The Savannah morning news., 1903-10-27
DOWIE'S LIFE STORY
"ELIJAH III UNFOLDS A TALE OF
HIS BIRTHRIGHT WITHHELD.
WITH TEARS STREAMING HE
REVILED THE DOWIE FROM WHOM
HE GOT HIS NAME.

The "PrOphet'' EnIivened His Meet
ing with PersOnaIities-Weav
in an Account of a British ReEi-
ment and His Mother, Who Lived
Mt the POst-As He Closed His Ac-
count He Was Given a Burst of
Applause.
New York, Oct. 26.-In a broken
voice, with tears streaming down his
face and his body shaking with
emotion, John Alexander Dawie stood
on the platform in Madison Square
Garden tonight before an audience of
10000 persons and announced that, in
truth, he was not the son of John Muir
ray Dowie, of Essex, Iowa, from whom
he takes his patronymic, but that his
father was a British army officer of
high family by Scotch marriage"
He heaped villification and denun-
citation upon John Murray Dowie, who,
he declared, had made his mother be-
lieve her marriage to Dowie's father
was shameful, and the army officer,
having been taken away by his rela-
tives, his mother in the first flush of
her shame had sought to give her son a
name by marrying John Murray Dowie.
The revelation was made at the end
of an hours TRADE against the press of
this city, it's treatment of his work and
himself being styled "a conspiracy of
falsehood," the reporters denounced as
yellow dogs, poisonous reptiles who
have wrecked thousands of homes and
broken thousands of hearts,"
Dowie paid tribute to his mother as
"the sweetest, purest woman that ever
was" and told this story of his
birth:
MY mother was a noble woman. She
was greatly beloved by the priVates
and officers of one of the foremost regi-
ments of the British army. Our home
was near the post of the regiment.
My people had been connected with
the army for centuries. l supposed
l was the son of John Murray Dowie,
who now lives in Essex, Ia, and
never ceased to wonder how he could
have been my father. He was mean
and hypocritical, and as the years
rolled on he grew worse. l had no
sympathy for him. For many years
did not see John Murray Dowie. Then
evil times came upon him, and at my
own expense I brought him from Aus
tralia and gave him a home in my
| own house. One day later he gave
me some -papers- which xplained eSeEg-
! thing.
Il knew that 1 had been robbed of
my birthright by that villain sitting
in front of me; l knew that I was not
his son: I knew that he had married
my mother in March and that l had
been born in May. And with the
knowledge that had come so strangely
to me, l saw at once that my good,
noble mother had been tricked into a
Scotch marriage with a British army
officer of high standing, whose relatives
had hurried him out of the way, and
that my dear mother, to hide her
shame, had married that vile scoun-
drel, who sat there before me and had
done that which. had 1 known of it
twenty years before. would have given
me my right place in the world.
What that place might have been
is not for me to say 1 shall never
seek it, for if it carried with 1t the
finest ducal coronet in the United King
dom I would want to change it for the
Office l hold and the ministry l minister
to God"
The last words, pronounced with SOL
emnity over the great still garden, fell
on the audience like an irrevocable die
tum and few seconds a great burst of
applause greeted the speaker.
Carriage Attached.
An attachment was served to-day on
the Dowie coach and team. AS the
vehicle was being driven past the Fifth
Avenue Hotel a deputy sheriff jumped
upon the drivers seat, served the at
tachment on the coachman, seized the
coach and team and drove off with
them. The attachment is said to be
for $1,000 and was secured by Attorney
Robert f. Farley, his claim being for
services rendered in defending ]. Luz
Their Pierson of White Plains, a former
Zionite. who was convicted for allow
ing his child to die without medical