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Life Sketches of Ellen G. White
From Battle Creek to the East
Before the close of the 1903 General Conference, the delegates
voted:
“That the General Conference offices be removed from Battle
Creek, Mich., to some place favorable for its work in the Atlantic
States.”
The General Conference Bulletin, 1903
.
Soon after the close of the Conference session, the General Con-
ference Committee took the following action:
“Voted, That we favor locating the headquarters of the General
Conference in the vicinity of New York City.” The Review and Herald,
May 12, 1903, p. 16.
And in the forty-third annual meeting of the Review and Herald
Publishing Association, held April 21, 1903, recommendations were
adopted looking toward the transfer of the work of the Association to
some point in the Eastern States.
In the discussion of these recommendations, the object set forth
during the General Conference session—placing the institution where
it could best share the burden of giving the third angel’s message
world-wide publicity—was reiterated. As one of the members of the
Committee on Resolutions declared, in support of the recommenda-
tions offered:
[390]
“Why do we talk about moving this institution? Is it not to place
ourselves where we can do the work entrusted to us to better advan-
tage? Is it not to place ourselves where ... we can hasten on to the
whole wide world with our message, and bring the glorious consum-
mation of our work?”
Supplement to The Review and Herald, April
28, 1903, p. 7
.
In Search of a Site
As a preliminary step toward the carrying out of the recommenda-
tions of the General Conference and of the stockholders of the Review
and Herald, representative men were chosen to serve as a locating
committee. Before proceeding with their work, they wrote to Mrs.
White, requesting her to communicate to them any definite light she
might have regarding the exact place where they should transfer the