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Letter from John Harvey Kellogg
Mr. E. S. Ballenger,
4138 Mulberry Street,
Riverside, California.
Dear Ballenger:
I have your letter of December 30.
Mrs. White ate meat and plenty of it.
The next day after she arrived in America on her
return from Scandinavia. I took dinner with her at the house of a mutual friend
near New Bedford, Massachusetts. A large baked fish occupied the center of the
table. Mrs. White ate freely of it as did all the rest with the exception of the
hostess and myself. From this circumstance I think Mrs. White began the use of
meat during the several years she spent abroad, chiefly In Switzerland and
Scandinavia. She visited the Sanitarium frequently during the years that
intervened before she went to Australia. When there
she always called for meat and usually fried chicken. Dr.
H. F. Rand was then the cook at the Sanitarium and had became an ardent
vegetarian and he on more than one occasion said to me, "It goes very
hard on me to have to prepare fried chicken for Mrs. White." In those
days we had a liberal table at the Sanitarium where we served meat to friends of
patients who insisted on having it, although we did not prescribe it for
patients.
At the annual meetings of the General
Conference, which were always held in Battle Creek, we used to give the
Conference a banquet. Most of the members were members of the Sanitarium
constituency. We thought we owed them that courtesy. At these banquets they
expected us to serve meat.
In those days practically all Seventh-Day
Adventist ministers ate meat.
They knew that Mrs. White ate it and with
not more than two or three exceptions they all ate chicken or mutton stew that
was usually served them.
On the day of Elder White's funeral, his,
brother, who attended the funeral, and his two sons, J. E. and W. C., took
dinner at the Sanitarium. They ate the liberal table and both ate meat within an
hour after their father was buried.
After Mrs. White return from Scandinavia she visited many camp meetings at some of which I was present. She was then in the habit of eating meat and the fact must have been generally known. I heard J. E. on one occasion, standing in front of his mother's tent, call out to a meat-wagon that visited the grounds regularly and was just leaving, "Say, hello there! Have you any fresh fish?" "No was his reply. "Have you got any: fresh chicken?" Again the answer was "No," and J. E. bawled out in a very loud voice, "Mother wants some chicken. You had better get some quick."
It was always lay
suspicion that he was the one who was hankering for the chicken and
that Mrs. White ate it also and that it was then her habit.
I am surprised that Elder Star should state
that Mrs. White did not eat meat in Australia. He must have been acquainted with
the fact that she ate it regularly. She was eating meat when she went there and
continued to eat it for several years until she got rheumatism so bad she was
not able to walk and had to be wheeled about and sat in a chair while she
talked.
After a while she gave up the use of meat and
wrote me about it. She said that one of her addresses on Christian temperance
was attended by a Catholic woman who was president of the W. C. T. U. and
happened to be a vegetarian.
After the lecture she called on Mrs. White
and thanked her for the lecture and remarked, "Of course you do not eat
meat, Mrs. White." Mrs. White replied she did sometimes, whereat the lady
dropped upon her knees and with tears streaming down her face besought Mrs.
White never again to allow a morsel of meat to pass her lips. Said Mrs. White in
her letter to me, "I thought it was about time me
to begin my own teaching." So
who said, "I have stopped the use of meat myself, but I still serve it to
my workers." Fanny Dolton was with her at that time. A year or two later
she returned to Battle Creek. She left Mrs. White
who incorporated in one of her books something she had herself written and
without giving her credit.
She said Mrs. White was in the habit of doing this,
copying from various other books, so that she and Mary Ann Davis had to go over
the material and transpose sentences and change paragraphs and in other wise
endeavor to hide the piracy. She spoke to Mrs. White about it and objected to
having her own manuscript used without credit. Mrs. White was very angry and
slapped her face. She
mentioned the circumstance to one of the preachers and was forthwith dismissed
from Mrs. White's employ and came back to America.
I do not remember the name of any minister
who was advised by Mrs. White to eat meat, but I do remember clearly that she
did advise some persons to eat meat.
The fact is many people were injured by the
practice of what they called health reform in those days which was not soundly
based. The principal fault was in discarding butter which eliminated vitamin A
and lowered the vital resistance and I think led to tuberculosis in many cases.
Many people were doubtless suffer from the lack of fat especially fat containing
vitamin A as does butter fat and also tallow and suet.
When George I. Butler was in the presidential
chair of the S. D. A. denomination meat was freely used and served in the
provisions stands at all the camp meetings. There had been a universal
backsliding on health reform. The backsliding probably saved a good many lives,
for the people were suffering for lack of vitamins, not because they did not use
meat, but because they did not use butter.
With
reference to Fanny Bolton's story about Mrs. White eating oysters, Fanny told me
that the first time she net Mrs. White was in Chicago in a restaurant. She had
been informed that Mrs.
White was eating her dinner at a certain restaurant and went there and found she
was eating stewed oysters.
Mrs. White I think was not so much to blame
for eating meat oysters etc. as the people associated with her. They made her
believe that she needed meat and ought to eat it.
When I visited the Grand Rapids camp grounds,
one of the first camp meetings held, I found in the provision stand
conspicuously displayed whole codfish, large slabs of halibut, smoked herring,
dried beef and Bologna sausage. I found some of the same things at all the camp
meetings I visited.
After a few years I succeeded in getting
these things cleared out. On one occasion in order to clean up the provision
stand I paid what the whole stock of meat, strong cheese and some detestable
bakery stuff cost, which was fifteen dollars, and ordered it thrown into the
river. I was assured that this would be done, but learned afterwards that it was
put away and after the camp meeting was Over was divided up among the preachers
of the Conference. This was in Indiana. I received information concerning its
disposal from Elder Covert who was President of the Conference.
The
health reform that was taught in those days was badly mixed with error and it
probably did more harm than good and it is a shame to lay the responsibility on
the Almighty.
Of course I do not want to have my name used
in this connection at all. I am not fighting the Seventh-Day Adventists for two
reasons: I think that on the whole they are doing good and I do not want to
hinder any good cause. Their errors I regret and repudiate as much as you do,
probably more so. My job in the world is to create and to build up and not to
destroy. I have nothing to say as to what is the duty of other people.
With best wishes, I am
Sincerely yours,
(Signed) Harvey Kellogg
Let's finish this page from Scripture. 1Tim 4:1-6
1: Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
2: Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
3: Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from
meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
4: For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
5: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
6: If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained.
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