General Conference Bulletin, vol. 1

THE GENERAL CONFERENCE PUBLISHING WORK

L. T. NICOLA

“I wish now to refer to our General Conference publishing work. We have seen the need of funds to carry on the different lines of work for the circulation of our literature, etc., and it was thought that we would be able to earn means in this way by which the work might be helped, and so that line of work has been entered upon. Now it has been very plainly told us that even from this standpoint, it is wrong. GCB July 1, 1896, page 706.7

“I wish to call to mind the statement that I made a year ago in our open meeting with reference to the relation of the General Conference and the General Conference Association to the work of the denomination. That is a question that also needs to be well studied and understood. The General Conference publishing work is not something that has come up in a moment. Propositions and suggestions leading in that direction began to be discussed when I came from Europe to take up the work of the General Conference in 1889. At that time, the charter of the S. D. A. Publishing Association was about to expire, and the question was raised whether a transfer could not be made so as to place the publishing work more directly under the General Conference, and not continue to carry it on as a stock corporation. Careful consideration was given to this question in the meetings of the General Conference, and different steps were taken. GCB July 1, 1896, page 706.8

“In one of the meetings of the General Conference, a committee was appointed to investigate and to formulate plans for presentation at the next General Conference for the consolidation of all our publishing interests under one general management; viz., that of the General Conference. During the year, the committee made investigations, and found that this plan was impracticable. It was found that the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association could not be thus transferred. There were only two courses open to the Publishing Association at that time, one was to reorganize on the same basis on which it had been running for thirty years, and the other was to wind up entirely, and divide the profits and proceeds among the shareholders. This last-named step we did not feel free to take, because it would scatter to the winds the Publishing Association, and the work connected with it; so the only course left was to organize on the same basis as formerly. This was done, and the Association has been going on, doing the same work that it did before. With reference to the Pacific Press Publishing Company, the difficulty of making such changes was just as great, so the idea was abandoned. Some of you will call these things to mind. I simply refer to them to show where we stand now. When these steps were not found feasible, it occurred to us in looking over the charter of the General Conference Association, that it was comprehensive enough to include all this work, and so in order to make that body representative, we changed our charter, and increased the Association to twenty-one members instead of five, and it then entered more fully upon the publishing work in this country. In all this we meant well. GCB July 1, 1896, page 707.1