The 1915 Autumn Council of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination considered closing the Loma Linda College of Medical Evangelists (known today as Loma Linda University School of Medicine).
Earlier, President Newton G. Evans, knowing that Dr. Percy T. Magan's interests, leadership talents, and enthusiasm would complement his administration, invited Magan to attend the meetings. Near the close of the discussions, Dr. Magan, an acknowledged orator, found that he could not contain himself. According to his colleague, Dr. Edward Sutherland, Magan made a most wonderful and eloquent plea for the college to continue as a four-year school. “When he saw how close this institution was to being closed up, the spirit of the Lord moved upon him, and he [stated] that it would be practically impossible, at least impractical, to try to educate trained doctors by the method that they would have to pursue if they didn't have their own college.”
From personal experience at the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University, Magan told exactly what Adventist youth would face. His words were so pointed and took such a deep hold that men who strongly opposed the continuance of the school were practically unable to answer Magan’s arguments, and those who were battling for the school took a new grip.
When the Council voted, not one hand was raised to close the School of Medicine. The Church authorized CME to operate a full-fledged, four-year curriculum. The School would teach basic sciences in Loma Linda and provide clinical education in Los Angeles. The denomination recalled no foreign missionaries, and diverted no foreign-mission offerings to Loma Linda.
That night Evans confronted Magan. “Now, Percy, you saved the College tonight, and you've got to come over here and help run it.” According to Sutherland, Evans had Magan right where he could do nothing but surrender. And surrender he did. Magan’s acceptance thrilled Evans. Magan would balance Evans’ vision of scientific medical education. Magan could help find the money to put up the needed buildings. The two would become a most effective team.
Historian Keld J. Reynolds, PhD, says, “The scent of battle pleased the fighting Irishman.” In a letter to David Paulson, MD, immediately following the Council, Dr. Magan summarized the battle as one of the fiercest contests he had ever witnessed and added that, “If the Lord had not worked some miracles there would have been a terrible state of affairs.” He acknowledged that it had been a battle over the integrity of the Mrs. Ellen G. White’s counsels.
The 1915 Council’s decision firmly established the future of a four-year medical curriculum at CME and authorized the construction of the Ellen G. White Memorial Hospital on the Los Angeles campus. For the first time, CME administrators sensed that church officers at all levels overwhelmingly supported the success of the College.
What became known as “the Women’s Movement,” wasted no time. Before the historical Loma Linda meetings had adjourned, the ladies posed pioneer brethren for pictures to be sold for fifty cents each. Mrs. Stephen N. Haskell, chair of the group, later reported: “When the aged brethren heard that their photographs were to be sold for money, they at first objected, but when they learned that (they) would be used to build the Ellen G. White Memorial Hospital, they were glad to help…." That was just a start. Nationwide, the women of the denomination raised $61,000 to build the 64-bed hospital.
Did Mrs. White know about the hospital CME would build in Los Angeles? Yes. Although she died four months before the decision was made, W. C. White reported visiting with his mother on a rainy day near the close of her long, final illness. After he had talked with her for a little while, he told her that he had good news regarding the work at Loma Linda. “I then related that a good sister in the East [Mrs. Lida Scott] had offered to make a very liberal gift to the College of Medical Evangelists for the establishment of a students' home and hospital in Los Angeles.
“Mother's lips quivered, and for a moment she shook with emotion. Then she said: ‘I am glad you told me this. I have been in perplexity about Loma Linda, and this gives me courage and joy.’
“After a little further conversation, I knelt down by her side, and thanked God for His manifold blessings, and prayed for a continuance of His mercies. Then Mother offered a very sweet prayer of about a dozen sentences, in which she expressed gratitude, confidence, love, and entire resignation.”
In 1962, in addressing early concerns over starting a hospital in Los Angeles, Reuben R. Figuhr, president of the General Conference reported: “Some good brethren in the early years of our medical school felt that giving any part of the medical training in Los Angeles was a denial of the messages Sister White had brought to this people regarding the establishment of our sanitariums and schools. But she and our loyal, devoted leaders back there, whose memory we revere, did not think so. They were not establishing a sanitarium, but a hospital-clinic where there would be both an abundance of patients and a wide variety of different diseases…. At the very outset our leading brethren clearly saw this difference and moved forward accordingly.”
Then Figuhr quoted “good old Elder S. N. Haskell:” “We are told “we must provide that which is essential,” etc. A hospital in a large city where there are many poor is one of the essential things required by the laws of the land, and as we are told we must provide it, we are building it in Los Angeles, the nearest large city. Loma Linda is out in the country. The hospital will be built in the nearest place it can be built and meet the demands of the law….”
To be continued…