I call your attention to the time of the great panic in the South and in all parts of this Country, around 1908 or 1909. Around about that time and right on, some people in the Southern States, women especially, were working earning one dollar a week, having to pay for lodging, and they did not live on the premises. It happened to be that there was a young lady I met, in going through the South and there were many others, but especially this one, that was earning one dollar a week. I said to this young lady as in the same case with many others. “You tell your Madam you can not work for less than two dollars, no way—just start at that.” She told her the next day and she said, “ You know you will get one dollar a week now, and when you work four weeks you will have four dollars,” and she was not even staying on the premises, but was staying with some of her friends and had to walk home. She would not pay her any more, so I said, “All right.” I put this identical lady, and many other young ladies and men and women in Agency work. I Personally did it! That was just before the great move in the South came up, just before the great migration from the South began, and I put this lady to work in Agency work. She began to earn from eight to ten dollars a day. I said, “I will bring you out,” and for many others I did it in the same way.

I remember a man, a healthy, strong, robust man, working for fifteen cents a day—working in the field cutting corn, or pulling fodder, or something like that. “They said he could only earn fifteen cents a day and he worked hard. I said, “Well I will stop you.” As a first step, I got him in more public work, like in a Mill. I placed quite a few of them in the Lumber Mills. They began getting eighty and ninety cents a day. He was a foreman and a good worker, and earned ninety cents a day. They said they would give him ninety-five cents a day—five cents more, as he was a great worker “All right,” I said, ”but tell them to give you more.” They would not give him more, so I put this very man, and many others on the Agency list, and they went out and did work in that same City, and he began to earn from six to eight dollars a day. He did not earn as much as the young ladies, apparently they were better salesmen. However, I had a way there, that no man knew but MYSELF. Through working silently, apparently, and not establishing MYSELF as a Person. I made many, independent from that angle and from that point of view, and great is the Spirit in the midst of you, to accomplish anything that I teach it to do. It is indeed Wonderful!

Father Divine
Monday, March 5, 1934 N.D. 6/26/82