On May 7, 1918, the Department of Justice obtained arrest warrants for Giovanni DeCecca, George Fisher, Alexander Macmillan, Robert Martin, Frederick Robison, Joseph Rutherford, William Van Amburgh, and Clayton Woodworth. They were accused of “unlawfully, feloniously and wilfully causing insubordination, disloyalty and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces of the United States.” Their trial began on June 5, 1918, but there was little doubt that they would be convicted. Why?

The attorney general of the United States called the law they were accused of violating, the Espionage Act, an “effective weapon against propaganda.” On May 16, 1918, Congress rejected an amendment to the Act that would have protected those who published “what is true, with good motives, and for justifiable ends.” The Finished Mystery figured prominently in their debate. Regarding it, the official record of the U.S. Congress states: “One of the most dangerous examples of this sort of propaganda is the book called ‘The Finished Mystery’ . . . The only effect of it is to lead soldiers to discredit our cause and to inspire . . . resistance to the draft.”

On June 20, 1918, a jury found the eight brothers guilty on all charges. The next day, the judge handed down his sentence. He said: “The religious propaganda which these defendants have vigorously advocated and spread . . . is a greater danger than a division of the German Army. . . . The punishment should be severe.” Two weeks later, these eight brothers entered the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, with sentences ranging from 10 to 20 years.

In addition to their zealous preaching, the Bible Students fervently circulated a petition to free the brothers imprisoned in Atlanta. Anna K. Gardner recounted: “We were always doing something. When the brothers were in prison, our next job was to get signers. We went from door to door. We got thousands of signatures! We told the people we spoke to that these were true Christian men and that they had been unjustly imprisoned.”