Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-10-18

MRS. MADIsOs, swADENER,
Chafrman bureau for sustentatiOn fund,
WOman's Home Missionary Society.
Mrs. Swadener was Miss Perry Of
Warrington.
Mrs. Madison Swadener, wife of a
Methodist minister of Indianapolis, Ind,
and formerly of Washington, is authority
for the statement that according to sta
tistics she is now gathering more than
1900 Methodist ministers in the United
States preach and work the year around
for less than $500 per annum.
Mrs. Swadener, who Is chairman of the
bureau for sustenation fund of the Wom-
ans Home Missionary Society of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, is in Wash
ington attending the sessions of the an
nual convention of that organization at
Foundry NJ. E. Church. She talked today
with a reporter for The Star of the work
Of her bureau. which is the youngest
among the various bureaus of the organi-
cation, and which was brought into exist
ence a year ago at the annual meeting of
the society at Des Moines, for the pur-
pose of experimenting the salaries of
Methodist ministers in the United States
who receive $500 per annum or less.
Think of it," Mrs. Swadener said.
These young men, these ministers. with
college educations and therefore a good
earning capacity. and many of them with
hopeful young wives who are an expense
to them, go out into the wilderness or to
the western frontier, without picking or
choosing their berthS, at the call of the
bishop, and although they are promised
$500 year salary they often do not get
more than $500 or $500. In this land Of
plenty, and in these days of high cost of
living, the struggle to live and to preach
the gospel has grown again almost as
difficult as it was in the days when our
forefathers were trying to do it.
Need Aid in Cash.
THE idea of my bureau is to aid these
ministers. We must aid them in cash.
The supply bureau of our organization
sends them boxes and barrels of clothing
and other necessities from time to time,
and the board Of home missions and
church extension helps to some extent
Also some of the conferences of the
Methodist Church, such as the California
and Columbia River conferences, have di-
rect sustenation funds. But in the latter
case the collections taken up for those
funds are distributed in the states or con-
ferences where they are collected.
I'VE hope to have, as soon as my new
bureau gets running, method of aiding
these ministers in an organized way. My
idea is to have the strong conferences
help the weak ones, and every conference
point a secretary to take care of those
conditions, under the supervision of the
bureau.
1T is certainly impossible for Methodist
or any other sort of ministers to live on
such sums as many of them receive. A
memorial la 10 N
opened the question year or more ago,
and 1t was urged that as the cost of
living has increased from 20 to 40 per cent
of late years everything should be done to
have the salaries of these ministers
brought up to at least S1.C0O year
An annual salary of $40 is supposed
to be the average paid Methodist min
ister but even that amount does not equal
the pay of miners and mechanics. And it
is a further pathetic fact that the minis
tiers do not actually get what they are
promised. The secretary of our board of
home missions reported that the board is
helping to sustain 1000 home missionaries,
and it was declared that these are men
who are big enough. good enough, strong
enough and true enough to stand before
the bishop and say Send me anywhere
but they are often sent to places where
the people cannot support them, and this
they know when they 60.
Some Have Big Territory.
1--WE call these men God Almighty's
aristocracy. Mrs. Swadener continued.
"One of their districts. sometimes, con-
tains as much territory as Maryland.
Virginia and Delaware combined. One
minister l know of has to travel 800
miles across snowy prairies with the
thermometer way below zero to get from
the northern to the southern boundary
of his district When they travel from
one place to another to preach or to
minister they often do not have enough
money to buy sleeping accommodations
and sometimes they sit up in railway
stations all night because of that. Then n,
too, houses of residents are at times
hundreds of miles apart, and even when
the ministers reach them the colonists
in outlying districts have no money TO
give them or to aid them.
I'VE are taking hold of this work of
aiding these poor young ministers with
every ounce Of energy we possess, and
We hope. in time, that our bureau will
become a powerful one and mean much
to Methodism."
Mrs. Swadener instanced as an ex-
ample of the conditions her bureau will
combat report from Rev. s. ID. Gill
Ian, district superintendent of the Idaho
conference of the Methodist Church. 1t
is as follows:
Il. Average salary for the confer
ence, $632
%. Receiving less than $500, twenty
four preachers. Ten on Boise district
receive, average, $500; eight on La
Grande district average, 1926; six on
Pocatello district, average, $244
3. One of the main reasons for the
creation of a sustenation fund Is that
because Of the remoteness Of some of
these charges from settled centers,
where the cultivated areas are small
and the people as vet uninured to
strategic conditions indigenous to the
soil, climate. ETC., they must have as.
sistance from the outside world till
they learn to stand and to walk. Much
Of our religion will thus be semi pion-
neer for years yet to come. Another