The Interview with Dr. Kellogg

[Castaway57]

Woody, you sound like a broken record, as usual.

The Lord will judge between you and me.

I know there is no use trying to reason with you.

Please stop harassing.

You have confirmed time and time again that you do not believe in freedom of speech.

I will not let you lord it over me.

sky

I totally believe in freedom of speech; and I totally believe in accountability of that free speech too. Therefore, since you are obviously set against the Adventist Church and have stated you are here to "correct" the church, I will continue to assist you in bringing your free speech to the Biblical accountability which all Christians should welcome.

And just for the record, I have no idea who this "Woody" character is. If you believe in freedom of speech, then why not try a little accountability on that score and leave it alone until you can prove I am who you say I am?

I will not let you Lord it over this forum and tell them all this baloney that Adventists believe, or should believe, when they don't, and never will. You deliberately misrepresent our church here, and that is not freedom of speech. it is called something else.

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Excerpt # 24 of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

Amadon: I wasn't saying anything about these other books. This was from Sketches from the Life of Paul.

Dr. Kellogg: I did not see the other article. I only saw your explanation. About the preface, Sister White always saw the preface. Certainly she had no right to let the book go out to the world without reading the preface, and she always did read the preface. It is an error, Brother Amadon, I cannot say anything else about it. It is an error, and Sister White herself is involved in that error. It is not a deadly error; it doesn't condemn the good things she has done. She has got just as good a right to make mistakes as I have.

Amadon: I can see in that all I thought I ought to say. And I think the public, in reading my explanation, can see I said it was an unfortunate thing to have that book go out as it did without having a general statement in the preface; or when things were copied verbatim, they should have been in quotation marks, fine print, or something. But I said the publishers are more responsible for those things than the author, because others would write the prefaces, and she never wrote the prefaces of her books. She, of course, heard them read over; but she never read the proof. You know, Doctor, that Sister White never in the Office sat down and read proofs properly.

Dr. Kellogg: She looked it over, but the thing has been a bad mix-up.

Amadon: You know in the days of the Elder how her writings were handled just as well as I do.

Dr. Kellogg: Of course I do.

Amadon: And I guess I know pretty nearly as well as you do.

Dr. Kellogg: Of course you do. You know all about it. But it is a foolish thing for anybody to hold up these weak things, pick out these flaws as representing Sister White's work when they do not represent it at all.

Amadon: You are right about that. But the thing Dr. Stewart is doing I would not do for all the gold that is being piled up on your bench.

Dr. Kellogg: Dr. Stewart is not doing it. I will tell you what has started up these folks to do that thing. I have not--I have advised them not to do it. When Dr. Stewart got that letter from Sister White, asking him to write her what all his difficulties are, I said,'Dr. Stewart, don't you write anything to her at all. These difficulties you have, Sister White cannot help. And she can say nothing to them. There is no answer she can make. If you ask her why she did this and this, bring up some difficulties, she cannot explain them to you. You know just as much now as you will after you have written. If you do write, you just write her and tell her you are trying to get all the good you can from what she has written, that you thank her for the truths she has sent and the principles of truth, and you are making the best use you can of it.

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Excerpt # 25 of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

Dr. Kellogg: I said the same thing to Dr. Paulson, Dr. Sadler, Dr. Stewart and others who got the letter and came to me about it. I said 'Don't make any reply at all. They will charge you with making an attack upon her if you do. Next they will take it, spread it all over the world, and say you are making an attack upon Sister White.' I said to Dr. Stewart,'I believe there is a scheme and that W.C. White is back of the whole thing, and there is a scheme to get you to do something they can make use of.'

Amadon: Ain't you afraid now you are judging?

Dr Kellogg: No, I was advising them because I told them I thought there was a scheme in it, and they better not make any reply to that letter at all. I urged them not to do it because I said 'They will use your letter against you, and against us, and it will be a sort of campaign power that they will make use of, and it would not do.' But in spite of it all, when I was away from home over in Europe, he and Dr. Harris prepared that letter. They went down to Washington and read the letter to him [A. G. Daniells] themselves. Now he said,'That is Dr. Kellogg's mind in that.' They said,'No, Dr. Kellogg doesn't know a thing about this thing. He is in Europe, and he never knew it was going to be done.' He would not believe it. And he has gone on representing that was a thing I have gotten up, and was going to publish it, and the Sanitarium was going to publish it, as an attack upon Sister White. How can a fellow do a more silly and contemptible thing than that? It nettles me that people should think I should do such a thing as that.

How you could ever believe I wanted to get possession of the Tabernacle down here and tell that story all about and get it published in the papers and send it all over the world--it is the most contemptible lie that was ever got up in the world.

Amadon: That is just what Sister White sent here.

Dr. Kellogg: I know it. Nevertheless, it was a falsehood.

Amadon: Then see here. If that is so, Doctor, how was it that the Sanitarium planned how they would heat the Tabernacle--they would send steam down that pipe? They had to draw oil up.

Dr. Kellogg: That is the first I ever heard of such a scheme as that. That is the most ridiculous thing you could imagine. You could not more get steam down to the Tabernacle in that way than you could shoot it down. That is simply a pipe lying there in the cold ground. That is one of the wildest things I ever heard.

I want to say to you that that talk--no matter where it came from, whether from Mrs. White or anybody else--about our doing anything to get possession of the Tabernacle, or having any hankering in that direction, is absolutely foolish, absolutely untrue. You cannot find the slightest confirmation of any such thing. It is false.

Amadon: Then in that matter, it is Mrs. White versus Dr. J. H. Kellogg.

Dr. Kellogg: It isn't any such thing.

Amadon: I say it is.

Dr. Kellogg: It is not. It is Mrs. White versus the facts.

Amadon: You say it is not so. She says it is so.

Dr. Kellogg: I challenge you to show one atom of evidence that that is so. And another thing, how could I do it if I wanted to? And another thing, what could I do with it if I had it? Where is there the slightest intimation I ever wanted to do it? How could I do it if I tried to? And the third place, what could I do with it if I had it?

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Excerpt # 26 of the Interview with Dr. kellogg

Amadon: How was it when we had a certain meeting for the election of trustees--down they came from the Sanitarium, a whole lot of them, and run the whole thing over our heads?

Dr. Kellogg: I will tell you the truth about that thing, and the Lord is witness of what I tell you. I heard there was going to be a meeting down there, and somebody says, "Those Washington fellows are going to try to get possession of the Tabernacle, and it is not fair. It belongs to the people of this town and they are fooling those people, and it is wrong for them to do it. And we ought to go down there and take a share in that thing and let them see that they can't run things just like that."

I said to them, to everybody I could get hold of who was interested in it, "Don't you go near the place. Don't you have anything to do with it. The Battle Creek Church have swallowed Elder Daniells and the whole General Conference Committee and have believed the things they have told them, and they are entitled to have exactly what is coming to them. They are entitled to all they are going to get. They will find out sometime how they have been fooled. But they are entitled to have just the punishment that is coming to them. It is due them for the way they have acted. They have swallowed them whole, judged us without ever having come near to us, and it is perfectly right that they should have all the devastation that the General Conference Committee means to bring upon them, and you keep away and let them go on."

I said, "If they see any of us down there they will say that we have got a game to carry down there, to get it." I afterwards found out that Judge Arthur and Will Kellogg, my brother, were there. And I took them to task for it, and I said, "For pity's sake, what did you go down there for? Those folks will think we are after it, and we don't want a thing to do with it."

Now, then, I know just how this thing came about. Your preacher down there saw those people there, and he judged me just as you have been judging me, and he said, "Now, Dr. Kellogg has been trying to get possession of the Tabernacle," and he wrote a letter to Elder Daniells, and Elder Daniells had that letter in Europe to prove that I was doing this thing--because he saw those people down there. It was purely suspicion and inference. I never dreamed of Will's going there, never dreamed Judge Arthur would go down there. Judge Arthur was getting all out of joint with things, and I did not suppose he had any interest in it at all. But I never knew a thing about it.

This man wrote to Elder Daniells, and he sent word to California, and Sister White wrote a letter to Elder Haskell, wrote a letter to Dr. Kress, one to Daniells and to somebody down here, and Will White got those letters and took a paragraph here, and a paragraph there and a paragraph from the other one and put them together and made up a thing and sent them out with his own name signed to it. It is a "testimony" from Willie.

If you look that document over, you will see her name is not signed to that at all, but Willie has made it up from letters that Sister White had written to those personal friends. I do not know that Sister White had at any time in her lifetime professed that every line she wrote in her letters was directly from the Lord. And in that document, if you will read it over again, you will see very clearly that Sister White in that document does not in a single instance say that the Lord had shown her I was trying to do such a thing as she said I was.

Now Willie's name is signed to it and not hers. Yet that thing is being carried all over Europe and all over the world and read in public as a testimony from the Lord. And that is what I told you is the gigantic fraud that is being perpetrated; and the ministry of the denomination and the whole machinery of the denomination have set themselves to work to perpetrate impositions and frauds upon people.

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Excerpt # 27 of the Interview with Dr. kellogg

Dr. Kellog: If the truth were known it would bring the whole denomination into ignominy and contempt. And it will be known. It will come out just as sure as fate. This juggling and all this deceit and vituperation, misrepresentation, lying and fraud--it will all come to the surface.

And when I saw that plagiarism, I tell you, brother Amadon, it hurt me bad. I had seen this scheming and misuse of a wonderful gift the Lord gave to Sister White. James White used to abuse it and you know it. You know it. I have not forgotten when they had that campaign against your wife and Harriet Smith and Cornelia Cornell for three or four weeks; and you know it was as unjust and unreasonable as anything could be.

I have not forgotten when you were driven out of the Review and Herald office for several months and had to go to Marshall and set type. I knew it, for I was intimate with the Elder and tried to hold him back. He told me of his plans. He made me an intimate for a good many years and for more years than any other man that ever lived, and I knew all about his plans and his schemes. Elder White got after Uriah Smith, pursued Smith and tried to get me to join him in schemes against Smith that I would not uphold him in. I held him off on dozens of things he was determined to do, for he would occasionally go on the warpath, get Sister White to back him up, bring pressure to bear.

Harriet Smith [wife of Uriah Smith] met me on the street the other day, and I was speaking to her about that three weeks' siege down there when they shook you all over the bottomless pit. I went to those meetings. I was a small boy, but I said to Harriet that "I had a good deal of respect for you because you would not confess what you had not done." She said, "But we did confess." I said, "I did not know that." But I said, "What made you do it?" She said, "They kept at us until they got us so nearly crazy we did not know what we were doing, and there was no way we could stop it but confess. But afterwards, Brother White came around, got them all together, and acknowledged that he had been after us, pursuing us." And she said "I would not go. I stayed away. I would not go to the meeting; and by and by he came to me where I was and in the room where I was, and he came and put his hand on my shoulder and said,'Harriet, I tried to crush you. I did my best to crush you. Will you forgive me?'"

Now you know that is where Elder White was a bigger man than those other fellows. He would get on a tear, on a campaign, and when he had carried the thing far enough, he had sense enough to turn around. But Will White is not big enough to turn about. W.C. White knows just as well as I know that he has been doing a wrong thing, is on a wrong track, and that he is not straight. And if he could get back again where he was five years ago, he would be tickled to death today. But, you see, Prescott and Daniells have forced him over, have gotten him into a position where he went so far he cannot retreat from it. And that is where they are.

 

[Castaway57]

Excerpt # 27 of the Interview with Dr. kellogg

Dr. Kellog: If the truth were known it would bring the whole denomination into ignominy and contempt. And it will be known. It will come out just as sure as fate. This juggling and all this deceit and vituperation, misrepresentation, lying and fraud--it will all come to the surface.

As I said in another thread; Kellog definitely was the one going after the church; it was not the other way around as you have so vituperatively whipped us with here on the forum.

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Excerpt #28 of the interview with Dr. Kellogg

Amadon: I don't hardly think it is wise to call up the dead, to turn Elder White over in his casket and Brother Smith and others that have passed away. Of course we know how things were away back there, and there were things that were not just as they ought to have been. But there is an old poem that says, "Let it pass, let it pass," and I believe that is better than to bring it up.

Dr. Kellogg: I want to tell you that is my position now. I saw it pass, and it passed. So I am trying to hold my breath in this thing until this passes. I am trying to stand still and hang on, and by and by it will be passed, and you will find some things remain.

When I saw this thing coming to the Sanitarium and to me, I said, "I am full of faults and have made any number of mistakes. The things these people charge me with I have not done, but I have done other things, and I will simply stand here and do my best with the Lord's help. And whatever I have built or is built upon wrong principles will have to come down. And I am willing to see it come down. But whatever the Lord has built they cannot tear down. And I am perfectly willing they should hammer away as long as they want to. I am here. I cannot get away. If I should undertake to destroy this thing and go off, you would not have me do it for anything."

Amadon: Say, Doctor, I want to tell you--you have been charging up things against Will. Now Will don't have that wicked feeling against you. I wrote to Will, awhile after you got back from Europe. Will Palmer said, says he, "I met Will Kellogg, and Will Kellogg told me that when the Doctor rode out of his gate and went to Europe he was practically free from debt, that he had been deeply involved but in different ways--his bonuses on this, that and the other--he had come out." And I was writing to Will, and I, says I, "I want tell you a good thing, that is that Dr. Kellogg, as I understand it, and I guess it comes straight, is not in debt." And he wrote back to me and says he, "I am very thankful to hear that of Dr. Kellogg."

Come down to my house and I will show it to you in a letter if you would like to see it. So that shows that Will White don't have a very mean feeling about you.

Dr. Kellogg: I told you a little while ago he would be glad to get on the old basis. He keeps up a campaign against me when he knows he has not got any foundation for it. He is the foundation of the whole business. Mrs. White stood up there at Berrien Springs--

Amadon: I think the devil is No. 1--

Dr. Kellogg: He is No. 1, and W.C. White is No. 2.

Amadon: That is a pretty strong charge.

Dr. Kellogg: It is no stronger than the charge you are making against me that I am hypnotizing people and hypnotized by Satan.

Amadon: Doctor, the Testimonies say so.

Dr. Kellogg: How do I know what is truth? The Lord has to come to impress the truth on your heart, and when the thing is true it has the power to vindicate itself and to impress itself.

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Excertp # 29 of the Interview with Dr. kellogg

Dr.Kellogg: I had a talk with W.C. White at Berrien Springs the day I was coming away, the morning of that day. I saw him sitting out there and I said to myself, "Now, then, what on earth is the use of this thing?" Prof. Prescott had given an address against me and against the book in which he had read out of a lot of wicked books on Friday night. Now Will White had in his pocket at that very moment when Prof. Prescott was giving that address, a testimony from his mother to Prof. Prescott not to do it, and he had had it all day long. He had it there Friday morning, and he carried it around all day and knew that the attack was going to be made upon me that night, and he never delivered it to Prof. Prescott at all.

Amadon: Then he didn't do right.

Dr. Kellogg: That is what I am telling you. He is a schemer, and he wanted that attack to be made on me; and the brethren on the ground knew that, Sutherland and others, and they had seen that letter that Sister White had given to W. C. White-- had got a copy of it from Maggie and others. And now Sister White had told Prof. Prescott not to give that address and not to say a word against me; but instead of that, Will White kept that in his pocket, and Prof. Prescott came out that night with a most diabolical tirade against me, charging me with all sorts of diabolical things, reading from other books and then saying, "That is the doctrine Dr. Kellogg is teaching."

Dr. Kellogg: Now, then, Prof. Prescott has gotten into a very humiliating position. Elder Jones sat there taking notes of the things which he charged me with. He put them down one after another, and the next Sunday morning Elder Jones stood up at six o'clock in the morning in the same room and he read out of the Review from Prof. Prescott's own pen every one of those things he had charged me with and not one of which could he produce from the Living Temple. Now that is the situation he was in. He "took to the woods." A number of people here in town know that to be the truth of it.

Elder Jones started at six o'clock in the morning, and that meeting did not close until one o'clock. They stayed away from breakfast. And when Elder Jones got through reading from the Review the things that Prof. Prescott had written, and it was found that he himself had done the things he had charged me with, and that I had not done these things--when he proved them all upon Prof. Prescott, Will White sat with his head getting lower and lower and lower. Elder Daniells said, "Well, I am dumfounded. I don't know what to say."

Now in that same meeting I got up and said to them there that I did not intend to write in Living Temple anything that was not in harmony with what Sister White had written and with what the Review was publishing and what was accepted by the denomination. I said, "Now, I am ready to repudiate this moment, and I do retract, anything that is not in harmony with what Sister White herself has written in a recent article in the Review. That is what I believe. If there is anything in my book that is not in harmony with that, I retract it and denounce it."

How could they ask anything more of me? Sister White had instructed those people to come to me and offer me the right hand of fellowship, and they did not. I stayed there until the last day I could stay. I had to hurry home to do operations. That morning I saw W.C. White there. I knew Will was doing those tricky things.

 

[Castaway57]

Amadon: I think the devil is No. 1--

Dr. Kellogg: He is No. 1, and W.C. White is No. 2.

Amadon: That is a pretty strong charge.

Dr. Kellogg: It is no stronger than the charge you are making against me that I am hypnotizing people and hypnotized by Satan.

Amadon: Doctor, the Testimonies say so.

Kellog did not want to listen to anything or anyone about his beliefs in pantheism and a few other things. It is no wonder he thought like this.

 

[Castaway57]

Dr. Kellogg: That is what I am telling you. He is a schemer, and he wanted that attack to be made on me; and the brethren on the ground knew that, Sutherland and others, and they had seen that letter that Sister White had given to W. C. White-- had got a copy of it from Maggie and others. And now Sister White had told Prof. Prescott not to give that address and not to say a word against me; but instead of that, Will White kept that in his pocket, and Prof. Prescott came out that night with a most diabolical tirade against me, charging me with all sorts of diabolical things, reading from other books and then saying, "That is the doctrine Dr. Kellogg is teaching."

Funny how this letter he refers to has never been produced by anyone. Most people who leave a church will come up with some sort of persecution complex of sinister plots against them.

Certainly, then, as well as now, Kellog did not form any Adventist teaching, nor does he even remotely represent the Church today.

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Excerpt # 30 of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

Dr. Kellogg: I will tell you another thing Will did. Sister White wrote that they should come here and offer me the right hand of fellowship. A few copies were made, but none was given to me. One copy got out on the sly. Maggie made an extra copy and gave it to Brother Sadler. Sister White told her to do it. The other copies that were made, after they went out, he [WCW] went around--he knew that would be a thing against them, could be made use of--so he went around and wrote in his own handwriting on the top of every one of them, "Not to be published. To be kept private," to the people there on the ground.

Now there was one copy that did not have that written on it, you know, and that was the copy that was read down there in public. That was the copy that was read on the ground. And Will was shocked when he heard that read, and he came bustling around. "Where did that come from? It was written on there that it should not be made public."

And when they got it down, it was seen that there was nothing of that sort on the document. Where did it come from? He never found out where it did come from. That is the way Will White has been manipulating things right along, making things different from what they were.

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Exerpt #31 of the interview with Dr. Kellogg

Dr. Kellogg: His mother gave a testimony and he held it up. Down at Washington they did the same thing. They had a testimony that they ought to send $5000 down to Elder Haskell. She gave it to Will. Will said it would not do. She had a vision in the night and told Brother Haskell he would carry $5000 back with him; so he expected to have the money. And she wrote out the letter and sent to Elder Daniells. And Will White held that up, did not let Elder Daniells have it. And I received a letter, a copy of a letter, in which she wrote that to Elder Evans and instructed them that they must go ahead and carry it out, and it explained the whole thing.
That shows Will's manipulation right straight along. That is what I mean by saying he is the tool the devil is using, to make trouble.

I wrote to him twelve years ago when he was in Australia, "I see your finger between the lines, and I warn you to keep your hands off from this thing. Let your mother act free."

There would have been no trouble if she had not been brought into all these details of business and everything else. If they would let her alone to deal with the great principles of truth, righteousness, temperance and reform, it would have been a wonderful thing. But they have got her tangled up with all the little personal affairs of business and a lot of other things that the Lord has not given her any information about or any light and have made her to do business with the sale of books or to settle church quarrels and such things. And the Lord has never authorized any such use at all of the wonderful gifts He gave her.

Bourdeau: Brother White thinks he is taking the place of his father.

Dr. Kellogg: His father used to make a lot of trouble in the same way.

Bourdeau: I understand that the Lord has shown her years ago that Brother White [WCW] should be an adviser in making use of the testimonies.

Dr. Kellogg: I don't know anything about that at all. But I know I got hold of W.C. White--I saw him sitting out on the porch--and I called out to him and said, "Come here, Will. You and I were boys together, we were friends, and we changed. I believe just what I did then. I have not changed at all. I am just what I have been all the time, and what is the use in having this unseemly quarrel?"

He said, "Oh, Brother Kellogg, you can do more than anybody else to settle all this unpleasant time we are having." I said "What do you mean? Do you mean I should confess I am a pantheist? I suspect if that is what you mean you can depend upon it I will not--before I ever do it--for it is a lie and you know it. It is not the truth, and you know it is not the truth." "Well, but Doctor, you have been saying things that weaken faith in the Testimonies." I said, "I am not responsible for faith being weakened in the Testimonies. You have been sending me things you ought to have had sense enough to know were not true and could not be true, and that is what has made trouble."

 

[Castaway57]

Excerpt # 30 of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

Dr. Kellogg: I will tell you another thing Will did. Sister White wrote that they should come here and offer me the right hand of fellowship. A few copies were made, but none was given to me. One copy got out on the sly. Maggie made an extra copy and gave it to Brother Sadler. Sister White told her to do it. The other copies that were made, after they went out, he [WCW] went around--he knew that would be a thing against them, could be made use of--so he went around and wrote in his own handwriting on the top of every one of them, "Not to be published. To be kept private," to the people there on the ground.

Now there was one copy that did not have that written on it, you know, and that was the copy that was read down there in public. That was the copy that was read on the ground. And Will was shocked when he heard that read, and he came bustling around. "Where did that come from? It was written on there that it should not be made public."

And when they got it down, it was seen that there was nothing of that sort on the document. Where did it come from? He never found out where it did come from. That is the way Will White has been manipulating things right along, making things different from what they were.

So are you going to tell us the name of the book, and page numbers for any of these posts and where you are getting them from?

 

[Castaway57]

This interview with Amadon and Bourdeau provides us with an insight into what really happened in regard to the book The Living Temple and Dr. Kellogg's true attitude toward Mrs. White and the Testimonies. This interview will reveal what is sometimes true that truth is often stranger than fiction!

First you have to post the truth; and both sides of it so we actually can compare truth with the fiction you are trying to smear the Adventist Church with. Books, page numbers, and other pertinent references should not be too much to ask.

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Excerpt # 32 of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

I said, "There is the matter of those buildings in Chicago. Your mother wrote me,'You have erected buildings in Chicago to harbor the unworthy poor; you have taken money from the Sanitarium to erect buildings to harbor the unworthy poor.'

And I wrote back to Sister White,'We have erected no buildings, taken no money; you have been misinformed.'

And I got back a letter charging me again with it the second time, denouncing me harder than ever for having put up those buildings, misappropriating the Lord's money and with having robbed the treasury of the Lord, defrauded the Lord's people; and I should have sent the money to Australia that I used for putting up those buildings."

I said to Will, "You ought never to have sent me such a letter as that. And when I denied it--told your mother she had been misinformed--she ought to have believed me instead of repeating the charge. And not only that, but sending it all over the world. Now, then. When people come to me and ask me where those buildings are, I am bound to tell them there are no buildings there. I am not going to lie about this thing. I am standing by your mother and the testimonies, but I am not standing by anything that is not true." He said, "But mother has explained that."

After several years I told her it was not true, when she came to this country, I spoke to her about it. And she said she had never done it, she had never seen that I had taken money from the Sanitarium for any such purpose and had no recollection of ever having written me any such thing. Not until after denouncing me in Washington there about the book did I receive anything from her. Sometime after that I got a letter from her saying, "I saw a building in Chicago. I thought it had been erected. I afterwards found out it had not been erected. Dr. Kellogg was very much surprised because I wrote him as though it had been erected when it had not been erected," and that she did not condemn me for erecting the building. So I was tried about her. She had charged me with embezzling money, with robbery, and defrauding the people; and that is what troubled me--not because she condemned me for erecting the building.

Then she wrote, "My warning reached them just in time to prevent them from erecting a building which they had planned." I never planned any building there at all. Never intended to erect a building.

Amadon: That has all been explained.

Dr. Kellogg: It has not been explained at all. I am telling you this so I believe in my soul that you know the facts. Then I am not responsible for what you do in any way at all.

Will White said, "Mother has explained it." I said, "But the explanation is worse than it was before. Because her explanation admits that she charged me with fraud and robbery on a mere supposition. She thought the building had been erected, condemned me for erecting it and for taking money to do it with, charged me with robbery and fraud, circulated it all over the world to South Africa and England, as I can prove."

On a mere supposition, Brother Amadon, what right had she when she saw a building there to suppose that I did it and charge me openly that I had done it and to send me such a testimony? The Lord never gave her any such liberty as that. It was a mistake to do that, and her explanation that she "thought" it makes it worse, because it shows she charges people and sends people testimonies on suspicion and without a "thus saith the Lord" to back it up.
She had no "thus saith the Lord" at all in charging me with having taken money or defrauded or robbed, using money for wrong purposes.

 

[rainbowinthesky]

I said to Will, "The explanation was worse than the original because she admits she never saw I had robbed or defrauded or erected it, even, or took the money from the Sanitarium; yet she said that she did and also says the building was planned and the testimony came just in time to prevent it, which is not the truth at all. We never planned any building to harbor the unworthy poor. The only plan we had was a building for medical students, a medical college, and I brought it up in 1901 at the Conference here and she endorsed it and helped me make an appeal to the people to raise $100,000 for that very purpose. And it is on the record, and the Bulletin will show it. So it is plain enough that the Lord had nothing to do with it at all.

Will said, "Now, Doctor, I will tell you all about that building in Chicago. You know mother was writing things in the night that came to her. In the morning she would write it out. And I said,'Now, Mother, I don't think the Doctor is doing such great things in Chicago as you think he is.'"

I said, "How on earth, then, did you suppose I was to believe it if you did not believe it yourself?"

He said, "Well, I will tell you. It went on, and by and by the stenographers copied it out, got it all ready. And I looked it over and I thought it would not do any harm to let it go because I supposed, of course, you would understand that it was figurative ambition, all figurative. Well, now," he said, "I will tell you. After awhile, after mother had been writing, she brought me one day a paper which told about what great things you were doing there in Chicago and putting up great buildings, using great sums of money, etc.; so I thought perhaps there might be some truth about the whole business."

I know it is the truth because my brother Merritt told me Mrs. White came to him with a paper. He said, "Doctor, there is a thing I think I ought to tell you, but I hardly dare to do it; but," he said, "years ago, down in Australia, Mrs. White came to me one day with a newspaper giving an account of large buildings you were putting up in Chicago, and the money you were spending there, and so on. And Mrs. White said to me,'Now, Merritt, I don't want you to write Dr. John anything about this because I am going to write him myself, and I want to write him first.'" Merritt told me about having seen the article before she sent me her testimony. Will White told me she read the article to him before he was willing to believe the testimony or to let it come to me; and he let it come on the strength of that.

After Sister White wrote me what I stated--that I was taking money from the Sanitarium to erect buildings to harbor the unworthy poor in Chicago, that I should send that money to Australia--I wrote her back, "You are mistaken, Sister White, you have been misinformed."

She wrote me back as soon as the letter could come, about three months after the first letter, saying, "I have not been misinformed"--it amounted to that --and went on and copied from a paper and said, "Two or three days ago I saw an article, my attention was called to a paper giving an article, telling about the work you are doing in Chicago." And she copied from that paper and gave me a reference. It was the New York Christian Advocate, and it was an article written some four years before.

 

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Excerpt # 33 of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

Dr. Kellogg: Now, then, I saw at once where she got her information. I knew the Lord had not shown her that thing because I was not doing it. The way things were fixed at that time, I could not have done it if I had wanted to. Our charter would have been forfeited, and the whole thing would have been lost, and our attorney here was cautioning me repeatedly every little while with the greatest care: "Be careful not to expend any of the money of the institution here outside of the state," because Harmon Lindsay and others were watching us and had lawyers watching us so that they might use that as a means of breaking our charter. And besides that there was a party in Chicago that had a bogus suit for blackmail against the institution on the ground of malpractice; it was absolutely groundless, but they were trying to break our charter also for the same reason. So I was watching the thing with great care and I would have cut my arm off before I would have taken money from the Sanitarium to put up a building there [in Chicago].

So when that testimony came saying, "You have taken money from the Sanitarium to erect buildings to harbor the unworthy poor in Chicago," I knew the Lord had never shown Sister White any such thing as that.

I wrote her and told her she had been misinformed. Then she sent me a letter saying, "Two or three days ago there was placed in my hands an article saying so and so"--that went on to tell about the buildings we were putting up, and I was spending thousands of dollars every month for that work in Chicago.

I had never seen the article, and I never knew anything of it, did not know it was being written, and I had nothing at all to do with it. And it was also signed by Mr. Sherin as chairman; but in this same article--or in the same letter, she rebuked me for having these outside irresponsible parties taking a prominent part in our work, having an active part in it, and I could not understand what it meant. But those men had gotten up a scheme, and this man Sherin thought he was going to get me to do it; but when he told about it, I said, "No, no, we won't do it," and he wrote it out as though it had been done before he saw me; so of course he never showed me the article, and there was not a word of truth in it.

But here was the thing in it, Brother Amadon. That article she had in her hands before she ever wrote the first testimony, for W.C. White told me so, and M.G. Kellogg told me so. She read it to them. Yet, in that second letter to me, after I had told her she had been misinformed, she brings that [article] in as proof that she had not been misinformed and quotes the article and goes on further to say that she saw it two or three days ago, so as to lead me to think she did not have it when she wrote the first testimony to me.

As soon as I got that second letter, I said to Dr. Paulson right away, "We now know where she got the information. She did not get it from the Lord, that is sure."

So we went to New York and got a copy of the paper with the article in it, and we got the whole thing. Then I saw at once what the situation was. There is the whole truth of the whole business, the exact thing.

Yet they are going around now--Will White knows this today; in this talk with him he told me all I am telling you--yet they are telling that that [testimony] came "providentially" just in time to keep us from putting the building up. I never had anything to do with any building at all, and it never was contemplated for one minute to take money from the Sanitarium and put buildings up there. I have got the documents in proof of that, and Sister White's admission that she was mistaken in charging me with having put that building up. Yet the testimony charges me with the whole thing.

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Excertp # 34 of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

Dr. Kellogg: I know from that, that everything that Sister White writes me cannot be taken exactly as verbal inspiration, that we have got simply to take the truth of it. A lot of the things she writes have got to be accepted and taken, and what you cannot act upon in the fear of the Lord, ask the Lord to show you what your duty is, and do the very best you can to be square and straight with yourself and with every principle of light and truth you see.

Amadon: That is if the thing harmonizes with your idea of things, accept it; and if not, let it go.

Dr. Kellog: Why do you say that?

Amadon: Because the one to whom the document comes is the judge.

Dr. Kellogg: Then what would you have me to do with such a thing? I am accused of having taken money from the Sanitarium to erect buildings in Chicago to harbor the unworthy poor. "You have robbed the treasury of the Lord; you have defrauded the Lord's people; you have used money for this purpose which ought to have been sent to Australia; you have done this to gratify your personal ambition and your desire for fame in the eyes of the world."

That is what she says. W.C. White told me he did not believe it himself until after his mother showed him that article in the paper and that he sent it along because he thought it would not do any harm to let it come. And Mrs. White since has confessed to me, and it is published, and you can see it--only a little of it has been published-- Brother Jones published part of it in his tracts.

Mrs. White said, "I thought it had been erected. Dr. Kellogg was tried because I wrote him as though it had been erected when it had not been erected."

Isn't there a difference between a building put up with stolen money, and no building at all and no money stolen? Isn't there any difference?

Bourdeau: As I read it in the manuscript, Dr. Stewart--

Dr. Kellogg: Dr. Stewart hasn't got it there.

Bourdeau: In the manuscript I have at our home, I saw it spoke of one building being put up in Chicago. Then it brought in a testimony with regard to a lot of buildings you were putting up, not saying in Chicago but elsewhere, anywhere, and using money--

Dr. Kellogg: That had reference to sanitariums. The first testimony I got did not say Chicago. It said, "You have taken money to erect buildings to harbor the unworthy poor," but did not say where they were. But the next testimony that came afterwards.

I will tell you. I said to Dr. Paulson, "This shows where Sister White got her information"--the second letter, quoting the newspaper article.

"Now," I said, "Dr. Paulson, I am going to set a trap. It is an honest trap, a perfectly straight trap, but I am going to set a trap for Sister White." I said, "I feel hurt. She has not treated me right. I have written her, told her the truth about this thing once, that she had been misinformed, that we had not put buildings up, and now she comes at me again charging me worse than ever and bringing this newspaper as proof that I have lied to her and that I have put the buildings up and charging me with having robbed the Lord's people and defrauded the Lord's people and defrauded the Lord's cause."

I said, "Now, then, I am going to keep still. I am not going to say another word about it, not going to say a word or tell her once I have not done it. That is enough, and I am going to keep still. And you will see that testimony after testimony comes right along. That will show you that what she is writing to us in this thing the Lord is not inspiring in her mind, because the Lord knows how it is."

 

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"But there are times when common things must be stated, common thoughts must occupy the mind, common letters must be written and information given that has passed from one to another of the workers. Such words, such information, are not given under the special inspiration of the Spirit of God. Questions are asked at times that are not upon religious subjects at all, and these questions must be answered. We converse about houses and lands, trades to be made, and locations for our institutions, their advantages and disadvatages." E.G. White, 1 S.M.39

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Excerpt # 35 of the Interview with Dr. kellogg

Dr. Kellogg: And every little while for months I got letters from her--every mail I got for months brought letters--hammering me good and hard about those buildings in Chicago, that I was putting them up for my fame, to satisfy my own ambition, for building a monument to myself, and that was the top stone of it. The documents are here; you can have them. They came along month after month, just as I said they would. And I never dreamed of doing it. Just because I kept still, she thought she had proved the thing on me.

I said, "She would naturally infer I 'acknowledged the corn,' so she would keep right on hammering on the same string, and we will get some more of it."

Sure enough, she went right straight along, just as I thought she would. You can say it was a trap. But it was a perfectly right thing to do, because the Lord was dealing with her in that thing.

Amadon: Doctor, neither Brother Bourdeau nor I want to see people believe in the absolute infallibility of Sister White. We don't believe in any such nonsense.

Bourdeau: She did not say that what she saw was of the Lord. Bro. White said, "My wife's judgment is just like any other person's when she is not in vision or when she does not write and say that what she has seen is of the Lord."

Dr. Kellogg: Let me ask you two questions, then. If what you say is correct and true, what right have these men to take these documents that have been written and the things that have been written with reference to us here at the Sanitarium without looking for any confirmative evidence and when the facts were right square against it and scatter that all over the world? And when anybody says, "Well, but how do you know that is so?" say, "The Lord has spoken."