UNION IS STRENGTH by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · June 17, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 25

UNION IS STRENGTH.

By James White

The success of our work in its several branches is attributable to that union of action which organization, patient discipline, and the earnest pleadings of the burden-bearers have secured. In no branch of the work has unison of effort accomplished more than in the publishing department. The friends of the cause very well know that at Battle Creek, Mich., and at Oakland, Cal., we have large publishing houses. And as our friends are almost totally ignorant of the sacrifices, the wearing toils, and the patient and earnest efforts of those who, under God, have brought them into existence, they do not know how to prize them, nor how to value the labors of those whose lives and interests have been inseparably connected with them for the last quarter of a century.

We look back with a good degree of pleasure to the month of July, 1849, when we published the first number of the little paper called Present Truth. We sat down to prepare the matter for that little sheet, and wrote every word of it, our entire library comprising a three-shilling pocket Bible, Cruden’s Condensed Concordance, and Walker’s old dictionary, minus one of its covers. Destitute of means, our hope of success was in God, while we should go forward and work upon the plan of strictest economy. The first volume of REVIEW AND HERALD was published at Paris, Maine, under most discouraging circumstances. In feebleness and extreme poverty we struggled on, suffering for proper food and clothing, that the paper might maintain an existence. And, at every step in the onward march, sacrifices, wearing toils, and the pressure of care have been the portion of those who have borne the heavy burdens.

Under peculiar circumstances the publishing work at Battle Creek fell into hands that were as ignorant of the toils and anxieties of their predecessors as babes. They really knew nothing of the industry and the economy necessary to keep expenses within the compass of incomes. They thought that almost anybody could run a publishing house, and were like the man in the gospel who did not first sit down and count the cost, and therefore made a total failure.

The establishment of the Pacific Press cost sacrifices, anxieties, and toils. And if the same cautious hands, under God, had been permitted to guide and to guard the operations of that publishing house, which had successfully labored in the commencement of our publishing work, that office need not now have a debt upon it of a single dollar. But as things now stand, it will require one-half the sum which can be saved at that office under the best management, to pay their interest money. We wish here to make the following points:—

1. In our operations upon the Pacific Coast, we put in several years of hard labor. And the sum we gave, including what we sacrificed in discounts between greenbacks and gold, and what we have lost in fall of property and otherwise, from helping the cause there, would amount to $8,000.

2. We appealed to eastern friends for donations to furnish the Signs Office with presses and material. We asked for $10,000, and they gave $13,000.

3. In our anxiety that the Signs might be sustained, we appealed to eastern brethren to subscribe for it at two dollars a year, and the readers of the REVIEW AND HERALD responded liberally, insomuch that one-half of the patronage and support of the Signs by regular subscription was by eastern brethren who had sent $13,000 over the plains to furnish the Signs office, and who, at the same time, were taking the REVIEW AND HERALD.

4. We then instituted the plan of furnishing the Signs as a pioneer sheet for the use of the tract and missionary workers, and have shipped forty tons of paper to Oakland, at an expense of thirty dollars a ton, on which to print the Signs of the Times at a cost of at least ten per cent more than it would cost to do the same printing at Battle Creek, to be sent back across the continent, a week’s journey, to be used by eastern tract and missionary workers. Our only apology for this act, which seems, in itself, to be the very height of financial folly, is that we felt that the Pacific Press must be sustained at all hazards.

5. We published Sunshine Series, Golden Grains, the three volumes of Home Circle, and Life Sketches, at Oakland. The transportation of the white paper, the extra cost of printing at Oakland above Battle Creek, and the freight on these books from Oakland to Battle Creek, amount to $1,000, which we have sunk as an individual loss, in trying to help that office.

Having taken upon us the responsibility of establishing the Pacific Press, we feel such an anxiety for its prosperity as no other man can feel. Had we been permitted to continue its management from the first, all these sacrifices would not have been necessary, and it would not now be under the pressure of heavy debts. And still we cling to the Pacific Press, as the grieved mother clings to her dying child.

We have rallied all the forces, east, west, north, and south, to sustain that office. We have appealed to the friends of the North Pacific Mission to come up to the work, and stand by our Oakland office, as the Pacific Press was established for the benefit of the cause on the coast, from San Diego on the south, to the British Possessions on the north. And yet, now, when that office is struggling under the weight of debt, the result of the management of those of great self-confidence and of little experience, we are in receipt of letters addressed to Elder Boyd, President of the Nebraska Conference, and his wife, urging them to go to Oregon, as they are about to start an office in that State! And this is the first intimation we have had of the hazardous enterprise.

As we now look over the struggles and sacrifices during the last six years, to establish the Pacific Press and to make the Signs Office what it should be, we regard that work as one of the mistakes of our life. We have been under the conviction for the past two years, that as a people we are occupying too much ground. While we may strengthen things at one point, several others may be growing weaker.

We have been too hopeful as to the caution and faithfulness of others to act that part which they might if they would seek the advice of those of experience, and the help of God. Here we have been disappointed and grieved. The weight of these things has crushed us in spirit, and we have been broken in health. The result has been that we have drawn back from the responsibilities of the work, and those whose career speaks for itself, have been willing to crowd in and run matters. We repeat, that if our people on the Pacific had appreciated our sacrifices and efforts, so that we could have felt free to remain there, instead of coming to Battle Creek, where we broke down in 1877; and could we have carried out the object for which the Pacific Press was established, to make our denominational work first, and all other work secondary, that office need not now own a single dollar, and the will of God could now be seen in its establishment.

The REVIEW Office alone, could have served the cause on this continent better than to have our offices of publication in this country, wading heavily under the pressure of debts, and paying an amount of interest which we will not here name.

Our friends in California may find it convenient to have a paper to give appointments and reports; and our friends in Oregon may urge the inconvenience of the Signs Office being so distant; but these trifling difficulties can be overcome by using circulars produced by modern copying processes. This would be a thousand times cheaper and better than to establish offices here and there, calling for a great amount of capital, and also calling the best talent from other important branches of the work to run them.

Hundreds of papers are started which sink capital, and go down, because their managers do not count the cost. Scores of health institutions and schools go down for want of cautious men. S. D. Adventists should move cautiously, unitedly, and in God. If God and our brethren will forgive, we will not try to do so much as in years past, and take time to carefully and prayerfully consider the wants of the general cause. We shall entreat our brethren to move cautiously, and in the fear of God. But after calling more than $300,000 from the faithful friends of the cause for our institutions, we feel a responsibility resting upon us in this matter.

J. W.