# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S75
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Fourth Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States. 1884.   75

    "In commission fees there were received — including a treasury
balance (May 1, 1881) of $2565.53 — $19,397.63, and there were spent
during the same period $9573.83. Treasury balance (as of May 1,
1884), $9823.80." (Report of the Emigrant Mission Commission at New
York.)

    Resolved, that the salary of our emigrant missionary at New York
be raised from $1200 to $1500 a year.

    Again, in discussing the emigrant mission, attention was drawn to
the great advantage it brings this mission when all from our circles
who travel to Germany, or have relatives and acquaintances come from
there, have their steamship tickets and railroad tickets bought and
arranged by our emigrant missionaries. The money that the companies
concerned pay our missionaries for the purchase of such tickets flows
into the fund of the above-mentioned commission fees. From this fund
the emigrant-mission assistants in Bremen, Hamburg, and New York have
been, and continue to be, supported. From this fund, too, the rent
for our missionary's office, the salary of a bookkeeper and errand
boy, and advances and support for the poor and needy have been, and
continue to be, paid, and a surplus of nearly $10,000 lies ready for
the first beginning of an emigrant house, should the Synod resolve to
acquire one. — As for the $5000 belonging to this fund, taken from
it as advances to needy immigrants, this sum includes moneys that
were lent out as long as 10 to 12 years ago and have still not been
repaid to this day. The Commission rightly characterizes such
conduct, in the face of the kindness received, as utterly shameful. —
$1000 of these advances will probably be entirely lost.

    After mature consideration of the necessity of an emigrant-mission
house in New York, every member of the Synod who attended the
proceedings on this subject was no doubt convinced that acquiring
such a house was an unavoidable need for the mission's prosperity.
At the same time, however, it had to be admitted that our
congregations could not be convinced of this necessity from the
outset the way we are here, and that they would therefore first have
to be convinced of it before approaching them with a resolution that
would grant the funds needed for such a house, at least $50,000. For
although we are only a deliberative body, and our resolutions are, as
regards our congregations, only recommendations that take effect only
once our congregations agree to them, we must nevertheless proceed
cautiously. There are still people in our congregations who think the
congregations exist only to carry out what we resolve here, without
having first been asked what one ought to have done beforehand in
such a costly