Analyses Today's News, with the Prophesies of THE WORLD TOMORROW
Box 111, Eugene, Oregon
Publishing: The PLAIN TRUTH a Magazine of UNDERSTANDING
March 12, 1946
A VERY SPECIAL EMERGENCY LETTER TO ALL OUR CO-WORKERS
Dear Friends and Co-Workers:
I have to rush to you this afternoon a VERY SPECIAL LETTER — to explain something vital and important to the future of this work.
Please read every word carefully, and don't lay this letter down until you have read it thru.
First let me say I haven't been able, due to the heavy pressure of the work since beginning the EVERY-NIGHT broadcasting, to send out "Our Co-Workers' BULLETIN" as I formerly did each month. It will be resumed soon. I wanted to send out a BULLETIN as soon as The PLAIN TRUTH is mailed out. However, circumstances have arisen that make it impossible to wait. I must rush this special emergency letter to you IMMEDIATELY!
Last December there was opened to us a TREMENDOUS OPPORTUNITY — to broadcast EVERY NIGHT except Saturday, over the two most powerful stations in North America, at the VERY BEST HOUR every evening, a full half hour warning this nation of impending disaster — proclaiming fearlessly the true GOSPEL — to put on one of the most intensive and far-reaching campaigns of soul-saving ever made possible in history! It meant obligating myself to an expense THREE TIMES as great as the amount of money then being sent to us for this work. But God opened the way. In sheer faith, we followed!
It was impossible to get out an issue of The PLAIN TRUTH immediately. I wanted to get articles on some of these vital subjects into the hands of listeners IMMEDIATELY. We had been frequently printing articles on our own mimeograph here in our office. So, I began from the first every-night broadcast to offer a wide variety of these special articles over the air.
I could not foresee that a veritable AVALANCHE of letters would pour in on us requesting these articles. We started out determined to mail out all articles requested the day the requests arrived. But soon we were literally snowed under. They began arriving at the rate of a THOUSAND requests A DAY! We doubled our office staff — then tripled it — hiring typists and office girls to address envelopes, insert and mail out articles and booklets, check names and addresses with the mailing list and get all new names on the regular mailing list for The PLAIN TRUTH, soon to come out REGULARLY.
Desperately we tried to keep up — but we couldn't. We began falling behind — at first a few days, then a week, finally we got nearly four weeks behind, with thousands and thousands of requests piled up on us! Then we ran out of booklets. We can only print 2,000 or 3,000 copies on the mimeograph. But requests were coming in in too large quantities to be supplied by our mimeograph. In desperation I turned to the printers to PRINT these articles in booklet form. But there we ran into delays. We had to wait for paper. The printers were short of help. Other orders were piled up on them ahead of ours — we had to wait!
Now in addition to all this, the ordeal of preparing a whole half-hour broadcast and delivering it EVERY NIGHT, and of trying to answer the avalanche of letters — often long ones — asking for personal help, and requiring a personal answer from me, imposed upon me such a heavy burden of overwork, taking hours away from sleep, that I was simply unable to complete the writing of the articles for The PLAIN TRUTH magazine. And The PLAIN TRUTH is just now, after this long, long delay, going to the printers. It is HALF set in type already, and the balance now ready for the printers. They now promise to start delivering printed copies for mailing in ONE WEEK.
Co-Workers, I'm sorry — we've been doing OUR VERY BEST — and we have sent out tens and tens of thousands of booklets and pieces of literature — we've worked almost night and day to catch up. We had to even change our office system. And NOW, I'm happy to say, WE ARE RAPIDLY CATCHING UP, and within another two or three weeks we hope to be mailing out the literature requested the very day the letter arrives. And The PLAIN TRUTH is ready, and we are now organized so it can KEEP COMING OUT REGULARLY! I know you'll REJOICE with us in that good news!
But — and here's the vital, serious EMERGENCY! — for the past two or three weeks many of our Co-Workers are with-holding their tithes and offerings because, as I suppose, some of the literature requested has not yet arrived. This has brought this great work face to face with a critical, MOST serious situation! The VERY CONTINUANCE OF THIS WORK, AND THE DAILY BROADCASTING OF THE GOSPEL, IS SERIOUSLY THREATENED!
Believe me, dear Co-Workers, when I tell you we are doing our very utmost to get to your requests and send the literature out. Soon we shall be caught up. We are now gaining, in spite of the tremendous mail still coming in. Literature has been going out of our office by the mail-bag full.
But in the meantime, PLEASE, understand the situation — REJOICE with us in a vast nightly radio audience reaching now FIVE MILLION PRECIOUS SOULS every week — one of the largest audiences listening to ANY radio program in America! And I am forced to rush to you this URGENT EMERGENCY APPEAL, and to ask you to STAND BY ME thru this present crisis. Please do not withhold your tithes and very generous offerings until The PLAIN TRUTH arrives. We'll get it to you just as quickly as we possibly can. But please don't wait, or this work may have to STOP — I may have to take the every-night broadcasts off the air! And that would be little short of a national calamity, if only you could read the thousands and thousands of letters pouring in from all over the North American continent — the United States, Canada and Mexico, and realize how many are being converted — how many wives are writing us that their husbands who never would attend church or listen to gospel broad- casts are now listening with rapt attention to "The WORLD TOMORROW" every night — how many YOUNG PEOPLE in their teens and early twenties, as well as older people, are listening — their lives being changed!
No, this great powerful work of God for His Kingdom MUST NOT STOP! It must go on, in ever-increasing power and scope! But it will take some real sacrifice! Before the every-night campaign started we used to receive, occasionally, some larger offerings of $200 to $500 which meant so very much to this work! Right now this work is in dire NEED of some of those larger offerings, of that size or still larger, from those who are able. Most of our listeners are not able to send in any such sum, and if it were not for the many "WIDOW'S MITES," we could not continue. God does not expect anyone to give what he has not got — but some of you CAN, if you'll let God get hold of your hearts, send in such liberal offerings as to rescue this great work from its present crisis in a hurry! WILL YOU PRAY OVER IT, at once, and place in the enclosed self-addressed return envelope, the LARGEST sum within your means — whether a dollar, or several thousand dollars — as God lays on your heart — seal it, place a stamp on it, and drop it in the mail-box, YET THIS VERY DAY? The need is IMMEDIATE and URGENT — so do it BEFORE YOU LAY THIS LETTER DOWN. Sent it AIR-MAIL if possible (but not special delivery).