During the late 1930s and the 1940s, Jehovah's Witnesses attacked the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian denominations so vigorously that many states and municipalities passed laws against their inflammatory preaching.[8]
Pledge of Allegiance
In 1935, Rutherford proscribed flag salutes, stating them to be a form of idolatry "contrary to the Word of God."[10] This stance drew mob violence against Witnesses[clarification needed] and many children of Witnesses were expelled from public schools. The Witnesses' apparent lack of patriotism angered local authorities, the American Legion, and others, resulting in vigilante violence during World War II. Men, women and children were injured and in some cases killed in mob attacks.[citation needed]
In 1940, the case of Minersville School District v. Gobitis received publicity in a lower federal court. The US Supreme Court ruled in an 8–1 decision that a school district's interest in creating national unity was sufficient to allow them to require that students salute the flag. After the court's decision in the Gobitis case, a new wave of persecution of Witnesses began across the nation. Lillian Gobitas later characterized the violence as "open season on Jehovah's Witnesses." The American Civil Liberties Union recorded 1,488 attacks on Witnesses in over 300 communities between May and October 1940. Angry mobs assaulted Witnesses, destroyed their property, boycotted their businesses and vandalized their places of worship. Less than a week after the court decision, a Kingdom Hall in Kennebunk, Maine was burnt down.[citation needed]
American Legion posts harassed Witnesses nationwide. At Klamath Falls, Oregon, members of the American Legion harassed Witnesses assembled for worship with requests to salute the flag and buy war bonds. They then attacked the Witnesses and besieged the meeting place, breaking windows, throwing in stink bombs, ammonia and burning kerosene rags. The Witnesses' cars were disabled and many were overturned. The governor was compelled to call the state militia to disperse the mob, which reached 1,000 at its peak.[11] In Texas, Witness missionaries were chased and beaten by vigilantes, and their literature was confiscated or burned.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt appealed publicly for calm, and newspaper editorials and the American legal community[who?] condemned the Gobitas decision as a blow to liberty.[citation needed] Several justices signaled their belief that the case had been "wrongly decided."[citation needed] On June 16, 1940, in an effort to dispel the mob action, the United States Attorney General, Francis Biddle, stated on a nationwide radio broadcast:
Jehovah's witnesses have been repeatedly set upon and beaten. They had committed no crime; but the mob adjudged they had, and meted out mob punishment. The Attorney General has ordered an immediate investigation of these outrages. The people must be alert and watchful, and above all cool and sane. Since mob violence will make the government's task infinitely more difficult, it will not be tolerated. We shall not defeat the Nazi evil by emulating its methods.
In 1943, after a drawn-out litigation process by Watch Tower Society lawyers in state courts and lower federal courts, the Supreme Court reversed its previous decision, ruling that public school officials could not force Jehovah's Witnesses and other students to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.[12]
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