Krum Elbow.
(Reprint from "The Poughkeepsie Star-Enterprise," Mon. Sept. 18)
Entirely satisfied with the manner in which Father Divine and His followers have handled his family estate Krum Elbow at West Park across the river from President Roosevelt's home, Howland Spencer, former owner of the property, today asserted that the flock has done "a perfectly wonderful job" in creating the West Shore heaven. "It's simply amazing what they have done with my old home," Mr. Spencer reported enthusiastically at the end of a week-end he spent as a guest of the Divine followers.
Mr. Spencer caused a furore a year ago in August when he announced sale of his family estate to Father Divine. The estate is opposite the Roosevelt family home on the West Shore of the Hudson, and sale to the cult virtually made Father Divine and his flock
Neighbors of the President
Possessor of an enviable World War record, and holder of a reserve commission in the British army, Mr. Spencer stopped for the week-end at Krum Elbow on his return from Canada, where he had placed his services at the disposal of the British government. He was not placed in service immediately, in spite of his brilliant war record, Mr. Spencer offering the comment: "I guess they don't want old fellows like myself -- yet." Ensconced in a suite in the Spencer mansion which Sister Noah and St. Paul, leaders of the order of sisters and order of brethren in charge of the heaven, and seated with a breakfast replete with cold grapes right out of the vineyard and other delicacies the farm affords, Mr. Spencer observed: "It's so wonderful and peaceful I'm almost a follower myself." Reverting to his favorite topic, Elbow on his return after an absence of a year, Mr. Spencer discussed many things, including his own fortunes and experiences, the work of Father Divine and His flock, and the second World War.
Speaking of President Roosevelt, Mr. Spencer said with a touch of pride: "I've given him the first neighbor he's had in years, in Father Divine, who's not on relief." "They have done with my property all the things I had hoped to do for years," Mr. Spencer said in expressing his complete satisfaction with the development of the cult heaven. "It has brought peace and happiness to many people and in a curious way it has brought peace and happiness to me, too, not only from the way Krum Elbow has been conducted, but in my own fortunes."
Mr. Spencer recounted that since his departure from Krum Elbow in August, 1938, the present King of England gave him a direct grant of virtually an entire island in the Bahamas, tax free until his death, the only toll being "three peppercorns a year, when and if demanded." The grant is three miles long and a mile wide, and save for the presence on the same island of a resident representative of the crown, Mr. Spencer is the sole ruler of the vast area. Similar grants are held in that vicinity by Betty Carstairs, Lord Beaverbrook and Colonel Lansing, Mr. Spencer said.
Shifting rapidly in his ebullient conversation, Mr. Spencer said that on his week-end he saw a China man, a Norwegian woman, two Jews from Wichita, Kansas, and a number of "so-and-so" sisters and brethren all getting along in perfect peace, harmony and happiness. "I never saw such peace and happiness," he said. "It's simply amazing." Referring to his own career as a publisher, Mr. Spencer commented with a chuckle, "They say they are so happy because they don't read any newspapers."
The entire estate is neat, spotless and in perfect condition, Mr. Spencer said. Originally he conveyed the major part of the estate, consisting of 365 acres to Father Divine, retaining the so-called "home farm" of 60 acres, although he gave Father Divine an option for eventual transfer of that parcel. So pleased was Mr. Spencer with the condition of the estate that he decided today to complete the conveyance of the remaining home farm to the flock.
He reported that the main dwelling has been renovated, repaired and improved, that the old teahouse has been converted into a four-story building, that the boathouse has been converted and improved and that the "$60'000 building the Cornings designed for a museum has been converted into a dormitory."
He said that the flock now consists of about 60 in residence, divided into the order of sisters under Sister Noah and the order of brethren under St. Paul. The horses and cows are in excellent shape, the harvest of apples and grapes is "wonderful" and the entire property gives evidence of intelligent and excellent care, he said. New plumbing has been installed in a number of the buildings. "It has given happiness to so many people, my disposal of this property, that it has given happiness to me also," he said. "I do not regret the sale; in fact I am entirely satisfied with the way the property has been handled. Everything here is so perfectly beautiful, so clean and honest."
Referring again to his grant in the Bahamas, he said that it is entirely tax free during his life-time, and subject only to death duties. Referring to a magazine article in which a presidential secretary reputedly asserted that Mr. Spencer's characterization of the President that "he has the Messiah complex" was hitting below the belt, Mr. Spencer changed the characterization: "I now say," said the sage of Krum Elbow who carried on a long controversy with the President over use of the name "Krum Elbow," "that he has the entire Trinity complex." "Instead of trying to harpoon the good neighbor policy, I have given the President the first neighbors he has had in years who are not on relief."
"This war is an absolute frame-up of the Rothschilds and the Bank of England, in my opinion," he said. "It's a financial racket."
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Among the many visitors who crowded FATHER'S Madison Avenue residence for the morning banquet, was Mr. Howland Spencer who was on this occasion FATHER'S guest of honor.
When a person is convinced of his own will that the stand he has taken is righteous, and if it is righteous, his opinion will not change with every wind that blows. This has been indeed true concerning Mr. Spencer's version of FATHER'S activities. Naturally inclined to be philosophical, Mr. Spencer had a firm conviction that FATHER was the only one who had given to the world a practical, sound philosophy that would accomplish the purpose of all governments to make possible for its citizens life, liberty and the reality of happiness. He threw convention to the wind and took a stand against a prejudicial society, when following his own conviction, he sold Krum Elbow to the followers. The newspapers throughout the country have sought to know how time would affect his opinion, so during the course of the banquet newspaper reporters and cameramen requested FATHER'S permission to record literally and photographically this historical occasion.
No man can offer to serve GOD in any way without being abundantly compensated. So it was that for the apparent sacrifice of Krum Elbow, FATHER through His mind and spirit, caused Mr. Spencer to come into possession of a beautiful island in the Bahamas. Contained in this beautiful Lecture is information that is news of interest to the world at large.
Thank YOU, our Beloved Savior!
(The foregoing statements are those of the transcriber, and FATHER'S Message follows:)
PEACE EVERYONE! Here we are again the same as we have always been, but at this particular instance I have arisen to say we have visiting friends with us. Of course you know this is a regular matter of course with us, but having visiting friends, it is My custom to give them all a chance to speak. In the representation of this great democracy of ours, we endeavor to bring it about in reality through the Teaching of the SPIRIT as exemplified among you.
In the UNITY of spirit, of mind, of aim and of purpose to you I come. I have established, according to the composition, the last number just sung, a RIGHTEOUS GOVERNMENT -- if not nationally and politically, I have established it mentally and spiritually internally, and that which is internal shall be manifested and shall be universally established; for that which we express physically or personally is but that mental and spiritual concept outwardly expressed and manifested.
At this instance, I say, we have visiting friends with us as usual. If any of our visiting friends care to speak, you are welcome to speak by moving volitionally as we do if you care to. If you do not care to move volitionally as we do, give us your names, addresses and professions, we will gladly introduce you according to custom.
I further would like to say, if I could be surprised at anything, a pleasant surprise happened this noon. We have Mr. Howland Spencer, Esq., with us, one who sold the followers the Krum Elbow Estate which so many thousands and millions of people have had great comments to make on Mr. Spencer selling to My followers; however, as a man of this democracy representing true Americanism without prejudice and without segregation in his consciousness, we find that he is standing for the democracy according to the Constitution and its Amendments, and he desired to see a RIGHTEOUS GOVERNMENT established and he believed that I AM the ONE to do it by My economic system and by that of which I AM stressing daily in the midst of this people.
If Mr. Spencer would like to have a word to say, he is welcome to speak the same as others, though he is not a stranger to us. As he appeared today around noontime, we are pleased to have him as one in our midst, and he may no doubt care to have something to say. If he does, we will hear from Mr. Spencer, after which any other visiting friend, matters not who you are, you are welcome to speak according to the dictates of your own conscience. I thank you.
(Mr. Spencer rose from his seat at the banquet table at once to respond as follows:)
PEACE, FATHER! PEACE, everyone! I came just a year after the followers took over Krum Elbow to see what a year of PEACE had done to those beautiful acres on the Hudson. I found that within one year everything I had ever dreamed of had taken place. The old buildings on which great sums had been spent to make them fireproof and never were finished, I found them almost finished. Where there was one bathroom in a cottage, there were three bathrooms! Where there had been one bedroom there were a dozen bedrooms! Where the fields had not been cut, for generations they had been going to waste, I found people happy with the grapes and the apples, doing everything I had wanted to do and found it impossible to do under the economic system we live in.
But FATHER DIVINE has found the secret of happiness. He has found the secret of true production. I mean, it is a mystery to me that I do not try to understand. I take it on faith and evidence. I could not, at forty cents an hour, find laborers to gather in the apples and the grapes that you now have on your table, that FATHER through His philosophy and His faith has brought to you. But yet that is only the beginning of what FATHER has brought to you and the secret of it is that while I had a mortgage on Krum Elbow,
FATHER DIVINE has a mortgage on nothing. And more than that, it was brought home to me yesterday in Detroit, where some of the greatest princes of the church were having a lunch like this, and one man wanted to speak for PEACE -- he wanted to say that this country should remain at PEACE, and his superior, a prince of one of the greatest organized religions in the world, said, "You cannot get up, and furthermore in the future do not give any sermons on PEACE, because we are twenty-eight million dollars in debt in this diocese, to international bankers, and they do not want PEACE."
FATHER DIVINE is not one penny in debt to any banker or anyone and if the great princes of organized religion would only study and find what He has to give, we would have PEACE in all the churches. And then it was all summed up towards the end at Krum Elbow. I thought how on the other side of the river there had been the great princes and kings and agents of the war mongers, and at Krum Elbow there have been these simple people, happy in their faith, and then it seemed all summed up in two things: at Krum Elbow the followers sit down to chicken, rice and a feast of love, and from the gossip in the neighborhood I understood that across the river the kings, the great captains and the great bankers had sat down to a picnic of frankfurters and a feast of hate. Thank YOU, FATHER.
(FATHER rose again at this instance to say:)
I would just like to say at this instance, according to the spirit of a true democracy of which I AM actually re-establishing, I grant every person the privilege and the freedom of speech, the freedom of peaceful assemblage -- yes, we peacefully assemble in all of our divers communities and we unify ourselves together as one man at Jerusalem. We give them the freedom of the press so long as they tell the truth; hence, to represent a real democracy as this is the foundation of this democracy for the future -- I mean the spiritual foundation of it -- since we have produced it and brought to fruition the true spirit and the meaning of the Constitution and its Amendments and have established true independence such as the country declared as a nation, we have established it in our communities by the Spirit of My Presence by the conscious recognition and the realization of millions, knowing CHRIST is ever present.
For this cause we do not find ourselves nor pledge ourselves to be responsible for what any individual says. The last speaker, according to his conviction, it is his own interpretation. This is a democracy actually established in and under My jurisdiction. All persons are privileged to speak according to the dictates of their own conscience. Often we have followers, believers and friends, oftentimes we have critics and enemies to come in. So long as they speak according to their respective conviction, they are free to speak and move volitionally, but it is a privilege to know that Mr. Spencer in his experience is deeply convinced that in his effort to get Krum Elbow built up and improved and protected for the old name's sake, he did not make a mistake in asking Me to get My followers to purchase it. He is convinced he did not make a mistake in considering that by selling it at a very reasonable price according to the great value of real estate; nevertheless, he has not anything to regret. According to what he tells Me, it is more than fiction, what I AM teaching by his own experience and what he is now experiencing. I thank you.
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(Mr. Spencer rose to speak again and convey another thought as follows:)
Well, FATHER, I know what You had in mind, those last remarks, and You did not do it; but I mean according to the newspaper headlines in the Canadian papers last week, I have been doubly blessed by FATHER DIVINE, and although we did not barter about Krum Elbow, we took what the followers were willing to pay and I wish we had it all to do over again; it was such a pleasure. But although it had been in our family under a grant since James the Second and it was a hard wrench to give it away, and the estate had been conveyed in name only, yet in June I received this large document with a red seal, that said George the Sixth by grace of GOD and defender of the faith -- and I found that the King of England had granted to me in my lifetime an island at the Bahamas. So it is a blessing that was totally unexpected that came through turning Krum Elbow over.
(Once again FATHER rose, and this was His closing thought:)
PEACE EVERYONE! I do not wish to nor like to tell secrets. I did not know definitely -- or I could have said I did not know -- I did not bear record definitely whether Mr. Spencer cared to release that thought; but I know he told Me privately what had been granted him. As a sample and as an example, as I have often declared and verified, I re- verify the same:
'Give to the world the best you have, and the best will come back to you.'
I thank you.
(Taken from The New Day, September 28, 1939 A.D.F.D., pages. 13-15)
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"I would like to say at this instance -- of course, I AM somewhat changing subjects a little, but yet it is bearing on the same subject indirectly. I AM not representing a nationality! I AM not representing a race! I AM not representing a creed! I AM not representing a color! In past times I have received letters from persons in different parts of the country -- if a letter came here talking about a so-and-so-man, a so-and-so preacher, a so-and-so God, a so-and-so teacher, or any such as that, why, I know it is not ME or Mine.
"My secretaries, co-workers and staff will not receive anything that points to ME in a low-rating and in a degrading way of expression. If I AM a preacher, I AM not a so-and- so preacher. If I AM GOD, I AM not a so-and-so God. As with the Spirit, so with the Body; and as with the Body, so with the Spirit. I AM Impersonal by Nature and by Characteristics. I AM Impersonal from every angle expressible. I AM just the same as electric. I AM not a nationality! I AM not a race! I AM not a creed! I AM not a color; and I DEMAND the respect of each and everybody to recognize ME as I AM, and not as I AM said to be; for the decisions and versions of men, I reverse them, and I establish the truth concerning the mystery, that all humanity might know ME. I thank you. (Reprinted from The New Day, December 10, 1966 A.D.F.D., pgs. 12-13)
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