Corporation Name Clause
"The name of the corporation hereby created shall be 'General Conference Corporation of Seventh-day Adventists.'"
Documented Record
April 15, 1904 Incorporation Evidence
This page presents direct documentary evidence tied to the 1905 Yearbook record and related source files in this library, including the corporation name clause, signer block, and date-place statement.
1905 Yearbook Text Evidence
Date and Place Clause
The instrument records signatures in "the City of Washington, District of Columbia" on "the fifteenth day of April, A.D. 1904."
Signer List in Record
James R. Scott, Harvey Edson Rogers, Daniel K. Nicola, Arthur G. Daniells, and Amos P. Needham.
These five were selected by Daniells in 1903 specifically because they were D.C. residents — a legal residency requirement for D.C. incorporators. Their appointment was based on legal necessity, not spiritual office. See the 1903 minutes below.
Verification Path
Verify the corporate name, signers, and date directly in the primary source documents.
Ellen White on the 1904 “New Organization”
“The Lord has declared that the history of the past shall be rehearsed as we enter upon the closing work. Every truth that He has given for these last days is to be proclaimed to the world. Every pillar that He has established is to be strengthened. We cannot now step off the foundation that God has established. We cannot now enter into any new organization; for this would mean apostasy from the truth.”
— Ellen G. White, Manuscript 129, 1905 • 2 Selected Messages, p. 390.1What “NEW ORGANIZATION” (#1SM204) is Ellen White talking about here in 1905?
She wrote this in 1905 — one year after April 15, 1904, the date the General Conference Corporation of Seventh-day Adventists was incorporated in Washington D.C. The document evidence is on this page. Verify it in the 1905 Yearbook PDF above. The conclusion is unavoidable.
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Study note: this page is document-first and keeps interpretation separate from the quoted legal text.
1903 Committee Minutes — Premeditated from the Start
October 22, 1903 — Sixtieth Meeting: The Corporation Is Voted
At the Sixtieth Meeting of the General Conference Committee, Washington D.C., 9:45 A.M., October 22, 1903, the committee voted to create the new D.C. corporation and named seven original incorporators. The following is the verbatim record:
“Inasmuch as the General Conference Association is a corporation of the State of Michigan, requiring that its meetings shall be held in that State, to great inconvenience, as the headquarters is now removed; and,—
“Inasmuch as the legal Foreign Mission Board is a corporation of New York, requiring its legal annual meetings to be held there; it is,—
“Voted, That the General Conference Committee be instructed to create a corporation under the laws of the District of Columbia, to transact the business heretofore attended to by the Foreign Mission Board and the General Conference Association; and,—
“Voted, That the Foreign Mission Board be wound up and its assets transferred to the new corporation; and further,—
“Voted, That so far as possible to arrange, the new corporation shall give its notes to replace the notes of the Gen. Conf. Ass’n., and that when the Michigan corporation lapses, its affairs be wound up.
“Voted, That the incorporators be the following, and that they be instructed to elect themselves a Board to hold over until the next General Conference: A.G.Daniells, W.A.Spicer, W.T.Bland, W.W.Prescott, S.N.Curtiss, J.S.Washburn, A.P.Needham.”
“Voted, That we request the General Conference Association of Michigan and the Foreign Mission Board of New York as rapidly as possible to transfer all of their assets and liabilities to the new corporation.”
— Sixtieth Meeting, General Conference Committee, Washington D.C., October 22, 1903
April 13, 1904 — Five of Seven Replaced for D.C. Residency
By April 1904, five of the seven original nominees were no longer D.C. residents. The October 22, 1903 vote was reconsidered. Of the original seven, only A.G. Daniells and A.P. Needham survived. W.A. Spicer, W.T. Bland, W.W. Prescott, S.N. Curtiss, and J.S. Washburn were dropped — replaced by J.R. Scott, H.E. Rogers, and D.K. Nicola, who were D.C. residents.
“Attention was called to the fact that the majority of those named as incorporators at the October meeting of the Committee are not now residents of the District of Columbia, as required by law.”
— GC Committee Minority Meeting, April 13, 1904“VOTED, That inasmuch as the majority of the persons named in the action of October 22, 1903 are not now resident in the District of Columbia, we appoint A.G. Daniells, J.R. Scott, A.P. Needham, H.E. Rogers, D.K. Nicola as incorporators of the General Conference Corporation of Seventh-day Adventists.”
— GC Committee Minority Meeting, April 13, 1904 — signed A.G. Daniells, Chairman; W.A. Spicer, Secretary
This two-step documented record (October 1903 → April 1904) proves the incorporation structure was planned, approved, and in motion well before April 15, 1904. The final five signers were chosen for legal residency qualification — not spiritual office.
Prophetic Warning Written in 1896 — Eight Years Before April 15, 1904
“The same work that has been done in the past will be carried forward under the guise of the General Conference Association… That same work will be done again, and done with greater power, as it was in the days when the Papacy was in its strength.”
— Ellen G. White, Letter 81, May 31, 1896 • 1888 Materials, pp. 1558–1573Eight years before the April 15, 1904 incorporation, Ellen White warned that the General Conference Association would become the vehicle for carrying forward the same persecution the Papacy exercised in the Dark Ages. This warning was not written after the fact — she gave it eight years in advance. The 1904 corporate incorporation is the fulfillment of her prophecy in plain sight.
Ellen G. White — General Conference Bulletin, April 3, 1901, par. 25 — Three Years Before 1904
“O, my very soul is drawn out in these things! Men who have not learned to submit themselves to the control and discipline of God, are not competent to train the youth, to deal with human minds. It is just as much an impossibility for them to do this work as it would be for them to make a world. That these men should stand in a sacred place, to be as the voice of God to the people, as we once believed the General Conference to be — that is past. What we want now is a reorganization. We want to begin at the foundation, and to build upon a different principle.”
— Ellen G. White • General Conference Bulletin, April 3, 1901, par. 25Three years before the April 15, 1904 incorporation, Ellen White declared the General Conference had forfeited its standing as “the voice of God.” She called for building on “a different principle.” What came three years later was not a different principle — it was the same centralized power structure, now incorporated under federal law. “That is past” was her verdict. April 15, 1904 confirmed it.
“Their foundation would be built on the sand, and storm and tempest would sweep away the structure.”— Ellen G. White • 1SM 204 • Letter 242, 1903
First Amendment — United States Constitution, 1791
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”First Amendment — Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution, December 15, 1791
Religious Liberty or Religious Tyranny — The Same Choice Every Generation Faces
Religious Liberty in America — The Constitutional Battleground
From the Mayflower (1620) to the Most Holy Place — The Unbroken Thread of Conscience and Faith
Pioneer Books, Articles, Sermons, Tracts & Charts
“When the power of God testifies as to what is truth, that truth is to stand forever as the truth. No after suppositions contrary to the light God has given are to be entertained… The standard-bearers who have fallen in death are to speak through the reprinting of their writings. They are to bear their testimony as to what constitutes the truth for this time.”
— Ellen G. White, 1905 • Counsels to Writers and Editors, pp. 31–32 • Preach the Word, p. 5“The first and second messages were given in 1843 and 1844, and we are now under the proclamation of the third; but all three of the messages are still to be proclaimed. It is just as essential now as ever before that they shall be repeated to those who are seeking for the truth. By pen and voice we are to sound the proclamation, showing their order, and the application of the prophecies that bring us to the third angel’s message. There cannot be a third without the first and second. These messages we are to give to the world in publications, in discourses, showing in the line of prophetic history the things that have been and the things that will be.”
— Ellen G. White • Selected Messages, Book 2, p. 104 (Manuscript 32, 1896)The Advent pioneers cried out against church-state union with one prophetic voice. These primary sources — books, articles, tracts, sermons, and prophetic charts — are the documentary evidence of what they believed and what they saw was coming.
Book / Sermon Charles Fitch — Come Out of Her, My People (1843) Prophetic Tract Joseph Bates — The Seal of the Living God (1849) Prophetic Chart 1843 Prophetic Chart — Charles Fitch & Apollos Hale Prophetic Chart 1850 Prophetic Chart — Otis Nichols (confirmed by EGW) Full Library Advent Pioneer Gateway — All Books & Tracts Religious Liberty Religious Liberty Materials — Jones & Waggoner PDF Document Babylon SDA — The Betrayal Exposed & Original Platform PDF Document Death of the General Conference 1904 — Spiritual Epitaph Study Page The Loud Cry — Come Out of Her, My People (Rev. 18:4)
Ellen G. White — Sermons and Talks, Vol. 1, Ch. 1 (1SAT 1.4–2.1) • Ms. 1, 1873 • The Battle Creek Machinery Dream
The Great Wheel — And Those Who Left Their Machines
“I awoke, and fell asleep the same night, and dreamed that my husband was trying to right matters in the church at Battle Creek. There was difficulty. There were two or three that thought they had wisdom to bring the church into good working order. They wished to rearrange the church, and then they said it would be free. These men and women had a machine of their own to work, but the machine of each was united with a larger machine. Every one must keep his or her hand employed on his or her own machine, and then the larger machinery worked beautifully and every revolution of the great wheel was exact and harmonious. If any neglected this machine which was connected with the great machinery, every revolution of the large wheel made a disagreeable noise which disturbed not only the building it was in, but the building across the road jarred and shook.”
— Ellen G. White • 1SAT 1.4 • Ms. 1, 1873“I saw two in particular leave their machines and [they] were watching the large wheel in the great machinery and were seeking to correct the great wheel, to have it more harmoniously and regularly. Instead of helping the difficulty, the machinery made a more disagreeable noise. I thought if all would stand by their own machines and diligently and faithfully do their own work correctly, there would be no trouble with the large machinery. But the noise of the large machine called the attention of several from their work. This difficulty was now to be settled. All wanted to know why the large machine ran so heavily, the wheel groaning at every revolution.”
— Ellen G. White • 1SAT 2.1 • Ms. 1, 1873Written in 1873 about Battle Creek — thirty years before 1904. EGW describes the General Conference machinery: each man at his post, working his own machine, feeds the great wheel. The men who left their machines to “correct the great wheel” made the noise worse. The 1897–1904 GC leadership abandoned the pioneer prophetic post — they stopped proclaiming the Three Angels, the Sabbath, and the anti-papal testimony — and turned instead to building a corporate empire. The wheel groaned at every revolution. It groans still.
Ellen G. White — Letter 330, November 11, 1906 • Manuscript Releases, Vol. 7, p. 196
“We shall be called to meet those who notwithstanding definite reproof and warning through the Testimonies have gone on in an evil course. We are bidden of God to hold ourselves separate and distinct from these men who have not given heed to His warning… For they deceive, if possible, the very elect.”
— Ellen G. White • Letter 330, November 11, 1906 • Manuscript Releases, Vol. 7, p. 196Two years after the April 15, 1904 incorporation, Ellen White issued this sharp directive: hold yourselves separate and distinct from those who received warning through the Testimonies but went on in an evil course regardless. The corporate 1904 structure was not an uncorrected mistake — it was a warned and then chosen course. Those who followed it fulfilled her prophecy word for word. “They deceive, if possible, the very elect.”
Warning: The White Estate Trustees and General Conference leaders have engaged in extensive editing, re-compiling, and adding misleading headers to Ellen White’s writings—especially in books like Evangelism—to make it appear that she supported doctrines and practices she actually warned against. They have taken her words out of context to validate their rejection of truth sent from heaven and to cover their errors and sins. In amazement, people learn that Babylon is the church because of her rejection of the truth sent to her from heaven and her adoption of Rome’s false doctrines, such as the Trinity.
In 1980, the General Conference formally restored the Trinity doctrine as Fundamental Belief #2, a teaching the original pioneers had thrown out as a papal error. Neal C. Wilson, then president of the General Conference, stated under oath:
"There is another universal and truly catholic organization, the Seventh-day Adventist Church..." (EEOC vs. Pacific Press Publishing Association and GC, Civil Case #74-2025 CBR, 1974-1975, transcript, p. 4)
He also testified:
"Although it is true that there was a period in the life of the Seventh-day Adventist Church when the denomination took a distinctly anti-Roman Catholic viewpoint, and the term 'hierarchy' was used in a pejorative sense to refer to the papal form of church governance, that attitude on the church's part was nothing more than a manifestation of widespread anti-popery among conservative Protestant denominations in the early part of this century and the latter part of the last, and which has now been consigned to the historical trash heap so far as the Seventh-day Adventist Church is concerned." (EEOC vs. Pacific Press Publishing Association and GC, transcript, p. 4)
The White Estate, Inc.—a church-and-state corporation—has severely edited and changed Ellen White’s books to promote the Trinity and other doctrines the pioneers rejected. Many members have never heard the original warnings. When people ask their pastors about these things, the false shepherds often urge them to remain in their pews and ignore the evidence, working to keep the truth hidden.
To read the original, unedited pioneer books, articles, sermons, tracts, and charts, visit the Pioneer Gateway Library.
In 1980, the General Conference formally restored the Trinity doctrine as Fundamental Belief #2, a teaching the original pioneers had thrown out as a papal error. Neal C. Wilson, then president of the General Conference, stated under oath:
"There is another universal and truly catholic organization, the Seventh-day Adventist Church..." (EEOC vs. Pacific Press Publishing Association and GC, Civil Case #74-2025 CBR, 1974-1975, transcript, p. 4)
He also testified:
"Although it is true that there was a period in the life of the Seventh-day Adventist Church when the denomination took a distinctly anti-Roman Catholic viewpoint, and the term 'hierarchy' was used in a pejorative sense to refer to the papal form of church governance, that attitude on the church's part was nothing more than a manifestation of widespread anti-popery among conservative Protestant denominations in the early part of this century and the latter part of the last, and which has now been consigned to the historical trash heap so far as the Seventh-day Adventist Church is concerned." (EEOC vs. Pacific Press Publishing Association and GC, transcript, p. 4)
The White Estate, Inc.—a church-and-state corporation—has severely edited and changed Ellen White’s books to promote the Trinity and other doctrines the pioneers rejected. Many members have never heard the original warnings. When people ask their pastors about these things, the false shepherds often urge them to remain in their pews and ignore the evidence, working to keep the truth hidden.
To read the original, unedited pioneer books, articles, sermons, tracts, and charts, visit the Pioneer Gateway Library.
The 1850 Prophetic Chart — Image of the Papacy
Otis Nichols made this chart under divine guidance, confirmed by Ellen G. White. The chart plainly shows the Image of the Papacy in the position of the second beast of Revelation 13 — the United States — using civil power to enforce religious observance. This is what the pioneers saw and what they left their denominations over in 1843–1844.
What the 1850 Chart Shows: “The Image of the Papacy”
“And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.”Revelation 13:15 (KJV) — As displayed on the 1850 Prophetic Chart
“And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.”Revelation 13:14 (KJV)
The 1850 chart shows the second beast with two lamb-like horns — the United States — as the power that would cause the earth to make an image to the first beast (Rome/the Papacy). The image is not a statue. The image of the papacy is the union of church and state — a Protestant nation using civil law to enforce religious observance, precisely as Rome did in the Dark Ages (538 A.D. to 1798 A.D.)
The chart also displays the divine law — the Ten Commandments written in stone by God’s own finger — directly against the counterfeit: the papal catechism with the fourth commandment removed and the second commandment suppressed. The contrast is deliberate, and it is the central contest of the final conflict.
Under the image section of the chart appears the warning of the Third Angel (Rev. 14:9–11): “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God…”
The Original Papacy (Rome)
- Church rules through the civil sword
- State enforces church decrees with penalty
- Sunday sacredness enforced by law
- Dissent punished as heresy
- Civil incorporation under Roman law
The Image (America, 1904)
- Church incorporated under the civil state
- 501(c)(3) status: state owns the org's rules
- Tithe invested in civil markets (Sunday commerce)
- Dissent within body treated as rebellion
- The “boots on the neck” of reformers — 1904
“The image of the papacy is a combination of religious and civil power which shall say to those who will not subscribe to its edicts, 'You shall not buy or sell, and you shall suffer the severest penalties that our united power can inflict.'”
— Ellen G. White, Testimonies to Ministers, p. 39“The image to the beast represents ANOTHER religious body clothed with similar powers.”
— Ellen G. White, The Story of Redemption, p. 381:2; The Spirit of Prophecy, Vol. 4, p. 277.2
Babylon = “religious bodies that were once pure and have become corrupt.”
— Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 382.3“No church can be organized by man’s invention — corporation, organization, trust, the joining of church and state together in a structure — but that it becomes Babylon the moment it is organized.”
— George Storrs, The Midnight Cry, February 15, 1844, p. 238 — Pioneer contemporary of William Miller
The 1850 chart shows the second beast with two lamb-like horns — the United States — as the power that would cause the earth to make an image to the first beast (Rome/the Papacy). The image is not a statue. The image of the papacy is the union of church and state — a Protestant nation using civil law to enforce religious observance, precisely as Rome did in the Dark Ages (538 A.D. to 1798 A.D.)
The Mayflower, 1620 — Fleeing the Church of England’s Persecuting Power
The Mayflower vs. the “New Rome”
In 1620, the Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower crossed the Atlantic to escape the persecuting power of the state church of England — an institution that used civil law to compel religious conformity and jailed, fined, and silenced those who dissented. America was founded on the revolutionary idea that no government may dictate faith.
On April 15, 1904, in Washington, District of Columbia — a city designed in the pattern of Rome, with its Capitol dome, its Obelisk, and its seat of empire — the same persecuting power the Pilgrims fled was quietly re-clothed in Protestant garb and registered as a corporation.
The “New Rome” issued articles of incorporation to a religious body. The church submitted. The state accepted. The union was consummated. The Image of the Papacy was formed — not by violence, but by paperwork.
⚠ The pioneers who built the Adventist movement on protest against Rome left their denominations when those denominations refused to reform. Their successors, just 60 years later, incorporated into the very system the pioneers had protested — right in the capital of “New Rome.” This is 1SM 204: “A new organization would be established.”
“The Reformers protested against the union of church and state. But the children of the Reformers have returned to Egypt. They build what their fathers pulled down. Heaven marks the movement: it is the image of the beast.”
— Alonzo T. Jones & E.J. Waggoner, 1888–1895, consistently“In a union of Church and State the Church becomes MARRIED, as it were, to the State…”
— Ellen G. White, Letter 51a, 1898Your great-grandparents' generation crossed an ocean and built a nation to escape exactly this.
The Pilgrims did not flee a foreign enemy. They fled their own church leadership — men who had taken the arm of the civil state and used it to silence, fine, imprison, and exile anyone who would not conform. They were not fighting pagans. They were fighting men who called themselves Christians, who wore robes, who held titles, and who had signed documents with civil governments giving those governments power over the consciences of the people. Sound familiar?
It should. Because it is the same pattern that was used against Jesus Himself. The Jews did not personally execute Christ — they brought Him to Rome. They went to the Roman civil authority, to Pilate, and demanded that the state enforce their religious verdict. “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15). They used civil power to kill the Son of God. His apostles were dragged before magistrates, imprisoned by the state, beheaded at Rome's command — all at the instigation of a religious leadership that had joined hands with the empire.
Do we think we are better than our Master? “The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.” (Matthew 10:24). The same Rome that crucified Christ is alive today. Its seat has moved — but its method has not. New Rome is the District of Columbia — laid out by a Freemason, its Capitol dome mirroring St. Peter's Basilica, its Washington Monument an Egyptian obelisk towering over Caesar's capital. And on April 15, 1904, a man entrusted to keep the faith sold out and hired signors — his hirelings — to sign the corporation papers in the District of Columbia. It was not the church as a body, but an apostate false shepherd wolf who betrayed the trust and led the flock into bondage.
On April 15, 1904, that same act was performed again — in Washington, D.C. — by men who called themselves Seventh-day Adventists. The Mayflower generation left everything to be free. Their spiritual heirs handed that freedom back — with a pen, in a corporation filing, to the government of Caesar's capital city.
If that does not wake you up, read it again.
General Conference Corporation of Seventh-day Adventists — April 15, 1904 — Washington, D.C.
Revelation 16:13–14
“And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.”
Revelation 16:13, 14
“By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation [the United States] will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near.”
— Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 451
“Through the two great errors, the immortality of the soul and Sunday sacredness, Satan will bring the people under his deceptions. While the former lays the foundation of spiritualism, the latter creates a bond of sympathy with Rome. The Protestants of the United States will be foremost in stretching their hands across the gulf to grasp the hand of spiritualism; they will reach over the abyss to clasp hands with the Roman power; and under the influence of this threefold union, this country will follow in the steps of Rome in trampling on the rights of conscience…
Papists, Protestants, and worldlings will alike accept the form of godliness without the power, and they will see in this union a grand movement for the conversion of the world and the ushering in of the long-expected millennium.”
“When our nation [the United States] shall so abjure the principles of its government as to enact a Sunday law, Protestantism will in this act join hands with popery; it will be nothing else than giving life to the tyranny which has long been eagerly watching its opportunity to spring again into active despotism.”
— Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 712From Maranatha, p. 190
1850 Prophetic Chart — Primary Source Excerpt
Habakkuk 2:2–3 — Written Upon Tables
The 1850 Prophetic Chart opens with the command of God to Habakkuk — "Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it." The pioneers understood this as their commission.
View the 1843 & 1850 Prophetic Charts →
Ellen G. White — Letter 57, 1896 • Manuscript Releases, Vol. 12, p. 113
“There is need of a much closer study of the word of God… We may have less to say in some lines, in regard to the Roman power and the papacy, but we should call attention to what the prophets and apostles have written… The Holy Spirit has so shaped matters… as to teach that the human agent is to be kept out of sight… and the Lord God of heaven and His law are to be exalted.”— Ellen G. White, Letter 57, 1896 (Manuscript Releases, Vol. 12, p. 113)
What This Means Today
Ellen White wrote in 1896 that we would have less to say about the Roman power and papacy — because the danger had moved closer. The church had begun building what she warned against from within. By 1904 it was complete. The three civil corporations formed between 1887 and 1904 — the General Conference Association of Seventh-day Adventists (Michigan, 1887), the New York Foreign Mission Board, and the General Conference Corporation of Seventh-day Adventists (Washington, D.C., April 15, 1904) — are the union of church and state she spent her life warning against, now wearing the name of the Advent movement.
1905 Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook — Embedded
The 1905 Yearbook is the primary publication that records the existence and structure of the General Conference Corporation of Seventh-day Adventists, incorporated April 15, 1904 in Washington, District of Columbia. Read it in full below.
Pioneer Profile
Arthur Grosvenor Daniells
Read the full biographical record — the warnings he was given, the 1850 Prophetic Chart he fulfilled, the Mayflower vs. District of Columbia, and the seven-count indictment on the Pioneer Library page.
View Pioneer Bio Page →