Publishing, a Sacred Ministry

Around the turn of the century Mrs. White was troubled by the fact that much of the financial success of the denomination’s two publishing houses depended on commercial work, some of which was in conflict with teachings of the church. ^{15“By 1899 the General Conference president estimated that 80 percent of the printing done at the Review [Battle Creek] was of a commercial nature. Not surprisingly, press workers began to think of their activities as a business operation for which they should be compensated more liberally. The evangelistic dedication shown by workers of an earlier era seemed to be fading away.” Schwarz, Light Bearers, p. 211.}MOL 363.7

During the preceding decade she had been writing letters and speaking frequently on the growing problems at the Review and Herald, the church’s largest publishing house. She spoke about the managers and their lack of fairness to workers and authors and their abdication of responsibility for checking the demoralizing literature they were printing. (The managers would reply that they were printers, not censors.) She admonished the Review board to keep the publishing house within its intended purpose. ^{16“Presses poured forth fiction, Wild West stories, books promulgating Roman Catholic doctrines, sex literature, and books on hypnosis.”—Bio., vol. 5, pp. 227-234.}MOL 364.1

The sweeping fire of December 30, 1902, that destroyed the Review, seemed to alert most everybody that God had been warning them for ten years. The move to Washington, D. C. carried with it the decision to eliminate commercial work at the Review and Herald Publishing Company. ^{17Schwarz, Light Bearers, pp. 306-311.}MOL 364.2

Unfortunately, similar problems had been developing at the Pacific Press Publishing Company in Oakland, California. About half of the printed material was commercial work. ^{18Bio., vol. 5, pp. 164-168.} Because of warnings from Ellen White, especially those intensified after the Battle Creek fire, the management drastically reduced their commercial work and decided to locate at a more rural site. After the April 18, 1906, earthquake and a later fire, the management decided that no further commercial work would be accepted.MOL 364.3

The decisions of both publishing houses to face the future without commercial work and to listen more closely to the counsel of Ellen White regarding management policies, were soon honored by an enormous increase in publishing business. ^{19Schwarz, Light Bearers, p. 330.}MOL 364.4