-
1920—One Hundred Years AgoThe Watchtower (Study)—2020 | October
-
-
In the fall of 1920, the Bible Students released No. 27 of The Golden Age, a special issue that exposed the persecution of the Bible Students during 1918. The Battleship, mentioned earlier, ran night and day to produce more than four million copies of this magazine.
Readers of that magazine learned about the unusual case of Emma Martin. Sister Martin was a colporteur in San Bernardino, California. On March 17, 1918, she and three brothers, E. Hamm, E. J. Sonnenburg, and E. A. Stevens, attended a small gathering of Bible Students.
One man in attendance was not there to learn about the Bible. “I went to this meeting . . . at the direction of the Prosecuting attorney’s office,” he later testified. “I went there for the purpose of securing evidence.” He obtained the “evidence” that he was seeking, a copy of The Finished Mystery. A few days later, Sister Martin and the three brothers were arrested. They were charged with violating the Espionage Act by distributing copies of the banned book.
Emma and her friends were found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison. On May 17, 1920, their appeals exhausted, they began serving their sentences. But things soon changed for the better.
On June 20, 1920, Brother Rutherford related their experience at a convention in San Francisco. The audience, appalled at the treatment of these Christians, sent a telegram to the president of the United States. They wrote: “We regard the conviction . . . of Mrs. Martin . . . under the Espionage law as unjust . . . The action of Federal officers in using the power of their office to . . . entrap . . . Mrs. Martin . . . and then to frame up against her a case to have her sent to prison we denounce as . . . outrageous.”
The very next day, President Woodrow Wilson immediately commuted the sentences of Sister Martin and Brothers Hamm, Sonnenburg, and Stevens. Their unjust imprisonment was over.
-