The Miracle Wheat Story - Part 2

Continued from Part 1

The next is a letter which appeared in:

The Watch Tower, March 3, 1915, page 79

This letter certainly seems to affirm that the wheat was not "inferior to standard wheat" as some have claimed. Brother Russell certainly had no reason to disbelieve what Brother Jarrett reported. Please note, however, that again it is not Brother Russell who was making the claims for the wheat. He only reported what others said.

The final article appeared in:

The Watch Tower, July 15, 1915, page 218

In this article, Brother Russell only briefly mentioned "Miracle Wheat," in reference to the notice that had been put in the Watch Tower concerning the offer to sell that wheat. He stated, "We believe we did right in putting that notice in." 

We will say that if the claims for this wheat were false as many have claimed, then Brother Russell himself was deceived by those who made such claims. Did Stoner make false claims for this wheat? I don't think so. But if he did, then it was Stoner, not Russell, who made such claims. Did Bohnet report false information to Russell about his experience in growing this wheat? We have no reason to think so. Nevertheless, if Bohnet lied, Brother Russell's fault was that he trusted Bohnet. If Bohnet misrepresented the wheat, then Russell himself was deceived by such deception and he was not the source of such deception. Were all the others who reported extraordinary yields from this wheat lying? Again, we have no reason to think so. Nevertheless, IF they were lying, then Brother Russell had no reason to think that they were not telling the truth. Russell was NOT the originator of the claims; he was simply conveyed what others had claimed.

We will now be presenting some excerpts from a booklet entitled: A Great Battle in the Ecclesiastical Heavens, by Joseph Franklin Rutherford. Rutherford published this in 1915, about a year before Brother Russell died. It was not an official publication of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, but a notice appeared in the Watch Tower, May 1, 1915, entitled "Judge Rutherford's Spicy Defense." Brother Russell stated: "Brother Rutherford, grieved by the various untruthful, slanderous attacks upon the Editor, has prepared a pamphlet in my defense. A copy of it has just been handed me. I have not yet read it, though, of course, I knew of its preparation and in a general way of its contents. I prefer not to have anything to do with its publication." Brother Russell then goes on to present the price of this booklet and the address to purchase a copy.

One may find Rutherford's booklet online at:
https://archive.org/details/AGreatBattleInTheEcclesiasticalHeavens

This booklet presents a lot of details related to "miracle wheat" and what happened in court when Russell sued the Eagle for libel.

We will now respond to some false or distorted claims being made about Brother Russell and Stoner's "Miracle Wheat.' There were then and still are those who refer to this wheat as "Russell's Miracle Wheat," which makes it appear that Brother Russell invented this wheat. One claims that Brother Russell "had, in 1908, discovered a particular strain of wheat, which he called 'Miracle Wheat.'" There are two misleading thoughts presented by this statement: (1) It leaves readers with the impression that Russell himself claimed to have discovered this wheat, and (2) that Russell himself gave it the name of "Miracle Wheat." Rutherford stated in his booklet: "Pastor Russell did not discover the wheat, nor did he name it, nor did he receive any personal benefit therefrom. Nor was the Society of which he is president guilty of the slightest misconduct. Had this same transaction occurred with some Catholic or Protestant church no one would ever have thought of making any fuss about it. But the Preachers’ Union seized upon it as another means of persecuting Pastor Russell." This simply confirms what we have already found. Rutherford claimed that Brooklyn Daily Eagle was being used as a tool of what he called, "the Preachers' Unholy Alliance." Rutherford mentions that the attack began on March 22, 1911, and reference is given (fol. 936), evidently referring to the court record archives. We have not found this article online anywhere. If anyone knows anything about this article, please let us know in the comments below.

Rutherford then states, regarding The Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

On September 23, 1911, it published an article announcing that the United States Government was about to take up the matter of Miracle Wheat, intimating that the Government Inspector would ask to be furnished with a sample of Miracle Wheat sold at Pastor Russell’s Tabernacle, to be tested, “that the faithful and a waiting world may learn more fully of the astonishing merits of this precious grain” (fol. 981).

This article may be found online at:
https://bklyn.newspapers.com/clip/15943202/skeptical-uncle-sam-seeks-to-know-more/

Concerning this article Rutherford stated:

As a matter of fact, the Government had been experimenting with Miracle Wheat for more than three years at that time, which shows that The Eagle was trying to mislead its readers and prejudice them against Pastor Russell by inferentially charging that he was selling a fraudulent wheat.

This was in the same issue that the Daily Eagle presented the cartoon we reproduced earlier.

Rutherford then goes into what happened in court, and he states:

The facts given here are taken from the record of the trial of that case in the Supreme Court of Kings County, New York. Figures appearing in parentheses, thus (fol. 774, etc.), refer to folios of the printed record of the case now on file in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York.

Because of this, we have no reason to question what Rutherford presents about what happened in court. A point to note here is that if one is focusing on what the Daily Eagle presented about what happened in court, one is not getting the full picture. The Daily Eagle left out much, and focuses on whatever could be slanted against Brother Russell. 

Rutherford reported that much of the trial focused on whether this wheat was actually superior to other wheat. Rutherford reports that "Eleven witnesses testified to its superior quality over other wheat." He then lists the names these witnesses. For those who might think that these "witnesses" were all friends of Brother Russell and thus that they falsified testimony to support their friend, one should note that Rutherford reported: "The eight first named never heard of Pastor Russell or his religious teachings prior to the trial of this case, but had been experimenting with Miracle Wheat and found it far superior to any other wheat."  Rutherford further reported: "The testimony showed that in the year 1904 Mr. K. B. Stoner noticed growing in his garden in Fincastle, Virginia, an unusual plant, which at first he mistook for a kind of grass known as parlor grass, but which, upon further observation, proved to be wheat. The plant had one hundred and forty-two stalks, each stalk bearing a head of fully matured wheat."  We have no reason to think that these witnesses bore false testimony about their results in miracle wheat. Usually, however, this testimony is ignored by those who seek to promote some kind of wrong-doing on the part of Russell regarding this wheat. Most focus on the testimony of the "government expert" who claimed that the quality of "miracle wheat" was "low." 

Rutherford reported: "The first plant found by Stoner had over 4,000 grains to the stool. In the Fall of 1904 he planted 1,800 grains, and each gram yielded an average of 250 grains. The average return from ordinary wheat in this section was about ten grains for each grain of seed (fols. 75- 78). Mr. Stoner found that a peck to the acre, that is 15 pounds of Miracle Wheat, produced over forty bushels (fol. 88). He has raised as high as 80 bushels of Miracle Wheat to the acre (fol. 92). Thus it is seen that Miracle Wheat produced twenty-five times as much as ordinary wheat in proportion to the amount sown. Mr. Stoner had experimented with Red Wonder, Fuldz and Old Mediterranean wheats. The productiveness of Miracle Wheat was found to be due to its large stooling qualities (fol. 95). For these stooling qualities it needs more room than the average wheat, requiring 16 inches between the rows, and about four times the space of ordinary wheat. If sown like ordinary wheat Miracle Wheat was a failure, for room was essential (fols. 97-99, 104). A four by four-inch space, such as the Government allows, is too small to allow for the normal stooling of Miracle Wheat (fol. 104)."

Rutherford also reported of how the Eagle's attorney "severely ridiculed the religious teachings of Pastor Russell." Rutherford notes that jury was largely composed of men with strong religious prejudices, with a least one atheist. Evidently, Rutherford was endeavoring to show how the Eagle was using Brother Russell's teachings in such a way as to sway the jury against Russell. At any rate, Rutherford stated that the jury "disregarded the testimony of the 11 practical farmers and wheat raisers, and the several exhibits of Miracle Wheat actually produced and shown to them, and decided the case in favor of the Brooklyn Eagle, upon the unsupported testimony of one Government official who never raised a grain of wheat in his.life."

At times, it sounds as though Russell was put on trial for what he believed, and this was used to turn attention away from the real issues and gave an emotional slant to rule against Russell.

Nevertheless, it appears quite probable much of the enormous amount of unfavorable publicity being spread about Brother Russell related to "miracle wheat" may have led farmers to not follow Stoner's instructions related to how this wheat was to be planted, which resulted in its gradual disappearance.

Continued in Part 3 

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