Message of the Week

In Manhattan last week there arrived a man with a message. A tall, billiard-ball-pated, 46-year-old Negro named Garland Anderson, he was ready to expound his message gratis for five nights in Town Hall, then proceed to Boston, Philadelphia and anywhere else his message was wanted. A leaflet announced that Garland Anderson's ''World Tour" was sponsored by Very Rev. Richard ("Dick") Sheppard, Canon of St. Paul's, Chaplain to King George V. Further, Garland Anderson claimed the backing of Sir John Simon, icy British Foreign Minister. Less impressively, his New York sponsors were Bishop William Thomas Manning, Dr. S. Parkes Cadman and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, all three of whom lend their names frequently.

No stranger to Manhattan was Negro Anderson. Once a self-educated San Francisco bellhop, he wrote an autobiographical play called Appearances, got it produced on Broadway in 1925. Called "clean" by kindly critics, it ran for three weeks, but did better in London. He began giving religio-psychological lectures, acquired a following at his "Tea Talks" at the Mayfair Hotel. He debated in Queen's Hall on "Christianity v. Spiritualism" with famed Journalist Hannen Swaffer. Last year Negro Anderson opened a temperance bar. His followers are planning to build a Temple dedicated to his message, which is simply, "You can do what you want if you believe you can do it."

Amplifying this last week, Lecturer Anderson said he might be called a Christian Scientist, psychologist, evangelist or Baptist, "but I do not claim to be any of these. I simply believe in the lessons of Jesus Christ." Asked if he thought he could become President of the U. S. simply by believing in it, he parried: "Ah! If! If I believed it! But I would not believe that. A woman in London asked me whether if she believed she were Queen Mary she would be Queen Mary. I said yes, that there was only one sane woman in England who believed she was Queen Mary, and she was Queen Mary."

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