Divine Investigation

All impostors in religion such as pretend to personate Jesus Christ or suffer their followers to worship or pay them divine honors . . . shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.--Chapter 235, section 72, Laws of 1898, New Jersey. This law was cited in a report filed last week in Newark by a three-man committee investigating that inexplicable Negro cultist, Major J. "Father" Divine. The committee was appointed last autumn by Judge Richard Hartshorne as a result of disorderly conduct complaints against a noisy meeting of Father Divine's Newark "Kingdom." Judge Hartshorne took no action last week, left the 38-page report before the public and the public prosecutors. Some findings of the committee: Bald, stocky, little (4 ft. 6 in.) Major J. Divine (or Morgan J. Divine) was supposedly born George Baker somewhere in the South, will reveal nothing of his life prior to a dozen years ago when he settled in Sayville, L. I. First running a bona fide employment bureau, he soon began to evangelize a following of blacks and whites which quickly swelled to 2.000 visitors per day. He now operates "Kingdoms" in New York, Newark, Baltimore, Washington, Bridgeport. Most of his followers, "of high as well as of low intellectual capacity," believe him to be God or a "resurrected Christ" who has come to dwell on earth. Divine denies that he teaches he is God, but the Newark committee finds that he suffers his flock to "pay him divine honors" in violation of the New Jersey statute. "Father" Divine owns several automobiles and an airplane. In New York alone his "Kingdom" costs $30.000 a year to operate. Most of this sum is spent on enormous free banquets for his Harlem followers who gorge themselves on fried chicken on free excursions up the Hudson River. Divine's assistants deny that do nations are ever solicited or collected for the work. But a Metropolitan Life Insurance man in Newark testified to the committee that many a Negro follower had turned in his policy for cash. Another witness mentioned the "Angels" in the Kingdoms, who are rewarded with such titles as "Faithful," "True Love," "Bouquet," "Peaceful." He explained that "you automatically become a.: Angel when you turn over everything and advance it to the Kingdom."

The committee noted that one Newark "Kingdom" is a firetrap, that others are crowded and insanitary. A Divine "bishop" had been accused of contributing to the delinquency of a 13-year-old girl by inducing her, against her parents' wishes, to stay three nights in his "Kingdom." Said a witness before the committee: "Women leave their husbands and homes because when you join the religion you cannot help yourself."

The investigating committee summarized its findings by pointing out that many of Father Divine's followers accept "certain social, biological and economic fallacies." They believe that: 1) they will live everlastingly on earth; 2) they need not worry about "the vicissitudes of old age;" 3) sexual relationship in married life is unnecessary; 4) they should seek Father Divine's ministrations in preference to those of medical practitioners. Nevertheless the committee found that "Father" Divine's organization has a "restraining effect upon persons of former criminal or morally-loose character." (cited the case of "Faithful Mary," a once notorious Newark woman who now does "useful service" among Negroes). "The organization," the committee concludes, "provides an outlet for energy of a submerged and socially inarticulate group."

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