The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1906-12-16
A Wonderful Story

John Alexander Dowie, who Tor more
than dozen years posed as the re-
incarnatpd Elijah. and exercised greater
powers in his new incarnation IMAM ne
had shown in the dawn OF history ms
prophet of Israel, has gone 5aNlhg
mad His intellect is described as
total wreck, and the end OF his mosl
wonderful career ia believed 10 be at
hand. But the disaster that has ne
fallen his mind is not the limit OF ms
calamitous Affections. He has been de-
serted by his wife and son and by the
great mass Of his large following, Ihey
see in the man whom they regarded as
little less than divine only false
prophet, a hypocrite, sham. or the
Slb,000,000 which he gathered INTO ms
cunning hands in q dozen years nothing
is left, and the most impressive rem
minder Of his colossal fortune and I'M
meuse business is debt of S6,O0O.OOO,
This man is not the first great fraud
that has fourished in this country. hut
his story is by no means replica OF
that of any one man who has gone
before him. If the true story OF his Ire
shall ever he written, il VIII present
facts and phases that will forever ban
ish doubt of the truth of the old saw,
Truth is stranger than fiction
Not many months ago The Post re.
produced from "A prominent Chicago
daily newspaper ono Of the highest tri-
butcs ever paid 10 the character and
achievements of any living man. The
hero of that story was John Alexander
Dowie. There is no resident of Chi
cago or any other American city whose
friends would not be proud is such a
eulogy were pronounced on him. Many
distinguished Chicagonns who have
passed from this life, leaving records of
great and good works. have been ap-
propriately eulogized by the Chicago
papers: but not one Of them has been
put on higher pinnacle than that on
which Dowie was posed in the editorial
from which The Post quoted, and on
which it commented st the time, when
Dowie's failing health caused him to
GO abroad for rest and recuperation.
A little later another of our Chicago
contemporaries eulogizcd the old man in
a similar strain, only more eNtraVa-
gantly. This one went so far MS 10
vouch for tho genuincness of the al
| legged miraculous cures OF diseases, IN
cluding chronic cases Of cripples who
| had come TO Dowie S temple, and. at a
word from the prophet or touch of his
| hand, had thrown aside their crutches
and gone hence rejoicing, fully re-
stored. Our Chicago contemporary
proudly pointed to a large collection
| of crutches and other mechanical de
vices, calculated to enable the pitifully
| decroplt TO walR-there tHef were 1T
the temple, each an incoptrovertible at
testation of the prophet power OF
healing. While this eulogy did not posi-
| lively assert that Dowie WAS divine, /,
did attribute TO him the performance OF
miracles.
One cannot help wondering what
| these Chicago newspapers are thinking
of the deposcd, deserted, impotent in
carnation of Elijah in these, his dolor
Gus days And it seems quite pertinent
to suggest that, when his biographe1
gives to the world the story Of his
strange career, he should, in Justice e
the culogists, as we'll as TO their sub
jects, reproduce these wonderful edi
torials. EBut yesterday the word o'
Caesar might have stood" for grea
deal in Chicago; ''now lies he low anC
none so poor to do him reverence >
The steady progress OF mankind il
bound to ring in the day when, If tn,
true story Of Dowie shall be told, 1t vii
be heard with absorbing interest as
delightful fiction, almost as charming
as t'Don Quixote Washington Post