Interview granted by Father Divine at his New York City headquarters on 123rd Street & Lenox Avenue on Wednesday, August 10, 1938 at 8:00 p.m.
On the occasions of recent acquisitions of property, Demonstrations and Boat Excursions, the press has misquoted FATHER DIVINE to such an extent that it appeared to be a studied effort on their part to misrepresent and minimize His Teachings, as it has been many times in the past. On this occasion, however, of the recent Boat Excursion, The New York Times, upon hearing that FATHER had said He was misquoted, sent their representative to interview Him with a view to correcting these erroneous versions. Because of their evidently sincere desire to print the truth, FATHER relaxed His usual rule not to grant interviews to the press, and at His 123rd Street Headquarters received Mr. Robert S. Bird. The interview was as follows: —
Mr. Bird: Did Mr. Lamb explain to You, Father, that after reading in the afternoon papers about Your statement this morning, that you had been misquoted, I called Mr. Lamb hoping that we could get from You a transcript of your Milton address day before yesterday with the purpose of publishing in full Your own transcript; in other words a transcript of the address which would be satisfactory to You and would not be edited in the slightest way?
FATHER: “I think that can be arranged.”
Mr. Bird: This address would be preceded by copy — a paragraph or two paragraphs by way of introduction, and they would perhaps go along like this: that perhaps on an average of once a week or however often you do make a speech: or, FATHER DIVINE addresses His followers and the following is a characteristic message; then mentioning that this message was delivered on such and such a date at Milton-on-the-Hudson. That would be printed in full except that space limitations would hold it to two thousand words; but I do not think that address would run more than two thousand words. That is two full newspaper columns. If by chance the full transcript ran more than that, we would invite You to eliminate whatever part You wanted to in order to bring it within the space of the paper. Then one other thing. When I spoke to Mr. Lamb he told me — sincerely I know — that he thought there had been a studied effort to misconstrue Yours words.
FATHER: “Yes, there seem to be quite a number.”
Mr. Bird: I assured him that that was not true. I explained to him that on the occasion of thatMiltonaddress the room was extremely crowded; it was raining outside and everybody crowded inside, and there were no tables for reporters. We were standing with our papers against the backs of other people; scribbling as fast as we could and there was considerable noise in that room. The news men were grinding away at the cameras and we did not have time to consult the stenographers afterwards. We all had to get to theWestern Unionstation to get the story on the wire; so there was some argument amongst us as to exactly what you said and there were some changes; we tried to make our notes jibe with others in order to get it as clear as possible.
FATHER: “I think it should be so arranged that representatives should be accurate, even as I request the accuracy of My stenographers.”
Mr. Bird: I think that is very reasonable.
FATHER: “The same as court stenographers.”
Mr. Bird: Well, that is true, but I do not take stenographic notes, I have my own system of shorthand. It is perhaps not a hundred percent efficient but is usually suffices. Under some circumstances I sometimes miss a word here and there.
