It's just amazing what you can dig up when you just thrust the shovel in a little deeper.
After a series of circumstances I have found myself researching the root of the Southwestern Company. I have been baffled and perplexed by the motives behind this company. The Company website touts that this Baptist Hero, Rev. James R. Graves smuggled printing plates of the bible across enemy lines to supply bibles to the Confederacy troops. And then in 1868, after the war, this Religious ICON, seeing the poor men and woman of the South, unable to fulfill their dreams of being educated, formed this concept of having these unfortunate people go door to door selling Graves books and Bibles.
WOW! What a great story! What a hero! Let's take a closer look. And also let us see some underlying motives, which really have nothing to do with being a hero and everything to do with a movement.
Now you may have stumbled upon this site purely by an Internet search for something totally unrelated to what you will discover here. However, if you understand different biblical doctrines, moreover the Pretrib, premillennial and the term Dispensations, then this will be quite an adventure for you.
If you have already read about how I came to know this company, then perhaps you will understand why I needed to investigate the founder. So these findings are not so much about the current Southwestern Company (but we will go there) as they are concerning the founder of this company...James Robinson Graves. So let's take a closer look at the man behind The Southwest Company.
At first glance when one reads any PR stories on the Southwestern company, founded by Graves, one would get the impression that this was a very Godly man just trying to spread God's word while helping out young men and women. But was this REALLY this case? Were these student wannabee's making money going door to door selling Bibles, or were they actually peddling the vast amount of books and tracts that Graves had written? Did he have an agenda?
J.R. Graves (1820-93)
"Preacher, publisher, author, and editor. He influenced Southern Baptist life of the 19th century in more ways, and probably to a greater degree, than any other person. As an agitator and controversialist of the first magnitude, he kept his denomination in almost continual
and often bitter controversy for about 30 years. He also engaged in frequent and prolonged debates and controversies with outstanding representatives of other denominations. Being magnetic and dynamic, he won the enthusiastic and loyal support of thousands; but being acrimonious in his disputations and attacks, he made many determined enemies." Site
Now Graves was a smart cookie. He self-studied and in 4 years had learned 4 different languages including Greek, and had accomplished the equivalent of a college degree...actually more so. He was a serious bible student and in 1844 became an ordained minister of the Baptist Church. In 1846 he became the assistant editor of a Nashville newspaper called the Baptist. By 1848 he was the senior editor of this newspaper, which was also called the Tennessee Baptist. Through it he reached thousands of people all over the South, the circulation at one time having been about 12,000. For some years after 1869 it also served as the official paper for Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, as well as for Tennessee. Graves had the ability to influence many people!
Graves led the Landmark movement from its beginning in 1851 and sought to make its ideology dominant in Southern Baptist life. This religious doctrine all but consumed Graves, but lurking under just under the surface of this Baptist revolt, Graves was also indoctrinating the American Baptist world in the new concept of Dispensations. This new doctrine had become quite popular in the 1830's in Europe with Irving and Darby spreading this gospel of dispensations...birthing the Pre-trib movement. In the early 1900's the unsavory Scofield jumped on the bandwagon and presented the Christian world with his Scofield Reference Bible. This dispensational (Pretrib) Bible plowed its way through the American heartland and planted deep seeds, which sprouted and have grown into a huge crop of tares among the Christian world. Even though mainstream Christianity credits Scofield for this deceptive brilliance, the Baptist community gives all the credit to the one who deserves it, mainly The Reverend James R. Graves, whose movement and dispensational propaganda preceded Scofield by 25 years. "James R. Graves, the Southern Baptist (1820-1893) whose ministry counteracted postmillennial trends in the SBC and lent a strong dispensational premillennial flavor to Baptist thinking." Site
Now we must remember the times of this man's life. Slavery and political unrest compounded by the civil war had rocked this country. At this point Graves was heavily ensconced in the publishing world, promoting his agenda, causing serious controversy and dividing the Baptist community. By the 1860's Graves had created his own publishing house called, Graves, Marks and Co. In 1862, when the Union army captured Nashville, Graves, Marks and Co. (the South Western Publishing House) and the Tennessee Baptist were heavy losers from Federal occupation, and were dormant until Feb. 1867. Then they began again in Memphis, the paper as The Baptist, and the publishing firm as Graves, Jones and Co. This private business, having insufficient funds, became in Dec. 1868, a stock company called the Southwestern Publishing Company. Several causes combined to bring about its collapse in Aug., 1871, with heavy losses to its stockholders.
Now regarding the previous paragraph; on the Southwestern/Great America website, of the history of this company, they spin it this way:
"1868 the company moved back to Nashville. The Civil War had ravaged the South and many young men were without means to fulfill their desire for education. Southwestern founded a new concept in sales and engaged young Southern men to sell their Bibles and books door-to-door."
Let's back up a bit further to around 1855 when Graves sold religious tracts, considered pamphlets of propaganda, by mail at 5 and10 cents a pop! After the war, Graves saw a wonderful opportunity and had a brilliant idea! These men needed money and Graves needed his propaganda spread. Graves began making them book agents, selling books door-to-door throughout the countryside. Graves was already a very slick speaker and had the ability to persuade people to think his way. So I would assume that it was quite easy to convince these young people to peddle his books with the notion of making lots of money by dropping the Graves name--which was extremely well known at the time.
Graves was a very busy Baptist Reverend indeed. He created 3 different religious tract societies and also including his editorials and articles, (vast in number through the years), he authored the following books: The Desire of All Nations, The Watchman's Reply, The Trilemma, The First Baptist Church in America, The Great Iron Wheel, The Little Iron Wheel, The Bible Doctrine of the Middle Life, Exposition of Modern Spiritism, The Little Seraph, Old Landmarkism, What Is It? and The Work of Christ in Seven Dispensations.
Graves was so contentious and determined to push his theologies that The First Baptist Church of Nashville made five charges of "unchristian conduct" against Graves and expelled him from the membership. Friction continued as the state convention and local association recognized Graves and his followers as the First Baptist Church. Graves spread his agitation throughout the
Denomination. The Mississippi State Baptist Convention sent a committee to make efforts to adjust the controversy. Their efforts were not successful. Eventually they were invited back into the convention...But the damage had already been done and the two groups would never be the same. Graves had won.
Ok, so back to the company or companies so to speak. By the time of Graves death (1871) we have newspapers, publishing houses and a small army of "dealers" selling door to door on a commission basis. After Graves died the company changed hands to brothers, J.B. and W.E Henderson who effectively propelled this door-to-door concept to vast numbers. There were minions of "dealers", who came to Nashville for a training seminar and went off to various parts of the country to peddle the Southwestern publications, earning 40% off ever book they sold.
In 1959 the company was sold for $150,000 to Landers Dortch Oldham. Oldham built the company even bigger increasing the sales force to 3000 summer student peddlers. Then in an ironic twist of fate, Oldham sold the Southwestern Company to the Los Angeles based media conglomerate, Times Mirror. 10 years later, in 1982, in a leveraged buyout, Hayes, Welch and Mosley bought the company for $25 million dollars. These men had been loyal Southwestern employees for many years.
Mosley, a CEO of the company had said that he met a man hitchhiking in 1959, and that man claimed he made $1000 a week. Mosley was so impressed by this salesman that he wanted that job, even though he had no idea what the product was. Another slick salesman! "Sell the sizzle, not the steak!" And I have to assume that the naive ex soldiers from the Civil War also had no idea what they were peddling either. In Mosley’s case it would be a children's bible storybook, bibles and a cookbook. I have to wonder why the driver of the car that picked up Mosley that day didn't just say, "Hey I made $1000 selling bibles and cookbooks!" Even Mosley would admit that this amount of money was not representative of average sales...kinda like those slick diet pill advertisements showing before and after pictures, and in teeny tiny print they disclaim that these results are not typical...does not depict actual results...results may vary...
And there is so much double speak. In one site I read about the amount of money a top Southwestern sales person made. It stated this: The top # 1 student this summer, took home (or netted) a check and his gross profit was $31,597." What kind of double talk is that? HOW MUCH WAS THE CHECK HE TOOK HOME! I guess that amount was printed at the bottom in tiny, itty bitty print. Let me do the math for you. Gross is NOT take home. That is called net. Net, in the company dealer agreement is 40% of gross, which in this case equals $12,638 dollars. Now that does sound like a nice profit. But then you must factor in the 80-hour workweek these kids are encouraged to invest and minus a modest $100 per week living expensive for meals and lodging (if they could possible live on this meager amount), you come out with a net of $11,138 dollars. Still sounds like a great profit for a summer job, right? Ok, this total equals approx. 15 weeks of work, or 1,200 work hours--remember 80 hr. work weeks. When you do the math it works out to roughly $9.28 an hour! But wait! I almost forgot to factor in the Mandatory Sunday meetings into this equation. THAT WOULD BRING THE HOURLY WAGE DOWN TO $8.43 AN HOUR!!!! THIS IS FOR THEIR #1 TOP SELLER OF THE SUMMER!
The irony here? Southwestern does not consider these students as Employees. If an actual hourly paid employee of a company works more that 40 hours a week, they are, by Federal law entitled to overtime pay! Not to mention all the taxes, SSI, AND INSURANCE. Not so with the way Southwestern sub contracts out these students to act as book peddlers for them. And now Southwestern recruits students from foreign countries to peddle educational material. So these students have the added expense of their round trip plane ticket, visa's and hotel stay at the Nashville "training center", and then their plane ticket to and from whatever U.S. destination SW decides to send them to.
So how does this all come back to Reverend Graves and his agenda? After all, The Southwestern Company doesn't even peddle Bibles door to door anymore. So what's the connection? In my opinion, it all boils down to deception...the OLDEST TRICK IN THE BOOK (all pun intended). Graves, while hailing himself as the great Landmarker reviver was really prostituting his dispensational views in the guise of Landmarking. For Graves it was more pride and power. And the company that was then, is now deceiving not only the public, but thousands of young college students and foreign students every year into believing that they are owning their own company, strengthening their character and have the ability to make tens of thousands of dollars in this summer "adventure". When in reality they are slaves to this company...this Multi Level Marketing company which preys off the hopes and dreams of young people of becoming rich!
Oh and I forgot to mention that Graves was a strong proponent of slavery.
