Los Angeles herald., 1909-02-07
OWES TITLE OF
KING TO DOWIE
FREELAND ISLANDS RULER
COMES FOR SUBJECTS
MORE THAN NINE HUNDRED NOW
ACKNOWLEDGE HIS SWAY
"Divine Healer" SchIatter Says by
Special Commission He Has
TranspIanted Lion to
the South Seas

Squat and stolid, his hands sadly in
need of the queen of all the manicures,
and his long, uncombed hair streaming
to his waist, the king reached Los An
geles late yesterday afternoon.
The king of what? Oh, yes, the king
of the Freeland islands, the last strong
hold Of John Alexander Dowie, who
was but is no more. Thus has the
mighty Zion transplanted itself to the
South seas, and the leadership of the
church fallen into the hands Of Francis
Schlatter, formerly known as Divine
Healer" Schlatter, and now as king of
the Freeland group.
Last night King Schlatter sat in a
bare little room at 329 West First street
and talked of his islands, his people
and-himself. BY all means do not for
get the king.
"The Freeland islands," he said, with
an accent which savored strongly of
Milwaukee, ARE thirty in number.
They lie 900 miles from San Francisco
and about the same distance from the
Central American coast. On them there
are 905 Inhabitants, none of them ma
tives. Seventy-three families of this
number are German, six American and
the remainder are from Switzerland.
Il am their king, their high priest,
their government and their physician
DO you cure tOothache, too?" asked
the reporter.
There is no sucil thing as tooth
ache" answered the king. when one
of my subjects thinks his tooth aches
1 lay my hand on it, and there is no
toothache there.
1.-The Freeland islands are the last
gift of John Alexander Dowie to me.
There he commissioned me to found a
new church; to take up the work which
has been laid down at Zion, and there
I shall continue the work, taking back
verts / can make in the next year or
two.
Evil Doors Transported
'I have my own fiag-a red field with
q white crown and a black roSe-and it
is the flag of the islands. 1 have two
policemen on the islands, and the first
policeman is the judge of all evildoers
AS a matter of fact, we need no police
men, for no one ever does anything
wrong on the islands. Every time we
find some one who does thing that is
not right we ship him, or her, to Aus
tralia."
(which is it." asked the innocent re-
Porter, ''polygamy or free love?
Neither" relied the king. Every
man has one Wife-and that's some
times more than enough. Every man
works for himself, and we have farmers
and mechanics ond merchants, but no
druggists doctors or dentists.
1--WE need no navy and army; the
power of God, manifest in me, protects
US from all HARM and no worldly power
dare attack us, surrounded by such
care. I heal all my subjects by my
divine power and guard them with 1t
as Well"
In between his duties as king and
guardian of an island empire, King
Schlatter is busily engaged in rewrit-
ing, by inspiration, some 400 books of
the Bible which are alleged to have
been destroyed by one of the popes a,
few centuries ago.
Il am the only man since Moses who
has had this power" said the king, as
he sank back into wicker settee chair
in his room; but I can write all the
laws on the tablets of stone, just as
Moses wrote them, and that is what /
am doing now.
"Oh, yes, I have an assistant. His
name is Prince August. His full
name? 1t is August Schrader. am
native of Switzerlond, but he comes
from Milwaukee''-the king has a di-
vine way of saying that Milwaukee.
When l have passed beyond he will be
king