Third, I cannot but believe that other Congregational men in other areas of our country are just as ready to listen to this story. If the Laymen's Advisory Committee had the staff and the funds, 25,000 Congregational men could be convened during the next twelve months to listen to the recital of the achievements of the World Wide Work. The men of the churches are ready for the story.

Fourth, our busiest and most resourceful men are only too glad to lend their influence. They manifest keen interest in such undertakings and are willing to work. Three of the above Dinners have had as their presiding officers, the Governors of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Connecticut, while at Winchester the gavel was wielded by Mr. Hull, Speaker of the House of Representatives for Massachusetts.

Finally, the men themselves are unwilling to let the matter rest where the Dinners drop it. In response to their suggestions-their suggestions, mind you-Conferences are being arranged in these Dinner areas, where brief presentations are being made by representatives of the State, National, and Foreign Work, followed by opportunity for questions and round-table discussions. Two such Conferences have already been held. Of the 178 men in the New Haven area who attended the Lawn Club Dinner last February, 117 returned October 28, and spent from 4.00 to 9.30 P.M. in conference along the above lines.

"Whereas, we 117 Congregational men, after hearing reports of the secretaries of our Home and Foreign Boards, are more than ever convinced that the World Wide program of our church is of vast importance and service to the World and vital to the life and progress of our entire enterprise,

Therefore, be it Resolved.

1. That we recommend to every church in the area here represented, which does not now have such a committee, that it create immediately a World Service Committee (Missionary Committee), the membership of which shall be largely composed of men.

2. That this World Service Committee take a responsible part in preparing the budget of the local church for the ensuing year, especially in relation to benevolences, and then use its best efforts in seeing to it that that budget is balanced.

3. That we recommend that the laymen here present take the initiative in convening in their own churches within the next few weeks meetings similar to this one in plan and purpose."

We hope that at all points the Dinners will be followed by Conferences of this sort.

It is high time for all of us men on whose conscience, we say, rests the well-being of the World Wide Work, to bestir ourselves to bring to our fellows the story of the achievements of our Christian enterprises at home and abroad, to which recital they are only too willing to listen, and in behalf of which they will be only too glad to act.

N

EARLY a hundred years ago certain states were encroaching on what the American Indians considered rights guaranteed to them by treaties between their "nations" and the United States. About 1828 our national government joined with the states in demands that the tribes should remove to the Far West.

The unwillingness of the Indians to do this is shown in a letter from a Choctaw chief that appeared in the Missionary Herald:

And

It is our own country. It was the land of our forefathers, and as their children we call it ours, and we reside in it. whenever the great white men have come to us and held treaties with us, they have ever said, "The country is yours." The treaties are written for us by the white men themselves, and we have as a nation our own laws and are governed by them. And now, although white men have surrounded us and settled on every side of us, here alone can we reside. For it was the land of our fathers and it is now ours as their children. And has not the American Government always sustained and protected us, agreeable to the solemn treaties with this nation? And should the people of Mississippi wish to extend their laws over us and distress us, such measures would be attended with misery and destruction to us. Will not the great American people, who are men of truth and love justice, still love us Choctaw red men? Surely we think they will love us.

The sympathies of the Board's missionaries were with the Indians. In December, 1830, those working among the Cherokees united with the missionaries of two other societies in issuing a statement favorable to the red men. A month later they received copies of a law just enacted by the Georgia legislature decreeing that white persons residing within the limits of the Cherokee Nation who had not received a license from the Governor of Georgia and taken an oath to support the jurisdiction of that state over the Cherokees, should be punished by confinement in the penitentiary at hard labor for a term of not less than four years. Authorized agents of the United States were exempted from the operation of the law. It was evident that this statute was directed against the missionaries.

March 12, 1831, a colonel, with twenty-five armed men, arrested some of the missionaries. The judge before whom they were taken rejected the plea of their counsel that the law was inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States. He, however, released them on the ground that, since they re

ceived appropriations from the United States Government for instructing the Indians, they were its agents and so came within the exception allowed by the law. This ruling was disapproved by the Governor of Georgia, who obtained a statement from the President that he did not consider the missionaries to be agents of the Government.

Correspondence between the Governor and the missionaries, as also long accounts of the way the latter were treated, is given in the Herald. Dr. Butler was arrested, and some of the indignities heaped upon him are thus described by a fellowprisoner:

A chain was fastened by a padlock around his neck, and at the other end, to the neck of a horse, by the side of which he walked. Night soon came on. The horse was kept walking at a quick pace, and Dr. Butler, unable to see any obstruction which a rough wilderness road might present, was liable at any moment to fall, and so to be dragged by the neck till the horse should stop. After walking some distance in the dark, on representing the danger of his situation, he was taken up behind the saddle, his chain being still fastened to the horse's neck and short enough to keep his neck close to the shoulder of the guard.

After several days in a prison where there were no chairs, benches, or tables, the missionaries, on Saturday, wrote to the person in charge, asking permission to hold a religious service the next day in some place where the guards and others might attend. The letter was returned with the following

answer:

We view the within request as an impertinent one. If your conduct be evidence of your character and the doctrines you wish to promulgate, we are sufficiently enlightened as to them. Our object is to restrain, not to facilitate, their promulgation. If your object be true piety, you can enjoy it where you are. Were we hearers, we would not be benefited, devoid as we are of confidence in your honesty.

Two missionaries of the Board, a Methodist minister, and eight other persons were found guilty, and each was condemned to four years at hard labor in the penitentiary. The Governor offered pardon on condition that they would not again violate the laws of Georgia; that is, that they would take the required oath or remove from the Cherokee County. Though the others yielded, the two missionaries refused to do so. In prison they were fairly well treated after that.

Papers in different parts of the country condemned what had been done. Money to provide comforts was sent by Cherokees and other friends. Even in Georgia many sympathized with the missionaries. The Presbyterian Synod of North Carolina, which, like some other religious bodies, considered the case, passed resolutions, one of which said:

The unrestrained insults, wanton indignities, and brutal cruelties to which some of the missionaries were subjected after their arrest by individuals of the Georgia escort savor more of the lawless barbarities of Algerine banditti than of the customary decencies and civilities of an American guard.

The case was brought to the Supreme Court of the United States. Its decision and the subsequent action of the state are thus reported in the Herald:

The laws of Georgia enacted during the last two or three years, extending the jurisdiction of that state over the Cherokee County, were examined by the court, and declared to be repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, and laws of the United States. The mandate of the court was immediately issued, reversing and annulling the judgment of the superior court of Georgia, and ordering that all proceedings on the indictment against the prisoners do forever surcease, and that the prisoners be and hereby are dismissed therefrom.

The government of the state of Georgia, having refused to comply with this order, the case will probably be brought before the supreme court again at their next term, when they will take such measures as in their wisdom they shall think best for enforcing their decision.

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The counsel of the missionaries brought before the court in Georgia a motion for the reversal of its decision, but it was rejected. Measures were then taken preliminary to seeking further action by the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, however, the law was repealed, and influential friends of the missionaries advised them to accept a pardon now offered by the Governor. They decided to do this in the

hope that thus they might be able to work again for the Cherokees.

On accepting the pardon the missionaries resumed their labors in the stations previously occupied. In various unworthy ways a part of the Cherokee Nation was induced to assent to a new treaty providing for removal. The great majority of the tribe declared that they did not recognize the validity of this treaty, and said:

If it is to be enforced upon us, it will be by your superior strength. We shall offer no resistance; but our voluntary assent never will be yielded. We are aware of the consequences; but while suffering them in all their bitterness, we shall submit our cause to an all-wise and just God, in whose providence it is to maintain the cause of suffering innocence and unprotected feebleness.

In 1838 military forces collected those that had objected to removal. All the companies, except one, pursued their course by land through the states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas, a distance of six hundred or seven hundred miles, most of them traveling on foot. Their journey consumed from three and a half to five and a half months, attended, as was of course inevitable, with much suffering and mortality. From the time they were gathered into camps by the United States troops in May and June, 1838, till the time the last detachment reached the Arkansas country, which was about ten months, a careful estimate shows that not less than 4,000 or 4,500 of them were removed by death, being on an average from thirteen to fifteen deaths in a day for the whole period, out of a population of 16,000, or one-fourth of the whole number.

This is a story, not of Armenians and Turks, but of American Indians and United States soldiers; so we are glad to have our sense of shame somewhat lessened as we read in the Herald:

It does not appear that the mortality was owing to neglect or bad treatment while on the journey. It was probably necessarily involved in the measure itself, however carefully the arrangements might have been made, or however faithfully executed.

MRS. RANNEY GOES TO CHICAGO

We regret to announce the resignation of Mrs. Helen Street Ranney as Secretary of the Board is due to her decision to accept the invitation of the Mid-West Regional Committee to join its Chicago staff as the Associate Secretary to head up the woman's work in this Region. She goes early in January to her new office at 19 South La Salle Street.

MRS. HELEN STREET RANNEY

Mrs. Ranney, who was formerly Secretary of the Woman's Board of Missions for the Pacific, has been an important link between the American Board and the women of the Pacific slope during the year she has been on the Board's executive staff. Through correspondence and through field work she has kept in touch with them during these months of national reorganization. Now the women of the Mid-West want her help in pushing their new program, which is concerned with both foreign and home missions.

It is with regret that Mrs. Ranney resigns from the Board of which her grandfather, Dr. Rufus Anderson, was Secretary for many years, but she feels that the opportunity for service in Chicago will be even greater than in Boston. She already has a considerable acquaintance in the Mid-West, having lived for several years in Colorado when her husband had a pastorate there, and she looks forward with pleasure to working with state leaders, many of whom she knows. While in California she was in touch with the Home Missionary interests, as she worked closely with Home Missionary

women, and during her field work, visited in Home Missionary parishes all up and down the Coast. We believe that she will make an ideal Regional Secretary and congratulate the Mid-West on securing a woman of such wide experience and such warm interest in the whole cause.

ALL MISSIONARIES, ATTENTION!

In "pre-merger days" the American Board office in San Francisco considered the meeting of incoming and outgoing missionaries one of its rarest privileges. Hallowed to many of our missionaries are the memories clustered around the names of Dr. Tenney, Dr. Kelsey, Miss West, and, latterly, Mr. Holmes.

With the passing of this district office of the Board, the interest in the welfare of traveling missionaries is in no way lessened. The Northern California Conference office at 421 Phelan Building, next to the old American Board rooms, is now official headquarters for all American Board missionaries, and Dr. Minchin, Conference Superintendent, with his staff, hold themselves in readiness to render any service needed-passports, mail suggestions about hotel accommodations, cashing of checks, and shopping.

To be sure that all possible hospitality is shown, a volunteer hospitality committee of the Federation of Congregational Women of Northern California supplements the work of the Conference office. Mrs. E. V. Krick, 1700 Jones Street, San Francisco, is chairman of this committee. The request that San Francisco makes of all missionaries is that they notify the Conference office or the chairman of the hospitality committee of their expected arrival in San Francisco. Mrs. Krick says, "Please help us in this way to carry on the work that has been such a joy to us in the past."

The American Board office in Boston has reregistered the San Francisco office with the cable company under the name "Fernstalk."

WOMEN'S WORK ON THE PACIFIC COAST

As the women on the Coast were the pioneers in merging the home and foreign interests, any of the strangeness of pushing the interests of "Missions" without the geographical appendages has worn off and the women are quite certain that to work together is the only way. This year, when there has been a general drop in benevolences, the Pacific Coast has held its own.

It is true that in Oregon and in Washington the two societies were legally merged this year, but their Branches and Unions have been working together for a long time with, for the most part, joint officers.

The Northern California women call themselves a "Federation of Congregational Women" in order to include every woman in every church. A "Commissioner" is appointed from each church, and those