p. 22 | Two Hundred Thousand

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 4, 1916

Two Hundred Thousand

It is not a difficult thing to say “two hundred thousand,” but it is more of a task to count out that number of papers, even when one counts by fives and tens. One hundred must be counted ten times before one thousand is reached. This must be repeated one hundred times before one hundred thousand is reached, and all this doubled before two hundred thousand is reached. This has been worked out in the Review and Herald mailing department on the 1916 Instructor Temperance Annual thus early in the season, and doubtless will have to be repeated before December.

When the Temperance Instructor was in its experimental years, fifty thousand and one hundred thousand were great figures in connection with its circulation. Orders for one hundred were few. The first order ever received for five hundred copies has never been forgotten by the publishers. It was an occasion of general comment throughout the printing office. But the next year several orders came in for one thousand copies. The next year two orders came for five thousand each. Thus far in 1916 twenty orders for five thousand each have come in, with two orders for ten thousand each, totaling one hundred and twenty thousand in twenty-two orders, leaving eighty thousand of the two hundred thousand copies sold thus far to be sent out in orders ranging from fifty to one thousand copies.

The Temperance Instructor has become an acknowledged leader in temperance literature in the United States and Canada. It has won many local option elections, given strong support in several State prohibition campaigns, changed the sentiment of many communities, revolutionized hundreds of homes, reformed many drunkards, and saved thousands from the curse of intoxicants. While it has done all this, it has paid its own expenses, and given a liberal salary to all who circulated it. Does it not deserve our confidence and continued support?