Interview/Regarding Our Work in the Southern States.
Loma Linda, California
April 29, 1907
Previously unpublished.
Present: Mrs. E. G. White, W. C. White, P. T. Magan, D. E. Robinson. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 1
W. C. White: You know, mother, that for some time we have planned and done some work in preparation of a book that would give our people a picture of the fields in the Southern States, and the work to be done there, hoping it would be a means of encouraging young people to give themselves to the work. Sometimes we planned to publish this matter one way, and sometimes another way, but always before anything was completed, we were interrupted and delayed, and then something came up to change the plan and hinder the work. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 2
What we have needed all the time was someone in the South—someone who was in contact with the actual conditions there—to take a part in preparing the book by giving a picture of the field. It seems now as though Brother Magan would help in this work. He has been long enough in that field to know its conditions, and he has access to the writings of the best men there, and it seems to me that he could do the work nicely. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 3
When I wrote to him to come out here and spend a little time with us, I had several things in mind. One was the plan for him to help us on this book, another was to plan what we could do to strengthen the work in the South, and another was what we could do to get before our people a correct understanding of the work of Madison school. These were the principal things I had in mind in urging him to come out here. He has been talking over matters with Brother Crisler, and a little with me, and we thought that perhaps it would be as well to get out this matter regarding the work in the South in sections, so we could issue it in separate pamphlets, or might bind it together in one book. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 4
We thought to take your appeals for one section, and your picture of what should be done in the way of establishing little settlements and small industrial schools for another. Another subject that might be treated is the condition of the poor whites, and another is the present condition of the blacks. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 5
I thought that if Brother Magan could write up the descriptions of the conditions in the South, then we could prepare what you have written, and issue it in two pamphlets if you like, and then put them together and make a book that would be profitable for study by our young people. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 6
P. T. Magan: I think, Sister White, that Brother White has told you about the same outline that has been in my mind. I have noticed this, as I have been at camp meetings with our people in the North, that they will listen to your appeals for the South much better if they have some kind of knowledge of the place itself, and the actual conditions there, than if they simply have the appeals and do not know anything about the conditions any more than as the appeals may casually mention them. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 7
E. G. White: I think that any means that can be adopted to give a general view of the field as it is should be followed. I should have no objection to the plan as you have laid it out. I cannot see why it would not be very good. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 8
P. T. Magan: We would like to gather matter from your writings, with whatever else you had in mind to add, and make one section of the book composed mostly of your appeals concerning the South. You remember the book that was printed years ago called Historical Sketches of Foreign Missions. One section in it was called “Practical Addresses.” They were the talks that you had given in regard to the work in Europe generally, and you told what you had seen in regard to the people of the Piedmont Valleys. Then there were other parts in that book written by Elder Conradi and Elders Waggoner, and Matteson, Haskell, Whitney, and those men who were over there. These parts written by them gave a historical description of the place and the people and their characteristics, etc. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 9
Now I thought we could get up a book something on that plan, and have your addresses and appeals in one section. Then we would like to have a number of chapters made up from the instruction you have given at different times as to how the Southern Field should be worked. We cannot work it in the ordinary way. You have said a lot about what might be accomplished by families settling there, about two or three families going into a place where there is no representative of present truth, and starting a little center of light, and having a little school, and getting the people together for meetings, and doing a simple earnest work among them. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 10
You have written much about such work. I have some of it collected and Clarence has a great deal more, telling how that can be done. And in connection with that you have written a good deal as to how people are losing faith in the soil and their ability to get a living from the land. We find that a great deal in the South. There are many less people in the country in the South today than there were ten years ago. They are all flocking to the cities. And I have thought if that instruction in regard to the land and the advantages of living on the land, and what God has said in regard to caring for it, was brought in, it would be a great help. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 11
E. G. White: Anything unworked will be like the mind that is unused. You leave the land unworked, and it will show its barrenness, but this does not show the impossibility of its being used to advantage. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 12
P. T. Magan: Not long ago I read of a movement in Holland where instead of trying to care for the poor people in poor houses, they had reclaimed a large tract of land to put them on, and their motto was that if man can improve the land, the land will improve the man. I have thought that if that could come into the book it would be well. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 13
If the story of the poor whites could be told, and how they came to be what they are, and the need of doing work amongst them was set forth in a simple historical tale, it would have a tendency to interest the people of the North, and they would heed your appeals more than if there were just your appeals alone. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 14
E. G. White: Yes, there must be something to help the people to make the application. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 15
P. T. Magan: And I have thought that the same things were true about the blacks. You know, years ago you made the statement that the time would come when there would be a terrible race war in the South. I do not know whether you ever said it in so many words, but you intimated that slavery would exist again. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 16
E. G. White: Just as soon as people begin to make any kind of movement to educate the blacks, there are some who are determined that it shall not be done. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 17
P. T. Magan: It is the common talk all over the South that there will be a race war within the next few years. Senator Tillman has talked it in the House. Governor elect, Hoke Smith, and Tillman have published a plan that they are advocating everywhere. Their plan is something like this; that they will divide every county into districts, and every negro is to be numbered. He will have a brass plate strapped to his arm with a leather strap, giving his number, 536 or 6023, or whatever it may be, and then he is never to be allowed outside of that district without a passport from the officers. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 18
E. G. White: There will be slavery just as verily as it has been, only upon a basis that is more favorable and secure to the white people. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 19
P. T. Magan: More secure, because they do not have to feed the negroes and care for them. Then if the negro has got outside that district, or if he is loafing and not working, they can put him in the chain gang for a year. Now they state in their plan that if anyone is caught, whose teachings excite the blacks to foolishness, that he can be taken and put in the chain gang. Senator Tillman has printed that; he has printed it in the leading magazine in the South, and he has spoken it in Chicago and also in Atlanta, Georgia. There are many of the negroes today who are selling their property and hiding their money in the earth for fear that their land and houses, if they were known to own any, would be taken from them. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 20
E. G. White: Then intelligent blacks may read from cause to effect. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 21
P. T. Magan: They do. It has got to be a saying down south that the darkies do not sing as much as they used to. I had thought we ought, without taking sides or creating any disturbance, tell in a moderate way the conditions in the South. You see, everybody is writing about it now, the magazines are full of it; the papers say a great deal about it. If we could depict the present status somewhat, it would interest our people to go south to work before it is too late. And yet I felt, on the other hand, that we should be very careful in the doing of that, lest we stir up a hornet’s nest. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 22
E. G. White: That is the danger. That is why I have pleaded and entreated, entreated, and entreated for the work to be done in the South, because I knew that this very race war would be introduced. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 23
P. T. Magan: There are some blessings coming with this present agitation. Now there are a number of very good men in the South who see the trouble coming, and who are trying to stop it. There is ex-governor _______ of Alabama, a man who has been a friend to the Negro. He is advocating now, (contrary to the southern customs), that the blacks shall be taught by white people. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 24
E. G. White: That is the right way. It ought to have been done from the time of their emancipation. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 25
P. T. Magan: And there is an ex-governor in Northern Georgia. He is known as the preacher governor of Georgia. He is a very good man, and is stumping the state at his own expense, preaching to both classes, to try to bring about reconciliation and peace—the proper way of looking at things. So there are openings that will help us at the same time that these other things are closing down. There are some very good things mixed in with the terrible things that we see coming. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 26
Brother White and I had talked it over that if we could get up a little book like that, and then if we could take it, perhaps, and your book Education, and go to the churches in the North, and hold conventions in the churches, and wake the people up, and get some good families into the South, and if we could give the book to the Young People’s Societies to study, a great deal could be done. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 27
Now, we have had some experiences since we have been South. There have been between fifty and seventy-five families come South from the North, and gone into places where there are no Adventists, starting up a little work and doing something. We have been trying to encourage people to get in and do something at their own expense. There is so little tithe money down here. You could not go into these ignorant districts and hold a series of meetings and then leave them. You have got to live among these people, and bring them along step by step. Very large numbers cannot read, cannot write. Many of them have never read a line in the Bible. There are 57,000 adults in the state of Tennessee who cannot read one word in the Bible. These are white people. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 28
E. G. White: I do not question that, because I know how it has been presented to me. And it makes me feel intensely over this matter. Everything should be carefully used in many lines so as not to bind ourselves up with large and expensive buildings in the South. We must work to keep up an even sort of prosperity. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 29
P. T. Magan: You remember, when you were buying that farm down there. I did not like it very well at first. I thought it was too rough, and I wanted a good piece of land. We have won a great blessing since then in the fact that we did not secure the best piece of land in the county, for we can do so much more for the people who have land just as poor as ours. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 30
After we got the place, we were in terrible anxiety to get up the school building right away. The money did not come, and we held the school in the old building that was on the place. That has put a spirit in our students that they are willing to go out with very little, and start in and do something. We have felt that this was a great blessing. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 31
Four of our students have gone to one place in Tennessee among these ignorant people. They have just taken their own money. They have not called for donations from anybody. They had a little money in the family. They have just bought a piece of land, and are supporting themselves off that. And they have forty children in their school. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 32
E. G. White: That is just the way the Lord wanted the work to go. They must get an interest in the Southern people, and establish a work upon a simple basis. The students must have an opportunity to cultivate the mind and the muscles. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 33
P. T. Magan: The people in the hills are poor, and they pay for their instruction by helping in the work. The children come and help in the work, the old folks come and help, and in that way our folks are able to help them by teaching them better methods of working with the soil. They nurse the sick in the neighborhood, and they are getting hold of the hearts of the people. The work will go slow. It will not make a big showing of Sabbathkeepers so quickly as if you could pitch a tent in a place like Redlands. But these people cannot read. They are very poor, and it takes time to build them up. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 34
Four of our students went to Cuba, and a Catholic gave them fourteen acres of land. We raised five hundred dollars for them to put up their house, and they are conducting a school now altogether amongst the Catholics. This man told Elder Snyder that he never had such nice folks around his plantation, and that if we could send over more, he would like to put them on the other end of the plantation. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 35
E. G. White: That is just as it has been presented to me—we are to work the land and give an example of what the land can produce. Then we are to educate carpenters and teachers, men who can do whatever needs to be done. Then they are independent. Whatever the people in the South may do in regard to closing up our work, we must trust all to Providence; but we must work just the same as though we were going to keep at it until the Lord comes. Does not everyone who goes there see the utility and the advantage that lies in the Madison school? 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 36
P. T. Magan: I think so. You mean the parents of our students? Yes, they take it very kindly. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 37
E. G. White: What about the outsiders? 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 38
P. T. Magan: There seems to be a very kindly feeling in Nashville toward the school. Some of the best people in Nashville have been very good friends to us. The Southern wealthy people feel that the Negro and the poor white are very lazy, indolent, and shiftless, and they are. They feel that anything that will teach them economy and thrift is a good thing. Several of the best families have been very friendly to us. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 39
E. G. White: I believe that you have begun your work on right lines. You have been teaching a pretty hard lesson. And there should have been a sanitarium on the same land as your school. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 40
P. T. Magan: We are planning now to put up a little sanitarium. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 41
E. G. White: Of course. You should do that, but you must keep them little all the time. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 42
P. T. Magan: We have been planning to get through for five thousand dollars. But I am sure it will come over that. It will run pretty near to ten thousand for furniture and all. Timber is getting very high, even in the South, and pipe and bathtubs, and all that sort of thing, has come up so much of late that these things are probably fully a third more than they were five years ago. But we have hoped to get up what we are planning for from seven to ten thousand dollars. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 43
E. G. White: You see I have had to keep saying to you, “A respectable building.” I am so afraid you would get too narrowed up that I have had to keep saying that there should be a respectable building. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 44
P. T. Magan: You are afraid we will get too narrow? 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 45
E. G. White: Yes. There should be room in it. If you can make your lumber spread out so there is room, the room will count more than the elegance of it. If you have large rooms, you will impress the people that this is just what they should have. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 46
P. T. Magan: I can give you a little idea of the plan of it, and you may have some counsel for us. We have planned to build it entirely on the ground floor. The Southern people are very fond of ground-floor buildings, because the rooms upstairs get so terribly hot in the summer. Unless you can build these upper rooms very large and with many windows in them, it is hard to make an upper story room comfortable in the hot weather. And we rather expect that the most of our people will come to us in the summer. They want to get out of the city in the summer, and come and live with us. They expect something very plain. We planned to build it on the plan we find in a number of health resorts. The sleeping rooms have windows on both sides, and they can sleep on the verandah on the outside. Many Southern people take to that idea. They like plenty of air and sunshine. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 47
E. G. White: I like the idea of putting it in the woods. That is the grandest place in the world for it. From first to last I have said you are just where the Lord wanted you, and I have not changed my mind. 22LtMs, Ms 196, 1907, par. 48