Passion, Purpose & Power

18. Pacific Press, Oakland, California

Dream to reality PPP 98.1

The first issues of the Signs of the Times were sent to a list of prospective subscribers compiled by Elder [James] White’s son J. E. White, including all Western subscribers to the Review and Herald. The paper was offered for $2 per year to those who chose to pay. Others could receive it free as far as the generosity of “friends of the cause” would permit. Thus the missionary status of the journal was established at the start, and the circulation was determined largely by the amount which church members were willing to give. An appeal was made for addresses in the hope that copies of the paper could become available to all who were interested. Funds were called for to pay for this free distribution. PPP 98.2

Now comes a demonstration of the aggressive leadership of James White. In a note in the first issue, which he signed as president of the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association, he suggested that for $2,000 he could buy all the materials necessary to print the Signs and that, after starting publication, he would turn all equipment over to a publishing association if one could be formed on the Pacific Coast. He recalls that he did this when the Publishing Association was formed in Battle Creek in 1861 for the publication of the Review. Readers from coast to coast were urged to sustain the Review and Herald and at the same time to help the new paper. PPP 98.3

One week later James White’s hopes had risen. In the second issue he asked for 10,000 subscribers to the Signs money or no money, and he wanted 100 donors of $100 each to buy a steam press and accessories. Eight $100 donors were already listed, including James White, Ellen White, and J. N. Loughborough. The growing list was published in each succeeding issue. In the fifth issue the $10,000 for a steam press had grown to $20,000 to build and equip a printing plant. One thousand dollars had already been paid for materials to use in setting up forms ready for hired presswork. PPP 99.1

The third annual session of the California State Conference convened on October 2, 1874, at Yountville, during the camp meeting. On the third day Elder G. I. Butler, a General Conference delegate, read a message from Elder James White, who was in Battle Creek and had been elected for a second time as president of the General Conference. The General Conference, it said, had voted a donation of $6,000 to buy a steam press and other equipment for printing the Signs of the Times. Elder White had planned to take personal charge of the Western publication, but since new duties would call for his continued presence in the East, it was suggested that the California Conference take charge of the publication. The gift and the responsibility were accepted. The Conference committee agreed to purchase the Signs and assume control “until such time as a legally organized Association shall be formed and its officers elected.” PPP 99.2

Now came the problem of raising the funds for a building. The conference president, Elder Loughborough, went to the people at the camp meeting, asking for at least $10,000. The conference had already voted to raise $1,000 for an evangelistic tent. That need was also presented at this meeting. The result in pledges was $19,414 for the Signs and $1,616.20 for the tent. There were two gifts of $1,000 and several of $500, but the rest was in smaller amounts. Here was a typical example of large-scale Western thinking and giving. Then it was voted to donate $500 from the state funds to the General Conference. This gift was gratefully received, but it was returned to the California Conference the next February in view of the needs of the West. PPP 99.3

Such generous giving was in addition to the regular systematic benevolence funds, amounting to more than $4,000 per quarter, missionary subscriptions to the Signs, and other freewill offerings. It will be recalled that the membership in California was less than 500. The General Conference session of August, 1875, listed California membership at 450, and Western membership between Mexico and British Columbia at 1,000. No wonder a news reporter, noting the figure $19,414, asked Elder M. E. Cornell if the amount given for publishing was $1,900!—Richard B. Lewis, Streams of Light, The Story of the Pacific Press, 1958, pp. 3, 4. PPP 100.1

“Gold!” PPP 100.2

“Among the stories my [Alma McKibbin’s] parents told me in my early childhood was one of a camp meeting held at Yountville. . . . The matter of special importance at this meeting was the need of a paper in which the publish the Biblical truths which were so precious to them and which they felt it was their duty to share with the world. PPP 100.3

“My parents had but recently come from the Middle West, where money of any kind was scarce, especially gold coin. When the people were asked to contribute to this contemplated enterprise, my father, looking about over the assembled congregation, said to himself: ‘These people will not give enough to buy the ink for the first edition.’ But the hands that went into the pockets of blue jeans or the folds of print dresses brought out not silver, but gold—gold coins and, more amazing still, unminted gold in bars and wedges. Soon thousands of dollars lay heaped upon the rostrum—the gifts of a humble people moved by a great faith.” PPP 100.4

In a few minutes the gold and pledges amounted to $19,414. When the date came that the pledges were due, January 1, 1876, the sum of $20,000 had been paid into that fund. That same day at the camp meeting $1,616 was also pledged for a camp meeting fund. Referring to this generosity, [Eld. G. I.] Butler wrote: PPP 101.1

“We have financial strength in this state sufficient to do almost anything we wish to undertake. There is a stability to this cause here; it is of no mushroom growth. When responsible persons come forward and pledge over $21,000 of yellow gold to sustain and forward the work going on in its midst, all will agree that it means business. It is no wonder that ministers and members of our staid, respectable popular churches are astonished at such a result.” —Harold O. McCumber, Pioneering the Message in the Golden West, 1968 ed., pp. 102, 103. PPP 101.2

[A] camp meeting was held at Yountville. That’s about sixteen miles⁷² from St. Helena. So my family⁷³ packed up. I was Grandma’s special charge. And because of my thin skin⁷⁴ . . . she made a little bonnet for me and she held an umbrella over me all the way there. And yet, when I arrived there my cheeks were burned. She went some distance away to a farmer, got some cream and put it all over my face, and she made a little mask for me, because she wanted to go to the meetings. [She] took a piece of muslin and cut eye holes in it, and fastened it around my head. She’d sit way in the back of the tent, while father and mother sat up in front. It was at that meeting that they gave their $14,000 to establish a printing establishment on this coast. Well, I was there. If you’d been there you would look way in the corner, you would’ve seen a little baby girl with a mask over her face, being cared for by a dirty old grandma. . . . PPP 101.3

When I look at that picture, [You know, they have a picture⁷⁵ of people going up and giving their contributions], Grandma said that when some of them laid down a little piece of metal, . . . she whispered in my ear “Gold.” I’d been in . . . California [long enough] to know gold. You know, they had no printing presses⁷⁶ here, so they just went and made it into wedges. [When] someone put down a gold wedge, I applauded. . . . —Alma McKibbin, excerpt from oral history interview conducted by James R. Nix, August 2, 1967. PPP 101.4

“Sleeping on the job” (working all night) PPP 102.1

In the summer of 1876 I joined the Signs as a volunteer. At that time the mailing list had grown too large for the carpet bag, and we (W C. White and the writer) carried the weekly mail to the post office in a large market basket and a bundle which was easily carried under my arm. . . . PPP 102.2

The next job for us two boys was to keep steam up in the little upright donkey engine. When the [press] run called for one or two hundred extra copies, and the boys in the pressroom geared up the old drum cylinder press, we boys put an extra weight on the safety valve and shoveled more coal. . . . PPP 102.3

Often do I recall the pioneer editors and writers. They wrote by hand; no fountain pens or stenographers. I can still see some of the “copy.” Once, in the summer of 1879 or 1880, I went to the editor’s room and knocked on the door. No response. I opened the door, and there on his back on the floor lay the editor, sound asleep. Evidently he had been up all night writing. I tiptoed around him to his table (no desk), picked up the copy, and took it down to the composing room, where I was told that the article was to be in the next week’s Signs. Those men were hard workers, and full of zeal. . . .—Reminiscences of W. E. Whalin quoted in McCumber, Golden West, 1968 ed., pp. 104, 105. PPP 102.4