Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-10-24
INJURY TO RELIGION
New York Pastors Regret
Dowie's Presence.
VIEW OF THE RABBLE
HIS LANGUAGE OFTEN UNFIT FOR
PUBLICATION.
His Crusade Has Set Whole Army of
Cranks Agoing - New
York Gossip.
VIEW OF THE RABBLE
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star
NEW YORK. October. %, 1903.
A paunchy, rasp-voiced, frenziedly foul
mouthed old Scotch-Australian of the name
of Dowie. who calls himself the reincarna-
ton of the Prophet Elijah, has struck
blow at religion in New York during the
past week from which it will be long time
recovering. He has made Christianity
laughing stock in the view of the congeni-
tally weak-minded, the gloatingly unholy
and the grossly sardonic He has made
Humpty Dumpty show of the noble work
of evangelization. He has put ready-made
taunts into the mouths of the groundlings,
wantonly undone the laborious work of
years on the part of hundreds of sincere,
self-renOuncing, purposeful workers In the
cause Of religion. He has extinguished the
promising spark in many a degraded breast.
The rabble has a habit Of generalizing.
"Dowie. them" bawls the mob, generalizng,
lis an exponent of Christianity. Very well.
Dowie is bearded fsh-wife in bishops
sleeves-we have seen and heard him. He
breaches the doctrines of hate in the lam
guage of a longshoreman. We're pretty
tough-but. at that Dowie hasn't got any
thing on us. If Dowie is a Christian. and If
all the rest of 'em are like DoW1e-Well,
we're good enough"
This is the argument of the pagans and
the apostates. this their method OF group
ing facts and manifestations. With the
mob the presence of one thief in an admin
istration is proof presumptive, If not proof
positive that the whole administration Is
thievish. So it is that one religious mounte-
bank may pull down the work of thou
sand sane men who love God and their fell
lowmen
No normal-minded person, after listening
to Dowie's rawlings. can doubt that he has
the power to tear down the edif1ce reared
,I.s, nod nfr oil
The Disposition to Generalize.
Not every man in Tammany is a scoun-
drel, every man among the fusion1sts
Pharisee. But because there are scoun-
drels in the one camp and Pharisees in the
other the partisans of the mob tar them all
with the same brush. 1t is the instinct of the
nethermost stratum of a populace to avoid
all niceties of distinction in it's classified
lions. To them Dowieism being equivalent to
religion, they naturally cry: Away with re-
lgiOn! This has been the view of the
crowd with respect to the Dowie invasion,
and this will doubtless continue to be its
view. Any New York clergyman will tell
you that this man who calls himself Elijah
the Restorer has done incalcuiable harm
to the cause of religion in the city of New
York. New Workers, since the invasion,
profess to have better understanding of
the "shamelessness of Chicago" of which
young Mr.. Link Steffens who makes a
business of digging up "shamelessness' OF
municipalities, writes with so much gusto.
The New Workers are saying that any town
that would give such an impossible individ-
ual as Dowie start toward the accumula-
ton of his $35OOO,OOO pile-and this is the
enormous fortune that Dowie is said to
have reaped from his Zion enterprises
couldn't be anything else but shameless.
In the meantime one may partake of the
spirit of prophecy to the extent of predict
ing that Dowie will be lucky if he gets
away from New York without being egged.
Nothing could be worse than the language
of this shrill Restorer when he becomes
well-sped among the purlieus of filth. New
York newspapers as rule, are not dainty
when it comes to printing the news, genu-
inc or faxed. But no New York newspaper
has attempted to report the utterances of
Dowie in full. They are bad enough from
the platform-at Madison Square Garden
one sees the peculiar spectacle of street
walkers, attracted to the place out of Curl
osity, wincing and hiding their faces under
the foulness of the language-but. printed
even in the yellowest and most brazen of
the newspapers, they would cause the edi-
tons containing them to be instantly seized
by the police.
The Marvellous Phase of It.
To the New Workers the most marvellous
and pathetic feature of the Dowe business
is: How do the Zionites stand for it? They
quiet, clean, sensible-looking people for
the most part. But the fanaticism burns in
their eyes when any outsider submits to
them that question: How do you stand for
it? Peter the Hermit never had more
loyal throng than Dowe, nor did any Cos
sack commander ever more cruelty lash the
troops under him than does the commander
of the restoration host his submissive
not to say cringing, proseiyteS. No healthy
minded person With the milk of human
kindness and the gravies of decent sympa-
thy in his composition can look upon these
three or four thousand honest-faced and in
the main, MISUNDERSTANDING members of
the Zion outfit, and watch their squrmings
and recoilings under the brutal words of
their whip-tongued leader, without being
oppressed by heavy sadness.
The police of New York are not blessing
the new Elijah" His swoop upon the
town has brought to the surface an attend
ing train of lunatics almost as numerous as
potato bugs in Kansas. They seem 10
spring out of the very ground. They have
bestowed upon themselves all sorts of bibli-
cal names from Balaam to Barrabas and
Judas and, running amuck in their tangle
of whiskerS, they, too have brought disre-
pute and blasphemy upon religion in the
minds of the easily swayed The psyche
pathic wards of Bellevue are jammed and
cluttered with claw-railed maniacs who
shriekingy proclaim themselves Josephs
Jacobs and even ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, and not
a few of them, when corraled by the police
were found to be heavily armed.
New York isn't feeling cordial toward
Chicago for this visitation.
Betting on the Election.
When the registration figures were pub
lished the heaviness of the registration, to-
gether with the fractional fight in progress
between the Brooklyn democrats, made
Low a to favorite for the mayoralty.
Previous to that Mcclellan had occupied
the position of favorite, his average price
on the gamblers sheets being about 10 to
T. The reason why the odds shifted after
the announcement of the regiStra ton fig
ures is that a heavy registration always
spells damage to Tammany in this town.
Now, however, that the Brooklyn democrats
have got together, outwardly at any rate
the odds have ag.in shifted, and Mcclellan
is once more the favorite in the betting
The wise partisans with a penchant for
batting IN New York elections nav No at