# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1914_S44
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

44 Proceedings of the twenty-fifth convention

and authorize to accept every opportunity for negotiations offered by the Norwegians.

Note. By this resolution the committee is to be assured the most far-reaching powers. It would thus be in keeping with the sense of this resolution if, for example, the committee, should the occasion arise, took the initiative to bring about opportunities to negotiate with the Norwegians.

3. A committee consisting of Pastors W. Hagen, H. Speckhard, J. H. Naumann, H. Knuth, G. Döge proposed the following persons:

a. as the committee to negotiate with the Norwegians: Professors W. H. T. Dau, D. F. Pieper, Th. Schlüter;

b. as possible substitutes, in the following order, the professors: Joh. Meyer, D. C. Abbetmeyer; the pastors: President C. Gausewitz, W. Moll.

The committee's proposal was adopted, and the persons named in it were thereby elected as committee members, or respectively as substitutes.

II. *Negermission* [mission among African Americans; the period's term "Negro Mission"].

The report of the commission was available in print and was distributed among the members and guests of the convention. Reading the report aloud was dispensed with; however, Director N. J. Bakke was given the opportunity to describe to the convention in an address the work of the mission among the Negroes.

The following is the report of the commission for the period from August 1912 to August 1914:

A secular newspaper some time ago reminded the churches of their duty toward the great Negro population of our country in the following words: "There are now more than 10 million half-heathen at our doors. In the South millions of Negroes now live in figurative jungles of ignorance, of active or passive immorality and criminality, of contempt or ignorance of the law, of brooding vengefulness and of fetish worship, of evil and superstition, beside which African darkness is noonday. These people are not far away. Their rescue is not abstract and academic. How do the churches fulfill their duty if they in fact neglect a horde of half-barbarians who are within earshot of their altars?" In the consciousness that it owes a debt to this colored population, the Ev. Luth. Synodalkonferenz [Synodical Conference] of North America resolved already five years after its origin, namely in 1877, to begin a Negro Mission. The work has now been carried on for about 37 years, for the most part on a modest scale. After the occupation of the North Carolina field