The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-06-28
THURSDAY. JUNE ss, 1906.
DowrE AND HIS VICTIMS.

The extent to which one man can go in controlling others has rarely been shown more plainly than in the case of Dowie. The one-man power of which we often hear might be ex- emplified by the one word. Dowieism. for Dowie was Zion and Zion was DowIe. Just what has been the secret of his power is a question. Of course his claim to supernatural power was all rot. but it helped him to delude his victims-and to rob them. to put 1t plainly. To use the language of contemporary, "Dowie impressed upon his deluded followers the importance and necessity of putting absolute trust in him, and as an incident of this con- fdenee of placing their property in his hands. Numerous cases came to height of his power showing the blind faith with which men turned over So him the entire accumulations of their lifetime, but the extent to which this was done Is made clear by the figures showing that at one time over s3.- UUusDOV was III ShC oPNSNASS ROocN0T sion That is. it was in the Zion bank or invested in Zion industries in such a way that 1t was wholly within his control The credulous victims con- sidered this property common pos- session. but 1t was Dowie's to do with as he pleased. and he pleased. it now appears, to invest in ways that can not now be discovered. There is no nor sy to pay the s5OO.00o of deposits made by the Zionites since the bank was established, and $2.00o.o0o more has mysteriously disappeared. Not all of the men who fIocked under the Dowie banner are ignorant. unlettered men. Many of them are Intelligent. fairly well educated and with good business capacity in certain directions, like voliva himself; yet the intelligent and the Ignorant alike succumbed to the mysterious influence of the Second Elijah" and are now suffer CTS together. His career Is one of the wonders of modern times"
 That ignorant men and women should have been deluded and despoiled by him is not strange. for that class of people are often at the mercy of a man of strong will and determina- tIon. having a fixed purpose in view and no conscientious scruples to pre- vent him from accomplishing his me- farious designs. There Is nothing strange, we repeat, in the fact that he made victims of the ignorant, but that men of education and intelligence could have been seduced by him to the extent of trusting him with their money and property Is not easy 10 ex- plain. In the height of his physical and mental powers he must have poss- essed some kind of hypnotic strength or influence that enabled him to dominate others and cause them to yield their wills to his own. and their valuables also. Whether he was ever sincere may be a matter of doubt. but we think there can be no question about the dishonesty of his actions. The dominating feeling with him was to build up for himself a power such as no man on this continent ever possessed and to use it for his own ad- vancement. If we should put 1t in plain English. we might speak of him as a robber.
 But Dowie is down and his glory has departed from him. He has been both deposed and exposed, and the deeper they dis Unto his'record the blacker it appears. Enough has already been brought out to show that he despoiled his victims for his own ends and took their money to enrich himself. His career is ended, but whether they will be able to separate him from bis spells is another question,