Eyewitness Account of The Great Litigation
Eyewitness Account of The Great Litigation
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The following are letters written by Joseph E. Johnston concerning the “Proceedings in Equity” between the Christian Science Board of Directors and the Trustees of the Christian Science Publishing Society.
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9 August 1962
Dear—-
Tuesday at 37th Street, I had just mailed a quick note to you, when yours dated the 4th arrived. You had just opened the pamphlet mailing sent some time ago (all carefully selected for your need), but especially saying you did not understand HWE’s explanation, and have difficulty now explaining, why the Trustees in line with the Manual on Director’s declaring a Trustee vacancy, did not simply again reappoint Rowlands, as the Manual permits (Art. XXV, Sect. 3).
You should be straight on this with no delay, so this now further letter. You know our program here I think,-each Tuesday at 5 AM I drive Mary in, spend the day in New York City at 37th Street, get all the bulk second class mail and that day first class, then drive Mary back at 6 P.M. It seems the best solution to the mass of second class mail and· catching up on any necessary New York City items. So here at Frog Pond, Mary stays as many days as possible because of the great additional pressure beyond her full time work of the fall deadline for her next book. This is a McCall forcing decision whereas heretofore on her books she chose her own time. McCalls is putting this out with her as author as their own book, now venturing in book publishing. Future must show if this is imposition on Mary, as a required additional duty instead of source of royalty for her. Thank God for divine Mind as Principle and Love.
Your difficulty in understanding why the Trustees did not as the Manual (and of course their legal DEED permits, directs) simply reappoint Rowlands, arises from not keeping the legal, the human law, and the divine, the Manual’s spiritual guidance, separate. Also in not keeping clear the issue. That is,-the claim and whole effort of the Directors to establish control over the Trustees by claiming the Manual is a legal document as well as spiritual document, and modified, added to, the human legal authority of the Trustees’ 1898 DEED.
Throughout since, the Director’s with Cliff Smith, etc., have tried to make Christian Scientists, and the public think the Court ruled so for the Manual and legally modified the 1898 with seemingly later contrary Manual provisions. That is not so, and the pamphlet of Justice Crosby’s Remarks in this batch I sent you as the concluding legal statement on this, is of utmost importance. This is why I marked it in red ink for you.
Had HWE at the time of the Director’s removal of Rowlands done as you have wondered why not, two major mistakes would have been made. First, it would only have ducked and possibly confused the real only issue, the Director’s claim that the Manual provisions gave them human legal control of the Trustees and its Trusteeship. Secondly, and of vital import, the Trustees would have seemed to be accepting, by apparently thus relying on Manual provisions, this legal instead of wholly spiritual guidance the Manual not only is, but of such deep vast spiritual guidance is.
This Manual being human law legal, you recall, started with the Directors instantly on Mrs. Eddy’s goodbye. They had been worried about the estoppels as reports you have show, wondered how they could carry on with the many provisions Mrs. Eddy had to approve in her own handwriting or in some way, many basic specific actions. In just seven days, 10 December, 1910, the Director’s gave to the press legal statements from their Counsel, that the Law permitted them, made legal effect, waiving these Manual estoppel requirements, thus they could and would carry on just as though Mrs. Eddy was here giving the required specific approval. In short, by standing on human law, human legality, to overrule, blue pencil and wipe out the Manual requirements for Mrs. Eddy’s specific approval for all action that seemingly touches control of other, they for themselves made the Manual not only a legal document same as the two DEEDS, but as modifying the Trustees’ 1898 DEED. Only in this way could they grab and continue attempted human control, and try to palm it off as Mrs. Eddy’s Founding. Mrs. Eddy’s absolutely necessary Founding control, and that of others is a wholly utterly different thing, and continuing it after Mrs. Eddy marvelously, perfectly, divinely, completed, crowned, her Founding and so departed removing even her seeming human control, is its perfect opposite, exact inversion, negative statement.
The Court’s decision makes clear, and Crosby singles it out, that the 1898 DEED is the sole source, that the church document in no way modifies or changes this irrevocable DEED. In February, 1916, via Dittemore-the Dittemore Memorandum-the Director’s first put forward specific control document asking the Trustees to sign. HWE in joint meeting broke that mesmerism, to see they should go on working together as Christian Scientists, and it then and there was thrown in the waste basket. In May of 1918, the Director’s actively renewed the demand, that the Trustees sign a document agreeing to the Director’s legal control. Cliff Smith was the pusher back of them. Doorly was aggressively back of them, especially in malice against his fellow Englishman, Frederick Dixon, the famed Monitor Editor, and of the Purification article, etc.
HWE’s position all the way was, they should work together in the full spiritual cooperation Christian Science directs and requires, but they could not add to or modify Mrs. Eddy’s express provisions in the Founding, or agree to any control other than as she exactly provided and left. I sent you a stat from the Trial Record, of his last meeting with the Directors, 2nd of March, 1919. Rathvon made the notes on it, perfectly stating HWE’s above and all the way and in final meeting position. Reread it here.
What the Manual requires is spiritual cooperation, this one pure divine knowing, not a human interplay, jockeying, and control, of mortal minds, of the material and malicious sense of mortal supposititious mind. The Manual’s whole demand, in strict accord with the Revelation, Science and Health, and all Mrs. Eddy wrote and gave, is for the divine and not the human mental workings. Human personal control is the antipode, the furtherest removed possible, from this divine understanding and reflection, action. Evil in its purest final highest seeing, as pure malice is seen as “moral idiocy” (S&H 103). Prominent people now are using this word idiocy to characterize what they consider extreme evil. In this Revelation and its Science and Health, what can be more idiotic than claim human control is Christian Science! And attribute it to Mrs. Eddy and her Founding, her divine direction for practice of this divine Principle!
Human law is not spiritual sense, spiritual law. It is the mortal’s, the human mind’s best sense of order. It should express and ever reach for, the mortal’s highest sense of right; but too often stays in the realm of its beliefs. It can accord with spiritual sense and fact. The real, the “C.C.T.” practice, will lead law ever more to this ideal in oneness.
HWE knew this deep ecclesiastical claim of Manual perversion as Manual “legality,” increasingly saw it had to be faced where Mrs. Eddy left it, with the Court. He did not force this issue, did all he could to keep the two Boards on the path of Science. This was why he engaged the top American legal lights to work with the Director’s-attorneys Hughes, Choate, Strawn, Whipple-and at the showdown forced by the Directors, had his Counsel give forty-eight hours for the Directors to withdraw their Rowland’s removal action, to avoid going to Court.
Only the Court could decide if the Manual had legal status as are the DEEDS, and so might modify or change the 1898 DEED. They definitely and positively decided it did not, as Crosby emphasizes. The Court turned the decision on the phrase or provision in the 1898 DEED, that the joint power of removal, on basis of expediency, by all the First members and the Directors under law could now be exercised by the Directors alone. That obviously is very bad law. There is all the difference in the world between a body of from 40 to 100 independent of the Directors, and both under Mrs. Eddy’s control, now without either her or the First Members exercising that DEED directed authority. Worse, there is the word and phrase irrevocable to any change, the statement underlined by Mrs. Eddy.
Hughes argued that DEED power expired with the First Members, and was right. But the Court faced seemingly a crisis forced by the mass of Christian Scientists. They seemed determined to destroy the 1898 TRUST and its Publishing Society if the Court stuck with the Law and fully upheld the Master. It was understood they wrote their Decision fully upholding the Master, but held it up watching the antics of Christian Scientists. Under Equity Law the Court has the duty if at all possible to save any such Trust put in its legal care. So it hit on the bad law of giving legal sanction to that DEED survival of removal power with the Directors, alone. They carefully hedged its “expediency,” and emphatically stressed the two Boards must work together if this Trust was to survive and prosper.
The Trustees can go to the Court at any time if they felt sufficiently their duties and responsibility were being too impaired or interfered with; in fact Christian Scientists themselves could appeal to the Court. The problem however is one primarily as you know in Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy above all had to go because of mortals holding onto her with personal sense, wanting “a” Leader. On her departure, they turned to the Directors with this same personal sense of a Leader, demanding the Directors exercise the control Mrs. Eddy as Founder had to have. Apart from the Founding control necessity, Mrs. Eddy’s very Mind SCIENCE AND HEALTH proves (shows) that under Mrs. Eddy this control was wholly spiritual, so of God not of man.
The cooperation the two DEEDS require for the Boston functioning, just as our three branches in Washington must cooperate if the government is to function, as to the two Boards is spiritual cooperation, working together with this one Christ-Rock spiritual understanding, the one only C. C. T. The Manual fully directs for this, complete and perfect spiritual guide in all pertaining to church, to all practice so involved. The Directors in 1918-1919 and through the Trial were demanding human material sense cooperation as human control. To give them legal human control would block spiritual cooperation, for that is its opposite, and would free them from having to give it, demonstrate it.
The Trustees in 1919 would have just wasted everybody’s time in reappointing Rowlands instead of facing the issue. They would have appeared to have recognized the Director’s claim of legal power in removal, a fatal mistake then. Even with the Court’s fancy bending of the Law, what was shown as to Rowlands would not have qualified for the “expediency.” That was the threat of “the field” and the Decision and upholding of Rowlands’ removal was simply to try to save the 1898 TRUST from these church people destroying it.
The Manual makes heavy demands on the Directors to use the one “C.C.T.” understanding of Science and Health. In their several directions as to the Publishing Society they did not have it, were using human will, mortal finite sense, so that Manual provision for the moment was not useful. Mrs. Eddy in two weeks added her RULES, its third being,-“When Mother foils a demon scheme, do not mar her success.” How wondrously it has been working out!
Our united love in the one “C.C.T.”,
(signed) Joseph E. Johnston
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The following letter by Joseph Johnston refers to a book entitled: MARY BAKER EDDY AND HER BOOKS by William Dana Orcutt, 1950. Joe Johnston took issue with the pages 140 to 142 in regard to the Christian Science Publishing Society and Mr. Orcutt’s references to the Great Litigation, and therefore Joe wrote this 17-page letter.
When reading this letter it is highly suggested that you reference the Proceedings in Equity court case (which can be purchased from this website). The letters mentioned by Joe Johnston are in the court case and can be read in full.
Also, the following information might be useful when reading Mr. Johnston’s letter:
The Court Proceedings are in 3 sections.
- Proceedings in Equity (1919-1921, Concerning Deed of Trust of January 25th, 1898 Constituting the Christian Science Publishing Society) (1187 pages)
- New Bill in Equity, (the Directors filed against the Trustees in April 1920) (130 pages)
- Supplement to Proceedings in Equity (194 pages)
REFERENCE ABBREVIATIONS MR. JOHNSTON USES:
Pro—refers to 1st Section (Proceedings in Equity)
2—refers to 2nd Section (New Bill in Equity)
3—refers to 3rd Section (Supplement to Proceedings in Equity)
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25 January 1951
Mr. James G. Rowell
One, Norway Street
Boston, Massachusetts
Dear Mr. Rowell:
Thank you for your interesting letter of Dec. 7th last, expressing your thought that the pages 140-142 in Mr. Orcutt’s MARY BAKER EDDY AND HER BOOKS are correct and satisfactory statements. A few days after your letter, Mr. Orcutt also wrote saying he was satisfied with these pages as they stood.
Being convinced that these pages are not correct and factual, I decided to delay acknowledging your and his letter until I could review the full official Court Proceedings’ Record. This included all the correspondence between the two boards that led to the trial of 1919-1922, the two months of the original hearings, the lengthy argument by Counsel, and the various rulings and decisions. The arguments by Counsel for the Directors are most pertinent as to these pages l40-l42. Every phase of the controversy is exhaustively dealt with. It is self-evident that these official Proceedings must reveal the truth or falsity of these pages.
Thus my delay, for this review was quite a chore. These Court proceedings cover 1500 pages, large size and small type. At the request of the Court and desire of
Counsel of all parties, the Publishing Society ran off a number of these copies, for official daily use, and as I now understand from your recent letter you have a copy available. At the close of the Trial the Publishing Society offered unused copies at $100 a copy and I took advantage of the offer.
These Court Proceedings are in three sections. The first and main section is Proceedings in Equity 1919-1921, Concerning Deed of Trust of January 25th, 1898 Constituting the Christian Science Publishing Society (1-1187); the second, New Bill in Equity, the one the Directors filed against the Trustees in April 1920 (1-130); and third, Supplement to Proceedings in Equity (3-1-194). For reference abbreviation I refer to the first section as Pro. and to the second and third sections, preface the page reference with a 2 or a 3. This large volume has of course a contents page and some indexes, yet they do not make it easy quickly to trace many specific items or subjects.
Fortunately, one does not have to read the entire verbatim testimony of the full Proceedings, to determine whether the publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s books led to and was an issue in the Trial. Certain main documents in the Proceedings fully settle this question. They shorten the review of the essential facts and are the ones I will refer to. These major documents are in effect an epitomy of the testimony, arguments, and rulings. The reading of the entire Proceedings is of course enlightening.
Before going into these Trial documents there is one devious and serious mistake, to which I called Mr. Orcutt’s attention when writing him. This you can instantly verify. In listing some of Mrs. Eddy’s vast achievings, on page 80 Mr. Orcutt states: “Organized The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, Massachusetts, in September 1892.”
In the Historical Sketch of her Mother Church Manual, Mrs. Eddy dates The Mother Church, from April 12th, 1879, upon her drafting of “the Tenets of The Mother Church” (Man. 17:15). She then goes on to characterize her request and the action of twelve of her students in September 1892, as a reorganization of “the Christian Science Church,” and naming it “The First Church of Christ, Scientist.” (Man. 18:12-17). *(Mrs. Eddy here is explicit and clear. This simple mistake though a fundamental misconception perhaps can be more readily re-stated than the misconception and mistakes in the pages 140-142.)
LETTERS BETWEEN THE TWO BOARDS DEFINE CONTROVERSY LEADING TO TRIAL.
Your letter of Dec. 7th last is specific, that you share the beliefs and statements of Mr. Orcutt in these pages.
Mr. Orcutt for example on page 141 states: “When the Trustees under the Will became aware of the extent to which the Board of Trustees was departing from what was considered to be the terms of the contract, they took prompt action to cancel it, but the Chairman and his associates prepared to fight.” He then proceeds to describe the resulting Trial and its decision.
In your letter you write: “The difficulty which arose in the publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s works was only one of a number of conflicting points of view . . . This cancellation of contract for publishing Mrs. Eddy’s works was not the only matter that the Trustees of the Publishing Society went to court about, but simply one of them.”
Now the official full correspondence between the two boards shows this just simply isn’t so, that such statements are without foundation and untrue.
The full correspondence between the two boards leading to the Trial is in the Proceedings, but three major letters between them in the six months preceding the Trial, set forth carefully and completely the controversy and define its issue. These letters make clear that the publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s books had nothing to do with and was not involved in the controversy that led to the Trial.
These three letters can be read in an hour or so. Even without going further into the Proceedings, dealing with the course of the Trial, this full defining by the two boards themselves of what led to the Trial, makes self-evident the necessity of truth to rewrite these pages 140-142, to revise the concept back of them as in your letter.
These three letters are: 1) Sept. 30th, 1918 – Trustees to Directors, in which they state most fully their understanding of the relation of the two boards, as set forth in their 1898 Deed and every Manual direction; 2) The Directors’ answer to this letter, on October 8th, 1918 in which they fully state their opposing view; and 3) only a month away from the Directors’ removal vote of a Trustee, and the filing by the Trustees of their Bill in Equity complaint, the Directors on February 24th, 1919, again at length defined to the Trustees what the controversy was about. These three letters completely define and explain the controversy. They are found respectively in the Proceedings, pages 15-17, 18-19, and 35-36.
All three have but one issue or theme. That is, control of one board by the other, or two equal boards in full cooperation. In the Trustees’ view full spiritua1 cooperation was an absolute necessity, because of complementary duties in the two Deeds along with Mrs. Eddy’s will setting forth the duties of the two boards, and The Mother Church Manual’s spiritual guidance for both, along with all of Mrs. Eddy’s works in guidance for the practice of Christian Science. This full spiritual cooperation is specifically set forth of course in the joint legal requirement in the 1898 Publishing Deed and the 1901 Will of identically stated purpose: “Of more effectually promoting and extending the religion of Christian Science as taught by me (Mrs. Eddy).”
There is even no hint of reference in the full statements of these letters, of the controversy that led to the Trial, relating in any way to the Trustees’ publishing as agents for the Directors as Will Trustees, of Mrs. Eddy’s books. These letters make clear the book publishing was not in the controversy leading to the Trial.
SUBSTANCE OF THE THREE LETTERS.
The closing statements in the September 30th, 1918 letter from the Trustees to the Directors sum up their position as to the controversy: “These two boards, designated and constituted by our Leader, each having its own well defined work, one being the governing board of the Church and its activity and the other the governing board of the Publishing Society and all its publications, must inevitably cooperate at every point. This cooperation, however, can only be accomplished by a right mutual respect for each other’s boards and their respective work. Yet when all is said and done, in spite of the tremendous importance of the letter, still how small is the letter compared to that Spiritthat must inspire everything bequeathed to us by our Leader in the service of God. It is in the unity of this spirit that this letter is written, signed and sent.” (Signed by Trustees Pro. 16-17)
In their answer of October 8, 1918 to this letter from the Trustees, the Directors likewise devote their answer to this issue as the one issue: . . . the statute quoted on page 130 of the Manual and . . . the Deed of Trust based on that statute (1892), and . . . the Church By-laws, . . . clearly confer superior authority on the Christian Science Board of Directors . . . Of necessity there must be a board or body having superior authority in such an institution as that which represents Christian Science. If the Trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society were not subordinate to the Christian Science Board of Directors there would be two boards having equal authority in regard to the same affairs.” (Pro. 18-19)
Three weeks before the Directors voted removal of a Trustee, on St. Patrick’s Day March 17th, 1919, they sent to the Trustees on February 24th, 1919 their final full statement of this issue and their position, and closed this letter with request to the Trustees to sign the following statement: “It is mutually understood by the Christian Science Board of Directors and the Board of Trustees of the C. S. Publishing Society that the former Board, as in relation to the latter Board, has final authority in regard to the editorial policy of the official organs of The Mother Church, and final authority in regard to all matters affecting the policy of The Mother Church or the Cause of Christian Science.” (Pro. 37)
These letters certainly show an issue and a deep and important one. They conclusively demonstrate, however, contrary to these pages 140-142 and the latter in agreement with them, that the Trustees’ publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s works as agents under contract to the Will-Trustees’ Directors, had nothing to do with the controversy leading to the Trial.
NO BOOK PUBLISHING CONTROVERSY BETWEEN DIRECTORS AND TRUSTEES DURING TRIAL.
The next proposition in these pages and your letter is, that controversy between the two boards over the Trustees’ publishing or Mrs. Eddy’s works was an issue during the nearly three year long Trial.
If so, then as in the above letters before the Trial, the full official Court Proceedings must necessarily reflect and substantiate the statements of these pages 140-142. Examination of the full Proceedings, however, as in its record of the pre-Trial letters, shows that this supposed controversy over the publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s works, between the two boards, never at any time entered the Trial.
The direct original hearings ran from June 3rd to August 2nd, 1919, exactly two months. All concerned, Trustees, Directors, the questionable Director Dittemore, were exhaustively examined and cross-examined in the usual court procedure. The “spot1ight” was thrown fully on the affairs and relations of the two boards, with nothing left in the dark or hidden.
The short-cut, as it were, to checking these pages 140-142 is especially to follow the full closing arguments of Counsel for the Directors. Naturally they deal with all the evidence the Directors introduced in controversy during the Trial. These short-cuts include some other documents and also especially the Master’s Report and the full Court’s final decision.
THE DIRECTOR’S CONTROVERSY TRIAL POSITION
April 4th, 1919 – Directors answer to Trustee Bill in Equity (Trustees – Pro. 983-989: Directors – 992- 997). There is no reference in either document to the book publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s works.
September 8th, 1919 – Governor Bates’ Closing Argument for Directors to the Master (Pro. 760-804). In these forty-four large size – small type pages, there was plenty of room to bring in everything. In fact on page 800 the Governor goes into particular complaints as against the Trustees. But there is no reference to the Trustees as violating their publishing contract, or as going contrary “to Mrs. Eddy’s original intentions” or to any dispute as to ending the contract, as stated in these pages 140-142.
September 11th, 1919, Mr. Whipple, in opening his Closing Argument to the Master, urged the Master to inspect personally every phase of the actual publishing work. In fact in the final hearings in January 1922, Trustees’ Counsel again urged this same invitation on the presiding Justice Crosby. Self-evidently, the Trustees felt they had nothing to hide but something to show in the publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s works. This hardly squares with the inference of the book publishing conditions in these pages 140-142. (Pro. 855-856; 3-l75)
January 10th to February 19th, 1920 – thirteen days of hearings by the Master on his tentative draft Report for the Full Bench, with all Counsel of the several parties involved. (Pro. 956). The objections and exceptions taken by the various Counsel is not in the full Proceedings but published separately. The Directors objection to the Master’s finding of fact in his paragraph #50, indicates the Directors’ firm desire for its continuance.
The Directors’ objection was to this statement by the Master: “Their publication (of Mrs. Eddy’s works) forms no part of the business contemplated by the Deed of 1898. The agreed royalties therefrom are paid over by the plaintiffs not according to said Deed, but to the Trustees under said Will as required by the contract.” (Pro. 919)
Pages 140-142 of course assert that the Directors even before the Trial opened were trying to cancel this publishing contract. Yet here in February 1920, Counsel for the Directors object to this finding of fact by the Master: “These defendants object to the statement in paragraph 50, ‘Their publication forms no part of the business contemplated by her Deed of l898.'” (Objections of Defendants’ Dickey, etc., (76a-173), published separately February 27th, 1920). It was the Directors who sought out the Trustees in 1917 to enter into this publishing contract. Their objection here can only indicate desire for its continuance.
March 6th, 1920 – Master’s Report filed. In understanding the Court’s final decision on November 23rd, 1921, it must be clearly kept in mind that the Court upheld in their entirety the Master’s findings of fact, differing with him only in the interpretation of the law applicable to the removal phrase in the Deed, that the removal power of the Directors did not cease with the dissolution of its there co-exerciser, the First Members. (Pro. 905-927)
November 29th, 1920 – Governor Bates’ Closing Argument on behalf of the Directors before the Massachusetts’ Supreme Court (Pro. 1103-1177). Here as in the Closing Argument before the Master in September 1919, Counsel had review of all the evidence of controversy introduced by the Directors. No such controversy between the two boards is referred to.
Thus from June 3rd, 1919, to November 29th, 1920, Counsel for the Directors presented their evidence of controversy and argued out this evidence at greatest length. Nowhere, however, is there any word of this book publishing controversy between the two boards, either as a cause of or involved in the Trial.
DIRECTORS’ OWN DIRECT CHARGES AGAINST TRUSTEES
On two occasions during the Trial period the Directors brought their own Bills of Complaint, as it were, against the Trustees. If these pages 140-142 were well founded and true, certainly in their own direct Bills of Complaint the Directors would have shown some reflection of what these pages assert. Even more if possible than in the Trial proper, they had the same necessity to use every possible charge against the Trustees they felt so deeply compelled to control or oust.
April 12th, 1920 – Directors file own Bill in Equity against Trustees (2-1-4), along with intervening suits by others opposing Trustees (5-130). The Master’s Report filed in March had gone sharply against the Directors, and this was the Directors’ and some other Scientists’ response to that situation. In their own Bill, the Directors are in position to state fully all issues in controversy between the two boards. The Directors, however, refer to no controversy as to the publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s books.
December 14th, 1921 – Directors’ Letters to the two remaining Trustees summoning them with full charges to the Directors’ own removal hearings (3-5-10). The Court’s Decision in November preceding, upheld under certain conditions, the Directors’ legal right of removal under the 1898 Deed. A problem of the Trustees’ resignation then arose. The Directors wanted the resignation, but wanted no simultaneous examination of accounts, with acceptance or the immediate facing of disputed items. Anyone can see what this could have led to. The Trustees appealed to the Court to resign to them with a full accounting.
To try to circumvent the Trustees’ appeal to the Court for resignation and accounting, the Directors set their own hearing for removal. Here the Directors had an absolutely free hand to level any and every charge against the Trustees they felt warranted. Yet there is no slightest word or reflection of the statement in these pages 140-142, and as confirmed in the viewpoint of your letter.
In the official Court Proceedings, before the Trial, during the Trial, in the Master’s Report, and in the final decision, is there to be found any word of controversy as between the two boards in the Publishing Society’s publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s books.
DIRECTORS’ BOOK PUBLISHING CONTROVERSY WITH DITTEMORE.
This is the one book publishing controversy item in the full Proceedings. It is hardly a controversy, more an episode. This episode had nothing to do with the Trustees. It had to do with the Director’s former associate Director, who at the time of this book publishing argument legally was still one of the Directors. About a month after the Trustees filed their Bill in Equity against the Directors, Dittemore in April 1919 got a Court injunction forbidding the Directors ousting him from his church business office, and from in any way infringing upon his rights then before the Court for a decision. Since Mrs. Eddy’s departure, it has been customary to publish yearly in the Manual a list of the Directors and last elected officers. In June, 1919, however , the Directors as Will
Trustees made no request to their publishing agent to reset this Manual fly-leaf page with the then new names. The point was that Dittemore’s name would be replaced with another then serving in his place.
Approaching the next annual meeting, or in the year’s interim, the Directors asked the Trustees to make this fly-leaf change, saying many in the field were questioning about it. The Trustees were willing but advised in view of the injunction Dittemore had obtained against the Directors it would seem advisable if possible to get Dittemore’s acceptance of this change. For some months the Directors tried to get this. Finally, to avoid misunderstanding of their position as agents in this for the Directors, the Trustees decided to wait no longer and made the change the Directors wanted. Learning of this, Dittemore again went into Court, and was able to get a further injunction specifically forbidding this Manual fly-leaf change. Presumably this same thing would have happened no matter whom the publisher of Mrs. Eddy’s books. The Trustees in accord with their contract were anxious to oblige the Directors. The Court forbade that action then. This episode has nothing to do with what is set forth in these pages 140-142. (2-123-127)
HEARINGS FOR TRUSTEES’ RESIGNATION TO COURT AND ACCOUNTING
In January, 1922, Justice Crosby of the Massachusetts’ Supreme Court held the hearings on the Trustees’ appeal to resign directly to the Court with simultaneous financial accounting. In the course of this hearing there were five days of full direct and cross-examination of the two remaining Trustees, the business Manager, and of others on behalf of both boards.
In this full financial accounting, an important phase was the taking over of the Dudley and Hodge Bindery, and of the publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s books, from March 31st, 1919 to November 30th, 1921, virtually the entire period of the Trial. If the statements on pages 140-142 were correct, surely some reflection of them would be found in this careful examination of the book publishing during the entire Trial. There is no word of disorder or failure whatever as to this publishing. (3-60-178)
The day following the conclusion of the hearing on the Trustees’ resignation to the Court and the accounting, on January 20th, 1922, Justice Crosby held a hearing for nominations to the Court for his appointment of the new Trustees. Clifford P. Smith, Counsel for years to the Directors and through the Trial, and then also Manager of the Committee of Publication, prefaced his specific recommendations on behalf of the Directors with a review of the Publishing Society’s activities. Mr. Smith did not begin in his review with the periodicals and the Monitor, and the church and practitioner advertising cards.
Instead he began with the Publishing Society’s publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s works. He advanced no criticism of this publishing under the October, 1917, contract. He makes clear on behalf of the Directors the importance of this book publishing by the Publishing Society (3-179). On this last day of Trial for argument, again is contradiction of the statement of these pages 140-142, that the Directors long had been trying to cancel this publishing contract, even before the start in March 1919 of the litigation controversy. Mr. Orcutt in fact points out it was almost a year after the Court’s Decision that, whatever the reasons, the Trustee-Will Directors cancelled this contract.
To go into some of the evidence in these five days of hearings on the book publishing:
THE BINDERY
The taking over of the Dudley and Hodge Bindery in May 1920, Mr. Orcutt describes and most favorably, in the pages 142-143. From the beginning of her limp leather editions, Mrs. Eddy had entrusted their binding to them, chiefly because of Mr. Hodge. In time he says the binding of Mrs. Eddy’s books had become practically their entire business.
Mr. Hodge, now elderly, decided to retire. Here was a possible crisis facing the Publishing Society in its publishing contract for Mrs. Eddy’s works. Mr. Orcutt quite approves the Trustees’ action in taking over the Bindery. The evidence however shows that the Trustees did this in the face of opposition by the Directors: “. . . the Trustees under the Will rather demurred to our taking over the bindery, and we have hesitated to do anything with it (the then $98,000 plus profits) until the two boards should work in a little bit more harmony . . . The Trustees under the Will opposed our taking the bindery.” (3-111, Jan. 16th, 1922)
It is stated the Publishing Society’s operating profit from the bindery, from May 5th, 1920, to November 30th, 1921, was $98,303.65 (3-96). This is a creditable showing, most important doubtless in assuring continuing efficiency in the binding of Mrs. Eddy’s books, but also the increased assets and revenue for the Publishing Society, the Directors as Trustees under the Will, and as to their Treasurer of The First Church.
It is hardly consonant that the Trustees whom Mr. Orcutt has doing so well on pages 142-143, he has doing so badly on pages 140-141. The facts of the Proceedings of course are with him on his pages 142 – 143 but entirely contrary to his statements on pages 140-141.
Since Mr. Orcutt’s book appeared .this past fall, the Manager of the Bindery from its taking over in May 1920, until the Court’s acceptance on January 20th, 1922 of the Trustees’ resignation, after seeing these pages 140-142, in part has this to say:
“I finally procured a copy of the Orcutt book and can truthfully say that while managing the operations’ end of the Dudley and Hodge Bindery there was no evidence at the plant of the conditions he claimed existed, neither did I sense them . . . I spent two months learning about each step under the watchful eye of Mr. Hodge . . . I recall no instance during the remaining of my two years period there when orders could not be filled as quickly and as often as required. True, there was a leather problem but it did not delay us. Mr. Hodge helped solve it before his departure and it did not arise again . . . Now to get back again to Orcutt’s statements beginning on page 140 – ‘Did not conform’ etc., and ‘Mrs. Eddy’s original intentions’ — it would seem that if conditions were as wrong as stated there would have been some evidence of it at the Bindery. There were none. Nothing but complimentary remarks from Mr. Hodge regarding dealings with (trustees) Board . . . I recall how much the manufacturing routine was lessened in the Publishing House (referring to the periodicals) following the opening of the litigation, but I did not know that the binding of Mrs. Eddy’s works suffered similarly. There was no suggestion of it when I was sent down there nor was there a suggestion of there ever having been during the months preceding my advent.”
In weighing the above statement it should be remembered that this Manager’s tenure began in May, 1920 following the organized “walkout”, in March, 1920, of approximately half of the Publishing Society’s employees. On page 141 Mr. Orcutt describes Mr. Hunt’s participation from Mrs. Eddy’s book publishing department, in this “walkout.” The relation in timing of these events thus makes doubly impressive the above statements of the Manager who took over the Bindery for the Trustees upon Mr. Hodge’s departure.
SALES OF MRS. EDDY’S WORKS DURING THE TRIAL
These pages 140-142 surely imply that copies of Mrs. Eddy’s works, in this period of the Trial, were hindered and lessened in their going forth freely to the public, and fulfilling all demand. Mr. Orcutt does not directly say this, but this is what one would gather from the book publishing disorder he so stresses.
The testimony shows that in March, 1920, at a pre-arranged moment half of the Publishing House employees walked out, 250 out, 250 left. (3-70). That should upset ordinary routine in some way, including doubtless the publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s books. The testimony also shows “that we very largely increased production from some 400 or 500 books a day to 900 and 1000 a day.” (3-82) This testimony also shows “We never paid any attention to night or day, we go all the time.” (3-133).
Now, what are the exact figures of sales of Mrs. Eddy’s works during the Trial period?
From March 31st, 1919 to November 30th, 1921, virtually the entire Trial time, the receipts from the sales of Mrs. Eddy’s works were $2,429,220.04. The net was $1,093,545.30. On this, royalty was paid to the Directors as Trustees under the Will, $851,916.04. This volume of sales on Mrs. Eddy’s books seems most substantial. It hardly fits the “break-down” picture given in these pages 140-142. (3-96-97)
In addition to the over $850,000 Which the Directors as Trustees under the Will, received from this publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s works – the Publishing Society from its own profit in this book publishing further credited the Directors via the Treasurer of The First Church an additional $281,502.16. In fact, from their additional profits from their regular publishing the Trustees credited the Church Treasurer in this Trial period a total of $385,663.05.
This proof and performance of the Trustees’ publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s works is substantial. A mighty stream of these books obviously went forth. The public, the Trustees under the Will, the Publishing Society, and the Church Treasurer, all benefited in the period of the Trial, in the Trustees’ publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s works.
In the hearings in January, 1922, before Justice Crosby, the business Manager and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, both had occasion to declare their conviction in the publishing and sale of Mrs. Eddy’s works: “. . . has it been the policy of the Publishing House to have anything connected with the publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s works the best of its sort? A. Always, in the best taste and in the best way, we know how to put it up . . . and in all our publications; the best form that they can be put out in is none too good for that work.” (3-126) Again: “I think our Leader’s works should be in the finest location and the finest place possible.” (3-141) And again: “I should say that it was very necessary that Mrs. Eddy’s writings be in a place where people could get them and without any difficulty.” (ibid.)
COURT DECISION ON DIRECTORS’ “CONTROL”
The facts of the Massachusetts’ Supreme Court’s November 23rd, 1921 Decision is of first importance to understand, and especially for the Trustees of the 1898 Deed. From the moment this final decision in the Trial controversy was handed down, there was, there has been a continuing misunderstanding and misstatement about it.
Immediately upon the decision, Mr. Clifford P. Smith of the Directors’ Counsel and Manager of the Committees on Publication gave a statement to the press which included this phrase: “. . . the decision of the Supreme Court creating the Board of Directors the unchallenged governing power of the church.” (3-112) What Mr. Smith’s whole statement there shows is, that he took the Court’s final decision as full legal confirmation of the Directors’ basic and essential claim, as so well summarized by the Directors in the February 24th, 1919, statement they had asked the Trustees to sign. (previously quoted, Pro. 37)
Mr. Orcutt says: “the lawsuit was finally settled in favor of the Christian Science Board of Directors in November 1921 . . . the emphasis the legal decision placed upon Mrs. Eddy’s extraordinary foresight in plans for the distant future which were so fundamentally sound that here they withstood bitter legal attack.” (141-142) Obviously here, Mr. Orcutt has gone beyond his printing experience story. With the background of his pages on the Trial, however, he implies the kind of sweeping decision for the Directors that they embodied in their letters to the Trustees, as fully exemplified in their letters previously referred to of October 8th, 1918, and February 24th, 1919. (Pro.. 18-19, 35-37)
Your letter of December 7th, Mr. Rowell, states this more clearly to the point: . . . “the final decision of the Supreme Court of the State of Massachusetts upheld the Directors’ interpretation of the Manual of The Mother Church as vesting the over-all directing and governing power of the Christian Science movement, including The Christian Science Publishing Society, in the office of the Directors of The Mother Church, thus repudiating opposing claims advanced by the then Trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society.”
Well, did the Court in its Decision do this?
WHAT THE DECISION RULES
The Court certainly and definitely ruled — though courts in time have reversed themselves — that the Trustees under various legal conditions could be removed by the Directors. This removal Decision is not, however, based on any legal authority of the By-laws as such, or on the Directors’ interpretation of the Church Manual By-laws. It is based on the Court’s application of the law, contrary to the Master’s application of the law, to the phrase in the 1898 Deed, that legally established a joint power of removal by the Directors and the First Members. This entire Decision runs to the one basic issue, that legally from the Court’s point of view, because of the law and not legally because of the By-laws, this power of removal by the Directors survived to them after the dissolution of the First Members.
Beyond this ruling on removal, based on the law and not on the By-laws, were the further rulings in this Decision in favor of or against the Directors’ Trial contentions and arguments? The facts show the Court ruled against the Directors.
Whether one starts with the Directors’ original statement as the Dittemore memorandum in February 1916, of their controversy in the Trial, or more to the point and simply, takes the short February 24th, 1919, statement the Directors asked the Trustees to sign, the epitomy of their position may be stated as, “the Directors control the Trustees in all their duties and functioning, and in fact control all that pertains to the Cause and practice of Christian Science.”
The Court rejected this view, ruled the opposite as to the Trustees, and made no ruling about control of all pertaining to Christian Science. The important fact to remember in this Decision is that the Court rejects the Master’s Report only in his interpretations of’ the law as to the joint removal phrase in the 1898 Deed. The Court in its Decision positively accepts and affirms all of the facts found by the Master.
The Decision says: “The conclusion that the power or removal of a Trustee is now vested in the Board of five Directors is contrary to that of the Master, but it is in substance and effect the application of different principles to the facts found by the Master. The facts found by him are accepted in their entirety.” (Pro. 1175)
In the decree entering the Decision and dissolving the Trustees’ injunction or 1919 against the Directors, Justice Crosby specifically confirmed the Court’s confirmation of the entire findings of fact by the Master:
“2. That the defendant’s exceptions to the Master’s Report so far as they relate to rulings that the defendant Directors had no power to remove a Trustee under the Deed of January 25th, 1898, and that the removal of Mr. Rowlands was ineffectual, be and the same are hereby sustained.”
“3. That otherwise the Master’s Report, except the paragraphs thereof relating to the Dittemore-Knott controversy, be and the same is hereby confirmed”. (3-31-4)
The question then is, what finding of fact did the Master make as to this supposed “control” by the Directors, that would not only subordinate the Trustees to the Directors, but all that pertains to the “Cause of Christian Science”? And so the control of all Christian Scientists in the practice of Christian Science, as the Directors so perfectly state this proposition February 24th, 1919, to the Trustees to sign.
MASTER’S FINDING OF FACT ON “SUBORDINATION”
The Master’s most specific finding as to the Trustees’ subordination to the Directors is to be found in his #52 so-called paragraph: “52. Close alliance and complete accord between the Board of Directors, controlling the church as it has since 1901, and the Publishing Society Trustees, are obviously necessary to the success either of the church or of said Trustees in that part of the work of promoting and extending Mrs. Eddy’s doctrines for which each body was established and now exists.
“Without the Publishing Society’s activities, the church would want adequate means of ready access to the widely dispersed believers in its teachings beyond its immediate congregation or membership, or to the general public among which it seeks to spread its teachings.
Without the church’s support and alliance, the literature issued by the Publishing Society would lose that character which recommends it to the great body of its readers.
“But that the necessary co-operation between the above two directing bodies is impossible unless the Publishing Society Trustees are subjected to the supervision and final authority of the Directors, does not so plainly appear as to require the conclusion that Mrs. Eddy must have intended such subjection when she established the trust. Had she then intended it, there would have been provision in the Deed of 1898, establishing it in express and unmistakable terms; it is hardly supposable that, instead of such provisions, the deed should have made the Trustees subject only to her supervision, as it does in par. 3. Neither in the terms of the deed, nor in the subsequent By-laws, do I find anything which makes it unreasonable to suppose that she apprehended no such danger of dissension between two Boards, both composed of firm, loyal and consistent believers in her doctrines, as would require the express subordination of one to the other, in order to secure the necessary co-operation between them.” (Pro. 919)
This paragraph #3 in the 1898 Deed the Master refers to in his last sub-paragraph above of #52, is, of course, as follows:
“3. Said trustees shall energetically and judiciously manage the business of the Publishing Society on a strictly Christian basis, and upon their own responsibility, and without consulting me about details, subject only to my supervision, if I shall at any time elect to advise or direct them.”
The Massachusetts’ Supreme Court in the embodiment of all of the Master’s findings of fact in its Decision, thus rules that the Trustees are not subordinate to the Directors; rather, that mutual and full cooperation between them, as equals, each with the specific duties for which each was founded, and with no interference of one board by the other, is indispensable to the success of their Trusteeships.
JUSTICE CROSBY’S JAN. 1922 INTERPRETATION
AND FURTHER RULING ON DIRECTORS’ “CONTROL”
In the January 1922 hearings for the Trustees’ resignation and accounting to the Court, Counsel for the Directors, trying to speed the conclusion of the hearing proposed to Justice Crosby that the Directors themselves operate the Publishing Society Trust, until the Justice appointed the new Trustees.
“Mr. Bates . . . These Directors have the power and this loyal Church that stands behind them will give them the means to carry on this Trust in the way in which Mrs. Eddy, their great Leader, contemplated. This Court has said they have authority . . . , by all implication of language they have the right to do this in the interim that prevails until your Honor can decide this single question of good faith. I ask your Honor —
“THE COURT. Do you understand that the decision held that the Directors had all the powers that the Trustees had under this Deed of 1898?
“MR. BATES. The decision said that the Directors were the final arbiters, and not the Trustees. The decision said, in words which I do not quote exactly, but in effect, that they had a supervisory power. Having that power, and having a power of the appointment of editor and business manager, I submit to your Honor that there is no reason why they (Directors) cannot go on and carry on this Trust, not only without loss but to its great benefit, and there is no interim, there is no harm to come . . . there is ample provision for the carrying on of this Trust by these Directors, upon whom this responsibility is placed by the Supreme Court as well as by the Trustees and by the Church Manual.
“THE COURT. Do you understand that there is anything in that decision which authorizes the Directors to take the place of the Trustees and act as Trustees under the Deed of 1898?
“MR. BATES. I understand that there is sufficient there in the matter, in the statement that they are the final arbiters of all these questions of publications, to show that they would have the right to carry this Trust on in such an interim . . .
“THE COURT. Well, I want to get back to that Deed again. I do not understand that there is anything in the decision of the Court which authorizes the statement that the Directors take the place in any sense of the Trustees. No contention was made in the other case that it was not necessary for the Trustees, either the Trustees then appointed or some other Trustees, to carry out the terms of that Deed. I do not think it was contended by either the Directors or the Trustees that the duties which arise under that Deed were not wholly apart from the duties of the Directors. What the case in effect said was that under the circumstances, in view of everything that had happened, in view of the Court’s interpretation of the Deed in connection with the Manual, the Directors had a power to remove the Trustees.
“Mr. BATES. Yes, your Honor.
“THE COURT. But it did not in any sense try to intimate that when those Trustees were removed that the Trust created by the Deed should not be carried on by other Trustees, acting under the Deed . . . So I do not understand. This contention which you make now today is a contention that so far as I know has never been made in the other case. The case was before the full court and decided by the full court. The contention was never made that the Directors had the same power to carry out this Trust as the Trustees had.” (3-40-41)
Earlier in this January 1922 hearing in discussion with Counsel for the Trustees, Justice Crosby further interpreted or defined the Directors’ removal authority:
“THE COURT. Do you concede aside from the proceedings which are pending, that the Directors would have the power to remove these Trustees without any cause whatever?
“MR. WHIPPLE. I do not so understand under the decision of the Supreme Court. I understand that the Court has pointed out in its recent opinion how they should proceed, that they should give a hearing. If they have a right to do that, for any cause whatever, there would be no need of giving a hearing, because a hearing implies a judicial determination of a fact. That is, the Supreme Court hasn’t said, whatever it may have said about that part of it, that they could remove the Trustees appointed under this Deed of Trust without a hearing, and a hearing means the kind of a hearing that is implied under such circumstances.
“THE COURT. I did not mean to interrupt you.
“MR. WHIPPLE. The Court even has indicated the very broad power on the part of the Directors for removal, and the exercise of a very broad power and discretion, but not the power to remove merely for prejudice or personal hostility or for some whimsical or ulterior purpose not connected with the good of the Trust. In other words they are given broad powers as to the determination of causes which affect the administration of the Trust, but I do not understand that they have said that the same rule which has always guided the Court with regard to these matters has been abrogated, namely, that there should be a real hearing and a real judicial determination of some fact.
“THE COURT. The Court did hold that the removal of Rowlands, if that is the name of the man who was attempted to be removed — that the Directors did have power to remove him after hearing.
“MR WHIPPLE. Quite right.
“THE COURT. I assume that acting reasonably, they would have the power to remove a Trustee?
“MR. WHIPPLE. No question about it.” (3-12~13)
In his hearing on January 20th, 1922, the last and final day of argument in this long Trial, Justice Crosby received recommendations from all the parties in the Trial for new Trustees he was to appoint. At the close of this day’s hearing Justice Crosby further ruled or defined, “As to what the respective duties of the Directors and the Trustees are, and that “Neither has the right to infringe upon the duties of the other. But it is very essential that they should act together, that they should not be engaged in controversy.”
“There ought not be any misapprehension, in view of the decision of the Court in a recent case, as to what the respective duties of the Directors and the Trustees are. The Trustees to be appointed are officers who are appointed under and by virtue of the terms of a legal instrument. I speak of a legal instrument as wholly disassociated from what might be called a religious or ecclesiastical document. This Deed of January 25th, 1898, is a Deed governed by the principles of law which govern the construction of trust instruments. The duties of the Trustees are defined by that Deed, and they are called upon to perform their duties in accordance with the Deed. That should not be forgotten by anybody. And if they do not perform their duties in accordance with that Deed, they are subject to removal by the Court.
“In performance of their duties they are obliged to act more or less in concert with the Directors in the carrying on of this Church organization; and with the Directors and the Trustees coming in close contact with each other it is of supreme importance that the persons to be appointed Trustees should be men who, when they are appointed at least ought not to be hostile to the Directors. They ought to be men who, in the first instance, are capable and qualified to perform their duties. In the next place, they ought to be men who at the same time are willing to work in harmony with the Directors in the proper conduct of this great church.
“Now, the Directors have certain functions and certain duties as officers of this organization to perform. The Trustees have the duties which are imposed on them by the Trust. Neither has the right to infringe upon the duties of the other. But it is very essential that they should act together, that they should not be engaged in controversy . . . .
“I shall endeavor in the selection of Trustees to select men who are disinterested as far as I can, and capable, and they should be men who are not only good
Christian Scientists, but some of them at least ought to be good business men and competent to carry on an enterprise which involves the expenditure of eight or ten millions of dollars a year or more. It needs a man of some business ability to carry on that part of it. And at the same time I do not overlook the character of the men, the kind of men whom Mrs. Eddy thought originally should be appointed.” (3-189-190)
RELATION OF DECISION TO THE TWO POSITIONS
That can safely be said about the Court’s 1921 Decision is, that the Court did affirm the legal right of the Directors, under certain conditions, to remove a Trustee. On the surface, power of removal would seem to confer a large control of one board by the other. As shown above at length however, the Court goes on to rule against such control. The Trustees operate under this 1898 Deed and must fully carry out its terms, with no interference from the other board, and the necessity upon both is constantly to cooperate. The Deed, specifically confirmed by the Manual, makes the Trustees solely responsible, unless the Court itself has occasion to do so, to fill any vacancies in the Trust. As Charitable Trusts, Mrs. Eddy founded both boards ever to be within the purview of the Massachusetts’ Supreme Court, ever subject to its legal balance and final supervision in equity. Members of either board, and at least Christian Scientists in general, have the right to petition this Court for an accounting, financial and otherwise, of both of these Trusts. (2-90)
When this Decision of the Court ending the Trial is properly read, both its direct statements and its inclusion of the entire finding of facts by the Master, along with Justice Crosby’s interpretation and rulings on the Decision, an accurate comparison can then be made, of the relation of the Decision to the each well defined positions of the two boards.
Careful reading of the Trustees’ letter of Sept. 30th, 1918 to the Directors, apart from the question of legal power of removal, shows that the Decision confirms the Trustees essential position. Again, to repeat, both boards operate under distinct legal instruments, with separate and well defined duties, neither to interfere with the other, but with full and complete spiritual cooperation at all times necessary. Most specifically, the Trustees operate under the 1898 Deed, and they must fulfill its every provision and direction or be subject to removal by the Court. That the Trustees’ Sept. 30th, 1918, letter is in full accord with this basic concept is undeniable.
The essential position of the Directors, that they control the Trustees of The Publishing Society, and in fact of all pertaining to the Cause so of the practice of Christian Science, does not accord with the Court’s Decision ending this Trial. The position of the Directors went far beyond the Court’s interpretation of the removal clause in the 1898 Deed. They claimed the Manual was also a source to them of legal authority, that where they found its clauses in conflict with provisions in the 1898 Deed, the Manual’s legal authority overruled what they considered conflicting statements in the Trustees’ governing Deed. The Court ruled contrary to any treating of the Manual as a legal document, and defines their Trust and their duties, and must fully carry out the requirements of its terms.
When this Decision in its fulness is put side by side with the full defining letters between the two boards before the Trial, and then their each consistent Trial arguments, only one deduction is possible. The Directors were given their legal point of removal though not on the grounds they largely claimed; the Trustees were upheld in the otherwise broad grounds of their position, and for which they went to the Court for its legal ruling as to their duties under their Deed. A brief reflection on the statements so often made as to this Decision, as in pages 140-142 and your December 7th letter, makes evident the need for readjustments of views and restatements of fact.
The wondrous achieving of our American government in its unique system of “checks and balances,” is the full flowering of political science. It seems to me, Mrs. Eddy in her divine founding of Christian Science even more uniquely has achieved her “checks and balances,” for the wholly spiritual practice of Christian Science. Her two property owning Trusts legally are perfectly balanced, free from interference, yet by inherent position compelled spiritually to cooperate. Her churches of Christ, Scientist, are absolutely self-governing, with no outside interference from other churches or individuals permitted by the Church Manual, (55, 70, 74), yet entirely free for spiritual cooperation with the two boards. Finally, and most importantly to the Cause and progress of Christian Science, in the fundamental of Mrs. Eddy’s founded one teaching of its divine Principle: “The Christian Scientist is alone with his own being and the reality of things.” (Mess. ’01: 20)
Statements about the Massachusetts’ Supreme Court’s 1921 Decision, both in direct wording and in implications, should conform to the facts of the Decision. Each Christian Scientist is certainly free as to his own interpretation, belief, or conviction as to the place and authority of the Christian Science Board of Directors, and of the Board of Trustees, in Mrs. Eddy’s founding. He is hardly free however to attribute to this Court and its Decision as statements of fact what is not in and true of that Decision.
Individual convictions of Christian Scientists are the right of each, but if differing with this Decision, must not be attributed to it.
NO BOOK CONTROVERSY REFLECTED IN FIELD RESOLUTIONS
The “feelings aroused in the field by the controversy then pending” (3-33), led to meetings and resolutions from field groups. The Proceedings show these were largely instigated from Boston, through the activities initially of a secretary of the Manager of the Committees of Publications, who was also Counsel to the Directors in the Trial. (2-20-114)
Even if these field resolutions did raise the issue or complaint of the Trustees’ publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s books, they would still not make that issue a part of the Trial, as pages 140-142 and your letter assert. These resolutions, such as are found in the Proceedings, make no reference to a book publishing controversy. They list grievances at length but nothing as to this. Certainly the proper and finest kind of publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s books is of primary concern to Christian Scientists. It is not a subject they would be inattentive to. The fact they do not raise this supposed issue is a positive negative argument against there having been such an issue against the Trustees, thus further confirming what the Proceedings fully demonstrate as to the fact.
The main field resolutions came from the three large across the country cities, San Francisco for Northern California churches, Chicago for Illinois’ churches, and New York City which if I recall gradually accumulated money and a following from all over. Apparently none of the New York Committee was in Boston at the time the “Harney” matter and these resolutions, etc., were taken up. People involved in the Chicago and San Francisco resolution Committees were there, and so their resolutions are in the Proceedings.
The resolutions of some “Churches of Christ, Scientist, and Christian Science Societies in the State of Illinois,” meeting in First Church in Chicago, on April 2nd, 1920 — shortly following the 50% “walk-out” from the founded publishing of both Mrs. Eddy’s periodicals and books — you find in 2-37-38. You will note that both its third and its seventh WHEREAS exactly state the Directors’ basic position of “control.” You will see further, that these “WHEREASES” go fully into the publishing of the periodicals, to cancel subscriptions, etc., but specifically exempt from this “boycott” Mrs. Eddy’s books, direct and pertaining to her. Here they are conscious of all this book publishing, but with no complaint, rather to support this in purchase.
The Northern Ca1ifornia meeting was held February 14th, 1920, just after the Master’s hearing with all Counsel on his about completed Report to the Court, filed March 6th, 1920. It was held in fact across the Bay from San Francisco, the home of its main sponsor, in Oakland. You find it 20-80-81. There is nothing on the book publishing.
“did not conform . . . to Mrs. Eddy’s original intentions.”
In his opening paragraph on page 140, Mr. Orcutt concludes with the statement that the Trustees had publishing plans for Mrs. Eddy’s books, which not only did not conform “to the desire or expectation of the Trustees under the Will,” but “to Mrs. Eddy’ s original intentions.”
When I first wrote Mr. Orcutt I especially asked him what he meant by that, and explained by why such a thing seemed inconceivable. In his reply he made no reference to it. Christian Scientists as is natural have had some differing points of view, the controversy of the Trial illustrating this. But in the publishing of our Leader’s works, all Christian Scientists are certainly unanimous in the one point, of an only the best and finest in this book publishing, in their printing, in their binding, and in their sale. Any controversy as to this is utterly inconceivable.
From the final hearings in January, 1922, I have previously quoted the testimony as to the point of view and standard in their book publishing of the then business Manager and then Chairman of the Board. In 1905 this then Chairman wrote Mrs. Eddy a letter that stated his thought about the sale and demonstration of SCIENCE AND HEALTH and all of Mrs. Eddy’s works. Mrs. Eddy answered with a letter of important prophecy. Her answering letter, altered a bit from its original, is in My. 197. The Volume VIII of the Christian Science Sentinel in December 1905, pages 265-266 you will find these two letters, and quite revealing as to this then Chairman’s quality of thought about Mrs. Eddy’s books.
The format, style, and quality of Mrs. Eddy’s books had of course long been established, and any change of any importance, again, would seem absurd. Because Mr. Orcutt was Mrs. Eddy’s “right-hand” printer for the twenty years from 1890 to 1910, I feel such language is especially unfortunate, and warrants most careful checking.
1. ORCUTT’S POSITION IN LETTER
In his reply to my original letter, and a further one he asked me with some suggestions of what I felt he might say. Mr. Orcutt replied that he felt he would stand on the pages as they are, because: “I have not entered into the merits of the case at all (the Massachusetts’ Supreme Court settled that) but have simply recorded historically the effect on the production of Mrs. Eddy’s books . . . you have expressed a high estimate of the story as a whole.”
That I have expressed, indeed, in fact to both of you. Yet we all know the rule laid down by St. James, and which Mrs. Eddy uses in her wonderful statement in her chapter, “Foundation Work,” Ret. 31: 13-21. If Mr. Orcutt in these pages did what in his letter he says he has done, namely, “recorded historically the effect on the production of Mrs. Eddy’s books” by the controversy, that would surely be proper and in order. He would of course have to be certain of his facts, and especially also not to exaggerate or distort them; for the important substance involved is whether the public demand for Mrs. Eddy’s works was at all times adequately met. The implication to the reader, again, is almost certain to be, that the all important and absolutely vital task at all times of making Mrs. Eddy’s books fully available to the public had been interfered with.
These pages 140-42, however, do not “record historically the effect on the production of Mrs. Eddy’s books.” It is not a historical fact that the controversy between the two boards over the publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s books led to the Trial. It is not a historical fact that controversy over this book publishing entered into or was a part of this Trial. It is not a historical fact that the Directors tried to get the Trustees to cancel this contract, either before or during the Trial. Finally, the language used in characterizing the Court’s Decision ending the Trial, as a historical fact requires some revision.
These “historical facts” of whatever effect the controversy may have had on the publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s books, if there are such of any importance in the steady flow of the books, surely can be simply stated , There certainly was a controversy, a great and deep one, of nearly three years’ duration. Feelings were aroused in the field, leading to large cancellations of periodical subscriptions, churches’ and practitioners’ cards, Monitor advertising, perhaps some field interference with the sale of Mrs. Eddy’s books. In March 1920 there was an organized “walk-out” of half the Publishing House’s employees. Mr. Orcutt refers to this wholesale “plot” to stop the publishing work as, “in March 1920, Mr. Hunt and several of his associates left.” (141)
If in this desertion of employees, there was any disorder worth recording, the source of it is thus correctly stated: “It may well be said that the injury (referring to the periodicals) was a result of feelings aroused in the field by the controversy then pending.” (3–33). In the weighing of’ any such facts, the statements previously quoted from the then Manager of the Dudley and Hodge Bindery should be carefully noted. The Massachusetts’ Supreme Court Decision can be simply and correctly stated: The Court decided in favor of the Directors as having legal power of removal of a Trustee, although the Trustees are fully bound to “perform their duties in accordance with that Deed,” thus ending the Trial and the Court appointing the new Trustees. There can be no objection if facts only — historical facts — are adhered to, with no distortion by implication or otherwise.
As previously explained, my purpose in this has been not controversial but cooperative in the spirit of our teaching: “There is a sharp difference between harmful and constructive criticism . . . let us keep our eyes on the issues and work for the things we believe in. (The President last month, State of the Union Address.)
During the course of the Trial, along with the printing the Court Proceedings in full in the Monitor and in a usable size for the Court and all Counsel, from time to time the Publishing Society issued a few pamphlet reprints of some of it. The full Proceedings of course is the only source to check the facts this “memo-analysis” letter points to. You may however find these three pamphlets I am enclosing handy for reference. One is a neat little reprint of your 1898 Deed; another is the Master’s Report, the bulk of which is officially embraced in the final Decision; and the third gives the Decision of the Full Bench, also the final remarks of Justice Crosby January 20th, 1922, from which I have quoted, and the important September 30th, 1918, letter from the Trustees to the Directors.
My opinion as such, of the facts involved in the statements of these pages 140-142 is of course of no moment. The truth and the facts are however of greatest importance to the Trustees in what they send forth in their books, not only in discharge of their sacred Trust Deed but in the Church Manual’s spiritual guidance such as Article VIII, Section 1 which Mrs. Eddy requires to be read every month in the churches, or as in 44: 2-4.
In the record of the official Proceedings there is no warrant for condemnation by way of misstatement of facts of the then Trustees of the Publishing Society, and I know you agree, how important it is, for the now Trustees to be correct and right in what they send forth.
Very sincerely yours,
Joseph E. Johnston
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15 November 1956
Dear Mr. Eustace:
Beasley’s 2nd C. S. Book
THE CONTINUING SPIRIT – –
The Story of Christian Science Since 1910.
A week ago Nov. 8, I got 3 copies of this book, Friday, sending you one and also to —– as I had earlier promised. Copies for review were sent out about Nov. l, and the publication date is supposed to be Nov. 27.
Over this past week-end I made a cursory run through, roughly to get its direction and argument. It takes off exactly from what he tries to establish in his Cross and Crown covering the 45 years of the Discovery and Founding. There his point you recall is, that Mrs. Eddy crowned the cross of her work with material church organization control. She set up to crown her Founding, Beasley there tries to show, a “Mother Church” Board of Directors with full control of all her established activities and churches and all practice of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy thus assuring the protection of the teaching of her copyrighted Word and its spiritual purity in practice, and I think in the large his belief that this Director-controlled church organization necessary to keep Christian Science from disappearing after Mrs. Eddy’s departure.
- With this belief-premise of Directors’ full control of all pertaining to Christian Science, though he had of course developed this proposition in his Cross and Crown, since now he is going to erect his whole superstructure of its history since 1910 on this premise, Beasley saw he must first go as fully as he could into establishing this “control”.
He rests his whole analysis as of course he would have to, on turning the Manual into a human law legal document on a par and with the same effect as any legal court document of human law. The real tool used for this is precisely what the Directors did and increasingly continued to do, from the time of the Court’s Nov. 1921 decision, namely, falsely misrepresenting that decision as the Court there affirming the Manual is human law and has the affect of human legal force. The truth is, in this decision and allied statements, the Court positively declares the opposite, that the Manual By-laws as such has no legal validity by which it can touch or modify the 1898 Deed of Trust. The Court affirms of course which was not at issue that Mrs. Eddy is the author of all the By-laws. Every Christian Scientist knew and fully affirmed this. More importantly, the Court does cite By-laws as evidence of a meeting of minds and agreements arrived at between Mrs. Eddy and members of the two Boards. The legal point, legal fact involved, is any agreements arrived at, a “meeting of the minds” as contract evidence. The Manual offers some of that evidence, but directly and of itself has no legal force as such, as such could not change one thing in either of Mrs. Eddy’s two Deed of Trust Boards. This may seem a fine point but it is a simple one, very clear, easy to grasp. The Directors of course made this claim in the struggle with you before the Trial and through the Trial; but the Court wholly rejects that belief and argument. It may seem strange the Directors since 1921 and then a bright chap like Beasley could digest those documents and so fly in the face of what on this vital status of the Manual the Court rightly declares! It only illustrates what fixed beliefs and their blindness in preconceptions will do to the normal run of intelligence and the obvious.
The Court turns its whole 1921 decision, legally, on its interpretation of the human law applicable to one phase in the 1898 Deed of Trust. That is the power of removal by the Directors and the First Members. Charles Evans Hughes held the law did not permit a such co-power to run or continue to just one of the two parties, and that if as was the case one party had ceased to exist, so did that power by the Directors legally to remove also cease. Hughes is acknowledged our greatest constitutional and legal mind of that era; but the Court held the law on this was otherwise, that in view of all concerned having agreed with Mrs. Eddy to her dissolving of the First (then Executive) members, the human law applicable in the Court’s opinion, the opposite to that of Mr. Hughes, legally let this power of removal (under the restrictions on it the Court laid down) run on singly to the Directors. The Manual did not establish this legal power of removal, in itself had no bearing on the ’98 Deed; but the human law under the facts as the Court had found them of which some Manual statements were confirming evidence, enabled the Court to rule this removal power originally running to both legally continued to run to the Directors alone.
The Court really showed how embarrassed to a degree it was to give that decision, the remarks particularly Jan. 22 when you were being relieved of your Trust bringing this out; and it seemed clear at that time, the Court found this legal ruling way out to save the Publishing Society Trust from being destroyed by Christian Scientists themselves. But Mrs. Eddy having made this Trust irrevocable and underscored was no legal help to the Court in that ruling of law as it said different from the Masters; and this decision always has seemed to me well in line, when Scientists give up this belief of Directors’ control, for the ’98 Trust to enjoy all freedom a Court impartial to both Boards would assure to it.
You will see how Beasley fully swallows this false interpretation claiming the Court gives the Manual human legal validity, for of course the Directors have never wanted to face the fact of the Manual as spiritual direction and spiritual guidance, hence legal precedence waiving clauses of one no longer here to comply are irrelevant. If we accept the Manual as spiritual guidance, then these do not clauses as you so well point it, are a positive command for obedience to bring forth the spirituality they will lead the mortal to. Beasley also drags in two other chestnuts, “the acknowledged as law by law”, and the Rathvon story trying to slip over in an oily way, that Mrs. Eddy confirmed to her lawyer-cousin Baker, that she understood with him the human law would after her goodbye automatically waive these estoppel clauses as they have come to be called, (142-144). The Directors finally put this in their 1954 PERMANENCY ed. Just note Baker does not say Mrs. Eddy had said or agreed to this legal waiving; Baker simply gives it as his legal opinion, even as the Directors’ lawyers from 1910 immediately gave and continued to give.
Rathvon is always oily and slippery like this, and always a wholly material sense. The Jan. 1911 Journal right after Mrs. Eddy is his article THE MOTHER CHURCH, a strictly a material sense of it, and I imagine the Directors had him write it, to help in their own at once legally taken position on the Manual. You will recall he was made a Director in the fall of 1918 as the Directors’ efforts to get your agreement to their control were coming to a head; and in Feb. ’19 Rathvon took over for Smith, under the oily guise of being a “pacifier”, sure that all could sign his short one par. statement between the two Boards. This statement an 8th grade school youngster could see was this same old “agree to the Directors’ control of the Trustees”.
Beasley also uses two other statements both inverted by his control premise. He quotes Mrs. Eddy’s 1903 letter to the Directors as she was approaching her no longer Mother but Leader period, insisting they must never abandon the denominational church government of the Manual. To obey here means precisely not to abandon and erase all these repeated clauses any more than any other statements in the Manual! He also quotes from Dickey’s MEMOIRS OF MBE., where she says God has directed her to write her By-laws exactly as she had written them, and now the church must obey them. It is clear here Mrs. Eddy was referring to these estoppels, and I have always imagined the Directors made the frantic effort to get all copies back out of public hands, partly because of this very passage where Mrs. Eddy so emphatically demand s obedience.
- Beasley swallows the Orcutt stuff, where Orcutt 1st swallows the contention the Directors made in 1920 when they wanted to get out of your hands the publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s Books the Directors had so pressed in Oct. 1917 for you to take over, — so of course you would lose that revenue now so important in all the periodical boycotting. They charged but I don’t recall took it to court, that you were refusing to carry on that work as or in the way Mrs. Eddy long before had established it. What happened of course Hunt who had been the Directors’ Agent before getting you to take over, was trying to play against you his new employer with them, and doubtless too you found a need for more efficient methods. Beasley goes on reflecting the further Orcutt charges not making a case but asserting what a low ebb you brought the publishing of Mrs. Eddy’s books to. You still have I believe that 17 page analysis I made from the Trial book showing what nonsense, and I think just as applicable to these slanderous assertions of Beasley. Later I shall look more carefully into what Beasley does say on this, and check more carefully his book in general.
- Beasley makes quite a number of good simple positive statements of what Mrs. Eddy has given the world as Christian Science; but he nowhere in either book shows any least sense of its revelation and spiritual light on evil, of how to handle and destroy it. Here all the way through the Founding and since, has been the great ignorance and stumbling block. This ignorance runs hand in hand with ignorance of what Mrs. Eddy did all the way and in her final directions on material church organization concessions. His 1st volume dug up some excellent material on Mrs. Eddy’s dissolving of organization concession, yet he missed the whole point, again illustrating how a false belief and premise so hides the self-evident and obvious.
He may not have much valuable data in this 2nd book from Mrs. Eddy; but I see he makes that ridiculous mistake of quoting the statement Mrs. Eddy pub. in Nov.1891 in the 1st ed. of Ret.: “this spiritually organized Church . . . still goes on.” (44-5), as applying to the reorganization made in Sept.-Oct. 1892! He also uses Dickey’s Dec. 1, 1923 Sentinel article where I think this quote is used, and where Dickey argues that it was on this reorganization Mrs. Eddy made this thing of sense the wholly spiritual church. Such rubbish. It was only a partial reconcession, and Mrs. Eddy dissolved it all before she left and with these very estoppels, making The Mother Church what it always really was, the wholly spiritual bond in this one spiritual understanding.
Beasley also adopts as his own this old wheeze, that this control is wholly spiritual because the Directors are but applying the By-laws, so the government is really by these spiritual By-laws. Now any person not on the point completely hyped, knows that any mortal enforcing any written word perforce is enforcing his sense and interpretation of it. For example, our Constitution and our Supreme Court! You always of course brought that fully out before and during the Trial. You would think a chap as bright as Beasley just couldn’t be taken in with such evident absurdity. Not only is the sense of the Word involved, but also and importantly so in any human control, the sense and judgment of what with another it is being applied to. All just as absurd as saying at one point the By-laws are human legality, at another claiming some kind of pure spiritual force for them.
- I did not feel in his 1st book basically his order is very clear; and perhaps more so in his 2nd. He constantly returns to the earlier Founding period, in itself indicating he did not in his 1st do a very complete job. A lot of it deals with the material activities the Directors have developed, some of which perhaps may have had some value in the general world thought.
Under 3 above I meant to add that Hunt is given a good boost and in deprecation of the Trustees; the Dudley and Hodge Bindery purchase is praised but one would never guess you did it, the inference I suppose is re Hunt. (276-277)
This is long enough and for my basic sense of this 2nd book; doubtless later I will round up some other items of interest. I hope he may have dug up some useful material for me, but negative statement of course helps to point up and clarify the real positive.
I am writing you further tomorrow. ……. flew to Chicago last eve and is returning tonight or tomorrow. Our ever united best.
Joseph E. Johnston
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