THE systematic distribution of authorized Christian Science literature is recognized as an important activity. It was approved by our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, and is consistently encouraged by The Christian Science Board of Directors. The literature distribution department of The Mother Church is operating effectively, and its good results are apparent. The one form of free literature distribution that The Mother Church is specifically avoiding and discouraging is the use of current literature for this purpose, except the sending of current literature by one person to another and its use following lectures on Christian Science. The distribution of current numbers is particularly objectionable where The Christian Science Monitordistribution is involved. It is hardly reasonable to assume that one would buy a current copy of the Monitor at a news stand if it were easily procurable from a near-by free distribution box. Our daily paper has its place in the free distribution work, but we must carefully avoid giving the impression that the Monitor is a "gift paper." Moreover, we owe a certain responsibility to news dealers who have the paper for sale.
Experience has clearly indicated that the free distribution of current issues of the Monitor should be confined largely to public and semipublic institutions, to editors of periodicals, religious and secular, and to public officials such as federal and state legislators, city, state, and federal governmental departments, foreign embassies, diplomats, and others whose positions may be such as to entitle them to this courtesy and through whom a gift subscription may accomplish more than an ordinary amount of good. It is quite in order to send a current issue of the Monitor for a few days to a prospective subscriber to acquaint him with its general character and contents. This, however, falls more directly within the province of the circulation representatives and the circulation committees appointed by branch churches to assist these representatives. Primarily, the function of the distribution committees is to give away noncurrent copies of all the Christian Science periodicals as well as other authorized literature, including our Leader's works. Their work consists mainly in keeping the free literature boxes filled with non-current issues, more especially the religious publications, and in supplying free subscriptions to institutions and other places where it is not probable that a paid subscription could result.
The circulation committees, on the other hand, function in the interests of paid subscriptions to The Christian Science Monitor. Their object is to extend the influence of the Monitor in the community and to introduce it to new readers, with the purpose of gaining new subscribers. As indicated above, their work is to send out marked current copies containing articles of interest to recipients, and in an acceptable and nonaggressive manner to follow up this work in an endeavor to obtain new subscriptions for the paper. It is well to remember in this connection that a new subscriber to the Monitor may become a future subscriber to the religious publications.
From this explanation it will be seen that while the two committees should work together closely and harmoniously in carrying forward their common purpose to bless mankind through a wider distribution of authorized literature, the work itself should be carried on separately, as each committee deals with a distinct phase of church activity. It also should be understood that neither the circulation promotion committees nor the representatives of the Monitor circulation service bureaus are intended at any time to displace, lessen, or otherwise interfere with distribution work. Indeed, the underlying purpose of the two committees is precisely the same. They differ only in methods. As the Apostle Paul so appropriately puts it, "There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all" (I Cor. 12:6).
Joint distribution work is a matter which can best be determined by the churches concerned, for conditions differ so widely in different fields that no rule applicable to all can be fairly laid down. Branch churches are free to carry on the distribution of authorized Christian Science literature in the way which seems best suited to meet local conditions. There may be need for a certain amount of joint distribution, more particularly where it has to do with public officials and institutions. This Board has, however, doubted the wisdom of continuing joint work in certain localities where the work had become overorganized and was being operated at excessive expense. This attitude on our part should not be regarded as a reflection upon those who have been engaged in the work. Quite the contrary; it would be almost impossible in our opinion to overestimate the worthiness of the workers or to exaggerate the good that has been accomplished by joint distribution committees. But in spite of this fact, and largely because of the nature of the work itself, and the changing conditions, more particularly in the larger centers, there seems to be developing a growing tendency on the part of such committees, however well meaning the individual members may be, to become executive and assume authority which properly belongs to the executive boards of branch churches.
In localities where the distribution work is carried on by individual churches acting independently, care should be taken that the distribution work of one church does not overlap that of its neighbor. There is perhaps no better way of harmoniously working out situations of this kind than for accredited representatives in a single locality to meet occasionally at irregular intervals in conference for the purpose of making recommendations to the executive boards of participating churches on such questions as may have to do with the activities of the field as a whole. Questions suitable for such discussion are the zoning of communities, allocating to each church a definite field of labor, discussing methods to assist branch churches located in sections of a city where the distribution work is particularly heavy, perhaps too heavy for a single church, and considering other pertinent matters. A conference having formulated its recommendations may disband, it having no further function.
The foregoing statement is not intended to discourage needful joint effort on the part of branch churches such as the maintenance of joint Reading Rooms or concerted action to aid in the building and dedicating of church edifices, but rather is it intended to discourage the practice of delegating to highly centralized committees work that might, with equally good results, be performed by branch churches.
