''Brother Maze, please leave your address here."
"Sister Potes and Sister Mokus would like places in a car going near Eastview, La."
"Brother Sovuss has a nice house-car in Pawpus, Arkansas for sale cheap $150 leave your name here."
"Sister Liz Chofuz, I am waiting for you at the women's."
Scrawled messages like those fluttered on three bulletin boards last week in the Washington Auditorium almost in the shadow of the White House. Ordinarily given to concerts, conventions, exhibitions and beer parties, the Auditorium was bustling from top to basement with a religious conclave of 10,000 pious souls. In the big auditorium proper were folding chairs, loudspeakers and a banner, FOR JEHOVAH AND FOR GIDEON. Nearby was a temporary hospital staffed by voluntary nurses and a big rawboned country doctor. Through the three floors surged unpowdered women of all ages, many carrying children; coatless young men; sober old men; Scandinavian-looking farmers. They had come from as far away as California, most of them in automobiles and "house-cars" (trailers) which they had parked in a camp far out on Massachusetts Avenue. For five days they crowded Washington Auditorium, fraternizing, listening to speeches, consuming hamburgers with gravy (5¢), beef stew (20¢), buttermilk (5¢), alfalfa tea (5¢) in the basement until it was rank with mixed smells. They were "Jehovah's Witnesses"—otherwise known as the International Bible Students Association, followers of Judge Joseph Frederick Rutherford.
Big, blue-eyed Judge Rutherford was born on a Missouri farm, practiced law, became a circuit judge, accompanied William Jennings Bryan in his first Presidential campaign because he believed that zealous Presbyterian was "appointed by God to straighten out the problems of the world." In 1916 the Judge succeeded the late Charles Taze Russell of Brooklyn, founder-president in 1878 of the Bible Students. This organization now claims 2,500,000 followers who in 60 languages in 34 nations read its pamphlets and its journals, Watch Tower and Golden Age.