# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1911_S148
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

148 Proceedings of the 28th General or

If we were to make proposals to the Synod that go beyond the scope of our own business, we would earnestly recommend abolishing the so-called synodical assessment altogether. In any case, in order to satisfy the postal laws, any commingling of the synodical assessment with the subscription for synodical reports must be eliminated, as has in fact already been done.

Regarding the synodical reports, we can report that limiting individual issues to a maximum of 64 pages has helped somewhat to reduce the loss on this item for the publishing house. What has helped most in this regard were the fine bulk orders we received from several districts, on which — although the deliveries for the individual districts themselves came out comparatively cheap — we still made a profit. But should it become common practice for individual districts to be satisfied, in the mass distribution of their district reports, with a quality that we are not permitted to supply and, under present conditions, cannot supply, so long as they save a little money on their print run, and should we as a result lose these bulk orders again, then we would indeed renew the recommendation we made at the Delegate Synod in Fort Wahne, to publish the synodical reports in the form of a monthly or bimonthly periodical, under an editor-in-chief who should be made not only responsible but also empowered to decide in all cases.

We repeat our recommendation that the venerable faculty of the St. Louis Seminary be relieved of the obligation it has inherited by custom, namely, of exercising censorship over the job-printing work of our press.

We repeat our recommendation of adequate professional fire insurance.

We recommend changing our fiscal year so that it closes on July 1 (so that we need not take inventory and handle whatever else goes with closing the books during our busy season), and the repeal of all resolutions and orders that conflict with this recommendation.

Over the years, decisions have been made in part by the Reverend Synod and in part by us regarding the free distribution of books and periodicals, decisions and rulings which, on the one hand, are not made according to any principle but are often quite arbitrary, and, on the other hand, violate existing postal laws, so that in certain cases we must act contrary to either the synodical or the postal laws.

We therefore recommend that a new, systematic regulation be introduced concerning all free distributions, and that a committee be appointed by the Reverend General President to draft and determine this regulation, consisting of approximately a pastor emeritus, a teacher emeritus, an institution professor, a representative of an orphan