Resignation
On July 21, 1939, Moyle wrote an open letter of resignation to Rutherford, protesting over conditions at "Bethel", the Watch Tower Society's Brooklyn headquarters, including what he described as ill treatment of workers, discrimination by Rutherford, the use and encouragement of "filthy and vulgar language" and a "glorification" of alcohol. Moyle said that Rutherford had "many many homes, to wit, Bethel, Staten Island, California" and deplored "the difference between the accommodations furnished to you, and your personal attendants, compared with those furnished to some of your brethren".
Moyle had been handling the famous Minersville School District v. Gobitis case, and had won at the trial court level as well as at the appellate level. However, after Moyle's removal from the case, the Minersville School District appealed the Gobitis case to the Supreme Court. Rutherford himself argued the case before the Supreme Court in 1940, and the Court ruled against the Jehovah's Witnesses by a vote of 8-1. This ruling triggered a nationwide wave of violence against Jehovah's Witnesses that lasted for the next several months. Three years later the Supreme Court overruled this decision in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), argued by Moyle's successor, Hayden Covington.
Read more about this topic: Olin R. Moyle
Famous quotes containing the word resignation:
“How could a man be satisfied with a decision between such alternatives and under such circumstances? No more than he can be satisfied with his hat, which he’s chosen from among such shapes as the resources of the age offer him, wearing it at best with a resignation which is chiefly supported by comparison.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Resignation, not mystic, not detached, but resignation open- eyed, conscious, and informed by love, is the only one of our feelings for which it is impossible to become a sham.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)