July 10, 1918

During a raid on draft resisters in the Cleburne County Draft War, a search of Tom Adkisson’s home turned up large amounts of food and ammunition, and also a copy of Charles Taze Russell’s The Finished Mystery, which had been published in 1917 and was quickly suppressed by federal authorities because of its denigration of governments that “demand of peace-loving men the sacrifice of themselves and their loved ones and the butchery of their fellows, and hail it as a duty demanded by the law of heaven.” Judge Rutherford, then-leader of the Russellites, and seven of his associates had been sentenced to twenty years in federal prison for their part in publishing and distributing the book.

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