College Place Meetings Widely Advertised Through Newspapers
By W. L. Burgan
ONE of the most widely advertised union conference meetings held this winter was that of the North Pacific Union. This meeting was held at College Place, Wash., February 25 to March 7. From the opening day until the close, daily reports of the meetings were furnished the two newspapers in Walla Walla, which gave us considerable space. Prominent space was also given by the large dailies in Portland, Oregon, and Spokane and Tacoma, Wash. It was encouraging to learn that the Associated Press was also sending out reports, thus giving the meetings publicity in several States. One night during the ministerial institute, which took up the first six days of the conference session, the manager of the Associated Press in San Francisco wired in to the correspondent at Walla Walla to send him an account of the Adventist meetings at College Place. It seems that the Associated Press correspondent heard about midnight that some unusual statements were being made by our ministers, which he thought would be of interest to readers of newspapers in the western part of the country, and telegraphed his correspondent to hurry the article to the central office. This was done, and the article was then distributed to newspapers in all parts of the territory included in the San Francisco office. After the meeting had been in session about one week, a letter was received by one of the delegates from a brother in South Dakota inclosing a clipping from a newspaper published in his home town, telling of the meeting in College Place and also giving some remarks by one of our leading brethren. The many unusual statements our ministers make in connection with the exalted message they are giving to the world arouse the interest of newspaper men, who then seek after our news. This was fully demonstrated at the College Place meeting by the fact that the newspaper editors in Walla Walla expressed their anxiety for the news, and by the liberal amount of space they gave reports. It was encouraging to talk to a number of the workers concerning the press work, and to learn of their progress in having reports on various subjects published in their home papers. Some told of strangers attending their tent and hall meetings who would not have heard of the effort they were holding had it not been for the notices in the newspapers. Others said that even though their audiences were small, they felt that a good work had been done by having extracts of their sermons published in the newspapers, thus reaching hundreds and thousands of people through this medium. The residents of Walla Walla and the surrounding country where the Walla Walla papers circulate, were considerably awakened to the importance of our meetings in College Place through the reports in the papers. One of the union17conference brethren made a very interesting statement, in which he said that a bank president of Walla Walla had been reading the reports with interest and told him that he was going to attend the meetings. This brother brought out the thought that the newspaper can be used to arouse the interest of influential men in the work our denomination is doing. Another brother told of a woman in Montana who, though she lives forty miles from a railroad, has read of our work through a newspaper. This woman did not know that there were any Adventists in Montana, but she later heard of the camp meeting in that State, and rode two hundred miles on the railroad to attend it. She afterward accepted the truth, and now rejoices with us in the third angel's message. We can never tell how far the influence of our efforts through the newspapers will be felt, nor how many souls will be numbered among the redeemed as a result of using this medium for the advancement of the glorious doctrines we hold. Our brethren should never let an opportunity slip by to use the newspaper in connection with their work.