Alabama and Its Great Need by A. J. Haysmer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 16, 1906

Alabama and Its Great Need

By A. J. Haysmer

One year ago I came to Alabama. It has been a year of careful study as to how we can best carry the last message to the people of this great State. Very little has yet been done to reach them. Nearly all the Seventh-day Adventists here have moved in from the North. Is it not high time that we get hold of right methods, and push them vigorously until every soul in Alabama has had the opportunity of hearing present truth?

Alabama is a large State, there being three hundred and thirty-six miles from its northern boundary to the coast, and its width varying from one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles. It contains an area of fifty-two thousand two hundred and fifty square miles, and has sixty-six counties and about fourteen hundred townships. The population consists of 1,000,152 white persons, 827,307 negroes, and 238 Indians, or a total of 1,827,697. Alabama has two hundred and four incorporated cities and towns. It has sixty-three cities with a population of over one thousand, twenty-three with over three thousand, and nine with over five thousand, six with over eight thousand, and three with over thirty thousand; and only about one fifth of the population is in the cities.

The industries of Alabama are good. The five kings of the industrial world reside within her borders—cotton, coal, iron, lumber, and cement.

There are fifty-seven cotton mills, valued at over $9,500,000, employing over eight thousand laborers. There are seventy-five iron-smelting plants. Their daily consumption of pig iron averages nearly two thousand five hundred tons. There are one hundred and eighty-five mines, employing about eighteen thousand men. There are also about six hundred other mills, factories, shops, and plants in the State, employing thousands of laborers.

The total investment in furnaces, steel plants, mines, and manufactures, in the Birmingham district alone is approximately one hundred million dollars. There are nearly ninety thousand persons on the pay-rolls, to whom is distributed every month from four million to four and one-half million dollars.

The demand for labor, skilled and unskilled, is said to be far in excess of the supply, and the average of the wages paid is the highest in the South.

The farming land, while not the best in all sections, produces fairly good crops. Grapes, peaches, and other fruit do well in many parts of the State. The price of land varies according to the section of the State and proximity to the large local markets. Land can be bought for five dollars to twenty-five dollars an acre. Some of the best land is held at from fifty to one hundred dollars an acre. The climate is considered good in most sections. The temperature in the northern part yearly averages sixty degrees, summer seventy-five degrees, winter forty-two degrees. The yearly average of the central part is sixty-three degrees, summer eighty-one, winter forty-nine. The southern yearly average is sixty-three degrees, summer eighty, winter fifty-two.

I present these facts, prepared by the Immigration and Industrial Association of Alabama, that our people who are inquiring about Alabama may see that it presents the most attractive opportunities

of the entire Southland to the home-seeker and canvasser. And this brings us to the second part of this article; Alabama’s great need. The Alabama conference is very small, and most of its members are poor in this world’s goods. The conference income will support only about three workers. At the present time there are two ministers and our conference treasurer on the pay-roll. You can readily see that it would take the present force of workers many years to carry the message to the fourteen hundred townships. We greatly need a few faithful ministers. If our more favorably situated conferences could send us ministers, and support them for a while in this conference, I believe it would meet the mind of the Lord.

We also need a few Bible workers to enter the larger cities. Many can not be reached in any other way. Then we need a score or more of good men and women to enter the canvassing work. We have only two canvassers, and they are inexperienced. They are doing nobly. I believe there is no better territory for the canvasser than Alabama. Crops are good and bring a good price. Wages are also good. Now is the time to fill the State with our good books and papers.

We also need many more good representatives of the message to locate in different parts of the State, and let their light shine by living a godly and consistent life, and scattering the literature in their neighborhood. If there are presidents of conferences, ministers, Bible workers, canvassers, or any of our people who are especially interested in the work in Alabama, and would like to furnish us a worker or come to help us, I shall be glad to hear from them.

A. J. HAYSMER. Elkwood, Ala.