“FATHER DIVINE”

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3941, 18 August 1937, Page 4

“FATHER DIVINE”

A NEGRO MESSIAH. The great mystery that envelops the activities of Father Divine, the negro revivalist, in the United States, whom scores of thousands of people in that country—whites as well as negroes—believe to be God, is not solved by Mr Robert Allerton Parker’s interesting book “The Incredible Messiah,” which was published recently by Little, Brown and Co., of Boston, one cf the leading publishing firms in America. That mystery is, where does Father Divine get the money to finance the “Kingdoms” in which hundreds of his followers are housed, the restaurants in which thousands of them, are fed, and the luxurious Rolls .Royce and private aeroplane in which he travels. No collections are made at his meetings, and he adheres to the policy of refusing to accept gifts of money from his followers. His own explanation of the mystery—an explanation which is firmly believed by most of his followers —is that the money comes from heaven. “The story of Father Divine is a story so fantastic that only the boldest and most imaginative of fiction writers could send anything like it clattering from his typewriter, ana still make it seem plausible,” writes Mr Sutherland Denlinger in an article he contributed to the “ Forum ” of April, 1936. “Disregard -both the statements of the credulous and the cynical explanations of the heathen, and the mystery surrounding the source of his income alone is absorbing as any problem evei- tackled by the most resourceful of the paperpulp sleuths. Real-life detectives of one sort and another have often tried to get to the bottom of it without success. Father feeds thousands every day without charge. Father maintains heavenly dormitories, in which hundreds live on his bounty. Father travels in limousines, and maintains a fleet of buses to take the faithful to his meetings, and when Easter comes Father rides the skies in a big red aeroplane, while Harlem’s thousands gazing ecstatically upward from the kerbings, hail him as God. Father says the money comes from heaven, and since he takes no collections, and none of the cynic theories would account for any sizeable portion of his expenses, it seems as good an explanation as any.”

For eight years Father Divine has been feeding the hungry at his Glory-to-Father Divine restaurants in New York and other cities. Even those patrons of these restaurants who can afford to pay a little for their meals are provided with food at prices below cost. The meals are good and ample. The charge for fl plate of meat with two vegetables is only sd—i.e., 10 cents. A cup of coffee or a glass of soft drink is lid. Rooms at his “Kingdoms” cost patrons only 1 dol. (4s) a week, but usually there is more than one occupant to each room. According to tradespeople who supply the requirements of these restaurants, Father Divine spends thousands of dollars each month with them. Where does the money come from? It has been said that some millionaire philanthrcpist finances Father Divine. That ex planation can be dismissed as being as improbable as the suggestion that the money comes from Moscow. A MYSTERY MAN. Father Divine evades all questions as to his origin. He claims that lie has been divinely projected into existence, and that he has no record of his life. Naturally, the police do not accept this explanation, but the results of their researches into his past are somewhat meagre. They are satisfied, however, that his real name is George Baker, that he was born io Georgia, and that he deserted a wife and family in Alabama before he became known in northern States. They claim that he is identical with a negro who figures in the court records of Valdosta, ’Georgia, in February, 1914, as “John Doe, alias God.” This negro refused to give the court his real name, and assented to the claim of his followers that he was God. The court declared he was of unsound mind, and ordered him to leave the State. Among his effects when arrested was a newspaper clipping showing that a negro named George Baker had served 60 days on a chain gang. He was described by the police as being under five feet in height, bald, wearing a double-breasted blue suit, tan shoes, a bright tie, pearl pin and gold button on the lapel of his coat. His favourite dish was said to be six scrambled eggs.

But fairly full details of Father Divine’s activities since 1925 are available. In 1925 he appeared at Sayville, Long Island, from East New York, as the Rev. Major J. Divine, and worked at odd jobs there. In 1929 he opened an employment agency at Sayville, and shortly after bought a large house in a prosperous part cf Sayville’s residential area, and called it the House of Joy. He gathered round him hundreds of negro followers. They came to the House of Joy to eat roast chicken at his expense, and to participate in religious services. They sang and shouted so lustily at these services that the neighbours complained. Eventually complaints were lodged in officu.l quarters, and it was suggested in these complaints that immorality was prevalent at the House of Joy. In 1930 the district attorney of Suffolk county, Mr A. G. Blue, investigated these complaints. He sen .

vestigated these complaints. He sent Joy, who posed as a new arrival in destitute ’ circumstances, in need of material assistance and spiritual comfort. She spent two weeks there, and reported to the district attorney that she found no evidence of wrongdoing. She said that Father Divine was married to a negress known as Mother Divine, and that some of the inmates had assumed such names as Brother Peace and Sister Virtue, but that the conduct of all was exemplary. Father Divine was maintaining at the House of Joy fifteen destitute members of his own .race. When asked where the money came from, he answered with Biblical quotations about the ravens feeding Elijah.

TESTIMONY OF HIS FOLLOWERS

Nevertheless the complaint that the House of Joy was a nuisance came before the courts. Helen Faust, a white woman of 26 years, and a former student at Boston University, who was employed as Father Divine’s secretary, gave evidence. She was asked by Mr Justice Lewis J. Smith, of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, “Do you really believe that Divine is God?” She answered unhesitatingly, “Yes, I do.” James Maynard Mathews, a former student of Boston and other universities, said in evidence, “I believe Father Divine is is the perfected expression of God. I believe that Heaven sends him moneydirect.” Other witnesses testified to miracles of healing performed by Divine. A policeman testified that Divine said to him, “Go away from hefe,Can’t you see I’m God ? ”

The jury found that the House of Joy was a nuisance, and Mr Justice Smith sentenced Divine to a year’s imprisonment. He said that Divine s teachings had a bad influence, and had been responsible for breaking up some homes. Three days after passing sentence Mr Justice Smith, who was old and ill, died from a heart attack, but Divine’s followers regard his death as evidence of Divine wrath. Divine’s conviction was upset on appeal, and he was liberated. The case was the means of spreading his fame throughout the country. In 1933 the Court of Common Pleas at Newark, New Jersey, offered an investigation into complaints that Divine’s “Kingdom,” i.e., a house conducted on the lines of the House of Joy, with free meals, and religious services in which there was much loud singing and shouting, was a nuisance Before the commission appointed to investigate the matter, Divine was asked if he were God, and after pausing for a moment he replied, “I teach that God has the right to manifest Himself through any person or anything He may choose. If my followers believe I am God, and in so doing they are led to reform their lives, and experience joy and happiness, why should I prevent them from doing

The commission reported that the “Kingdom” had done some harm and some good. It cited the testimony of social workers and police officers regarding the improved moral outlook of Divine’s followers, but deplored the likelihood that some of them might hand their insurance policies over to the “Kingdom,” and that, generally speaking, the followers “did not concern themselves realistically with the realities of life protection against old age.” This refers to the fact that Divine’s followers believe it is unnecessary to make any provision for the future because the “Kingdom” will provide for them. There were suggestions that insured persons had handed over their insurances to the “Kingdom,” but there was no direct evidence on the point. THE “KINGDOMS.” Father Divine enshrouds himself with so much mystery that he even refuses to say what his height is, and declares that he has never been measured. Estimates of his height vary from 4 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 6 inches. Actually he is a little under 5 feet, and in age he is in the early sixties. Mr Lionel Laverick, who contributed to the “Forum” of October, 1934, an article on Divine, write:—“Father Divine has a dark yellow skin and a typically negro skull, and his preaching manner is more plodding than magnetic. Five years ago he ran a small employment agency. To-day he is God incarnate to some millions of people; not God symbolically, but God in the flesh. His followers are not all negroes; more astounding than the scope of his appeal to his own people with its perpetual longing for a leader, is the extent to which white man and women give him their allegiance. In many States h e has established homes and refuges, religious houses in old factories, and such places, each of which is called a ‘kingdom.’ In them white people share quarters with blacks, and whites sit at the meals, called banquets, which are served daily; some come to feed physically, and some spiritually. Whites come on pilgrimage singly and in limousines, or in parties of thirty or forty from as far away as the Pacific coast to receive the message from his own lips in Harlem (the negro quarter of New York City). They come to no new creed, ritual or discipline; but to a simple reiterated assertion of peace and plenty at hand for the just. They come to be healed of ills which other generations have not known. Father Divine’s movement began in 1929, and grown with the depression. In a. smitten world his password is

‘ peace.’ “There are fifteen kingdoms in New York city, and others in towns in different States. In every one of

them there are enlarged photographs of Father Divine, and posters bearing such inscriptions as ‘Father Divine is God,’ and ‘Father Divine is the Living Tree of Life, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.’ His attendants include ‘bishops’ and ‘angels.’ There are male, female and child angels, who are regarded by the rank and file as superior beings. They bear such names as Sunbeam, Peaceful, Serene, True Love and Request. “Some of the ‘kingdoms’ admit omy males as residents, the other only females. Father Divine preaches chastity, and insists that sexual love between husbands and wives is not essential to the plan of life, as children may be born of the spirit. Numerous complaints have come before the courts of domestic relations, on the complaints of husbands that their wives who are followers of Father Divine, have refused them marital relations. Father Divine drives about in a Rolls Royce with a uniformed chauffeur, and is often followed by a string of limousines, buses, trucks and taxis conveying his followers. Some cf his followers declare that they have Deceived' money from heavent-that they have found in their purses in the morning money that was not there the previous night. Estimates of the number of followers range from 200, 000 to 15,000,000. The latter figure, w-hich is fantastically excessive, is greater than the total coloured population of the United States. In addition to the ‘kingdoms’ and restaurants, there are a number of dress shops and promised-land farms, but none of the properties are in the name of Father Divine. Many are in the name of his chief lieutenant, a negress known as Faithful Mary. She declares that she was a drunkard for nine years, living on refuse from garbage tins, and that Father Divine rescued her.

“In April last there was a riot at Father Divine’s ‘kingdom’ in Harlem, arising out of an attempt by a man named Paul Camora to serve a subpoena on Father Divine in connection with a complaint by a woman that she had given Divine her life savings of several thousand dollars in return for ‘everlasting peace,’ which she didn’t get. During the riot a man named Harry Green was stabbed in the stomach with an ice pick and had to be taken to a hospital. Divine disappeared, but was found by the police hiding in a cellar in a house in Connecticut. He was charged with felonious assault, but the charge was dismissed. One result of the riot was that Faithful Mary turned against Father Divine, and told reporters, ‘He ain’t God; he ain’t God no more than you are—he’s just a damned man.’ But Faithful Mary soon repented of this outburst, and was reconciled to Father Divine.”