It was Tuesday, December 30, 1902, a quiet winter evening in Battle Creek. No snow was on the ground. Most of the three hundred employees of the Review and Herald publishing house had left their machines and editorial offices for the day. A few workers had come in for the night shift. Elder Daniells, the newly elected leader of the General Conference, was still in his office on the second floor of the West Building, just across North Washington Street. A little after six o'clock Elder I. H. Evans, president and general manager of the Review and Herald Publishing Company, and Elder E. R. Palmer had met with him to look over some new tracts in preparation. At seven-twenty Palmer left, and Daniells and Evans were chatting.
It had been a good year for the Review and Herald--one of the most prosperous. There were bright prospects for a busy 1903, also (RH Supplement, April 28, 1903).
The Tabernacle bell rang, summoning the faithful to prayer meeting. Then the electric lights went out. Daniells stepped over to the window and saw flames coming from the publishing house.
A few minutes before, all had been normal in the big building. The night watchman had just made his rounds through the engine room. Then the few employees at work detected the smell of smoke. Immediately the lights throughout the plant went out, leaving everything in total darkness. The dense, oily smoke that filled the building with incredible speed forced everyone to leave hastily; even now some found the stairways cut off and took to the fire escapes. All the workers got out, but one just barely made it, crawling through smoke-filled rooms to safety. The fire alarm had been turned in at the first detection of the emergency.
When Elders Daniells and Evans reached the street, the whole pressroom was in flames. A minute or two later fire engines from the city fire department arrived and soon were pouring water onto the blaze. The whole building seemed engulfed. At no place could any fireman enter it. To check the fire was futile. All could see that the flames were beyond control. Nothing could be saved from the editorial offices or library, but Brother Robert of the art department saved a few pieces of furniture and some precious art materials.
It was now a little past seven-thirty; the firemen directed their efforts toward saving the two-story West Building across the street, and the stores on the east side of the Review plant. Fortunately, the breeze was from the southwest, and the smoke and flames were blown across Main Street into McCamly Park. At eight o'clock the roof fell in, and the machinery on the upper floors began to tumble. By eight-thirty the brick-veneer walls were collapsing.
Although there were a number of employees at work throughout the building, none had seen the fire start; but it was generally agreed that it had begun in the basement in the original engine room, under the dynamo room. The first published report of the fire said:
The very day on which it occurred the chief of the city fire department, in company with the office electrician, made a tour of inspection throughout the building, examining the wiring for the lights and other possible sources of danger, and pronounced everything in satisfactory condition.--Ibid., January 6, 1903.
This was done in consideration of the renewal of the insurance on January 1.
Fire Chief Weeks, who had directed the fighting of a number of big fires in Battle Creek, was later to declare that he had fought every one of the Adventist fires and his score was zero."'There is something strange,'" he said, "'about your SDA fires, with the water poured on acting more like gasoline.'"--P. B. Fairchild to Arthur L. White, December 4, 1965.
The Review and Herald publishing plant had grown to be one of the largest and best-equipped publishing establishments in the State of Michigan. Now it was just a pile of rubble. Why?
As some of the board members stood and watched the flames, there must have come to their minds one sentence in a letter from Ellen White, written from California and addressed to the manager of the Review and Herald. It had been read to the board thirteen months earlier: "I have been almost afraid to open the Review, fearing to see that God has cleansed the publishing house by fire."--Testimonies for the Church 8:91.
The Word Reaches Ellen White
That Tuesday night, Ellen White at her Elmshaven home had slept but little. In vision she had agonized over conditions in Battle Creek. As she came down for breakfast on Wednesday morning, Sara McEnterfer told her that the Review and Herald publishing plant had burned the night before. C. H. Jones had telephoned the news. It came as no surprise to Ellen White. Only a few days before, with pen in hand, she lost consciousness of her surroundings and again saw a sword of fire over Battle Creek, "turning first in one direction and then in another," with disaster following disaster (Letter 37, 1903).
The Sanitarium had burned in February; now the Review was gone. Picking up her pen, she wrote to Edson:
Oh, I am feeling so sad, because ... the Lord has permitted this, because His people would not hear His warnings and repent, and be converted, that He should heal them. Many have despised the words of warning. Oh, how sad it is. How large the loss is of books and furniture and facilities.... May the Lord have mercy upon us is my prayer.--Letter 214, 1902.
That day her mind must have retraced a great deal of history. There was the publishing of the Present Truth at Middletown, Connecticut, in the summer of 1849. How they prayed over the little stack of papers before sending them out! Then followed the meeting in 1852 at Saratoga Springs, New York, and the decision to buy a hand press, that the paper might be printed on a press owned by Sabbathkeepers. With type and other equipment it would cost $650. Hiram Edson advanced the money from the sale of his farm and in the following weeks the believers sent in money to repay Edson. This was the first concerted financial effort in which Sabbathkeeping Adventists joined hands to herald the message.
What memories there were of setting up the press that summer in their big rented house in Rochester, New York--a home that was to serve as family residence, boardinghouse, and printing office.
In 1855, as James White found he must divest himself of the cares of publishing, brethren in Battle Creek, Michigan, provided a publishing house--a brand-new two-story frame building in the west end, at the corner of Washington and Main streets. Two years later a power press was installed in the little publishing house. Now the printing of papers, tracts, and small books became easier. But what days of sacrifice these were. James White's pay averaged $4.57 a week. James was 36; Uriah Smith, resident editor of the Review, was ten years younger, and the others were in their late teens and 20's.
Then there was the new brick building erected in 1861 at the side of the first little plant. It was part of the complex of three three-story buildings linked together that had just burned.
The "cause" in those days centered largely upon the publishing plant, its staff, and its products. To give the organization that was formed to handle it a name, a term was devised--"Seventh-day Adventists." When church organization was finally attained, the Review plant was all the office the church leaders had. This was to be so for another forty years.
As the work had grown, the pocketknife that Uriah Smith used to trim the pamphlets (the Review was not even trimmed) gave way to a paper cutter. The shoe awl and needle and thread were replaced by simple but more efficient binding equipment. Book printing and binding called for more sophisticated equipment and better-trained workmen.
But there was not enough denominational work to keep the machines and men busy. Printing for other concerns was the answer. Idle equipment would spell disaster--so the Review and Herald became a commercial printer, and a good one too. This was fully justified, but in it were seeds for trouble.
Dedicated businessmen, some of them recent converts, were brought in by James White to manage the growing interests. This procedure, not without its perils, was continued after his death in 1881.
How much must have passed through Ellen White's mind that day after the fire! The Review and Herald publishing plant was a very part of her life. She must have thought of her writing in the library in the old brick building, as she sought a quiet place to work. At the death of her husband it was reported that under his perceptive leadership the institution was among "the first of first-class offices in the State," and it was declared that
the business principles and the habits of industry and painstaking which were introduced in the infancy of the work, have left their impress upon its management, and have been characteristic of its operations. Therefore its reputation in business circles has always been deservedly high.--Life Sketches of James and Ellen White (1888), 373.
Growing demands had called for additions to the plant, first in 1871 on the west, crowding to Washington Street, doubling its working space; another in 1873, on the east; then the addition of a story in 1878, tying the whole plant together in one four-story building. No doubt Ellen White recalled the warnings given about overbuilding. Why had they not been heeded?
Disturbing Development in Battle Creek
But pervading her mind that Wednesday at Elmshaven was the agony of soul she had suffered during the preceding decade, which reached an almost unbearable level during the weeks before the fire. Managers had lost their sense of justice and responsibility, employees had lost much of their unselfish dedication and consecration. Boards had lost their power to control in right lines. It was a gradual process that was frowned upon by Heaven, and warning after warning had been sounded by God's messenger. But these were for the most part ignored or scorned.
A few months before she left for Australia in 1891 she was concerned about "a certain kind of loud, boisterous talking and unsanctified zeal in [the institution's] council meetings" (Manuscript 23, 1891). Ellen White recorded in her diary:
Religion and business are becoming divorced. Worldly, selfish plans are coming in.... Many who know not what spirit they are of are ready to reach out their hands to grasp and gather in that which they have not earned. Many are under condemnation because of the grave sin of selfishness which is leavening the institution. One confederates with another. "You stand by me, and I will stand by you," they say to each other. Thus they lead others into false paths, bringing in the strange fire that God has positively forbidden to be used in His work.--Ibid.
Messages of warning were sounded again and again as she appealed for changes on the basis of God's instructions to her. In her distress she wrote:
The men in leading positions in the office of publication do not respect either the messenger or the messages graciously given them of God.... It is not safe for men who have so little of the spirit of Christ, so little divine enlightenment, to hold positions where they themselves, through temptation, may become tempters to lead into false paths those with whom they are associated.--Ibid.
Two years later, from New Zealand, in a letter addressed to the president of the General Conference, she told of how she "could not sleep after two o'clock last night." She wrote of the injustice that was being done in the Review and Herald office.
She was referring primarily to two situations: (1) injustice to authors by the instigation of policies that would deny them their just rewards for their literary work, and (2) inequity in dealing with publishing-house personnel. Managers argued that it was because of the skill and ability of those in management that the work prospered, so the men in positions of responsibility should receive double the pay of the skilled workmen in the plant.
Added to this were the pressures being brought by men in the publishing house to put the Review office in control of all publishing work in North America. The Pacific Press in Oakland, California, would be but a branch of the Review and Herald, with all decisions made in Battle Creek. Steps that virtually would bring about the consolidation of the publishing work were introduced as early as 1889 at the General Conference session and developed in 1891. In fact, propositions along this line had been made before James White's death in 1881.
From Australia, Ellen White wrote in 1896:
The Lord has presented matters before me that cause me to tremble for the institutions at Battle Creek....
The scheme for consolidation is detrimental to the cause of present truth. Battle Creek has all the power she should have. Some in that place have advanced selfish plans, and if any branch of the work promised a measure of success, they have not exercised the spirit which lets well enough alone, but have made an effort to attach these interests to the great whole. They have striven to embrace altogether too much, and yet they are eager to get more....
Twenty years ago, I was surprised at the cautions and warnings given me in reference to the publishing house on the Pacific Coast--that it was ever to remain independent of all other institutions; that it was to be controlled by no other institution, but was to do the Lord's work under His guidance and protection....
It must not be merged into any other institution. The hand of power and control at Battle Creek must not reach across the continent to manage it.
At a later date, just prior to my husband's death, the minds of some were agitated in regard to placing these institutions under one presiding power. Again the Holy Spirit brought to my mind what had been stated to me by the Lord. I told my husband to say in answer to this proposition that the Lord had not planned any such action. He who knows the end from the beginning understands these matters better than erring man....
The Lord presented before me that branches of this work would be planted in other places, and carried on under the supervision of the Pacific Press, but that if this proved a success, jealousy, evil surmisings, and covetousness would arise. Efforts would be made to change the order of things, and embrace the work among other interests at Battle Creek. Men are very zealous to change the order of things, but the Lord forbids such a consolidation.--Letter 81, 1896.
Most distressing of all was the general deterioration of the spiritual experience of the Review management and workers and the eroding of a sense of right, which allowed for the commercial work to bring demoralizing publications into the manufacturing plant. Taking the stance that they were printers and not censors, management authorized the printing of publications that came far short of Adventist moral standards. There were no restraints established that regulated the type of literature that would be published. Presses poured forth fiction, Wild West stories, books promulgating Roman Catholic doctrines, sex literature, and books on hypnosis. The managers looked upon the publishing house as a commercial enterprise whose first obligation was to make money.
Appeals for Needed Change
This background provides a better understanding of the appeals and cautions that came to the Review manager and the General Conference leaders. In a letter addressed to responsible leaders in Battle Creek, Ellen White wrote:
The men who have been connected with the greatest interests upon this earth have tainted and corrupted the work of God. The instrumentalities which He designed shall be used in advancing His cause have been used to forward unlawful schemes, which are in direct opposition to the work which God has specified as His. God has been forsaken by the men who have voiced decisions regarding His work, which has thereby become entangled.--Letter 4, 1896.
After naming certain leaders in the publishing work, Ellen White wrote sadly:
Professedly, these men were working for the interests of the publishing institution.... I speak that which I have seen, and which I know to be true. The speculative spirit has been gaining supremacy in the Battle Creek publishing house, and oppression is seen in a marked degree. I must speak plainly, for a power from beneath, a power that works in the children of disobedience, is working in the men who are acting in opposition to the leading of the Holy Spirit.... Satan gives them the impression that in their cruel business dealing, they are doing God a service.-- Ibid.
The next month she wrote to the manager of the house: I cannot trace with pen and ink the disappointment of my soul as I consider what you might have been had you used and improved your God-given capabilities....
I have been shown the inward workings and decisions of your councils and board meetings, the strange positions that have been accepted, the mutual obligations involved, and the binding up of plans and inventions that God does not endorse. But nothing that I could say would change the current of selfish, dishonest practices, for you and those connected with you are indifferent to the messages given you of God.
You virtually say, "I do not care for the testimonies. Men in important and responsible positions do not believe in them, and pay no regard to them, and why should I have faith in them?" This is the spirit that has come in, and controls the work at the present time....
When God sends His messages of warning, and they are turned from with the words, "I do not believe it," what means has He left to call the deluded soul back to repentance? They care not to obey the "Thus saith the Lord": and when the message comes through His chosen instrumentalities, they say, "I do not want to hear any more on this subject." One has, when reproved, taken the written words of reproof, and thrown it in the fire, and another treats it with perfect indifference.
Thus they go on in their own way, doing their own will, and confederating together to devise methods and plans to take from the treasury large wages which they do not earn; they work to rob the workers to whom God has entrusted talents, in order to supply the unjust measure they extract. In other matters also, they deal unfairly, but the books of heaven contain a record of all these dealings.--Letter 28, 1896.
In spite of these messages of warning and appeal that were sent to the leading workers in the publishing house and to church leaders, no noticeable change came about. To Uriah Smith, the editor of the Review and Herald, she wrote in January, 1898:
The Saviour has oft visited you in Battle Creek. Just as verily as He has walked the streets in Jerusalem, longing to breathe the breath of spiritual life into the hearts of those discouraged and ready to die, has He come to you. The cities that were so greatly blessed by His presence, His pardon, His gifts of healing, rejected Him; and just as great, yea, greater evidence of unrequited love has been given in Battle Creek.--Letter 31, 1898 (Testimonies for the Church 8:67).
But she also noted:
Christ sorrows and weeps over our churches, over our institutions of learning, that have failed to meet the demand of God. He comes to investigate Battle Creek, which has been moving in the same track as Jerusalem.
The publishing house has been turned into desecrated shrines, into places of unholy merchandise and traffic. It has become a place where injustice and fraud have been carried on, where selfishness, malice, envy, and passion have borne sway.
Yet the men who have led into this working upon wrong principles are seemingly unconscious of their wrong course of action. When warnings and entreaties come to them, they say, Doth she not speak in parables? Words of warning and reproof have been treated as idle tales.-- Ibid. (Ibid., 8:67, 68).
Her fifteen-page letter closes with these words:
These are no idle tales, but truth. Again I ask, On which side are you standing? "If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him."-- Ibid. (Ibid., 8:68).
Last-Minute Warnings
On July 8, 1901, Ellen White wrote to the manager of the Review and Herald:
Unjust, unholy actions have brought the frown of God upon the Review and Herald office. Evil work has brought the cause of God into disrepute, and has kept the backslider from obeying His holy law.--Letter 74, 1901.
Conditions worsened during 1901, in spite of the many messages of warning counsel. Frank Belden charged that the foreman was "brutal," and that he sometimes required employees to clean his bicycle on office time. One man still living in 1970 recalled his days in the Review pressroom where he began work at the age of 14, in 1896. He was still working there when the fire struck, and he left the building just minutes before the flames swept through it. He recalled a book on witchcraft being printed there, and a pressman printing copies of Bible Readings while spitting tobacco juice onto the press. This young man was ridiculed by other workers when he decided to be baptized. The terror engendered by the harsh manner of his superiors led him to wish that the next day would never come. There were young women workers who read proof on books that were filled with skepticism about religion and who then brought this skepticism into their talk around the office.
"We have no permission from the Lord," wrote Ellen White, "to engage either in the printing or in the sale of such publications, for they are the means of destroying many souls. I know of what I am writing, for this matter has been opened before me. Let not those who believe the message for this time engage in such work, thinking to make money."--Testimonies for the Church 7:166. About this time she made a most interesting observation, one that shows an insight God gave to her:
Even the men who are endeavoring to exalt their own sentiments as wonderful science are astonished that men in positions of responsibility in our office of publication--a printing office set for the defense of the truth of God--have consented to print their books.--Manuscript 124, 1901.
In her distress and in a desperate attempt to halt the satanic work, Ellen White called for a virtual boycott on the part of the employees in the publishing house. After depicting the demoralizing effects of the literature being printed on the Review and Herald presses--including love stories and books setting forth crimes, atrocities, and licentious practices--Ellen White pointed out that the position taken by the managers (that they carried no responsibility for the type of books coming from their presses and that the employees had no responsibility in the choice of the nature of the materials that passed through the publishing house) was wrong. She declared:
In these matters a responsibility rests not only upon the managers but upon the employees.... Let typesetters refuse to set a sentence of such matter. Let proofreaders refuse to read, pressmen to print, and binders to bind it.--Ibid., 7:167, 168.
In delineating the personal responsibility, she added:
You are responsible--responsible for the use of your eyes, your hands, your mind. These are entrusted to you by God to be used for Him, not for the service of Satan.--Ibid., 168.
The blight of commercial work was not confined to the Review and Herald. The Pacific Press, although not involved in as many ways in the problems that have been depicted as sapping the vitality of the Review and Herald, was in its commercial work going beyond the bounds of that which was acceptable for a denominational publishing house. In October of 1901 Ellen White wrote:
In the Pacific Press an objectionable class of work has been taken in--novels and storybooks, which absorb the minds of those who handle them, diverting their attention from the Word of God.... The introduction of this class of matter destroys the spirituality of the office.--Letter 140, 1901.
Somehow those who managed the work had become hardened against the messages that God sent. Now on Wednesday morning, December 31, 1902, all of the great Review and Herald publishing plant, except for the West Building book depository, was warm embers, collapsed brick walls, and twisted machinery. There was nothing left of any value.
The Morning After the Fire
The Review and Herald board met that morning for a short meeting at seven-thirty. At nine o'clock the employees were called together. They were given the assurance that none would be allowed to suffer. Some would be employed at the Sanitarium. Some might connect with other publishing houses. Some would be given opportunity to engage in colporteur ministry.
A quick assessment of the situation revealed that because the West Building had been spared, there was a good stock of books, which would supply colporteurs for a number of months. That branch of the work could continue without embarrassment. It was decided to delay plans for the future of the publishing house until the General Conference meeting three months later.
Fire insurance provided $100,000, but the debts of the institution far exceeded this. Many telegrams were received that Wednesday from business concerns in Michigan and nearby States, expressing condolence and offering assistance.
The Review of January 6, 1903, told the story to Adventists across the land. It was printed in Battle Creek on the presses of "The Pilgrim," the type having been set in the three newspaper offices of the city--The Daily Moon, The Battle Creek Journal, and the Morning Enquirer. With the Review stripped of its linotypes and printing presses, the proprietors of the printing establishments in Battle Creek showed a hearty sympathy and offered their facilities.
Fortunately, the mailing lists of the Review and Youth's Instructor were in the West Building. Within a few days a part of the book depository had been cleared, which made room for a linotype and a printing press, so that the publication of journals could continue without interruption.
So complete were the losses that it was necessary to publish a note that all supplies of articles and reports sent to the Review and Herald for publication were destroyed in the fire; this was true also of unanswered letters. An appeal was made for those who had furnished materials for publication to send duplicate copies to aid in the continued printing of literature for the church.
The sword of fire held over Battle Creek had fallen, and all knew that God had spoken.