hypocrisy on marijuana, harshness on drug offenses, etc.) I'm surprised that there is so much "opposition info" on everyone, but that these politicians only treat the data superficially when it really COULD "demolish" opponents if they really took time to understand the whole picture and press these issues. Perhaps they are still interested in being another's vice president in case those opponents win.
Curiously, the number one set of related trends on Twitter yesterday included "Assad" "Tulsi" and "Kamala." Why was "Assad" there? It's evidently because Harris attacked back by claiming that Gabbard had been no more than a defender of Assad. Getting Assad so high in the trends probably implies some help from bots, either foreign or domestic.  (This was based on the fact that Gabbard had done a fact finding mission in Syria and determined that things were not as the official US propaganda would have us believe. Being correct on this point will probably result in her downfall as a potential candidate.) The one thing I appreciated is that Gabbard, a former soldier, was concerned about overuse of war and US empirical policing around the world. But Gabbard herself has unfortunately shown inconsistency. I think she's one that voted for a recent hugely increased Pentagon budget last week.

I had the impression that this was Newton's whole point. It was not that he was serious about actually predicting a date for the end of the world. I think it was to show contemporaries that the same "data" that "prophecy hounds" always made use of in order to prove something will happen within their own generation, could just as easily be used to point to something hundreds of years in the future.

I had the impression that this was Newton's whole point. It was not that he was serious about actually predicting a date for the end of the world. I think it was to show contemporaries that the same "data" that "prophecy hounds" always made use of in order to prove something will happen within their own generation, could just as easily be used to point to something hundreds of years in the future.

It seemed to me that some of the information that the ex-JWs had tried to prepare the prosecution with was unrelated to the case and was merely brought up to prejudice onlookers against Witnesses. Things can be done wrong, or said wrong, and still might have almost nothing to do with the case at hand. The place for the discussion of such things is in the context of how to improve our viewpoint and make it more in line with our own claims. It should not be used in order to stretch the truth about our lifestyle to make it seem like it could be matched up with extremists. If the State/Nation thinks it has a case against a person or group, let the State/Nation present it honestly so that the person or group knows what the real problem is, and can fairly defend themselves -- or even offer solutions and fixes.

I had the impression that this was Newton's whole point. It was not that he was serious about actually predicting a date for the end of the world. I think it was to show contemporaries that the same "data" that "prophecy hounds" always made use of in order to prove something will happen within their own generation, could just as easily be used to point to something hundreds of years in the future.

Interesting question. In the Russian case I think there is a lot of evidence that it's the Russian Orthodox Church behind the curtain, because sometimes they come out from behind that curtain.
In the case of the IBSA in 1918, I think that the earliest complaints about bias came from the fact that it was former members of the IBSA who helped the courts find evidence and make a case. In fact, the Watchtower itself complained that it was the former members who didn't like the way Rutherford took over for Russell. The WTS specifically blamed former directors who had been dismissed by Rutherford.
So if a religion is to blame at all, it would be Russellites. I think history repeats itself here too, as there is evidence that ex-JWs helped the prosecution in Australia and Russia, for example.

What I like about Newton is that as opposed to Russell, Rutherford, Franz, the 1990 leadership and the 21 century leadership is that he "predicted" the "end" to be NOT in his lifetime. All the others did. Interesting.

When i was arrested by Civil Police and handed to Military Police and after they transported me to place where i have to serve army, they treated me as Soldier even i was in civil clothes. Later i understand that all young people who passed age of old (17) when they went to medical examination /recruitment / and been put in evidence for serving in army,  were  under the law  and considered as future soldier, especially in moment when you are literally, physically inside Military Camp.  

I'm still learning about it.
The book "The Finished Mystery" was the initial focus of the investigation, but it was still only a part of the problem. When Rutherford decided to try to sell the books with a couple of offending pages cut out of the book, this was not something that the courts or any officials had asked for. It was just Rutherford's way of hoping this would appease the authorities, since specific claims about seditious statements claimed had focused on those pages. The FBI said that cutting out the pages was was not a solution.
Many of these personal solicitations and letters and public speeches were at least indirectly related to the book, The Finished Mystery. But many of them probably were of another nature, based on the evidence that the FBI collected , as some letters and solicitations were for the purposes of Rutherford giving legal advice to those who wanted to avoid being drafted, or avoid fighting even if they were being drafted.
Although it was obvious that Rutherford wanted to be able to help people avoid conscription, to avoid direct military service, and even to avoid supporting the war through alternative service (e.g. hospitals), I have never yet seen anything that would be considered out of line for an attorney trying to give "unofficial" legal advice. But in wartime, such activities are scrutinized much more closely. I think that if there had been direct proof that Rutherford had solicited or encouraged persons to write him for legal advice about getting out of military service, that this could have made sentencing and bail considerations even more difficult for them. The book itself along with other statements made by Rutherford could have been construed as encouragement to help Bible Students find ways to avoid conscription and military engagement.
Also there was a lot of communication between Rutherford and his associates related to the book, the ban on the book, and other means of getting the book published. The book was being reproduced in Watchtower format as special editions to the Watchtower. It was also being reprinted in a publication by a long-time friend of Russell and the Bible Students who published a magazine called "Overland Monthly." Additionally, there were multiple languages that the book had been translated into, and it was important to know whether any of those translations had used even stronger language against the war (than the English version). The book and the ban on the book were being discussed in those early copies of the Kingdom News tracts. Also the fact that the Finished Mystery contained a lot of information from Russell's pre-1917 writings made the FBI look into how the book was produced, and looked into the actual author of the offending parts, and whether some of the original Russell quotes would have made other Russell writings just as liable (as Russell writings were still being distributed). The FBI was also interested in whether the current 1918 meetings and assemblies themselves were still promoting similar statements to those which were found in the book.
I should mention that I am using the term FBI loosely, as the official communications of those handling the investigation includes those from among and between personnel in the Department of Justice who were not in the Bureau of Investigation, attorneys and officials outside the Department of Justice, and even the War Department.  But most of the communications I have read are from agents and officials of the Bureau of Investigation itself (under the Department of Justice). It was not officially referred to as the FBI.
As I get a chance, I might begin sharing some samples of the evidence that the FBI collected.

This forum currently contains a recent topic where the subject of the 1918 imprisonment and 1919 release of Rutherford and his associates has come up. There is a lot of misinformation under that topic. I'm no expert on the subject, but it's still obvious that even some who present themselves as experts can be misinformed.
There is plenty of documentation and verifiable information out there on the topic, and while there's no real shame in being misinformed, we should be careful not to present ourselves as experts. When a person presents themselves as an expert, their misinformation becomes disinformation. We should strive for honesty.
And it's not that going back to this history is necessarily all that important, but our publications have made it part of fulfilled Bible prophecy, and therefore any mishandling of information about it becomes all the more serious. Also, sometimes when such historical topics are brought up some Witnesses are quick to complain that there is no reason to go back and rehash that old material. Note however, that it is our recent books and Watchtower magazines that regularly bring up such material for review. The "God's Kingdom" book discusses it. Even one of the most recent Watchtowers brings it up again (October 2019 Watchtower):
*** w19 October p. 3 1919—One Hundred Years Ago ***
    While the eight brothers were imprisoned, faithful Bible Students circulated a petition calling for their release. These brave brothers and sisters gathered more than 700,000 signatures. On Wednesday, March 26, 1919, before the petition was submitted, Brother Rutherford and the other responsible brothers were released.
     In a speech to those who welcomed him home, Brother Rutherford said: “I am convinced that this experience we have all gone through is merely to prepare us for more strenuous times. . . . Your fight has not been to get your brethren out of prison. That was merely a side issue. . . . The fight you have been making has been for the purpose of witnessing for the Truth, and those who have done it have received a wonderful blessing.”
     The circumstances surrounding the trial of our brothers may give indication of Jehovah’s direction. On May 14, 1919, the appeals court ruled: “The defendants in this case did not have the . . . impartial trial to which they were entitled, and for that reason the judgment is reversed.” The brothers had been convicted of serious crimes, and these judgments would have remained on their records if they had only been pardoned or if their sentences had merely been commuted. No further charges were laid. As a result, Judge Rutherford retained his legal qualifications to defend Jehovah’s people before the Supreme Court of the United States, something he did many times after his release.
I won't personally get back to this topic for up to a day or so, but welcome anyone with information to present what they know about it, or have heard about it. We can start with our own publications and Wikipedia, of course. But anything that seems like valuable information or interesting questions could be presented for evaluation by all who are serious about such history.

The case of Frank D'Onofrio makes the point that once a person is in a military unit they are under the command of others. And those others have been given the power of life and death. They can "kill the body." In the United States, as in many countries, a person could make application for exemption on religious grounds, BEFORE conscription, but once they accepted an "oath" to the military, it was supposedly too late to make that request safely. If they made a request in such a way that could be interpreted as bringing down the morale of a military unit, or was interpreted as running away from a post due to cowardice, this might not end well for the person.
If a person on the outside spoke out against war when the nation was not actively at war, this was never a problem. Woodrow Wilson himself had run for president on statements that were antiwar. But when a war is commenced, the religious leaders and pacifist philosophers were expected to shut up and talk about other things.  The making of an actual law to that effect seems ludicrous, but laws made in the throes of nationalistic passion don't always make rational sense.
Obviously, there would always be some flexibility or variability (inconsistency) of interpretation about how much could be said, and how it could be said, and what effect it was intended to have on potential troops. Some FBI Agents would find certain kinds of evidence useless, and another might think the same evidence was damning. And, the main point: something innocent or barely questionable outside of wartime, could be seen as treasonous and seditious during a war.
Based on the definition of sedition given just before the war, and as expanded between 1917 and 1918, a lot of people were technically guilty of sedition. From a single individual with little influence on others, it could be forgiven (although often it wasn't). But it was considerably more serious to the War Department and FBI if a person had influence, and their words were intended to influence.
One other thing I learned by reading literally thousands of documents on this case and other similar cases in these FBI files, is that the times were already filled with suspicion even before the war. The War Department and FBI was evidently filled with a lot of people who were passionate to fight against perceived internal enemies of United States. These enemies were sometimes just created out of fears propagandized by large commercial interests. The terrible fear of socialism was stoked by capitalists since many socialists had come from Europe to the United States in the mid-1800's. Many fought for the North in the US Civil War, seeing it as an important class conflict. But this brought suspicion on European immigrants from many different European countries, leading to fear of strikes, fear of labor organizing, and fear of those with financial power losing any profits to workers asking for rights.
You'd think it completely unrelated to the case of the Bible Students and Rutherford, but I think that much of the thinking and suspicions of those days was at least partly depicted in a terribly long and slow-moving movie I once saw called "Heaven's Gate" with Chris Kristofferson. It was an adapted depiction of the culmination of the Johnson County Wars, where Wyoming officials (backing the cattle rancher associations) sanctioned the open assassinations of a large part of the new European immigrant population of this area of Wyoming from literal "death lists" of people that a hired posse was allowed to murder, and get paid $5 a day, and $50 for every European immigrant they successfully murdered. This was just over 2 decades prior to 1918.
I read the Agent's reports that reek of suspicion for anyone who might have a socialist bent. If the assembly of IBSA was Polish, Greek, Italian, etc., the suspicions were high that there might be such "anarchists" among them. If the names were potentially German or of some other Eastern European sound that wasn't recognized, then they were all the more fearful of German enemies and socialist "enemies." Agents' reports on IBSA and others were quick to point out any tendencies toward socialism in these groups (which was called "anarchy" because, for example, a worker who wanted to work only 10 hours a day instead of 12 was causing "anarchy").
Russell, well before Rutherford, had already been teaching that Armageddon would involve a clashing of classes between labor and capital.
Although religions like the IBSA (and some other groups and preachers) got caught up in the "Sedition Act" sweeps of 1917 and 1918, it was mostly folks like Eugene Debs (famous socialist) who got impacted. Debs had started and defended railroad unions since the 1890s and even ran for President in almost every presidential election (as a socialist) since 1900 until he died. The last time he ran from his prison cell, having been thrown in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary just as Rutherford was leaving. Note Wikipedia:
On June 16, 1918, Debs made a speech in Canton, Ohio urging resistance to the military draft of World War I. He was arrested on June 30 and charged with ten counts of sedition.[43]  . . . Debs appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court. In its ruling on Debs v. United States, the court examined several statements Debs had made regarding World War I and socialism. While Debs had carefully worded his speeches in an attempt to comply with the Espionage Act, the Court found he had the intention and effect of obstructing the draft and military recruitment. Among other things, the Court cited Debs' praise for those imprisoned for obstructing the draft. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. stated in his opinion that little attention was needed since Debs' case was essentially the same as that of Schenck v. United States, in which the Court had upheld a similar conviction. . . .
In March 1919, President Wilson asked Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer for his opinion on clemency, offering his own: "I doubt the wisdom and public effect of such an action". Palmer generally favored releasing people convicted under the wartime security acts, but when he consulted with Debs' prosecutors—even those with records as defenders of civil liberties—they assured him that Debs' conviction was correct and his sentence appropriate.[50] The President and his Attorney General both believed that public opinion opposed clemency and that releasing Debs could strengthen Wilson's opponents in the debate over the ratification of the peace treaty. Palmer proposed clemency in August and October 1920 without success.[51] At one point, Wilson wrote:
[Edited to add that some of the FBI documents use phrases like "The Finished Mystery and other examples of socialist propaganda." Also, to be fair, the Bureau during about the same period increased their efforts  going after war profiteers who were conspiring to overcharge for coal, etc.]

The case of Frank D'Onofrio makes the point that once a person is in a military unit they are under the command of others. And those others have been given the power of life and death. They can "kill the body." In the United States, as in many countries, a person could make application for exemption on religious grounds, BEFORE conscription, but once they accepted an "oath" to the military, it was supposedly too late to make that request safely. If they made a request in such a way that could be interpreted as bringing down the morale of a military unit, or was interpreted as running away from a post due to cowardice, this might not end well for the person.
If a person on the outside spoke out against war when the nation was not actively at war, this was never a problem. Woodrow Wilson himself had run for president on statements that were antiwar. But when a war is commenced, the religious leaders and pacifist philosophers were expected to shut up and talk about other things.  The making of an actual law to that effect seems ludicrous, but laws made in the throes of nationalistic passion don't always make rational sense.
Obviously, there would always be some flexibility or variability (inconsistency) of interpretation about how much could be said, and how it could be said, and what effect it was intended to have on potential troops. Some FBI Agents would find certain kinds of evidence useless, and another might think the same evidence was damning. And, the main point: something innocent or barely questionable outside of wartime, could be seen as treasonous and seditious during a war.
Based on the definition of sedition given just before the war, and as expanded between 1917 and 1918, a lot of people were technically guilty of sedition. From a single individual with little influence on others, it could be forgiven (although often it wasn't). But it was considerably more serious to the War Department and FBI if a person had influence, and their words were intended to influence.
One other thing I learned by reading literally thousands of documents on this case and other similar cases in these FBI files, is that the times were already filled with suspicion even before the war. The War Department and FBI was evidently filled with a lot of people who were passionate to fight against perceived internal enemies of United States. These enemies were sometimes just created out of fears propagandized by large commercial interests. The terrible fear of socialism was stoked by capitalists since many socialists had come from Europe to the United States in the mid-1800's. Many fought for the North in the US Civil War, seeing it as an important class conflict. But this brought suspicion on European immigrants from many different European countries, leading to fear of strikes, fear of labor organizing, and fear of those with financial power losing any profits to workers asking for rights.
You'd think it completely unrelated to the case of the Bible Students and Rutherford, but I think that much of the thinking and suspicions of those days was at least partly depicted in a terribly long and slow-moving movie I once saw called "Heaven's Gate" with Chris Kristofferson. It was an adapted depiction of the culmination of the Johnson County Wars, where Wyoming officials (backing the cattle rancher associations) sanctioned the open assassinations of a large part of the new European immigrant population of this area of Wyoming from literal "death lists" of people that a hired posse was allowed to murder, and get paid $5 a day, and $50 for every European immigrant they successfully murdered. This was just over 2 decades prior to 1918.
I read the Agent's reports that reek of suspicion for anyone who might have a socialist bent. If the assembly of IBSA was Polish, Greek, Italian, etc., the suspicions were high that there might be such "anarchists" among them. If the names were potentially German or of some other Eastern European sound that wasn't recognized, then they were all the more fearful of German enemies and socialist "enemies." Agents' reports on IBSA and others were quick to point out any tendencies toward socialism in these groups (which was called "anarchy" because, for example, a worker who wanted to work only 10 hours a day instead of 12 was causing "anarchy").
Russell, well before Rutherford, had already been teaching that Armageddon would involve a clashing of classes between labor and capital.
Although religions like the IBSA (and some other groups and preachers) got caught up in the "Sedition Act" sweeps of 1917 and 1918, it was mostly folks like Eugene Debs (famous socialist) who got impacted. Debs had started and defended railroad unions since the 1890s and even ran for President in almost every presidential election (as a socialist) since 1900 until he died. The last time he ran from his prison cell, having been thrown in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary just as Rutherford was leaving. Note Wikipedia:
On June 16, 1918, Debs made a speech in Canton, Ohio urging resistance to the military draft of World War I. He was arrested on June 30 and charged with ten counts of sedition.[43]  . . . Debs appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court. In its ruling on Debs v. United States, the court examined several statements Debs had made regarding World War I and socialism. While Debs had carefully worded his speeches in an attempt to comply with the Espionage Act, the Court found he had the intention and effect of obstructing the draft and military recruitment. Among other things, the Court cited Debs' praise for those imprisoned for obstructing the draft. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. stated in his opinion that little attention was needed since Debs' case was essentially the same as that of Schenck v. United States, in which the Court had upheld a similar conviction. . . .
In March 1919, President Wilson asked Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer for his opinion on clemency, offering his own: "I doubt the wisdom and public effect of such an action". Palmer generally favored releasing people convicted under the wartime security acts, but when he consulted with Debs' prosecutors—even those with records as defenders of civil liberties—they assured him that Debs' conviction was correct and his sentence appropriate.[50] The President and his Attorney General both believed that public opinion opposed clemency and that releasing Debs could strengthen Wilson's opponents in the debate over the ratification of the peace treaty. Palmer proposed clemency in August and October 1920 without success.[51] At one point, Wilson wrote:
[Edited to add that some of the FBI documents use phrases like "The Finished Mystery and other examples of socialist propaganda." Also, to be fair, the Bureau during about the same period increased their efforts  going after war profiteers who were conspiring to overcharge for coal, etc.]

.... some of these are easier to read NOT inverted ... anytime a jpg is modified, something is lost when it is saved, due to compression.

There are so many pieces of evidence that I will not be presenting them in any particular order. If anyone is really interested in seeing where these pieces should be placed in a timeline, it would be good to review the order of events given in Watchtower articles above (and the Proclaimer's book, the 1975 Yearbook, "Faith on the March," "God's Kingdom Rules," etc.
Also, I have previously shared some of the pictures from the "Courage" exhibit up in Warwick on the forum:
They probably still available at the same link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/qfZaGqvevttRsWpJ6
It includes a set of "slides" that highlight various events from 1918 to 1919 related to the ban on the book and related persecution and legal actions taken all over the country. Also note the timing of Kingdom News 1, 2, & 3 in the midst of this.