Religion: God's Income

Richest and most inexplicable cultist in the U. S. is Major J. ("Father") Divine, "God" to many a blackamoor and moody white in New York's Harlem and elsewhere. Slick little Father Divine lives well, maintains a Rolls-Royce, flies about in an airplane, provides abundant low-price meals to his followers. But he keeps no books, has never paid an income tax. Leaving it to his followers to assert blandly, that he "manifests" money out of nothing, the black "God" has seemed to take poker-faced delight in evading questions about his income. Since he has a good Negro lawyer, Arthur Madison, Father Divine knows well that he would be in serious trouble with the U. S. Government were he to admit, after denying it for years, that he collects cash from his followers, handles receipts from restaurants and small businesses operated in his name in Harlem. Last week a Manhattan lawyer who had been after Father Divine for months seemed about to prove him a man of property, fair game for the Law.

Two years ago near Baltimore a bus bearing Divine "angels" bound for Manhattan collided with the automobile of a Mrs. Nina I. Bayless of Aberdeen, Md. She brought suit against Father Divine and his lieutenant in whose name the bus was registered. A Maryland court awarded her a judgment of $6,000. Seeking to collect the money for Mrs. Bayless, Lawyer William W. Lesselbaum of Manhattan examined Father Divine and several "angels," could get none to admit that the cultist had any funds. Lawyer Lesselbaum began sleuthing. Last week in Manhattan he obtained an order to show cause why Father Divine should not be punished for contempt of court for his evasiveness and "false statements." To prove his point Lawyer Lesselbaum offered testimony in the form of affidavits from disillusioned onetime Divinites.

A mechanic in Father Divine's "Peace" Garages swore that the Harlem "God" paid him his weekly $30 in cash from a fat roll of bills. An Ulster county realtor said that Father Divine paid him $8,000 in bills from a satchel for a tract of the cult's "Promised Land" (TIME, Aug. 31), although title to the property was conveyed to a Divine disciple. One of 30 cashiers in Divine restaurants, a girl who had taken the name of "Humility Consolation," reported that all receipts were paid to Father Divine, that on many a night the clinking of coin could be heard in the black man's bedroom. Best documented affidavit was that of "Rebecca Grace" (Mrs. Verinda Brown), who with her husband gave the cause $5,317, of which $4,051 was paid direct to the Father. Affirmed Mrs. Brown in Lawyer Lesselbaum's language: