Seventeenth Meeting

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 5, 1913

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 90, No. 23.

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Seventeenth Meeting

May 25, 10 A. M.

A. G. DANIELLS in the chair.

Prayer by R. D. Quinn.

R. L. Pearce was seated as a delegate.

A. G. Daniells: We have some unfinished business which should first claim our attention.

Discussion of Resolutions

The secretary read the fifth recommendation of the report from the committee on plans, relating to thanksgiving for the mercies and blessings attending this work during the recent past.

That all present might be given an opportunity to express themselves, a rising vote was taken.

Recommendation 6, with reference to supplying needy fields with trained leaders in colporteur work, was read.

E. R. Palmer: This resolution is but an echo of the resolution passed four years ago, relating to a forward move in behalf of our foreign fields. That resolution was received with enthusiasm, and many of our foreign fields recorded their requests at that time, that leading men be selected and sent out to these great frontiers to organize into trained field workers believers who are accepting the truth. Important steps in this direction have been taken during the past four years, the work being chiefly in the hands of your present secretary, Brother Town.

Brother John Brown has been sent to Spain, Brother Weaks to India, Brother Clark to South Africa, Brother Trummer to South America, and a number of workers to Mexico, Cuba, and Porto Rico, and one at least to the Philippines.

So that work has been pushed during the past four years. It has brought success in the fields where these men have been sent. It has brought great satisfaction to the department office that results have been so satisfactory. This resolution is presented, as I understand it, to indicate the courage and the intentions of the department in this direction, and we trust that this movement has been satisfactory to the fields, and that all the home fields will cooperate, as in the past, in an effort to secure these most valuable men as leaders in the great mission fields.

C. H. Jones: At the meeting of the Publishing Department last Wednesday Elder Evans called our attention to the need of more bookmen in the Asiatic field,—three for China, one for Korea, one for Japan, and one for the Philippines,—six bookmen. The next day Elder Shaw called our attention to the need of six more bookmen in India. Just before the close of that meeting, we asked if there were any present who would be willing to go to these fields in case they were called, and nineteen persons arose. Our union conference agents expressed their willingness to assist in looking up these workers, and sending them on to the regions beyond. That is the feeling all over our field. We want to see these foreign fields entered and worked as rapidly as possible. We are willing to give of our best for this work.

N. Z. Town: I would like to add a word. It will take something more than voting it here to have it carried out as we hope it will be. I believe that not only the United States, but such fields as England, Germany, Australia, and other fields, where the work has been established for many years, will also find a blessing in uniting in supplying such fields as China and India with the men they are calling for. These fields may not be surprised during the coming years if they get requests from the Publishing Department for men to go from their fields, as well as from North America, in response to these requests.

G. W. Caviness: Mexico has one request to make. A few workers have been sent down to us, and when they began to have fairly good success, they were taken away. Brother Brown came to Mexico first, and then he was sent to Spain; others were called to Cuba. We wish you to send down more to take their places.

F. H. Westphal: Ecuador is also calling for a bookman, a state agent.

Recommendation 7, relating to home missionary work, was read, and question was called.

Recommendation 8 was read, a resolution of sympathy with those who have lost members of their family while engaged in service in this cause during the past four years.

Question was called on this, and on recommendation 9.

Recommendation 10, relating to appointment of union religious liberty secretaries, was read.

W. W. Prescott: I would be glad if those presidents of union conferences in which union religious liberty secretaries have been giving their whole time during the past year or more, would feel free to say a word concerning this matter.

E. E. Andross: The Pacific Union Conference has kept a religious liberty secretary employed during the entire quadrennial period. We believe the expenditure has been abundantly justified. We have met a strong effort, especially in California, to secure religious legislation, but this has been warded off—deferred—through the earnest efforts of our secretary and his associates. The same good results have followed the efforts of our secretary in the new State of Arizona since its admission to the Union. It is the same in Utah; and so we feel that we are justified in this expenditure. We would not think of doing otherwise than we are now doing.

W. W. Prescott: The next resolution, No. 11, indicates that the duties of these

secretaries will extend a little beyond what we have technically termed the religious liberty work, and will take up the Roman question also. This emphasizes the need of appointing proper leadership in these conferences. These campaigns are not merely campaigns with legislatures in order to prevent them from doing something: these campaigns ought to be positive campaigns for teaching the truths of the message; and the opportunities are very great. The agitation being carried forward by other organizations opens the way in a very striking manner for a positive campaign—not a mere opposition to something that some one else is attempting.

Recommendation 11 was read, relating to lecture campaigns.

W. W. Prescott: This proposition is not purely an academic one for discussion. In the North Pacific Union Conference a campaign after this order has been carried forward during the past winter very successfully. I think those who took part in that campaign—members of both the union and local conference committees—were greatly encouraged by the results. If this same experience could be had by others, so that every union conference could conduct a similar campaign during the winter of 1913-14, I feel very confident that much advanced work would be done—many doors opened, and many persons interested in the truth through this channel. Therefore, the importance of appointing the secretaries to be ready for this work, the importance of having that institute to specially train those who are to do this work, will, I hope, commend itself to the minds of the delegates.

Recommendation 12, on institutes for religious liberty secretaries, was read.

W. W. Prescott: May I make a brief statement, and that is this, that especially in entering upon an aggressive campaign concerning the Roman question, there is the very greatest need of exercising considerable care in the use of proper documents, authoritative quotations, and that we should be careful in statements made. An illustration of this comes to me just now. The Christian Herald, known to you as a leading undenominational paper published in New York City, with a circulation of about three hundred thousand copies a week, has recently been conducting a department under the general heading, “The Voice of the Nation Concerning Rome,” in which letters have appeared from men more or less prominent throughout the United States. One or two editorials have also appeared from time to time. The Roman Catholics have now taken this paper to task for making untrue statements. They have written to the editor. They have called upon him for his authority for definite statements which they have quoted from his paper. He responded with a statement. They have published his response in a special pamphlet, and answered it, and they have given him considerable trouble to meet them. It illustrates this fact, that now, as perhaps never before in the history of our work, Roman Catholics are awake to watch every statement made by Protestants in print, to catch and make use of some mistake. A regular organization has been formed, covering the United States, for this express purpose. Now I shall be very glad if it is possible for us to keep out of that phase of their campaign. I shall be glad if we can be able not to give them any just occasion for calling us to account for our statements; but if they do, I shall hope that every one who makes the statements will have the proofs at hand, so that he can meet any such challenge. I have had my own experience with one of these large publications in New York City, calling me to task for something that appeared in the Protestant Magazine. I was very glad to be able to give such an answer that they dropped the matter after that. It will be greatly to our help if we can maintain the reputation of being fair, sober, sane, and authoritative in our whole dealing with this question.

Recommendation 13, on use of the magazine Liberty in legislatures, was read.

C. H. Edwards: I would like to ask a question in regard to the character of Liberty. For quite a number of quarters the magazine itself has been filled quite largely with articles upon the subject of Romanism. Now, this has come to us time and again, coming into the New England States, where nearly two thirds of our legislators are Roman Catholics. We have desired very much to have some organ to present to the members of the legislature, but we have been unable to use the magazines because they have been so filled with an attack upon Romanism. It is not because we do not want to use them. With two thirds of the legislature Catholic, it simply brings a prejudice to these men that we cannot meet. When we go to hearings, the first thing they say is, “Are you connected with Liberty?” “Yes, sir.” That is the end of it. We cannot do anything. Now, I believe that the Protestant Magazine should deal with the Catholic question, but that Liberty should deal wholly with the principles of religious liberty and religious legislation.

W. W. Prescott: As the editor of Liberty is not present, perhaps I as an associate editor can say a word, inasmuch as I was editor during the time complained of. This question raised by Brother Edwards is not so simple a question as might first seem to appear, because it comes to this finally: Shall we criticize Protestants for attempting to do things contrary to religious liberty principles and then say nothing about Roman Catholics when they attempt to do these things? The suggestion is made that the division should be carefully drawn between Liberty and the Protestant Magazine. An effort was made to draw this distinction. It was agreed that in Liberty there should not be articles upon general anti-Roman subjects, but that where members of the Roman Catholic Church step across the line and attempt to interfere directly and plainly with religious liberty, and violate the principles in action, then Liberty should deal with it. But there were so many cases of this that the Catholic issue still kept in Liberty, and objections were still raised. Therefore, as stated in my report, which I think Brother Edwards did not hear, the editors had a meeting and decided that they would attempt to shut out from Liberty any considerable comment on even open violations of the principles by Roman Catholics, and try the other policy for a while. We will do the best we can to meet the situation, and to meet the desires of those who are doing the field end of the work with the legislatures.

J. O. Corliss: I have had considerable experience in the distribution of Liberty, and I may be allowed to say just a word upon the subject. Some years ago, before the condition complained of, we sent Liberty to every legislator in California. We received words of congratulation for Liberty. I well remember that before arguments on Sunday bills in the California Legislature, I saw some of those men, and even Roman Catholics, take our literature and read from it in order to defeat the Sunday measures. But Liberty has not been circulated so much of late in our union as it was formerly. It strikes me that there is a policy to be followed that will not take strenuous lines upon either Protestants or Catholics. We may review history, without saying Catholics or Protestants, but dealing with the violation of principles. That applies to either Protestants or Catholics who have appeared at fault in the matter. I believe it can be carried on in this way, and then Liberty can be used with Catholics as well as Protestants.

C. L. Butterfield: It may be of interest to know that it has been noted by a Catholic magazine printed in the Korean language that there is a tribe having headquarters at Washington who publish a magazine whose chief object is to besmirch Catholics.

Question was called on the whole, and the partial reports were adopted.

It was voted that E. W. Farnsworth take the place on the nominating committee made vacant by the death of Elder G. A. Irwin, and that Charles Thompson be an additional member of the nominating committee.

L. R. Conradi: In receiving the West and the East German Union Conferences in the Central European, we did not, at the time, say anything in regard to the German Union Conference. The German Union was organized in 1902, and now it has been divided into four unions, so I would move that we drop the German Union, as such, from our records. Carried.

A. G. Daniells: Are there any other items to bring before the Conference by committees? If not, we may call for reports from the conferences. We will first call upon Allen Moon to submit his report for the Lake Union Conference.

At the close of Elder Moon's report, W. T. Knox, acting as chairman, called upon Charles Thompson, president of the Northern Union Conference, to present his report.

Following this report Guy Dail read a report of the Siberian Union Conference, a portion of which will be printed later.