Angels Over Newport

Many a suburban and rural neighborhood around New York City is haunted by a big black nightmare: the possibility that one day someone with a name like "Wonderful Peace" or "Beautiful Sweet" will appear in the district, lay cash on the line for a nice piece of property. Then followers of Harlem's bald, black, mousy Rev. Major J. ("Father") Divine will move in. For parts of Yonkers and New Rochelle, N. Y. this nightmare came true this spring and summer.

In the past five years, Father Divine, always well-heeled with the contributions he receives from the earnings of his followers, has bought $212,000 worth of property on the west bank of the Hudson, north of New York. The dusky messiah became a human spite fence last summer when Howland Spencer, socialite anti-New Dealer, sold Father Divine his-estate at Krum Elbow, across the river from the Roosevelts' Hyde Park. Last week, in a pet, an embattled woman of Newport, R. I. threatened a similar sale.

Mrs. Angela Kaufman, divorced wife of the late President Joseph Kaufman of American Razor Co., had acquired The Castle, onetime home of the late Ambassador to Italy Richard Washburn Child, had turned the stone mansion into an inn. Mrs. Kaufman applied for a liquor license. Her neighbors, among them socialites and Newport's mayor, filed objections, as the law allowed.

Last week, when her application was denied, Mrs. Kaufman telegraphed Father Divine: "Newport is seething in corruption and politics. I own a castle. Kindly advise me when you can come." Mrs. Kaufman announced that she would sell or give The Castle to Father Divine unless her neighbors bought it for $40,000. She reduced her price to $10,000. Still no takers. In great agitation, threatening to "spend $100,000 to rip this city apart," Mrs. Kaufman took to her bed with a nervous collapse.

Father Divine, taking his ease in his "heaven" in Harlem, drafted a telegram--unusually terse for him--to Mrs. Kaufman. Said he: "Wheresoever I am convinced from the within that my personal activities will be more constructive in the act of bringing an abolition of segregation and discrimination and establishing righteousness according to the Constitution and its amendments I am glad to be represented in the act of promoting truth and integrity according to the Declaration of Independence. If a final decision is reached please wire me. . . . Peace!

"Rev. M. J. Divine, better known as Father Divine."

To his "angels" Father Divine exclaimed: "The attempt of a society lady in Newport to recognize the majesty of God has resulted in unpremeditated consternation growing out of prejudice and bigotry. I come to put a curb to such."

But in Newport a curb was put, temporarily at least, by Countess Dorothy Filipponi, widow of Ambassador Child. Claiming that she had an equity in The Castle, which she said Mrs. Kaufman obtained in default of a loan, the Countess said she had filed a lien, which must be settled before the property can change hands. Declining to comment upon the lien, Mrs. Kaufman arose from her bed, journeyed to New York, spent an evening with Father Divine and his angels, declared afterward that she had conveyed her property to him. Father Divine announced he would take a boatload of his followers to Newport to inspect The Castle. Meantime he said the property would be held in escrow "until any little disturbances have been obviated."

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