What We Represent

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Aug 12, 1909

What We Represent

THE Pacific Press Publishing Association supplies our denominational books, pamphlets, and tracts to the entire United States west of the Mississippi, with the exception of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico; and to all of Canada from Port Arthur, north of Lake Superior, to Vancouver Island, on the Pacific. Its three periodicals, the Signs of the Times (weekly), the Signs of the Times Monthly, and Our Little Friend, have the world for their field.

It has three branch offices,—located at Kansas City, Mo.; Portland, Ore.; and Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada,—with eight persons employed. There are twenty-three State depositories, employing thirty-six persons. There are twenty-two field agents, and three general agents, making sixty-nine in all, who are exclusively engaged in supplying literature and directing its circulation. There are between four and five hundred gospel canvassers carrying its publications from house to house. The retail value of its sales during the past five years has been—

1904 ............................ $156,168 1905 ............................ 164,009 1906 ............................ 196,583 1907 ............................ 297,188 1908 ............................ 335,988

During the past two years the scope of the work of this institution has become international. About one shipment a week goes out from its stock-rooms through the Golden Gate into foreign lands. During the past nine months over five thousand dollars' worth of books has been exported to Mexico, and about twelve thousand dollars' worth to South and Central America. The bulk of these has been in the Spanish language.

But the Pacific Press Publishing Association is only one of twenty-six similar institutions. True, it is one of the largest, but yet there are twenty-five others doing a similar work. The entire investment in these twenty-six houses is $1,038,215. They employ 515 workers, which, together with 1,681 canvassers, brings up the number engaged in the manufacture and circulation of our publications to 2,196, or one in every thirty-seven Seventh-day Adventists.

Of the 6,521 students in our intermediate schools and colleges, at least ten per cent are there because of scholarships earned by the sale of our books. At least ten per cent more have been greatly assisted in their education by the same means.

Sixty years ago our first periodical

was published. The number and retail value of our publications now is as follows:—

118 periodicals .................... $69.13 333 books .......................... 377.03 287 pamphlets ...................... 35.87 1,096 tracts ........................ 15.97 ────────────────────────────── 1,834 .............................. $488.00

These 1,834 different publications contain 168,376 pages, and are issued in sixty-one languages. The sale of denominational literature last year amounted to $1,286,981, which is more than the tithe for the same period, which was $1,101,396. The average sale for each member last year was $15.47. The entire tithe of the denomination since records began to be kept is $12,260,362. The book sales for the same period are $11,259,755.

May the Lord continue to add his blessing to the mighty agency which we here represent, which is now circulating 1,834 publications in sixty-one languages, to the value of more than a million and a quarter dollars a year.—From a Talk given by H. H. Hall, at Pacific Press Outing, July 1, 1909.