Maud, Emma, Evangeline America’s Love Affairs With the 3 Booth Women R.G. Moyles 2014 Frontier Press

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Moyles, R.G. Maud, Emma, Evangeline America’s Love Affairs With the 3 Booth Women

July 2014

Copyright © The Salvation Army USA Western Territory

ISBN 978-0-9768465-9-8

Printed in the United States

Table of Contents

Foreword 1

Introduction 3

Maud Ballington Booth 7

Emma Booth-Tucker 42

Evangeline Cory Booth 67

Afterword 117

Booth Women / 1

FOREWORD

By Major Kevin E. Jackson

The history of The Salvation Army is incredibly rich. Those who spend time researching and writing it are keenly aware of this truth. Those who choose to read books, articles and thoughtful studies on The Salvation Army’s past come to understand the depth and importance of the subject. The history of this organization maintains a uniqueness that separates this movement from oth- er religious organizations, churches and nonprofits. We are similar in some respects, but our uniqueness is what tells the story that most readers of our past want to know and profit from. Just prior to the release of Maud, Emma, Evangeline: America’s Love Affair with the 3 Booth Women, I spent several hours interviewing Dr. R. Gordon Moyles for a promotional video about the book. I was taken by Moyles’ pas- sion for the subject of his latest work, and his lifelong study of The Salvation Army. Like any good story, the illuminating qualities of a book are usually found in the details of a well-researched and written manuscript. So it is with Moyles’ book. He has crafted the story of these three brilliant leaders who sequentially succeeded each other as national leaders of The Salvation Army in the first third of our history in the U.S. When we read the pages we see intricate details of these women’s lives as they were viewed through the lens of the American press at the time of their individual terms of leadership. At a time when most women were left off the pages of history, Maud, Emma and Evangeline Booth were commonly filling the front pages of newspapers and magazines with their stories and the story of their fledgling organiza- tion. You can see the parallel rise of The Salvation Army and their gifted and R.G. Moyles / 2 visionary leadership. We are now, through this new and unique research, able to gain a perspective of our past denied by more traditional approach- es. Moyles makes history fun and enlightening. He reaches back to a time of profound and tremendous change in history and provides us a perspective long lost. We are afforded an opportunity to rediscover an imagination and interpretation of our past. Reading history should be like traveling to a dis- tant, unknown land. Moyles opens a door to the past allowing us such an experience. We get glimpses and traces of individuals and a world long since gone—important and not to be forgotten. The story of Maud, Emma and Evangeline as seen through the lens of popular American culture enables us to witness traces of the past. But this narrative also provides a sense of motive that each carried individually and corporately as Booths. What shines through the words stated to and shared by the media of the day demonstrates the dynamic leadership of each, as well as their individual and corporate motive to change the world through the work of The Salvation Army. The leadership of the three took The Salvation Army from the margins of American society to the mainstream of American culture in just a few short years. In many ways these women created the movement that has become a part of the very fabric that makes up contemporary Amer- ican society. Booth Women / 3

INTRODUCTION

The American press has had many love affairs with outstanding women, but none any more ardent that those with Maud Ballington Booth, Emma Booth-Tucker and Evangeline Booth. Between 1887 and 1934, The Salvation Army in America was commanded solely by members of William Booth’s family, and in each succession—Maud and Ballington Booth (1887-1896), Emma and Frederick Booth-Tucker (1896-1904) and Evangeline Booth (1904-1934)—it was the lady sharing (or assuming) the command who gained the lion’s share of the publicity and won the hearts of the American people. In 1889, shortly after her arrival in America, Booth’s daughter-in-law, Maud, became a social celebrity. A lady of education, beauty and refinement, she won her way into the salons of New York’s upper classes, holding “draw- ing-room” meetings in the homes of the city’s social elite. These she followed up with public meetings in the mainstream churches in which she eloquently defended the Army’s seemingly bizarre methods and thereby raised its public profile to the point where it began to be respected (if not altogether respect- able). Taking advantage of the support she had garnered among the wealthy, and having established an auxiliary league to maintain it, Maud Booth began to implement what she considered to be her special mission—slum brigades, rescue homes and children’s shelters. These, along with other social outreach programs instituted by her husband, Ballington, marked the beginning of the Army’s dual mission in America, and set it on the road to its present-day prominence. R.G. Moyles / 4

When, in March 1896, Maud and Ballington Booth unfortunately decided to secede from The Salvation Army and establish their own religious organi- zation called The Volunteers of America, the American public, having given their hearts to Maud, found it difficult at first to warm to her successor, Emma Booth-Tucker. They found it easy to sympathize with her, for her tenure as co-commander was replete with misfortune and illness, but they did not begin to idolize her until about 1899 when, coincident with Maud’s waning popularity, Emma launched her “Dramatic Scenes of Love and Sorrow” stage production, featuring “stereopticon views” and living tableaux with music and narration depicting various aspects of The Salvation Army’s endeavors. Fea- tured on the stages of some of America’s largest theaters, touring more than 50 towns and cities, and drawing perhaps as many as 100,000 viewers, “Love and Sorrow” raised Emma’s profile to that comparable to a modern movie star. So when she died, tragically, in 1903, she was mourned across the nation and eulogized as a “true angel of mercy.” When her younger sister, Evangeline (“Eva”) Booth, came down from Can- ada to take command of the Army in the United States in 1904, Americans were delighted that yet another female Booth was in leadership—one who in some respects was quite like her sister and, in others, completely different. The appointment allowed for a continuance of the Booth charisma and yet intro- duced a new personality to keep an adoring public expectant of still further surprises from The Salvation Army. Eva Booth did not disappoint. For 30 years, until she became General of the Army, she won the hearts of Americans in many ways: by the sheer force of her personality, by her con- summate skill as an orator and actress, by the mystery she created as a single (very desirable) woman, by her ability to seize the moment and aid the com- munity (as in the San Francisco earthquake disaster and in World War I), and by her conspicuous presence at the center of American religious life. Though Maud Ballington Booth and her sister-in-law, Emma, both held the affections of the American people, it was Eva who became the living embodiment of The Salvation Army in America. What follows is a public record of America’s love affairs with the Booth women; that is, by selecting from among the many thousands of reports and personality vignettes in the American newspapers and magazines of the day, we can see just how popular (one might say “adored”) they were. For, like Booth Women / 5 the female movie stars of today, their every public appearance—their physical appearance, their personalities, their preaching styles, their cultivation of in- fluential patrons—was reported, described and analyzed. They were, each in her own time, among the most celebrated women in America. One must, of course, be aware that what reporters, editorialists and jour- nalists wrote was not always accurate, and sometimes not even truthful, but it was what most Americans read and believed to be true. One does not look for facts in these reports—though facts are certainly there—but for the myth-making process to which each Booth was subjected, making them, whether they liked it or not, prima donnas of the religious world. Out of it all, however, emerges this simple fact: Maud, Emma and Evangeline were three remarkable ladies, without whose dedication, personal charm and exception- al platform abilities The Salvation Army in America would not have achieved the remarkable popularity that it did enjoy (and, perhaps still does).

Booth Women / 7

Maud Ballington Booth R.G. Moyles / 8

Maud Ballington Booth The Salvation Army Madonna

Society has a new sensation; the cause of it is Mrs. Ballington Booth, the daugh- ter-in-law of Mikado [General] Booth, of the Army. She is a very lovely little woman, with the sweetest of smiles, the rosiest of cheeks, the most delightful voice, the most attractive manner and very magnetic. She looks like a Quakeress, and one would be inclined to think that she were one if the ribbon with Salvation Army upon it did not contradict the idea. The secret of her success with the women is that she appears a woman of intense feeling. . . . Many have assembled to hear this bright-faced, brilliant little woman point out the way from the tents of the ungodly to the mansions above marked “To Let.”

—New York World, February 23, 1889

Mrs. Ballington Booth, of the Salvation Army, is a very beautiful woman, possessing gracious manners and a lovely voice. Even the hideous uniform she wears cannot con- ceal her beauty and her air of distinction. She goes fearlessly into the worst quarters of the worst populations, conquers a welcome by her genuineness and sympathy, teaches the poor women she finds better ways of living, and so wins them to listen to her spiritual counsel. —Harper’s Bazaar, February 8, 1890 Booth Women / 9

Earnestness is half of genius; and the Salvation Army has produced some of the most exquisite and eloquent speakers that occupy the religious platform. Chief among them in this country is Mrs. Ballington Booth, a woman with the face of a Madonna, the soul of a saint, and the tongue—I had almost said, of an angel. —Rev. William Hayes Ward, Harper’s Weekly, December 2, 1893

She was petite, just five feet tall, with an angelic face, and she carried herself with grace and dignity. Though just 21 years of age, she was well-educated, spoke three languages fluently and with elegance and, having been reared in a family of refinement, was quite at home among the social elite. But, alas, Maud Ballington Booth was a Salvationist! One of those whom the American newspapers described as a lot of “rough and uncouth” fanatics. “We believe,” wrote one editor, “that the proceedings of these eccentric and noisy, tramping and shouting ‘Salvationists’ are generally much more likely to create nuisances and help the devil, than they are to reform anybody’s soul.”1 For Maud, however, such criticisms only strengthened her resolve, just as they had done some years earlier when, as Maud Elizabeth Charlesworth, she rejected the advice of her family—her father being a well-known rector of the Anglican church—and defied social convention to join The Salvation Army and accompany young Catherine (“Katie”) Booth as she “bombarded” ultra-conservative Switzerland. There, in 1882, she entered fully in the Army’s warfare, being ridiculed, spat upon, haled before the police and finally ex- pelled from the canton of Geneva. The reports of her courage and determination (as told by nearly all the Brit- ish newspapers), along with that of Katie Booth, made her a minor celebrity, granting her “a halo of martyrdom” which made her more enamored of the Army—especially of the Booths or of one Booth in particular. And so, while she waited for her 21st birthday so that she might marry the General’s second son, Ballington, without her father’s consent, she volunteered for the worst (or, some might say, the best) experience the Army could provide, working in

1. New Jersey Journal, July 8, 1882. R.G. Moyles / 10 the slums of London. There she became, with the other Booth daughters, one of the Army’s “slum angels”—and forever after devoted to the rescue of “fallen girls.” And it was this passion which endeared her to the American public when she and her new husband, Ballington, were sent as co-commanders of the Army there in 1887.

They had not, however, been given an easy task. In 1887, The Salvation Army in the United States was still in the rebuilding process—recovering from its first “rebellion,” which had divided its forces and depleted its resources. Just three years earlier, in October 1884, Thomas Moore, who was then the com- mander, had decided (on his own hook, but with good intentions) to incorpo- rate the Army under New York state law. On being rebuked by William Booth, who added charges of incompetency to his reprimand, Moore, now the legal owner, took nearly all the Army’s money and property (including the War Cry and official insignia) and with it created his own rival organization called The Salvation Army of America. Most of the officers and corps decided to join Moore and “to the few American Salvationists still loyal to Booth,” writes Herbert Wisbey, “the future looked dark indeed.”2 The Ballington Booths knew, of course, that Frank Smith, sent over by Wil- liam Booth to salvage and rebuild, had done a remarkable job of recovery. With the aid of about 50 new officers from England, it was not long before the “true” (sometimes called the “English” or “world-wide”) Salvation Army had outdistanced Moore’s floundering Salvation Army of America and by 1887, when Ballington took over the reins, the gains exceeded those which had been registered prior to the split. (Frank Smith had gained for them some 300 corps being served by almost 600 officers.) The one big disappointment, however, was that the Army had not yet achieved a public prominence; the general public, as represented by the press and local authorities, was, by and large, still antagonistic towards the Salva- tionists, and the elite of society, the wealthy and the clergy, with the exception

2. Herbert Wisbey, Soldiers Without Swords (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 56. Booth Women / 11 of a few, shunned it altogether. Though the public and the press had certainly become more friendly as a result of William Booth’s first visit in 1886, they still needed to be better informed about the real purpose of the Army—why it marched, why it was so seemingly noisy, and why it focused its mission on the slums. In fact, public support would become essential to the success of the Army’s mission, especially as, by 1887, it was beginning to include social service in its mandate. It seemed to William Booth, then, that Ballington and Maud would be the ideal couple to reinvigorate the troops, inspire true Salvationism (a much-needed inspiration, so thought William), extend the mission across the nation and gain the public’s confidence. Ballington had created a very favor- able impression just a few months earlier on his trip across America from Australia and, by virtue of the Booth name alone, would gain instant recogni- tion and acceptance in American religious circles. Maud (unlike the wives of Moore and Smith who had played no official part in the Army’s advance) was an acknowledged equal partner in the command, and, by virtue of her social standing (almost aristocracy to the Americans), would not only help refine the coarser instincts of new officers but would also gain almost immediate access to the parlors of the influential upper classes. What William Booth did not seem to have foreseen was just how popular his children—especially Maud—would become, or how distinctly they would transform The Salvation Army in their soon-to-be-adopted country.

It was not, of course, an instantaneous transformation. Like most, it was slow and gradual. The first task, in fact, was to review the troops (and give the troops a chance to review them). As soon as they had settled in, therefore, the new commanders set off on a four-week, 5,000-mile tour, conducting seventh anniversary meetings across the nation. They addressed almost 40 public meetings and held more than seven officers’ councils. At these it was mainly Ballington who captured the attention of the press by his youthful appearance, his vibrant personality and his energetic preaching style. He was not only a commanding figure (six-foot-four-inches tall), but, when not R.G. Moyles / 12 conducting revival meetings, he was soft-spoken, articulate, extremely intelligent and affable. The reporters loved him. And the fact that both he and Maud quickly identified themselves as Americans (eventually taking out naturalization papers and displaying the American flag at their meetings) gave an extra degree of confidence to their officers and soldiers. Soon, Ballington’s able defense of the Army’s peculiar methods began to win over a distrustful public. A reporter for the Jackson (IL) Citizen Patriot wrote:

Mr. Booth said he knew many people who knew the Salvation Army from an outside standpoint, and they never come sufficiently near to get below the surface. Seeing a Salvation Army parade, they can discover nothing but a strange, and to them, unnecessary, procession. To see the Salvation Army they should go into the barracks Sunday afternoons; go into the homes and see what it has done, socially, morally and spiritually, for its members. Beneath the loud hallelujahs, blasts of trumpets, beating of drums and clapping of hands is a religious life, which is not outwardly seen owing to the prejudices of the outside world, which, I am sorry to say is engendered by the hostile pulpit and press. I remember the story of an Irish lady who was taken to see George Stephenson and the first loco- motive ever built. She was incredulous, and when told it would go of itself held up her hands and said: “It will never go. It will never go. It will never go.” Mr. Stephenson said: “Turn the steam on,” and as the engines moved the old lady had to get off the track so as to not get run over. She then held up her hands and said, in wonder: “It will never stop. It will never stop. It will never stop.” The story is applicable to the hostile criticism of the press at first, which is now holding up its hands, like the old lady, and saying: “It will never stop. It will never stop. It will never stop.”3

That, said Ballington, was a perfect analogy of what the public’s attitude had been towards the Salvation Army and what it soon would be. In this opinion he was en- tirely correct, in large part because very soon his very attractive wife, Maud, began to assert her personality on the American public. In late 1888 and early 1889, in fact, she literally dominated the American press and propelled the Army into the nation-

3. Jackson (IL) Citizen Patriot, May 24, 1887. Booth Women / 13

al limelight. Almost overnight it seemed (though she had cultivated her sponsors long before) she became the darling of New York society and was adulated by the social columnists as “a Salvation Army belle,” “the Salvation Army queen,” “a mod- ern Joan of Arc” and “the Salvation Army Madonna.” It was her “drawing-room” lectures for society matrons which brought her such exalted praise. One reporter wrote:

Ever since her arrival in this country from England, Mrs. Ballington Booth has been anxious to interest wealthy people in the movement. In the mother country the religious soldiers have quite a hold upon the up- per class, but in America tambourines and bass drums of lads and lassies didn’t seem to win the favor of the rich people, and finally the attempt to gain their assistance was almost abandoned. But Mrs. Booth never fully gave up hope. She knew what help it could be to the Army to secure the endorsement of the aristocrats, and she kept her eyes open all the time for the chance. Finally, it came through the Rev. Dr. E. Walpole Warren of Holy Trinity Church, at Forty-second street and Madison avenue. Mrs. Booth, who is the daughter of an English Episcopal clergyman, had known Dr. Warner when he was preaching in England, and he readily consented to give her the use of his church lecture room to address an audience of the church members of the results of the Salvation Army work in this country. The outcome of this meeting was that Mrs. Booth made friends of nearly all the people present, and who had been before violently prejudiced against the Salvation Army and all people connected with it. She was congratulated on all sides on her good work, and nearly everyone invited her to call. From that time forward Mrs. Booth has progressed steadily in her desire to enlist the sympathy of the people who could help the movement so materially in the work of the army, and during the past six weeks she has held four “drawing rooms” in this city at the residence of a wealthy New Yorker.4

It is not inflating the truth to say that, in the summer of 1889, Maud Ball-

4. “New York’s Latest Craze,” Rocky Mountain News, February 7, 1889. R.G. Moyles / 14 ington Booth’s “society” meetings became the talk of America. With headlines announcing “New York’s Latest Craze,” newspapers as far away as Denver, Colorado, were regaling their readers with stories of Maud Booth’s conquests.

The Patriarch balls are over. Lent begins shortly and the Salvation Army has an open field. Her first “drawing room” was at the home of Mrs. E. Bird of East Thirty-fifth street, where 300 ladies were invited to meet her. With a few exceptions all invitations were responded to, and Mrs. Booth delivered an address detailing the work of the army and correcting false impressions. Her auditors were charmed. She made no attempt to “convert” any of the audience, and there were none of the usual tambourine and cornet accompaniments. A week later there was another drawing room at the residence of Mrs. John M. Cortell of East Thirty-seventh street, in which the house was crowded from top to bottom, and now comes the great triumph of Mrs. Ballington Booth. Mrs. Cortland de Puyster Field, who lives in a splendid Fifth ave- nue mansion and is the chief of the Hammerley family and sister-in- law of the Duchess of Marlborough, gave her a “drawing room.” This time the assemblage was composed of both ladies and gentlemen, and among the 300 persons who were present were many of the best known and most fashionable people in New York. One of the gentle- men is said to have been so carried away with Mrs. Booth’s account of the good work that he sent up a one hundred dollar bill to the fair evangelist5

Capitalizing on the publicity, Maud began to hold “society” meetings at the new headquarters and accepted invitations to do the same at local churches. By them she hoped not only to make the Army better known and respected, and perhaps to bring a spiritual awareness to her listeners, but also to raise money for a possible slum brigade—the first step towards the kind of social outreach that would become the hallmark of Salvation Army service.

Rich and costly robes rubbed against the garments of the poor

5. Ibid. Booth Women / 15 and the lowly at the Salvation Army consecration services at 111 Reade-street yesterday afternoon. Fashionable society had sent its representatives from Fifth and Madison avenues to mingle with the democratic representatives of a “vital religion,” sing hymns to the rollicking tunes of the Salvationists, and to listen to the fascinating exhortations of Mrs. Ballington Booth, the fervid young evangelist. In an ill-ventilated, stuffy back room, 25 by 30 feet in dimensions, was an assemblage that might have been taken for an audience at Daly’s Theatre were it not for a moderate sprinkling of the slum ele- ment. Two-thirds of the assemblage were ladies and gentlemen from aristocratic circles. They occupied all of the seats. The other third was composed of mechanics, longshoremen, colored men, verita- ble Bowery toughs, and Salvation Army people, all of whom were crowded against the four sides of the room, forming a sombre-tinted border to the central picture of wealth and luxury. Rich furs, rustling silks, and glistening velvet bonnets made a striking contrast to the homely garb of the Salvationists and their ordinary followers. . . . “These meetings,” explained Mrs. Booth, “are the outcome of the drawing-room meetings that have recently been held in this city. Of course we turn no person away, but we desire that the attendance at these meetings shall be confined as much as possible to the class of society that we are seeking to interest in our work.” Mrs. Booth was attired in a very plain garb of blue cloth, and wore the black poke bonnet that distinguishes the female Salvationists. Her youthful face was afire with fervid zeal, and her graceful man- ners and gestures won admirers from the society devotees. She is a fluent talker, and her intense personality dominated the entire pro- ceedings. Mrs. Booth explained that consecration was the watch word of these meetings. She wanted to convince people of high and low de- gree that the only way to secure lasting happiness was to consecrate themselves to the service of God. “You in the society in which you move,” said she, “and I in the circle that I can influence have the power of doing good if we let Christianity be the guiding spirit of our lives.” R.G. Moyles / 16

A hymn was then sung, Mrs. Booth reading each verse with dramat- ic earnestness. Many of the aristocratic visitors joined in the singing, which was accompanied by a pianist and a guitar player. A little later Mrs. Booth introduced the guitar player ... and a young girl in the uni- form of the Salvationists, who, she said, was formerly a singer in comic opera, and the song “God is Mighty and Must Prevail” was rendered to a rippling waltz melody. Mrs. Booth interjected crisp, bright sayings between the features of the services and thereby held the interest of her auditors closely. She broke out enthusiastically after one of the songs, “Oh, I am so glad to have you all here that you may see what disreputable people we Salva- tion Army people are,” and at another time she exclaimed: “Now I am going to do something odd. Some of you may shake your heads, but you must excuse the proceeding, for it is part of the usual ceremony of the Salvation Army. I am going to take up a collection. Those of you who do not feel willing to give, please keep your money in your pockets.” Tam- bourines were then passed around and a liberal collection was realized. After a quaint, but eloquent, prayer and more singing Mrs. Booth reviewed the entire work of the Salvation Army from its organization in this country and explained the good it had done. She said: “I do not expect, neither do I want, to make you all Salvationists, but I want to bring forcibly to your notice the fact that the Salvation Army has always been an instrument of good, and ask you to help us, and hope that you will look upon us not unkindly, but carry hence to your homes some of the spirit of God, that will cause you to aid us in our work for good.” During her address many of the ladies present were moved to tears, especially when she spoke of the persecutions which she and her hus- band and others engaged in the work had suffered.6

TheNew York Sun, which had previously reported on Army activities in a rath- er supercilious manner, was totally serious when describing Maud Booth’s “draw- ing-room” meetings. She would, wrote one of its reporters,

6. “Mrs. Booth’s Magnetism: Many Fashionable People Attend a Salvation Army Meeting,” New York Times, February 15, 1889. Booth Women / 17

attract little attention by her appearance on the street, but she is one of the remarkable women of the day for all that. . . . She is just now making herself and the army felt in a peculiar way, for, despite the ridicule that has been heaped on her emotional and sensational co-religionists, she has managed by her magnetism and her earnest- ness to attract the sympathy and interest of a host of well-to-do and intelligent New York women. She has left the slums, for the time be- ing, and is making the homes of the rich folks her mission field. She holds two or three meetings in private dwellings every week, besides the public gatherings to which she invites all who will come. She not only makes her way with those who have not professed religion, but she actually succeeds in affecting church folks, hitherto supposed to have scant sympathy for her eccentric army. Hers is a remarkable work, and the account of it makes a remarkable story.7

That newspaper, and many others, were as fascinated by Maud Booth’s physical appearance—her “rare beauty” and “air of refinement”—as they were by her eloquence. Here is how that same reporter described her entry and her elegant approach to the platform (with her young son in her arms):

Promptly at 3 o’clock an officer in full uniform of dark blue, with silver straps on the shoulder, a silver crest on the collar and a silver shield on his breast comes down the aisle followed by a slender, girl- ish figure with a place, spirituelle Madonna face, and with a baby on her shoulder, its pink dimpled hand against her cheek. Her dress, too, is a uniform of dark blue, simply fashioned. About the plain skirt are five bands of braid, as befits her rank; on the collar of her plaited waist is an S of gold upon a scarlet ground, and back of it the silver crest of the Salvation Army, while on her belt is embroi- dered “Consecrated to His Service.” Her bonnet is a large poke of fine straw, with folds of dark blue satin on the brim, and the golden stamped scarlet ribbon band, and it is tied at one side with broad heavy satin ribbons in a big soft bow. There is a simple finish of white

7. New York Sun, February 24, 1889. R.G. Moyles / 18

cord at her throat and wrists, and the gleam of a plain wedding ring on one slender white hand. The strong sweet face beneath the bon- net is lighted by large soft dark eyes, beautiful in coloring and ex- pression; the mouth is firm and tender, the chin square and strong, but the delicately tinted skin is of rare whiteness, save where flushed with pink, and the short mass of brown curls, touched with gold in every ring, and a sunny smile make the face seem childish rather than mature. The yellow-haired baby on her shoulder is all in white, save where across the yoke of his little slip is embroidered the motto in scarlet: Given to God, and his sleeves are tied with knots of scarlet ribbon at the shoulders—the colors of the Salvation Army. Behind this modern Madonna, with her white-clad baby, come her staff, all women in the blue uniform, with straps of scarlet braid or the gleam of a brass or silver S on their collars, according to their rank. They all kneel for a moment, the mother standing the baby on his feet, holding him close with one arm while she bows her head lower and lower until his yellow curls gleam above her bonnet. Then she rises, steps swiftly to the elevated seat prepared for her, and, with the baby still on her shoulder, Captain Booth greets her audience.8

On some occasions, whether it be in Mrs. Wanamaker’s music room in Washington, or in Mrs. E.W. Blatchford’s home in Chicago (200 prominent members of society present), or in the vestry of St. George’s Cathedral, or at the YMCA, she speaks of the methods of The Salvation Army, attempting to dispel some of the untruths and half-truths that had been circulated by the press and from the pulpit. “I have given 10 years of my life to this work,” she said, “and I have heard everything that can be said derogatory of the move- ment. How is it that our work is so much misunderstood? It is one of the most powerful and far-reaching agencies of this century for reaching the fallen, the degraded, and the outcast. It has been the means of saving thousands of drunkards, criminals, and degraded poor, who seemed lost to every sense and feeling of humanity.” The trouble was, according to Mrs. Booth, that people who ridicule, bur-

8. Ibid. Booth Women / 19 lesque, and adversely criticize the work of the Salvation Army do not see the motive and spirit of the work, but only the uniforms, the strange manner, the drums and cymbals and the queer processions in the streets.

“They see the little specks and spots and superficial things,” she -ex claimed, “and forget that behind these there is something far greater, deeper and more significant in spirit and meaning!. . . There is noth- ing we fear in the way of criticism. We want people to criticize us and our methods where they can do so with justice. Whenever they convince us of anything wrong in our system we shall lose no time until it is righted. We do not say we are perfect, for nothing is quite perfect this side of the pearly gates. Our aim is to bring the simple life and teachings of Jesus Christ to the fallen and degraded classes of humanity. To meet terrible needs and face terrible needs, we must adopt extraordinary means! Some people think it is our mission to play soldier; that we beat the drum and wear a uniform, and, after all, it is only a sort of burlesque. But we feel that our mission is a God-given one; that we are to go out into dark places and search for jewels. All is not beautiful and calm and rose-colored where pearls are found; divers must take great risks and go down among the slime and monsters of the deep. We are diving for pearls among fallen and hardened humanity and we are willing to go down in the mire and slush. That is why we wear the divers’ suits. . . . How can we reach these people, touch their hearts, and reunite them to God’s heart? By going among them as the practical messengers of God and His love. We believe in beginning in the heart, and when that is won the environment will be changed.”9

Just as often Maud Booth would, in her elegant and refined manner, go straight to the heart of the matter and preach the necessity of salvation.

The Captain rises, with her small well-worn Bible in her hands, and says in her clear, ringing voice: “I want to read to you a little out of

9. Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean, February 16, 1892. R.G. Moyles / 20

God’s own letter to you and to me, and I want you to remember that it was for you and me that it was written: ‘I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding. And, lo, it was all overgrown with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof. And the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw, and considered it well; I looked upon it, and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.’ “I see before me today,” she added, “men and women who move in spheres our suns can never reach, who look in faces our eyes may never see, and who clasp hands our hands may never touch, and if they may only go out from this meeting so strengthened by God’s hand, impressed with His spirit, inspired with His teachings, to do His work faithfully where He has placed them in His mercy, think what a power for good this little meeting will be for Him and for His cause. You know the illustration of the stone cast into the pond, how one rippling circle is succeeded ever by another, and a larger circle which keeps on increasing and increasing until the outer circle is far beyond your knowledge, far beyond your sight; so every little stone, every little word dropped from your lips that God has sealed has a far-reaching limit which He only can compute. This meeting may seem to us only like a little splash. He knows on what unknown shores its influence shall be felt. My faith sees this, my heart claims it for God. The words I have read of the neglected garden describes the spiritual state of many a heart. It is an indisputable fact that He has given a little spot of fruitful spiritual ground to every Christian life. Every individual has their own little vineyard to till, and as we walk through the world looking into those vineyards what do we see? We will not look upon those who bear the mark of the enemy upon their brows, not question those who are reeling into saloons or coming up out of unhallowed dens of crime. We look into the fertile gardens of those whom God has looked upon with His own eyes, sealed with His own name. What do we see? A waste and barren wilderness, where thorns spring up and wither, cumber the ground, and broken and neglected walls have fallen. Your vineyard, my sister, is in your own house, around your own table, in your social circle; yours, my Booth Women / 21

brother, in your office, at your place of business, wherever God has placed you, there is work to do for Him. Are there not thorns of pride, weeds of selfishness, stinging nettles of unkindness crowding out the sweet flowers of love and mercy? “Now please close your eyes for a moment and look in the face of your God. Don’t think of our peculiar uniforms, don’t look at our bonnets now, but think what your own garden’s like in God’s sight.” Then, after a little, she added: “Now, if there are any here who feel they would like God to help them weed out the thorns and nettles, and fill their spiritual life with flowers and fruits, and build up the broken walls between them and sin, please rise. Don’t be afraid that someone will see you. Remember how Christ rose up before a jeering, scoffing multitude and died for y ou .” Slowly they arose here and there about the room with closed eyes and bowed heads—one gray-haired man, a woman with white hair and rich furs about her, a sweet-faced girl, until twenty or more were standing; then, with her head bowed, the Captain said a simple benediction, and the women crowded up to the desk to press her hand and to kiss the baby on her shoulder.10

Often she combined both the practical and the spiritual, equating a plea for The Salvation Army with a plea for Christ himself. “‘So you may laugh at our uniforms and laugh at our bonnets, that doesn’t hurt any; you may scorn and despise and persecute us, that doesn’t hurt any; but when you despise and refuse Christ, ah! That touches our hearts and it hurts.’ And a sweet-faced woman in one of the boxes said to the man beside her, with a quiver in her voice and a mist in her eyes: ‘I have always ridiculed and hated the Salvation Army, but she is the bravest, most heroic little woman I ever knew. To think of a woman of her education and refinement devoting her life to this sort of thing to save the poor creatures that other people give up as utterly worthless makes me feel that I want to put on a poke bonnet myself.’”11

10. New York Sun, February 24, 1889. 11. Milwaukee Sentinel, December 4, 1892. R.G. Moyles / 22

Most society people did not rise to that level of commitment, but many of them did feel that Maud Ballington Booth made the life of a Salvationist—pure and committed—a very attractive one. TheNew York Sun seemed to agree.

The Salvation Army seems to be gaining respect among religious peo- ple, though until lately it was looked upon by the great mass of them with distrust and aversion as a sensational enterprise which did violence to good taste and the sacredness of the most scared things. Even the Baptists and Methodists, who were built up in this country by methods which were open to similar criticism, have not been disposed to give countenance to the noisy proceedings of the Army. But now some of the most conservative of the religious women of New York are gathering in private houses to listen to Mrs. Booth’s expla- nations of the new evangelizing movement, and she is producing a very favorable impression in a circle where prejudices were once all against her and the organization in which she is a leading spirit. A few years ago it would have seemed impossible that the ladies of the Episcopal Church like Mrs. Hammersley and Mrs. Rainsford, the wife of the rector of St. George’s, should invite their friends to lend moral assistance to Mrs. Booth, who shocked respectability and religious conservatism by leaving her home in an English rectory to join The Salvation Army and subsequently to marry a son of its General. There is no other country, also, where the Army has been treated with more ridicule than in this, and such encouragement as it has hitherto received here has come from humble people only. The appearance of a wearer of its uniform in the houses of the wealthy and the prominent is a novelty of this winter. Mrs. Booth’s success in this respect is, of course, due to the circum- stance that she is a woman of education and refinement, and no one can question the sincerity of her motives and the exaltation of her spirit. She has sacrificed everything to spread the Gospel among the poor and to save the vicious, bearing with dignity the jibes and sneers excited by her unbeautiful uniform. “Every day when I come from my house in Jersey City,” she tells these ladies, “I am jeered at and hissed at and laughed at,” and yet, when a girl, her “ambition was to enter into the fashionable world.” Such earnestness is sure to command respect, even if it savors of Booth Women / 23

fanaticism, though it is not probable that it will be so far contagious in the fashionable society of New York as to win feminine recruits for the Salvation Army from within that circle. But she is causing the Salvation Army to be looked at in a new light, and is raising it in the consideration of religious people as a valuable means of propagating religious sentiment and reformatory influences. . . . It looks as if we are going to hear much of The Salva- tion Army in the years to come.12

Though Maud Ballington Booth’s initial aim was to win the public to the Army’s side (or at least to an understanding of that cause), she soon had a very practical purpose in mind, one that was very dear to her heart. It was to win the financial support of wealthy citizens for the new work The Salvation Army was beginning to embrace: social work in the heart of American cities. She could do this, she felt, in two ways: first, simply by telling of her own experiences as a slum work- er in London, thus broaching the need for a similar work in New York, Chica- go and elsewhere; and second, by re-establishing the auxiliary league, a venture half-heartedly begun earlier. By joining, as did more than 6,000 influential Amer- icans during Maud’s time, and paying an annual fee of $5, people became ac- knowledged supporters of The Salvation Army, directing most of their influence into the public’s support of the social work. Her later “parlor meetings,” therefore, were aimed primarily at such supporters. A reporter for the prestigious Harper’s Weekly wrote:

To the company of invited guests, Mrs. Booth speaks of the aims and objects of the Army, and describing the work in the slums, enlists their friendship and influence as well as their financial aid, that the work may be carried on with greater results. “Help us lift them up!” is her earnest plea. At the close of a parlor meeting it is not uncommon to have every one present step forward and become a member of the League, whose

12. New York Sun, March 1, 1889. R.G. Moyles / 24

principles require a promise to defend the Army, and the payment of $5 per annum. This amount sinks into insignificance compared with many later donations when members have become personally acquainted with the work. The membership has increased rapidly during the past year, and many ministers of various denominations have been enrolled as Auxiliaries. Numbered among the staunchest supporters of the movement are Rev. Josiah Strong, Secretary of the Evangelical Alliance; Dr. Lyman Abbott; Dr. Da Costa; Edward Ever- ett Hale; Dr. Charles A. Briggs; John Willis Baer, General Secretary of the United Societies of Christian Endeavor; District-Attorney Allen, of Boston; Frances E. Willard; Mrs. Margaret Bottome, founder of the King’s Daughters; Miss Grace Dodge; and many of the leading society women of [New York,] Boston, Philadelphia and Washington.13

TheChicago Daily Inter-Ocean reported:

Mrs. Ballington Booth used all her remarkable gifts in persuasive and forceful oratory yesterday afternoon picturing to an audience of wealthy society people of this city the character and work of the Salva- tion Army in America and abroad. The unique missionary event took place at the handsome residence of Mr. E. W. Blatchford, No. 375 LaSalle avenue, in the presence of over 200 prominent members of society. Representatives came from each of the three divisions of the city, and from Oak Park, Evanston, and other aristocratic suburbs, to hear the fair evangelist. This was the third missionary effort of the kind made by Mrs. Booth since her arrival in Chicago on Saturday evening. On Monday afternoon she addressed a cultivated audience at the West Side Con- gregational Seminary. On Monday evening she lectured before a select company of 300 invited guests at the residence of Mrs. William Bor- den, No. 89 Bellvue place. This afternoon Mrs. Booth will make her last appearance for the present at the home of Mr. J.H. McAvoy, No. 2331 Calumet avenue. Mr. and Mrs. Blatchford’s reception was doubly distinguished, hav-

13. Harper’s Weekly, 1894. Booth Women / 25

ing the honor of Lady Henry Somerset’s presence, as well as Mrs. Booth and her eloquence. From 3 to 5 o’clock the services were conducted in the large and handsome parlors. Mrs. Blatchford, a lady greatly inter- ested in kindergarten, benevolent, and reformatory work, threw open her house for this reception and lecture in order that people of wealth and position who have hitherto been inclined to laugh at the salvation soldiers with their queer ways, their drums and tambourines, might learn the truth regarding their work, from the lips of one who could speak with authority. She was more than satisfied with the result. Mrs. Booth’s chief points were to describe the spirit and motive of Salvation Army work, and in this her aim was evidently to disarm prejudice among the rich and influential church people who have heretofore been accustomed to laugh at and ridicule Salvationists and their strange street processions. She impressed upon her hearers the fact that among the vicious, degraded, and outcast classes the young women of the Salvation Army could accomplish more than men. These brave and self-sac- rificing young women, she said, could venture into tough saloons and disreputable dens and obtain a respectful hearing, where a man, under similar conditions, would be unceremoniously pitched out. There was still a spark of chivalry even among the lowest of mankind, which would prompt defense of any self-respecting woman who needed protection. . . . Mrs. Booth’s lecture, which lasted an hour and a half, was listened to with closest attention. It was interspersed with many pathetic and touching incidents from the book of her own experience gathered from the dens of outcast society. The sufferings of women and little children were depicted in such a graphic and touching manner that tears were brought to many eyes. After the lecture many of the guests were formally presented to Mrs. Booth and Lady Somerset.14

There were, of course, a few skeptics among the reporters. Some, as usu- al, thought the Army was cultivating the wealthy for the money alone. “The

14. “Fair and Eloquent. Mrs. Booth Brings Tears to the Eyes of the Wealthy,” Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean, February 17, 1892. R.G. Moyles / 26 sudden popularity of Mrs. Maud Ballington Booth among the wealthy and fashionable,” wrote one in the Milwaukee Sentinel, “is being cultivated for all it is worth. . . . She collected $60 from the Berkeley Lyceum meeting, and made a most determined effort to raise a good collection from the large and fashionable crowd at the Y.M.C.A. rooms on Wednesday night. Subscription cards, with blanks for name and address, were placed in every seat, and fully fifteen minutes was devoted to pleading for a good collection, with pencils ready for those who had come unprovided with tools to sign the cards. After the meeting an astonishingly large number of finely dressed women crowded around Mrs. Booth, complimented her broadly, and in some cases tearfully, and thrust fives and tens into her hand.”15 But most were genuinely impressed by Maud Booth’s devotion to her cause and congratulated her on being able to explain that cause even to those who had hitherto shunned The Salvation Army. “There are a good many of us,” wrote a reporter in the Pittsburg Dispatch, “who fight shy of the Salvation Army, and who, from inherited temperament or fixed habits and tastes, al- ways must. The drum and the fife, the poke bonnets and parading women rather repel than attract us, and we can but look askance at a worship which seems to invoke anything but a quiet spirit. Yet there is another side to it, and when, with winning face and persuasive voice, Mrs. Ballington Booth pres- ents that other side in the rectory parlors of the Episcopal churches and in the fashionable parlors of Fifth avenue, it is not difficult to hear through all the blare of the bugle and beat of drum the still small voice of human responsibil- ity, human conscience, human reason—the voice of God in the soul of man.”16

The influence Maud Booth exerted on the upper classes was extremely pro- ductive. For it was chiefly by the public support she generated that the so- cial work for women, her special interest, could be carried out. Salvationists themselves would never have been able to support such a social outreach. The work with “fallen women,” for example, usually referred to as the rescue

15. Milwaukee Sentinel, March 19, 1889. 16. Pittsburg Dispatch, March 2, 1889. Booth Women / 27 work, had been started on a small scale in New York a year before they came. Under Maud’s influence it had, by 1890, expanded to several American cities. And dearest to her heart were the slum brigades, which she had established in 1889. In a run-down tenement in the heart of Manhattan, she had placed two experienced officers, Captain Emma Bown and Lieutenant Martha Johnson, who exchanged their trim uniforms and bonnets for gingham gowns, aprons and straw hats (looking nothing like the Salvation Army officers they were) and began a mission of mercy—one of practical assistance—to the poor peo- ple who lived in the other tenements nearby. One of the first things they discovered was that many of the slum mothers had to go out to work, leaving their children without care. “Maud never forgot one pitiful little child who used to be locked up in a room without food or companionship while his mother went out for the whole day. The baby, not yet able to walk or talk, would crawl about on the dirty floor wailing pitifully with hunger, and yet scurry away under the bed or table in terror when his mother came in. The Slum Sisters at times called when the mother was out, and found the door locked; they knocked and spoke to the child, who would come and coo to them through the door.”17 So affected was she that, in March 1890, she started a nursery for neglected babies at 82 Cherry Street, known as The Salvation Army Creche. “At the end of a year of slum work in Manhattan,” writes Herbert Wisbey, “six Slum Sisters were active [in New York]. During the year they had visited 5,500 families, assisted 613 families with food, and supplied 942 persons with clothing; 777 babies were cared for in the nursery from 7:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Sixteen con- versions were reported.”18 As often as she could, when not traveling and giving lectures on the Army’s social work, Maud herself was actively involved in the slum and rescue work. Yet eventually, with the birth of her second child in 1891 and a prolonged illness in 1892, she placed the work in the charge of Major Bown, while she continued to cultivate her social contacts. She also wrote many articles in the Army’s War Cry and in other major American magazines, keeping the public informed and soliciting their support.

17. Susan Welty, Look Up and Hope! The Life of Maud Ballington Booth (New York: Thomas Nelson, 1961), 79. 18. Herbert Wisbey, Soldiers Without Swords (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 102. R.G. Moyles / 28

It would be impossible to describe in detail all the toil, sacrifice, and suffering which this work entails upon the workers, or the brave her- oism and love with which they accomplish it. They are not salaried workers, and could in no sense be called hirelings, for each one has volunteered simply and solely out of a burning desire to seek and bless those unloved, helpless outcasts. This fact helps them much, as this class is only too quick to inquire if you “are paid to do it.” Perhaps the duty which absorbs the greatest part of their time is that which we call visitation proper, viz., the systematic house-to- house and room-to-room visitation of all the worst homes in their neighborhood. During the last six months 15,782 families were thus visited. A visit does not mean a pastoral call, but often means the spending of several hours in practical work. Sometimes it includes a whole night of patient nursing. It brings with it often hard and diffi- cult work in the way of scrubbing, cleaning, disinfecting. No one has the slightest idea who has not visited the slums of the terrible extent to which they are infested with vermin. For women brought up in very different circumstances and accustomed to absolute cleanliness, the self-sacrifice which this alone entails can really be understood. So it has been accepted in the slums that we can be called upon at any moment of day or night for help in an emergency; that we are turned to more readily than we had hoped in our most sanguine dreams. In sickness it is our duty to call in the doctor or send for the ambulance, for they often run to us as their first resort. In drunken rows and murderous brawls the Army girls are more readily turned to by their rough neighbors than the police, and their influence is often more effectual. In cases of destitution and starvation found out casually by their neighbors, they are naturally consulted as to the best means of bringing help in the readiest and most practical man- ner, without the awkward and sometimes fatal delays of a red-tape system of relief—because they are right on the ground and know and understand the needs and desires of such cases. . . . The visits paid in saloons and dives are naturally of a different character. There it has to be personal, dealing face to face with the people upon the danger of their wild lives, and the sorrow and mis- Booth Women / 29

ery that is coming to them. Sometimes it has to be very straight and earnest talk to some drunken man. At others gentle, affectionate pleading with some poor outcast girl, down whose painted cheeks the tears of remorse fall, as the word “hope” is brought home to an almost hopeless heart. In many of the places thus visited, no other Christian workers would be admitted, and were they admitted they would indeed feel strange. Our women work entirely without es- cort, and this very fact appeals to the spark of gallantry in the hearts of those rough, hardened men, and if anyone dared to lay a finger upon the “Slum Sisters,” or say an insulting word to them, champi- ons would arise on every hand to defend them. Twenty-one thou- sand eight hundred and eleven visits have been made in saloons and dives during six months, and these visits are often lengthened into prayer-meetings, which include singing and speaking, to a more in- teresting congregation, and certainly a more needy one, than can be found within the walls of many a church. The practical good, the changed lives, the wonderful cases of conversion resulting from this work a thousandfold repays them for the facing of such revolting scenes of debauchery and drunkenness as must be witnessed. . . . The support of this work is not costly when compared with the amount of good accomplished. Nothing is expended in buildings, offices, high salaries, or indeed in any way that would use the money before it could reach the actual object for which it was given. The expenses connected with the slum work are the bare necessities of the workers’ existence in simple food and clothing, and the rental of their humble rooms. This is contributed by friends (sometimes by strangers) who hear of the work; and (as I said) help in the rentals of the meeting-places in the slum districts is collected from the people themselves. Of the work accomplished much will never be known or chronicled. As the gnarled and ungainly oyster-shells from the mud and ooze of the sea-bottom are forced to yield up to the earnest seeker their priceless pearls, so from the midst of the darkness and degradation of the slums purified and precious gems will be gathered, and those who toiled and found shall be among the “blessed” and the rich of Heaven.19

19. Maud Ballington Booth, “Salvation Army Work in the Slums,” Scribner’s Magazine, January 1895. R.G. Moyles / 30

Just as we see Maud Booth’s imprint on the Army’s social services for wom- en, so we see it when those services (or at least the women who offered them) became a favorite subject for journalists. The image of the “slum sister” or the “Salvation lass” in the pubs became one of the most popular depictions of Army activity, rivaling those which featured Mrs. Booth herself—and they owed their origin both to her efforts to give them public prominence and to her own experiences of the work which she related in so many parlors and churches. The famous Quaker physician, Clara Marshall, dean of the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, was both an admirer of Maud Booth and a supporter of the Army. In her hospital magazine, The Silver Cross, she wrote the following sympathetic story of “A Hallelujah Lassie.”

“No, I don’t parade the streets in a procession for five dollars a week,” said the girl in calico; “though some folks say that is all we have to do after joining the Salvation Army. I don’t ever march in the ranks except on extra occasions, when we muster in full force, Slum Bri- gade and all. I belong to the Slum Brigade, you know, and my work lies in a part of town where, just as likely as not, the sight of a girl in the Salvation Army uniform would draw a crowd that a policeman would have to disperse. I am on the street a good deal, going from house to house, but dressed as I am now, no one would take me for a Salvationist, and so I am no more noticed than any other plain, quiet body would be. I daren’t even wear the Army bonnet, because I want the folks around where I live to think I am just one of themselves. “It’s a rough sort of neighborhood, and in the evenings there’s a lot of drinking and swearing, and sometimes fighting, going on in the tenement-house where I have my room, but I ain’t afraid of roughs and rowdies; if I was, I shouldn’t be fit for the work I have undertak- en. I haven’t any education to speak of, and I should hate the worst in the world to have to stand up on a platform and make an address, but I can go in a poor woman’s room, if she is ailing, and do her work for her—see how big and strong my arms are!—and then I can sit down and talk to her in a friendly sort of way about a country where there won’t be no more sickness or suffering, where children won’t go Booth Women / 31 wrong, and babies won’t die just as soon as they begin to take notice. “Folks say that the best thing a tenement-house baby can do for it- self is to die, but it would be hard to make its mother believe that, no matter whether she was a sober woman who looks after her children, or a drunkard who spent half her time on Blackwell’s Island. And I’m thankful that I know what to do for a croupy baby, or one whose teeth are going hard with it. I was the eldest of the family at home, and accustomed to taking care of the children when my mother was out at work, and since I have belonged to the Slum Brigade I’ve come across a lot of mothers who will just hand over their babies to me when they get sick, and watch me while I try to make the poor lit- tle things comfortable. When baby is all right again and before the mother gets over thinking there isn’t nobody like me, then it is time to ask her to go down on her knees with me, and thank God. “‘I don’t want no preaching,’ said a sick woman to me when I went to see her one morning. ‘I ain’t much of hand to preach,’ said I; ‘but I can make a cup of tea with anybody,’ and with that I crossed over to the stove, started the fire, and made her one. Then I put on some oat- meal for her three little children’s breakfast (her husband had to go off early to his work, and couldn’t attend to things), and while it was cooking I tidied ’em up so nicely that they didn’t know themselves. Not one word did I say to that woman about her soul, but now she comes to our meetings reg’lar, and our captain says she was convert- ed, not by my theology, but by my scrubology. “I am better at cleaning up than at expounding Scripture—that’s a fact. I ain’t good even at repeating texts from Scripture. I disgraced myself once in a meeting where we were all called on for texts, by rising up and saying out loud, ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness.’ Some folks back of me began to snicker, and the girl sitting next to me whispered that that wasn’t in the Bible. Then I felt so ashamed I didn’t know which way to look, and it was not any comfort to have a pert fellow on the other side of me say, ‘Never mind, young lady; if it isn’t in the Bible, it ought to be.’ “I ain’t much good at distributing tracts. You see I never cared much for reading myself, so it doesn’t come natural to me to ask other folks R.G. Moyles / 32

to read. As to handing a tract to a hungry man or woman, I hope I may be kept from ever doing anything so cruel and heartless. When I have money given to me to lay out, the first thing I think of is something to eat, especially for sick people. The next thing is baby flannel, or chil- dren’s shoes; and then, if there is any left over, it’s apt to go for sapolio [soap]. You would hardly believe it, but I have actually to go down on my hands and knees and show some women how to scrub their floors. If left to themselves they would leave sloppy places here and there, and sometimes a piece of sapolio for somebody to slip on. My room—or our room I ought to say, as two other Salvationists have it with me— hasn’t any carpet, only old rugs by the side of the beds, and we are so proud of our clean, white floor, that we have a way of leaving our door partly open sometimes, so that other folks can see it, and I can tell you the sight of it has a good effect in setting other women in the house to scrubbing their floors, and tidying up their rooms. “Mind telling what my pay is? Not a bit. I have my room-rent paid, and I am supplied with food and coal, and once in a while receive a bundle of cast-off clothes. If I was to come out in new clothes the folks in my tenement-house would think I was growing proud. So you see I don’t go into the work to make money, or even to make a show. As I have said, I ain’t no good at preaching, and I suppose my prayers ain’t much to listen to, and I haven’t any voice for singing, except in a cho- rus, where all that’s wanted is noise, but I have health and strength, and good will, and I am ready to use them in the good cause.”20

In the minds of the American public, then, Maud Ballington Booth and The Salvation Army’s rescue work became synonymous. She traveled throughout the nation—Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Detroit, Topeka, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento—inspiring large audiences to “save the fallen.” Her pleas for “suffering womankind,” were, said theChicago Daily Inter-Ocean, “impas-

20. Clara Marshall, “A Hallelujah Lassie,” The Silver Cross, reprinted in Canadian Methodist Magazine, no. 35 (1892): 291-92. Booth Women / 33 sioned, tender, eloquent; she swept away all prejudice and carried her audience by storm. . . . Simply, yet with a power and force derived from inspiration as much as from natural ability on the platform, the leader of the rescue branch of the Salvation Army pleads her cause and that of the erring ones. Many times during her descriptions of the scenes she had witnessed the large audience was moved to tears, and it is safe to say that no one present left the hall without a gentler feeling for the sinners and a greater reverence for the organization which is making so much possible for them.”21

“We are reaching, and reaching, and still we touch but the fringes of the problem,” said Mrs. Maud Ballington Booth, her fine eyes dilating as she talked of the rescue work. “A problem—yes, that is the way that everyone is approaching it, yet I doubt if it will ever be solved so. It must be done individually—through individual toiling and battling on either side, through men struggling to free themselves and their coun- try from that evil which brings shame upon themselves and so much misery upon others. Through women struggling to put away that de- spair which comes to a woman when she has erred, and she reasons that she has nothing left but to go on sinking down to the uttermost depths and then—suicide, or death in a hospital—and then—the pot- ter’s field.” The speaker shut her eyes for a moment of weariness. There is no affectation or cant about Mrs. Ballington Booth. She is simply a sweet young woman in army dress, one with a natural beauty and refine- ment and repose of manner that come but with birth and breeding. Even her austere garb cannot conceal her womanly charm, any more than the enforced plainness of her coiffure can tame the riot- ous waves of her bonnie brown hair or the earnestness of her mien disguise the racing dimples or the gleam of perfect teeth. When one thinks of it afterward, a little figure in the garb of a Salvation Army sol- dier has but a strange setting in a handsome modern drawing room, and yet among the marbles and bronzes and tapestries and brocades of Mrs. William Borden’s splendid rooms Mrs. Booth fits like a jewel in its proper casket. She laughs a little when somebody drops a remark

21. Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean, January 25, 1895. R.G. Moyles / 34

about her costume, “Yes, we of the army are wonderfully free from the tyranny of dressmakers; our gowns last a long while and they never go out of fashion, nor are they ever too good to kneel down in the public streets or to go into the vilest slums. When they grow dirty we just wash them with soap bark and they are nearly as good as new, and the sleeves—oh! we can always draw our coats over our dress sleeves without the least bit of trouble. “I wouldn’t depreciate the methods of other organizations,” she says, “but I do think that the Salvation Army has opportunities for rescue work that are unapproached by other and different methods. The army goes into the slums, and learns to know the people, and gathers the fallen into the homes, while most rescue homes simply set their doors ajar, and say ‘here is a home for you—if you will come to it.’ And the victims don’t come. They wait to be brought, and it is the army soldiers which bring them. Oh, I believe that the doctors will do a great deal to help along the work. I’m a firm believer in the medical fraternity. Many a poor girl will turn to a physician with confidences which she would never take to a clergyman. If I hadn’t been what I am, I think I should have been a surgeon—they come so near to the hearts and lives of people. In New York we have one dear physician who at- tends to our rescue home work faithfully and well, and without money and without price—simply for the work’s sake! “Oh, I have seen brought into our rescue home criminals so de- praved and wrecked that it has seemed that all we could do for them would be to pass them through the hospital, treat them with a little love, and then bury them. And I have seen these same poor creatures arise clothed and in their right minds, praising God and living upright and honest and useful lives in His service. A miracle? Yes, we believe in miracles of that sort.”22

And always, in almost every newspaper description, it was the manner, the personality and the “womanly charm” of Maud Booth which seemed to capti- vate her audience and certainly every male reporter. They might deplore some

22. “Is Battle Scarred: Maud Ballington Booth and Her Army Work,” Oskosh Daily Review, February 20, 1895. Booth Women / 35 of the Army’s tactics, and even criticize the uniform, but they could not deny that she wore the “coal-scuttle” bonnet as any fashion model might. For in that uniform, as a reporter for the Worcester Daily Spy had to admit, “was a well-de- veloped figure that even the consumptive uniform of the Salvation Army could not distort out of symmetry and grace,” and beneath the brim of that bonnet was a face “that glowed—a clear complexion, large dark-brown eyes and strong- ly marked eyebrows, glistening eye-glasses, regular features and a radiant smile.” When she opened her mouth, he continued, “the first thing that impressed itself upon her listeners was not so much what she said as the manner in which she said it. The voice was that of a gentlewoman—an English, not an American gentlewoman—full-throated, clear, firm and unfaltering, pitched high rather than low, and striking instantly a challenge to the attention and sympathies. It was under perfect control; sometimes it sank to the conversational and casual, sometimes it was plainly narrative, then it would soar up into the passionate, the strenuous, the thrilling, the vibrant, and for moments together she seemed almost shouting; yet her tones were never shrill or metallic. Sometimes a wail, a sort of sob, would steal into her tones, and that was when she seemed to be carried into an almost ecstasy of emotion.”23 After her addresses, the reporters listened to the many fashionable ladies as they waited for their carriages to take them home. They murmured to each oth- er: “Just too sweet!”; “Wasn’t she lovely?”; “I think she’s simply too fascinating for anything!” And she most certainly was.

But Maud Ballington Booth was much more than just a “sweet face” and an “adorable speaker”; nor was she simply America’s “slum angel.” For many American women she was a role model—living proof that a woman could be as successful, as intelligently persuasive, as capable in her field as any man. She knew this to be true of herself and it comes as no surprise to learn that she publicly championed female equality, while maintaining family values and essential womanhood—views which fell well short of being called femi- nist but which declared the right of women to be educated in whatever field

23. Worcester Daily Spy, December 11, 1895. R.G. Moyles / 36 they chose and to practice freely in those fields. The most hotly-debated issue of the 1890s, in fact, was the idea of the “new woman” and Maud Booth did not hesitate to wade into the controversy. “The new woman of the times,” she told reporters, “is a woman who hates men, who sneers at wifehood and motherhood, who dislikes children, and who lavishes affection which belongs to them on a pug-nosed dog, which she carries in the great mannish pocket of her mannish attire.”24 This was not, she averred, her idea of the “new woman” and she would attempt to counter that image by suggesting another term, “the advanced woman,” to describe women like herself who could remain “wom- anly”—be loving wives and mothers—and still become educated and adopt careers. In a speech given in 1895, she explained her position.

Mrs. Ballington Booth talked to a large audience in the Salvation Army headquarters, Fourteenth Street, near Sixth Avenue, last eve- ning, on the “New Woman.” In addition to the regular members of the army, many strangers were present. The meeting was conducted entirely by women members of the army, clad in their regulation costume. Great enthusiasm prevailed, and nearly everyone joined in singing the hymns, to the accompani- ment of a brass band. Admirers of Mrs. Booth, who went to hear her for the first time, were certainly not disappointed. She spoke with wonderful pathos and eloquence. Mrs. Booth said she had been trying for some time to get the exact meaning of “new woman,” and found that many persons were con- founding the term with “advanced woman.” She explained the wide difference in the terms, and while she denounced in scathing words the so-called “new woman,” so extensively caricatured in the news- papers, she as forcibly praised the “advanced woman.” The great point of her talk was to show that the woman who apes man’s fashions, and gives rise to the comment which reflects so unfa- vorably on her own sex is really devoid of true love, and is hopelessly bound up in herself.

24. New York Times, September 2, 1895. Booth Women / 37

The only “new woman” that she would recognize is the one who becomes new in the Christian sense of the word, and abandons her selfishness and heartlessness to extend a helping hand to the sick and poor. “When I thought on the subject,” said Mrs. Booth, “I tried to get to the real meaning of the term. So many extravagances and freaks are committed under the name ‘new woman’ that it was rather difficult to distinguish it. Looking it fair and square in the face, however, I concluded that it must mean first a woman and secondly a new one; not an old woman made over, but rather a different species. And so we notice in this individual, so much written about, run down and praised up, who has sacrileged all ideas of wifehood and moth- erhood, who, by her coarse and brazen affections, becomes rather worse than a mock-man. “She has an insane idea that she is emancipating her sisters. She is taking the reins in her own hands; tries to beat down man, belittles him, makes out that he is no good, and then turns to us and tells us that she is going to emancipate us. We, the true new women say, however, that we do not want her to emancipate us. For we are trying to raise man to a higher sphere and to be a helpmeet to him, while she is trying to tread him underfoot. “We will find something else despicable in her, too, and God grant that the newspaper caricatures are libels. But it is true that she dis- likes her children. When she talks to them it is with a curl on her lip, alluding to them as ‘brats.’ Their innocent prattle tires her. She sees no music in it. What little love she has is expended on a pug-nosed dog, which she carries in a mannish pocket for the purpose. If she could but have a pair of chubby arms around her neck and a curly head upon her bosom her heart would melt like ice before a summer sun. “And then, again, she scorns religion. She says it is only good for children and old women, and not for strong-willed persons like us. She is too strong-willed to bow before her God, and would trample down the traditions of our mothers by laughing to scorn those of us who read our Bibles and say our prayers, as she herself once did at R.G. Moyles / 38

her mother’s knee. “What would I do with the new woman? First, I would take her dress and change it. The big sleeves I would change into dresses for children in the slums. Each sleeve would make at least one dress. As for some other garments, I should give them back to the other sex. “Her disgusting books of realism, which bring the blush to any pure girl’s face, I would burn, together with the gum and cigarettes. “And then if I could not get her into the Salvation Army, where she would learn humbleness, learn to put aside selfishness, stretch a helping hand to the poor and sick, and learn to centre her heart on her home and her dear ones, where it belongs, I would get her married to a strong-willed husband, who would teach her that there is something noble in the other sex.” In concluding her talk, Mrs. Booth dwelt at length on the differ- ence between the new woman and the advanced woman, whom she bid god-speed in entering every walk of life. She ardently advocated riding a wheel [bicycle], swimming, climbing, walking, driving, and all other athletic exercises for women, but she warned them against cramming their brains full of knowledge and forgetting their hearts.25

“The new woman has a home in America,” Maud asserted. “No country has opened its doors to women as this country has done. Other nations have shackled her lips. Here she is free to do what work she will. Let her go out and have her brain developed, but do not forget to educate the heart. We women of the Salvation Army believe that a woman should educate her heart so that she may go out with a strong and mighty purpose, and yet not trample on the prostrate bodies of men, but lift them up, so that they are not respected alone by one, but by both sexes.”26 Indicative of Maud Booth’s popularity and influence was the fact that her views were reported, garbled and reinvented by almost every newspaper in America. And many times she had to insist that she had never mentioned

25. “Advanced Woman Upheld: Mrs. Ballington Booth Commands Her But Denounces the ‘New Woman’; Would Burn the ‘New Woman’s’ Books, Cigarettes and Chewing Gum and Make Her Return the Trousers,” New York Times, September 2, 1895. 26. Ibid. Booth Women / 39

“bloomers,” nor had she denounced any “advanced woman” who wished to be known as a “new woman,” but had merely suggested that a modern woman of the 1890s could be well educated, liberated in terms of employment and yet retain her womanly nature. “I am the champion of the new woman,” she said, “when by that title is meant the advanced, the educated, the progressive woman. What I object to is the idea of calling the various creatures depicted in some of the realistic novels—of the mannish caricatures, to be seen only once in a while, providentially, in the city streets—new women.”27

By the end of 1895, then, Maud Ballington Booth had become one of the most celebrated women in America; and by the publicity she had generated she had helped transform The Salvation Army in America. It was no longer spat upon by the public, no longer distrusted by other clergymen. It had reached beyond the masses to involve people of social standing and, perhaps as a consequence, had become more refined in its indoor worship and less confrontational in its outdoor forays. It had as well, mainly through Maud’s influence, begun a social outreach that would eventually, in the second decade, become the sig- nature of Salvation Army service in America. But had she and Ballington perhaps gone a little too far towards respect- ability, thereby lessening the emphasis on evangelical enthusiasm? Had they, as one newspaper put it, “abandoned the old ‘back-alley’ campaigning and taken the Army into the ‘swell-parlors’”? The facts don’t seem to bear out such a contention, yet, as some historians suggest, William Booth seemed to think so. When he visited the United States in the last months of 1894 and the early ones of 1895, he took Maud and Ballington to task for having become (and having let the Army become) too Americanized, too nationalistic. A rift be- tween father and son soon became apparent and, in early 1896, William de- cided to issue farewell orders to the American commanders; they would, as most other officers had, be asked to take another appointment elsewhere. Unreasonably, say some historians—understandably, say others—Balling- ton and Maud refused. And, with the generous support (perhaps even the

27. Oakland Tribune, October 16, 1895. R.G. Moyles / 40 influence) of the American press, they decided not merely to resign from The Salvation Army but to establish their own organization, The Volunteers of America. For the Army it was an unfortunate occurrence, for not only was the organization again embroiled in controversy, with much of the newspaper reporting now devoted to the split, but it also meant that many Salvationists again had to choose between the two factions. Most, in fact, were as confused by the issues—the arguments and explanations coming from both parties—as was the American public itself. Quite disturbing was the fact that the Army now lost much of the auxiliary league support that Maud Booth had generat- ed. And most unfortunate of all was the fact that the Army had lost one of the most eloquent, capable and popular defenders of the Army’s mission it had ever known, or would ever know. For, in the eyes of most Americans, Maud Ballington Booth had indeed been the “Salvation Army queen” and it would require another woman, equally as capable and captivating, to displace her in the hearts of the American public. Another Booth might do so.

R.G. Moyles / 42

Emma Booth-Tucker Booth Women / 43

Emma Booth-Tucker Our Lady of the Tender Heart

Mrs. Booth-Tucker is tall and slender, with a voice vibrant with feeling, and a strong person- ality that has seldom been equaled. She appeared to be in perfect touch with her hearers, who gave her their closest attention for forty minutes. —Washington Morning Times, August 17, 1896

Then came the feature of the evening, the address of Mrs. Booth-Tucker. I have heard many women speak in meetings of late years upon platforms and at assemblies, and I have heard the prominent women of this family speak, but the address that was made that evening will remain as one of the [most] remarkable examples of eloquence that I have ever heard from man or woman. The entire self-control which was manifested in dealing with the most del- icate and personal and difficult subjects, the fine choice and free command of the English tongue, the sweet, clear voice that penetrated like an organ note to the farthest parts of the hall, the deep tone of consecration and the lofty ideal of service which pervaded the whole utterance, were unusual and impressive. The audience listened as if spellbound. There was little applause, but at times the interest was so intense that it seemed as if sobs and tears could be the only response to the pathetic earnestness of the speaker. —New York Observer, April 16, 1896

“Love and Sorrow,” a lecture by Consul Mrs. Emma Booth-Tucker, styled as the most masterful composition of modern times, will be given in Temple Theater in this city on December 16. . . . After a recent visit to Boston, where Consul Booth-Tucker gave R.G. Moyles / 44 the same lecture, the Boston Herald found occasion to comment as follows: “It was in song and story, in anecdote and incident, in photographs and tableaux, Consul Emma Booth-Tucker forced home the compelling truth of the misery and vice of [the] life of the “other half.” It was a form of entertainment unique, forceful and realistic. —Colorado Springs Gazette, December 3, 1901

It is not an exaggeration to say that few Salvation Army officers have ever entered an appointment so beset by personal tragedy, so encumbered with such a huge burden of responsibility, and so unfavorably contrasted with their predecessors as did Emma Booth-Tucker. She was capable enough, of course, as all the Booth children were, and she had had considerable experience, both as an evangelist, an administrator and a missionary in India. When only 20 years old, in fact, she had been made principal of the Army’s first training college for women in London. In that role she not only demonstrated a remarkable talent for teaching and adminis- tration but, since much of the education of cadets consisted of a practical ex- perience of the work, also a thorough acquaintance with the slums of London. She was, from all accounts, a much-loved training principal (having taken a personal interest in each and every cadet) and a dedicated evangelist (who immersed herself in every activity expected of her charges). In 1886, when she became the wife of Frederick de Lautour Tucker, an En- glish Indian-civil servant turned Army officer, she gained yet another valu- able experience as a missionary, only returning to England in 1893 because she had contracted (and nearly died of) malaria. She was, therefore, an ex- perienced Salvation Army officer—and a Booth—and well qualified for her new command. Moreover, she loved children, had been a surrogate mother to many before she married, now had five of her own, and was eager to make the care of unwanted children one of the Army’s chief concerns.

In spite of her acknowledged capabilities, however, when Emma Booth-Tuck- er arrived in the United States at the end of March 1896 as co-commander of Booth Women / 45

The Salvation Army, she did so at a most inopportune moment in both her own life and in that of The Salvation Army. To begin with, when she and her husband Frederick set sail for Ameri- ca in March 1896, Emma was not a well woman. Not only did she still have occasional relapses as a result of having contracted cholera in India, but just six weeks before she had given birth to her fifth child, Tancred Bramwell. It was with some trepidation that she decided to leave him and her two other youngest children, Herbert and Mina, with a trusted nurse in England “until the milder weather of late springtime modifies the danger of a change of cli- mate.” She did, however, decide to take her two oldest children, Frederick Jr. and Motee, with her across the Atlantic. Hardly had she and her husband left Southampton, however, than a mes- sage informed them that Tancred was seriously ill. Emma herself being too ill to leave the ship, Frederick was ferried back to land to deal with the emer- gency, ready to take the next ship to America. Worry and seasickness kept her to her cabin for the whole voyage, with the children fortunately in the care of a nurse. And though on her arrival Emma was greeted by the news that her baby was better, and that Frederick was on his way, two days later her happi- ness was crushed by the devastating information that her baby boy had died. It was, therefore, an inauspicious beginning. The initial welcomes had buoyed her considerably—her sister Eva, many leading officers and hundreds of soldiers (“waving Army flags”) had been there to greet her; and, though “pale and emaciated,” she had rallied to meet the many reporters, whom she impressed with her intellectual charm; “her countenance, naturally rather sad, lights up with subdued animation when she talks, and her words flow smoothly.” But, when the news of her child’s death reached her, she took to her bed, comforted by her sister, awaiting the arrival of her husband, to whom the bad news was also broken. In spite of the fact that both she and Frederick accepted such tragedies as a matter of God’s inscrutable will, the personal anguish was nonetheless painful. As if that personal tragedy was not hard enough, Emma was immediately faced with what was, for her at least, another personal tragedy. Though her brother Ballington, whom she had loved dearly, and her sister-in-law Maud lived not far away, they could not meet again as family. Maud and Ballington had caused so much dissension in the Army’s ranks, and generated so much R.G. Moyles / 46 negative publicity by their reported explanations of their actions, that Emma knew her greatest task would be to make Americans again trust The Salva- tion Army. Among the first questions put to her, in fact, concerned the “great split”: Would she meet Maud or Ballington? Would she try to effect a reconcil- iation? Almost every interviewer asked those inevitable questions.

“It is said that you bring an olive branch to your brother Ballington in the shape of overtures looking to his return to the army,” a report- er for the New York Times said to Mrs. Booth-Tucker. “I take olive branches wherever I go,” was the reply. “Is there any truth in the statement that you are empowered to offer him an important command elsewhere, and that he will subse- quently be returned to America?” “I have not heard of any such statement. If my brother were to propose any line of action I could assure him that he would be very considerately treated. I shall only beseech him to go and see the Gen- eral. I am satisfied that if he talked with my father five minutes he would return to the army. It would be the proudest moment of my life if I succeeded in getting him to visit our father. I shall pray cease- lessly and I have great faith.”28

In this particular instance, however, Emma Booth-Tucker’s faith was not rewarded. Though she, Ballington and Maud would meet, on April 5, the conditions laid down by Ballington were hardly conducive to a persuasive discussion. He insisted that no reference be made by her to his secession, that no communication from the General was to be given him, that his sister Eva should not be present, and that a witness (a physician) should be present. This last was to counter the rumor that for a long time officers in New York had questioned Ballington’s sanity. The meeting was, quite obviously, not to be as familial a session as Emma had hoped for. And, though it lasted for seven hours (from 10 in the evening to almost 4:30 in the morning), and though there “was no lack of cordiality in the meeting of brother and sister, the entreaties which Mrs. Booth-Tucker addressed to Ballington to return to the Salvation Army were without effect.”

28. New York Times, March 29, 1896. Booth Women / 47

On Emma’s side, no public statement was made (though she did send a long telegram to her father which remained secret). On Ballington’s side, the following brief communique was issued next morning: “We have met and had a long interview with our sister, Mrs. Booth-Tucker, and wish it most distinct- ly understood that our attitude is absolutely unchanged, and that our future plans for the Volunteers will go forward as hitherto stated. We are, however, anxious to have it clearly stated that this interview was of a sisterly and broth- erly character, and apart from the matters of controversy on which we must still differ, there exists, as there always has, the warmest affection for Mrs. Booth-Tucker as a sister.”29 However sincere that statement might have been, the record shows that Emma and Ballington were never to meet again, neither socially as broth- er and sister or officially as the commanders of two religious organizations whose missions were almost identical. In fact, for the first few years of her term, until The Salvation Army again gained the ascendancy and The Volun- teers of America began to recede from the public’s mind, Emma Booth-Tucker had constantly to treat the Volunteers as a hostile agency, to defend the Army against its incursions, and to live with the fact that her personality, preaching style and even physical beauty would constantly be compared (often unfavor- ably) with that of her illustrious sister-in-law, Maud Ballington Booth. The New York World, for example (in an article reprinted by many oth- er newspapers), made this quite clear at the moment of her arrival in the United States, stating that “the fight for supremacy in the Salvation Army in this country will be fought by two women, Mrs. Ballington Booth and Mrs. Booth-Tucker.” The husbands, it argued, were mere “standard-bearers” in the fight; it was the two women, “an English woman against an American wom- an” (though the latter only by adoption) who would engage in the battle for supremacy. “Now, let us see just how well matched these women champions are and try to discern what the chances are for each one.” Of all the Booth children, the writer believed, Emma Booth-Tucker was the ablest. “They are all enthu- siasts. Indeed, how could it be otherwise with such a father and such a mother and an environment of hallelujahs and amens ever since they were born? All are able to transform this enthusiasm into work. All have the instinct and

29. New York Sun, April 7, 1896. R.G. Moyles / 48 the power of leadership pretty fully developed. But Mrs. Booth-Tucker gets more work for a given amount of enthusiasm than any of the others. . . . As a platform speaker she has the fire and energy of the Maréchale [her sister, Catherine]. But she also has the executive ability of her brother Bramwell, who comes near to being the equal of his father in that quality.” So she was, in his opinion, the best possible person the “old General” could have sent to “minimize the revolt and restore the power of the American branch of the Salvation Army.”

She will know when to use diplomacy and when to attack with fury, when to advance and when to seem to retreat. Behind will be the whole power of the Salvation Army. She will be able to spend so much money as necessary, for the army is comparatively rich, and all its property is in the name of the Booth family, and therefore avail- able for this, the first serious revolt. Also she will have the advantage of organization. And a very great advantage that is. It means well drilled corps that have been under fire in the streets of American cit- ies and towns. It means the possession of meeting places which the classes the army seeks to reach are in the habit of visiting. It means the name ‘Salvation Army’ and the battle cry ‘Blood and Fire’ and the familiar uniform that is identified in the public mind with the heroic struggle for recognition.

Against that considerable armory Mrs. Ballington Booth would have to fight hard. But, the writer argued, she was not to be underestimated.

In the first place she has great executive ability. She is not as able in this way as the rival woman, but she is by no means devoid of the powers of leadership and discipline. Then she knows the Ameri- can field. She understands all classes of Americans. She has that rare quality of perfect sympathy. She is a well-educated woman in the sense that she can write clear, good English. She has no class prej- udices, and is just as much at home in the parlors of a Fifth avenue house as in the one and only room of a squalid East Side family. But it is in the public meeting that her real power shows itself. And Booth Women / 49

after all, the triumphs of the public meeting are the real substantial triumphs of the salvation movement. There Mrs. Ballington Booth is peerless. As an orator she ranks with less than half a dozen Amer- icans of both sexes. As soon as she stands forth to speak she takes hold of her audiences. She seizes them as individuals. She is in touch with each one. And they become hers to be swayed as she wills.30

It was, then, difficult to say who would be the ultimate winner in what the newspapers somewhat naively thought would be a battle for the hearts of the American people. Perhaps, it was concluded, personal beauty would decide the issue; and, if so, it seemed highly likely Maud Ballington Booth would be the victor. For whereas Emma Booth-Tucker, it was suggested, had “no physi- cal beauty,” Mrs. Ballington Booth “has a face of great beauty. She is no longer a very young woman. But her face has all the softness and youthful feminine appeal that characterized it when she first appeared in America. It is an ideal woman’s face—round and smooth and gentle; a low brow with hair growing beautifully about it; a sweet, gracefully curved mouth that in smiling discloses even, white teeth; large, clear eyes full of earnestness and sympathetic inten- sity. And her expression is serene and pure and elevating. A Christian would say it was a face like a prayer.”31 That newspaper had, as so many often did, exaggerated the issue. And yet, in truth, for at least the first three years of her co-command (until the Volun- teers began to fade from the public’s memory), Emma Booth-Tucker had to constantly contend with the fact of Ballington’s secession and the continuing influence of Maud as a persuasive voice for the Volunteers across America. For those reasons, Emma had to become the Army’s chief, and most influ- ential, apologist. Thus we find her, just a few months after her arrival (with the tragedy of her lost baby still fresh in her memory), traveling across the nation to California where she hoped to counteract the influence of Maud Ballington Booth, who had been there just a few months before. In her attempt to ensure that Californian Salvationists held fast in the face of a great pressure to defect to the Volunteers, she was quite successful. And, in doing so, she made an

30. New York World, March 30, 1896. 31. Ibid. R.G. Moyles / 50 impression as forceful as that of her predecessor, gaining an almost instant reputation for logical discourse and poignant preaching. She may not have been as beautiful as Maud, nor perhaps as socially adept, but she was, like most of the Booths, powerful and persuasive.

Three large audiences greeted Consul Booth-Tucker at the Mills Tab- ernacle today. Her appearance here has created great interest and those who heard her could not help comparing her with Mrs. Balling- ton Booth, who spoke in the First Presbyterian Church some months ago. Owing to recent difficulties there has been much speculation as to the reception that would be awarded the consul on her appearance in this city, where the Salvation Army has always been held in great regard. The general verdict here is that Ballington Booth made a mis- take and so far not a single member of the Army has declared sym- pathy for his volunteer movement to the extent of receding from the Salvation Army. The reception tendered the consul was certainly as cordial as that accorded any member of the Booth family with the ex- ception of the general and there was nothing in today’s demonstration that was significant of any trouble, except the brief remarks of Mrs. Booth-Tucker. The consul’s explanation is clear and straightforward. She says that every concession that could be made by loving hearts to Ballington has been made, but that to go farther would be to necessitate direct disobedience to the Army regulations, and would lay the foundation for endless complications in the future. One of the most touching references made by Mrs. Booth-Tucker was that referring to the pledge taken by all the children before their mother to support the Salvation Army. “All the world knows our sainted mother,” said the consul. “She was not our mother alone, but the mother of the Army. She it was whose godly advice prompted the general to open that old Christian mis- sion in the east end of London that eventually grew into the Salvation Army. That mother did all she could to ensure perfect union in our family, and never shall I forget the time when we all pledged that dear saint, now in glory, that we should live and die in the Salvation Army. Booth Women / 51

Oh, friends! Do not for a moment put any credence in the report that we are interested in having my brother stay out of the Army. “God knows that the thought that we are not one in everything is the most bitter thought that has ever entered my life. It is breaking our hearts and is clouding the dear general’s life as it was never clouded before. I would be unfaithful to my hope in God did I ever give up believing that he will return to the ranks. For a long time I looked after the interests of the Woman’s Training Home in London and my brother was in charge of the men’s garrison. We taught together, we worked together and we rejoiced over our successes and wept over our sorrows together, and now there is nothing in my life I desire more than to see us again united.” Throughout the whole day the consul never referred even indirectly to the dissensions in the ranks except in terms of the most marked love and friendship. In the prayers and the addresses any reference to the late commander was carefully avoided and references to loyalty were not made as definite as usual, presumably so that no possible spirit of antagonism would be charged to his successor. Mrs. Booth-Tucker never uses the word Ballington in public. This was noticed throughout the day, and it was said by one of her intimate friends, that she could not do so without her feelings getting control of her. All day it was noticed that it was “my brother” of whom she spoke. The consul’s frequent anglicanisms were a source of great interest to her audiences. Her references to tramcars, chapels and other things decidedly English caused frequent smiles. She rapidly detected it, however, and invariably explained it by saying: “Well, you may have other names for these things, but I am here to learn and am not par- ticularly slow.”32

Indeed, she was not. For, in spite of her physical weakness, her nearly contin-

32. “Greeted by Big Houses: Consul Booth-Tucker Leads Three Meetings at the Tabernacle,”San Francisco Call, April 27, 1896. R.G. Moyles / 52 uous pregnancies (she gave birth to four children during her term as com- mander, two of whom died in infancy)—both of which forced her to be less publicly accessible than Maud had been—and in spite of the stress caused by her brother’s defection, Emma Booth-Tucker soon began to captivate the American public as ardently as Maud Ballington Booth had done some years earlier. And yet their styles were entirely different. Emma was not a “parlor evan- gelist,” but preferred to make her presence (and that of the Army) felt by her visits to the prisons (including Sing Sing), her frequent forays into the slums, her noted love of children (and her adoption of one of them into her own fam- ily of six), her personal distribution of baskets at the Army’s annual Christmas dinners (inaugurated in 1899), and her fervent advocacy of her husband’s new social schemes.

Each year so long as I live and the Christmas time comes again I shall think of Consul Emma Booth-Tucker of the Salvation Army distrib- uting baskets to the poor and lowly on December 25. In connection with that scene somehow always comes to me the thought of the re- demption of the race and of Jesus of Nazareth feeding 5,000 hungry ones with miraculous loaves and fishes, albeit the loaves and fishes Mrs. Booth-Tucker dispenses are not in the least miraculous, and what is more, not a few of them are provided by wealthy and kind- ly men and women of the Hebrew faith. It is something that could hardly happen outside of the United States—Jews aiding generously to provide in honor of the birthday of the Founder of the Christian faith a dinner to be distributed by the heads of the Salvation Army to 25,000 hungry people of all races, all colors, all religions and many of no religion at all. In the largest cities of the Union this annual Salvation Army Christmas dinner has taken place. For weeks before the 25th of December at street corners in the most crowded thoroughfares are earthenware pots hung upon cross sticks in imitation of gypsy cook- ing pots. A wire netting is over each so as not to tempt weak brethren to snatch its contents. The meshes of the netting are large enough to permit banknotes and all sizes of silver coins being slipped into Booth Women / 53 them. Upon a placard above the pot are inscribed the words, “Keep the Pot Boiling.” A gentle, blue-uniformed sister in scoop bonnet stands guard over the pot, or sometimes in the busiest or toughest localities it may be two Salvation Army soldiers. This is the Army’s unique method of appealing to the public to help it give a dinner to from 10,000 to 30,000 hungry persons on Christmas day. The public responds generously. Probably one-sixth of all the per- sons who pass those pots contribute from one copper cent upward to “keep the pot boiling.” I have looked into the receptacles and seen them sometimes a quarter full. Then it is the part of wisdom to emp- ty them and begin over again. In New York no building except Madison Square Garden is large enough to hold the Salvation Army dinners and basket guests. It is there Mrs. Booth-Tucker may be found on Christmas, when she is not out of the city on Army affairs. Weeks before Christmas morning Army soldiers have been preparing for these dinners. The cooked feast is served in the evening. In the early part of the day baskets of eatables, uncooked, are distributed to the just and the unjust. A stream of humanity that begins to gather at 8 o’clock pours into one door and passes out the opposite one, each person carrying a bas- ket containing ample food for four persons—a fowl, vegetables, fruit and some cake or candy. It is a dinner good enough for your family or mine, reader. . . . In the center of the great enclosure stand usually Commander and Mrs. Booth-Tucker and their aides. There seems a radiant at- mosphere about the spot where Emma Booth-Tucker stands. Those 4,000 baskets are largely delivered to the recipients with her own hands. Long, delicate, frail-looking hands they are, yet there are blessing and power and magic in their touch. This tall, slight wom- an with the golden-brown hair looks so fragile that a wind might blow her away, yet for three hours she stands and deals out dinners and blessings. As she gives the basket she has a good word for each person, and her voice is musical and thrilling. To one she murmurs “Merry Christmas,” to another “Happy New Year,” to another, an old trembling woman, “God bless you, mother!” Tears are in the old R.G. Moyles / 54

woman’s eyes as she passes on with her precious Christmas dinner. Then the radiant soul that blessed her gives a basket to the next, the toughest, most battered-looking wreck in all that motley throng and tells him God loves him. Looking at Emma Booth-Tucker, you certainly know at last that there is a beauty transcending earthly comeliness, and you see it here. Her associates of the Salvation Army feel it, too, and love and reverence are in their manner when they come near her.33

Perhaps the distinguishing feature of the Booth-Tuckers’ command of the United States was the Army’s increasing emphasis on social work. It was Frederick’s belief that his father-in-law’s “Darkest England Scheme” was the boldest, most promising social scheme yet proposed by any man, and that not only could his basic proposals—particularly his city and farm colonies— be ideally adapted to the American cities but that, introduced systematically, they could make The Salvation Army the foremost social-reform agency in the nation. To that end, Frederick devoted most of his energies—expanding the rescue homes, shelters and food depots, and introducing halfway houses for released prisoners, homes for “waifs and strays,” industrial homes (attached to the shelters), a “salvage brigade” (a precursor of the recycling program) and labor bureaus. In just one year, under his command, the number of social institu- tions in the United States increased from 28 to 85. The crowning pieces of Booth-Tucker’s social plan were to be what turned out to be a kind of obsession with him: the establishment of farm colonies. “We feel,” he often said, “that it is on the land and out of the land that the prob- lem of our poverty is to be solved.” These were not to be “overseas colonies,” designed to place unemployed British laborers on new-world land, but were strictly to enable unemployed Americans (mainly city-dwellers) to build new lives for themselves as self-sufficient farmers. Booth-Tucker began to envision and seek support for these in 1896 and, with the support of such influential people as President William McKinley, he was able to see the opening of three such farms: Fort Romie in Soledad, California (October 1897); Fort Amity in

33. Esther Z. Cullen, “Mrs. Booth-Tucker and Her Christmas,” Riverside (CA) Daily Press, December 26, 1903. Booth Women / 55

Colorado (August 1898); and Fort Herrick near Cleveland, Ohio (Septem- ber 1898). Though in the long run the farm-colony scheme was a failure, up to 1904 (the year of Frederick’s departure) it was the focus not only of the Booth-Tuckers’ social initiative but also of the American press, garnering more coverage than any other Booth-Tucker project. Not only was Emma Booth-Tucker actively involved in the planning of the social ventures but she took a lead in promoting them. On July 23, 1896, while her husband was in California investigating the possibility of establishing his first farm colony there, Emma launched the financial campaign, called the Mercy Box League, designed to raise money for the new social ventures. The meeting hall in the new national headquarters was decorated with a large ban- ner that read “Soup, Soap and Salvation,” a phrase which became one of the best-known mottoes of the Army.

A new department in the social work of the Salvation Army among the poor of the tenement districts was started last night. It is to be known as the Mercy Box League, and its object is to distribute boxes among people who are in sympathy with the work of the Salvation Army, with the understanding that the recipients shall bind them- selves to place one cent a week, at least, in the box. At the end of ev- ery quarter agents of the Army will collect the contents of the boxes, the whole of the proceeds subsequently being devoted to the service of the social work of the organization. To celebrate the launching of the new scheme a large meeting was held last night in the Memorial Hall, No. 122 West Fourteenth-st. The large meeting hall was crowded, and as an admission fee of 10 cents was charged, the social scheme to which the money was given must have benefited considerably. Commissioner Booth-Tucker is at present in California and was therefore unable to be in attendance. In his absence, Mrs. Booth-Tucker led the meeting. Despite the fact that she carried her arm in a sling as the result of a bicycle accident in which she broke her wrist a week ago, Mrs. Booth-Tucker gave an animated address lasting over half an hour. She spoke of the slum work that was being carried on in other countries by the Salvation Army, and then referred to the urgent necessity of similar efforts in R.G. Moyles / 56

New York. She pointed out that in this city there were something like sixty thousand men out of work, and drew from that statement an eloquent inference of the great amount of poverty and misery that must accrue from such a state of things. It was to alleviate this mis- ery and to help the workless to find employment, she said, that the Mercy Box League had been started. Stereopticon views of the condition of the poor inhabitants of this city and of the principal cities of Europe were afterward shown to the audience. Major William Halpin, the secretary of the Army’s social work, explained the views, some of which frequently drew from the audience audible remarks of sympathy. As a relief to these scenes, illustrations were afterward shown of the benefits and uplifting- in fluences of the social work of the Army; and it was plain that these did more to enlist the sympathy of the people present in this part of the organization’s work than all the oratorical fireworks that had gone on before.34

The use of “stereopticon views” in her Mercy Box meeting marks the begin- ning of an appealing innovation in Emma Booth’s ministry and one of the greatest boosts to her public image. The stereopticon (sometimes called the “magic lantern”) was invented a few decades earlier, and was just then coming into its own; and “lantern slides”—images which projected Bible stories or real-life events onto a screen—were a great novelty. The Army—with some slight reservations on the part of William Booth—was quick to take advan- tage of its potential for good. Scenes from the Bible, the story of The Salvation Army, and images of its work in the slums were being shown (and narrated) by means of this wonderful invention. Thousands of people flocked to Army halls and other rented theaters to catch a glimpse of the Army in action. Lan- tern slide depictions of the life of Catherine Booth, projected on a large screen at the 1886 international congress, and of William Booth’s social scheme drew

34. “To Help the Slum Dwellers: The Salvation Army Celebrates the Starting of a New Fund-Raising Branch of its Social Work,” New York Herald Tribune, July 24, 1896. Booth Women / 57 as many as 3,000 people. When asked why the Army should use such a seem- ingly worldly means of spreading the gospel message, Emma Booth replied, “Why not? For we are always in the line of novelties, you know.” In the United States one of the Army’s most enterprising officers was Ed- ward Parker. A self-taught expert in photography, he learned to create and develop his own slides, and believing that “pictures make a deeper impres- sion than even the spoken word,” he held what he called limelight services, to which vast crowds were attracted. “One such service,” he later recalled, “was a song-and-sermon meeting, entitled ‘Songs in the Night.’ While Mrs. Parker soloed, accompanying herself on a small portable organ, I projected colored slides illustrating the song. A little later we would reverse our positions, she coming down to the back of the hall and operating the stereopticon. . . . Af- ter several slides illustrating my remarks had been projected, we would again change places. Then, at the close of the lecture, the hall lights would be turned on, the magic lantern turned out and, with a solo by Mrs. Parker and a final appeal, we would proceed with a prayer meeting.”35 It was most likely Parker’s slides shown at Emma Booth-Tucker’s Mercy Box meeting in New York, and her knowledge that he was a photographic genius, which gave her the idea for what became one of her most talked-about public performances, her “Dramatic Scenes of Love and Sorrow.” More than just a slide show, it was an elaborate depiction of many aspects of Salvation Army service, narrated by Emma herself and interspersed by living tableaux composed of costumed Salvationists in set scenes (which sometimes included both the Booth-Tucker and Parker children). The performance also included musical accompaniment by such talented singers as Alice Lewis, a former op- era star, and some of the Army’s foremost instrumentalists. From 1899, when “Love and Sorrow” opened at the Bijou Theater in Pitts- burgh, to late 1902, Emma Booth-Tucker’s name and fame were identified with what some observers called “one of the finest things delivered on an American stage”; by others labeled “a form of entertainment unique, forceful, and realistic”; and by still others as “deserving of all the extravagant encomi- ums lavished upon it.” The so-called “religious extravaganza” was performed in more than 50 American cities and drew an estimated 100,000 people to learn more of The Salvation Army, particularly of its new ventures into social

35. Edward Parker, My Fifty-Eight Years (New York: The Salvation Army, 1943), 108. R.G. Moyles / 58 work and something of its missionary work in India (because Emma loved to dress in her sari and be part of a living tableau featuring that work). “Love and Sorrow” was, then, the consul’s most conspicuous, most highly praised and, perhaps, her most influential contribution to the restoration of the Army as the foremost religious-based social agency in America. In his entertaining autobiography, My Fifty-Eight Years, Edward Parker, who was conveniently transferred to New York by Booth-Tucker and given the assistant property secretary appointment, tells of his part in the produc- tion. “My part was the preparation of slides and scenic backgrounds for the tableaus which followed the conclusion of the stereopticon illustrations. For example, one section of the lecture portrayed the Army’s work in India—a country in which the commander had pioneered Salvation Army work in 1882. After the showing of several lantern slides, the screen was raised, and a group of Salvationists in native costume appeared on the stage, the back- ground being a painted sheet of scenery, with such stage properties as an In- dian hut and artificial palm trees.”36

Residents of Springfield were well informed on the workings of the Salvation Army throughout the United States last evening, when Consul Mrs. Booth-Tucker, daughter of General William Booth, delivered a lecture at Central Music hall last evening on “Love and Sorrow.” The hall was well filled, and all enjoyed a rare treat. Mrs. Tucker’s lecture is illustrated by stereopticon views. Throughout the country Mrs. Tucker has been admired for her unique method of demonstrating the operations of the Army, and her appreciative audience last evening were loud in their praise of the lecture. In the country there are few people who do not know the work which has been accomplished by the band of Christians led by her and her husband, but on hearing her lecture her hearers are convinced that they had but a faint idea of the magnitude of the work accomplished. Mrs. Tucker is a speaker of wonderful eloquence and there are but few orators before the public today who are better mas- ters of the English language than she. Like the other members of the famous Booth family she is tall and commanding, and is of striking

36. Ibid., 144. Booth Women / 59 personal appearance. When she appeared last evening she was giv- en a hearty welcome. Her lecture, which lasted about three hours, was indeed interesting, and each moment brings before her audience new scenes of the humble world and also of the work being done by the Salvation Army. She is now traveling through the country from New York to California, accompanied by several officers of the Army, and her lectures are largely attended. . . . The views shown during the lecture are indeed interesting, and on the subjects presented by them Mrs. Tucker lectures. Among the scenes shown is “The Rag Picker,” which shows the army lassies working with the drunkards. It is a realistic scene of a lonely figure, standing motionless at an ash barrel. It is a woman, with her bare arms, and her neglected hair hanging down her back. She is a drunk- ard. Mrs. Tucker in describing this scene said that the woman is a widow, the mother of four children, who are locked in a family hovel, called by them home. The woman picks from the barrel remnants of old garments, which she sells daily to secure enough money to buy drink, while the little ones are crying for bread. The approach of the Salvation Army is next seen, and the woman joins their ranks. “The Slum Mother” is equally effective. It pictures a dying mother, giving her little ones to the slum lassie, a member of the army, by whom they are cared for. In the next scene of the picture the children are being cared for at the home for waifs and strays. “The Missing Friends Department” brings before the audience a picture of a hum- ble home, a mother, with her children about her. Christmas eve is represented in the next view, where the father has disappeared, and the children are praying for his return, while a chorus sings a song appropriate to the scene. The lecture was illustrated throughout with stereopticon views drawn from the incidents which the Consul related, the most of which came under her own personal vision in her work among the slums. The anecdotes were of the pathos of life, and dealt with the sadness of existence in which there was naught but crime and pov- erty and degradation. There was sadness in the theater when those whose lives had been easy were brought face to face with the stories R.G. Moyles / 60

of human suffering, and tears were not the exception following the lurid and pathetic descriptions of scenes thrown upon the canvas. The bright side to the picture of darkness came with the pictures of the Army workers and the methods which that organization uses to combat the forces which drag humanity towards a repetition of the scenes of crime and suffering. A most pleasing feature of the lecture was the series of tableaux presented by the staff which accompanies the Consul on her tours. One of these tableaux portrayed the home of [a] drunken woman, redeemed from her vice through the army’s work, followed by a sub- sequent picture of the four daughters of the woman at present work- ing in the army.37

Emma Booth-Tucker’s lectures, all newspapers agreed, were a decided success. And by them, the Denver Post concluded, The Salvation Army was “gradually eliminating all the crudities which made it so scoffed at in its in- ception,” and taking care “to reprove anything savoring of the ludicrous, with- out dispensing with the ebullience of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the keynote of the Army. It believes in the sort of religion that excites and exalts, and in that belief it is flourishing, while some of the other forms of religion are losing support.”38

Emma Booth-Tucker’s rise to prominence in the American press (and thereby in the hearts of the American public) had been a slow process. Poor health, her brother’s defection, and the lingering popularity of her sister-in-law, Maud, had combined to either make her less accessible to the press or make the press more uncertain of her merits. By 1900, however, and escalating into 1903, her reputation as “Our Lady of the Tender Heart” had been firmly established and fully deserved. She won her supporters (such as President Roosevelt and Senator Hanna) not

37. Springfield (IL) State Register, March 20, 1901. 38. Denver Post, December 16, 1901. Booth Women / 61 by visiting the salons of New York (though she did visit some) but by visiting the slums and prisons whose conditions she so graphically portrayed in her limelight views of “Love and Sorrow.” “A stronger and more magnetic personality,” wrote one reporter, “I have never known.” And so it was with the greatest sadness—and a sense of shock—that that reporter, and others across the nation, had to report on October 29, 1903, that the previous evening Emma Booth-Tucker had been killed in a railway accident as she made her way back across the country after traveling to the Amity farm colony in Colorado to assess the prospects of that project.

Mrs. Booth-Tucker, Consul in America of the Salvation Army, sec- ond daughter of General William Booth, and wife of Commander Booth-Tucker, died here today just as the relief train bringing her and the other injured persons arrived from the scene of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad wreck at Dean Lake, eighty-five miles east of Kansas City. Her life would have been prolonged, if not saved, had not the relief train itself been partially wrecked while bringing the dead and injured to this city. Col. Thomas Holland, of the Salvation Army, who was in the car with Mrs. Tucker, was mortally hurt. Twenty-six other passengers were injured. The famous Salvation Army leader, affectionately known as “the an- gel,” had been visiting the Army’s industrial colony in California and also the one at Amity, Col., where Col. Holland was the superintendent. Col. Holland left Amity with her, and at Kansas City they inspected yesterday a new workingman’s hotel erected there by the Salvation Army. They left Kansas City at 6 o’clock last night on train No. 2 of the Santa Fe road for Chicago, where Mrs. Booth-Tucker was to join her husband. Approaching Dean Lake, Mo., the train was making about thirty-five miles an hour. Just beyond the little station was an open switch. In this the heavy train plunged. The engine was jerked from the rails and crashed into the huge steel water tank at the side of the tracks. The impact was so terrific that the steel tank with its great weight of water was moved five feet from its foundations. The sleeping cars and rear day coaches were piled in a hopeless confusion, one on top of the R.G. Moyles / 62

other, one inside another. Many were taken from the debris before they came upon the Salva- tion Army leader. She was unconscious. It was found that her skull was fractured and she had received severe internal injuries. With axes and such other tools as the villagers had improvised Mrs. Booth-Tucker was chopped out of the wreck and carried back to the little station-house. Several women who [had] not been seriously injured in the train minis- tered to her while the men continued the work of rescue. A relief train was started from Marcelline and another from Kansas City, both having surgeons and claim agents. The one from Marcelline reached there first and the injured were put aboard, including Mrs. Booth-Tucker and Col. Holland. This train had gone only a few miles when a truck slipped from one of the cars, and for a few seconds it seemed as though the already injured would be caught in a second wreck. But the air-brakes worked instantly, and while the injured passengers were jolted severely none was killed at the moment. The jolt, however, may have has- tened the death of Mrs. Booth-Tucker.39

TheDenver Post made this report of the tragedy:

Miss H. Damass, a Salvation Army member, tells the following of the wreck and death of Mrs. Booth-Tucker: “With Mrs. Booth-Tucker, and as a companion and assistant to her, I left New York with her three weeks ago for a trip of inspection to the Salvation Army colony at Amity, Col. Tuesday night we left Amity for Chicago, being accompanied by Col. Holland, who is manager of the Amity colony. Commander Booth-Tuck- er was waiting for us in Chicago, where we were to have a conference regarding the colony and other important matters and to hold a series of meetings for nine days in the Army barracks and at Willard Hall. When we left Amity we secured berths in the tourist car, but last eve- ning concluded to change to a standard Pullman sleeping car. We had made our arrangements to do this when the accident occurred. I had gone back into the Pullman, leaving Mrs. Booth-Tucker and Col. Hol-

39. “Booth-Tucker’s Wife Killed: Salvation Army ‘Angel’ Meets Her Death in Train Wreck Eastward from Colorado,” New York Evening World, October 29, 1903. Booth Women / 63

land in a tourist sleeper, which was being run unoccupied, they being busily engaged in conversation. I had been talking with them, but I left to arrange our baggage in the Pullman. I had left them but a few moments when the crash came. Although thrown violently about I was not hurt. All of us who were uninjured went at once to the aid of those who were hurt. It was a terrible shock to me when I found Mrs. Booth-Tucker and learned that she was fatally injured. When extricated from the wreck she was taken into the waiting-room of the station at Dean Lake, where she was placed upon a mattress and surgical aid was given by Dr. Charles Hunter, of Pittsburg, Kansas, who was a passenger on the train. The aid was of no avail, however, her skull being fractured, and she died, at 11:30 o’clock, two hours after the acci- dent happened.40

To say that America mourned Emma Booth-Tucker’s sudden passing is to put the matter mildly. Many thousands—among them the nation’s leading citizens— paid their respects at the two funerals (in Chicago and New York); thousands more sent their condolences; and the newspapers, reflecting on the loss not only to The Salvation Army but to her immediate family—Frederick Booth-Tucker and her seven children (one of whom was recently adopted)—offered abundant eulogies to a person they considered the “ideal of womanhood.” Though it might be said that such tributes, as death tributes sometimes do, overstated her virtues, they res- onated a truthfulness to the very ones which many Americans had already voiced as being the essence of this remarkable woman.

The tragic death of this leader in one of the greatest religious movements of the time recalls circumstances in her life from which a profound civic lesson may be drawn. Her charms of wifehood and motherhood are the cherished remem- brances of her immediate friends. Her devotion to the Salvation Army is the pardonable pride of her associates in that organization. Everyone should have a direct and deep personal interest in the fact that Mrs. Booth-Tucker’s devotion to an exacting public service did not interfere with the fulfilment of her duties as a wife nor the performance

40. “How Mrs. Booth-Tucker Died,” Denver Post, October 29, 1903. R.G. Moyles / 64

of her obligations as a mother. On the contrary, she was doubtless all the better and stronger as wife and mother for being also a tireless leader among right-minded men and women. There is a superstition that the good wife will have no inclination to participate in public affairs, and that the good mother will have no time for it. So wives and mothers among the poor let their brains run fallow while they bend over washtubs, and wives and mothers among the rich allow their brains to run fallow while they minister to family pride at social functions. With unconscious irony, all this is called “making the home.” Women must not vote. That onerous burden would break in upon the marital and maternal duties of the washtub and the afternoon tea, and so destroy the home! They must not hold public office, no matter how crying the need in our public service for feminine thought and feminine action. For, with women in politics, our children would be neglected, and our husbands would go unkept and unloved, while the home would dis- appear from our civilization! Against this barbarous superstition Mrs. Booth-Tucker’s busy and useful life was a daily protest. True, she took no part in civic affairs. Her case cannot be cited, there- fore, as a precedent for woman in politics, identical at every angle. But no possible service in civic affairs could be more exacting in its demands upon a woman’s time and energy, or more disturbing to wifely and moth- erly duties, than the public religious work which Mrs. Booth-Tucker did perform so long and so successfully. Yet she leaves seven children, who have never lacked their mother’s love and care. Without detracting in the least from the particular public service to which Mrs. Booth-Tucker’s life was devoted, may not that life be fairly cited as a shining instance of the perfect compatibility, with women no less than with men, of private and public service? May we not point to her career as another notable demonstration of the intimate relationship of wifely and motherly functions of citizenship, of the perfect compatibility of home-making with community building?41

41. “Lesson from the Life of Emma Booth-Tucker,” Trenton (NJ) Evening News, November 29, 1903. Booth Women / 65

In retrospect, we can see that it took the American press much longer to appreci- ate the unique qualities of Emma Booth-Tucker—her “motherly compassion,” her absolute devotion to the Army, and her amazing ability to reach people’s hearts— than it did to sing the praises of her much more accessible and socially prominent predecessor, Maud Ballington Booth. Nor were Americans at first eager to accept Emma’s different approach—as well as her different personality—as being as valu- able and effective as those of her sister-in-law. Eventually, however, those attitudes began to change, as Americans began to see just how skillfully Frederick and Emma brought the Army back from the brink of disaster and, as historians suggest, refashioned its image so that, with their imple- mentation of a vast network of social services, it became what Americans appre- ciated most, “the Army of the helping hand.” And, though we must acknowledge that Frederick had the vision, it was Emma who so masterfully enlisted the public’s approval and support. Her “Dramatic Scenes of Love and Sorrow” was perhaps the most visible of her efforts, but in many other ways she won the hearts of Ameri- cans, placing The Salvation Army once again at the center of the nation’s religious life. Let the New York Times have the final word:

Mrs. Booth-Tucker, who assumed the rank of Consul of the Army, en- deared herself to those about her through her modesty, her sweet face, her characteristic geniality and her evident earnestness and sincerity in her work. Although the mother of seven children, on which she concen- trated much of her thought and affection, she found time to keep in im- mediate touch with the various movements of the army throughout the country. She traveled by rail thousands of miles every year, visiting many towns and cities remote from her home, and in all of them she lectured or prayed or sang before large and responsive audiences. It is commonly believed that her tireless zeal and striking individuality have accounted, in a very large measure, for the fact that men of wealth and prominence have been induced to lend financial support and encouragement to the cause of the Salvation Army.42

42. New York Times, October 29, 1903.

Booth Women / 67

Evangeline Cory Booth R.G. Moyles / 68

Evangeline Cory Booth A Woman for All Seasons

In some respects Miss Booth is regarded as the superior of her sister, the late consul-gener- al, Mrs. Booth-Tucker. At all events, she is different. Both girls inherited the oratorical gifts of their father and were trained from their early days to face audiences, but each developed out of her own temperament her own method of appeal. Mrs. Booth-Tucker spoke slowly, with deliberation and obvious care. Miss Booth’s style is far more rapid, more impetuous and spontaneous. It is not that she, too, is not careful in what she says, but her preparation is made before she starts to speak, and once upon her feet she lets herself go. —New York Tribune, December 4, 1904

It will be seen that Eva Booth has the face of an artist. At first glance it is not conventionally beautiful. She has the clear, fair complexion, and long features of the Booth family. Her eyes are gentle, rather than brilliant. She has a quantity of short and very curly, light hair, which she wears in a bush around her face. Her figure is acetic; her hands long and pale, like a nun’s hands. It is only when she has been speaking for some time that one becomes aware of a change in her appearance. A flood of life and color suddenly transform her. She is no longer a thin, plain girl, in a blue serge uniform; she is a strong, beautiful woman, with power to move and control her audience; an artist in a word. —Rheta Childe Dorr, Leslie’s Monthly Magazine, July 1905

The big theater was jammed to the doors. For more than two hours and a half this wonder- ful woman held the tense interest of her audience. To describe the woman’s oratory is im- Booth Women / 69 possible. Besides a winning personality and a spirit of grace and heroism, she is endowed with a silvery tongue and ranks as one of the foremost orators of the age. Her address united the power of eloquence with that deep feeling in such a manner as to sweep the audience with strong waves of emotion and deep conviction. —Rockford (IL) Morning Star, October 17, 1915

Few women have ever dominated the American religious stage as did Evan- geline Cory Booth. Perhaps Aimee Semple McPherson came close, but none for as sustained a prominency—nor as long—as “Miss Eva.” For 30 years (1904-1934), she ruled The Salvation Army in America (“rule” being an apt description of her mode of command). As such she brought the Army to the number one position as a social service agency, made her “doughnut girls” the favorites of American soldiers in World War I, conspicuously supported Prohibition, and generally made the Army a household name in America. But it was, perhaps, at a personal level that she stole the hearts of Ameri- cans. Though she was high-strung, rather imperious, seemingly vain (perhaps more like her father than her mother), she was strikingly beautiful, a brilliant musician, an enthralling speaker and a superb actress. Following in the foot- steps of her sister, Emma, though in much more professional and elaborate productions, Eva continued to promote the Army’s mission—both evangeli- cal and social—as theater. As she had done as “Miss Booth in Rags” through- out Canada, so now in “The Tale of a Broken Heart” Eva Booth, as one writer put it, gave The Salvation Army a human face—her own. In fact, though there were many other capable Salvationists, some as enterprising and innovative as Eva herself, it was Commander Booth who became, in the minds of most Americans, the face of The Salvation Army.

When Eva Booth arrived in the United States at the end of November 1904 to as- sume command of The Salvation Army—relieving the over-burdened Frederick Booth-Tucker—she was already well-known to many Americans, for, as command- er of the Canadian Territory, she had had oversight of some northern American R.G. Moyles / 70 cities and had performed her “Miss Booth in Rags” in several. She had also, when Ballington had defected in 1896, been sent to New York to try and thwart his efforts to take many Salvationists with him. Her famous stance, with the American flag draped around her, and her challenge to “Hiss this, if you dare,” had been widely reported and admired by some (though not all). It was, then, almost as an old friend, though she was indeed yet young, that the American press greeted the new commander, apprising Americans not only of her accomplishments (some of which they exaggerated) but intriguing them with their descriptions of her eloquence and beauty.

It was a very tired-looking woman, bundled in warm furs, that stepped off the express from Toronto, a night or two ago, chatted with friends for a few moments on the platform of the Grand Central Station, and then hurried away to a train for a quiet suburb about thirty miles from New York, where she is to rest until her official public reception in Carnegie Hall on Tuesday evening. Except for the uniforms of the friends who met her none might have recognized this woman as Miss Eva Booth—or, Commander, Miss Booth, as she has directed she shall be called—the new Commander in Chief of the Salvation Army forces in the United States. “Please do not tell where I am going,” said Miss Booth. “I need rest. A campaign of more than eight years in Canada has just concluded with rather trying farewell ceremonies. I am tired. The immediate duties of my new position will require all the strength and talents I possess. I wish to be prepared to take them up.” Miss Booth bears a striking resemblance to her father, Gen. William Booth, who is a familiar figure to New Yorkers. She has the same tall, slender figure, the same alert, energetic manner, and the same mellow, distinct, and far-reaching voice. Judging from her ordinary conversation, it is easy to understand why the new Commander in Chief comes from Canada with the reputation of being one of the best women orators in the world—a platform speaker of wonderful effectiveness and power, one who carries her audience before her at will during a revival meeting. . . . If Commander Booth were to write her Christian name in full, which she seldom does, it would read Evangeline. But it was as Eva Booth she was known when a child as a worker in the slums of London; it was as Booth Women / 71

Eva Booth she was known later in life as an Army organizer in the En- glish provinces; it is as Eva Booth she is known throughout Canada, and it will be Eva Booth with the Salvationists under her direction in the United States, in spite of the official “Commander, Miss.” She has brilliant, -ex pressive dark eyes and a wealth of brown hair, which she dresses so that it surrounds her head in the form of a halo, completely covering her ears. She is thirty-five years old, and looks younger. Her face has what a cler- gyman who caught a glimpse of her in the station called “an uplifting, hopeful expression.” To the stranger it seems that the large portrait of Miss Booth standing beside her father’s knee, which is hung in the National Headquarters, does not do her full justice. She has matured wonderfully since it was taken. “My life is devoted to my Father’s work,” said Miss Booth, as she stepped aboard the train. “The salvation of the sinner, the comforter of the sorrowful, the uplifting of the poor and distressed—that is my mission. In my new field of endeavor I shall give myself wholly to the cause. The work at National Headquarters is now entirely new to me. I was in com- mand there for about six weeks at the time Ballington Booth retired from the Army, before my elder sister, Mrs. Booth-Tucker, came over from England. But the Salvationists have made immense strides since then. It will be my effort to vastly increase the Army’s field of usefulness. There is plenty of work to do.” The new chief is declared to be precisely the woman for work of this nature. She has a good executive ability, and a woman’s inherent love for bossing the job. She likes big projects. She loves work. In the Army she is a sort of Spiritual Daughter of the Regiment. As a child she took up her little tambourine and plunged into the heart of London, fearlessly facing the wickedness and degradation of the worst slums of the world. Perhaps that is why Miss Booth is more keenly interested in the slum life of great cities than in any other branch of her work. She believes that the way to help people in the slums is to live among them, not merely to pay occa- sional visits.43

43. “Commander Miss Booth: She is the Ruler of Millions of Hearts,” New York Times, December 4, 1904. R.G. Moyles / 72

It is quite remarkable, in fact, to note just how quickly, and how thorough- ly, the various personas of Evangeline Booth—the beautiful Salvationist, the energetic commander, and the superb actress—entered the American con- sciousness. Within weeks of her arrival, and continuing through 1905, her story, her plans, her performances, along with her photograph (in half a doz- en various poses), adorned almost every newspaper in the United States, to the extent that in the first year of her command there were more than 2,000 brief mentions and full articles devoted to her alone (in addition to the many others about The Salvation Army in general). The reason for such an immediate embrace was, so some historians suggest, because The Salvation Army had become a highly-respected religious-driven social agency, largely through the Booth-Tuckers’ efforts. Americans, they argue, now loved the Army and Evangeline Booth embodied the “new” Sal- vation Army. Rheta Childe Dorr, the well-known journalist, went just a little farther by insisting that Evangeline Booth was herself largely responsible for the “new” Salvation Army. “The great enthusiasm aroused by the arrival of Eva Booth,” she wrote, “is significant of the remarkable change in public opinion towards the organiza- tion. What has happened to so completely alter the world’s attitude towards the blue scoop bonnets, the tambourines and the street-playing bands? For- merly they were regarded as nuisances, or worse. Even to the liberal-minded they appeared merely pathetic and misguided objects.” A number of things had united to effect the change, she opined, but one stood out preeminent: Eva Booth herself. In effect, “Eva Booth has happened. In other words, a wonderful personality was brought forward, and this is al- ways enough to turn the course of events. What the founder of the Salvation Army was unable to do, what his staff of strong and devoted men failed ut- terly to accomplish, this girl, then a frail, slender child, scarcely out of the school-room, triumphantly achieved. She won for the scoop bonnets and the grotesque caps and the divine altruism they masquerade, the freedom of the highways of the world.” In graphic detail, Dorr went on to tell how Eva “learned her wisdom” and refined her compassion in the slums of London. “When the young girl in the blue bonnet first ventured into the neighbor- Booth Women / 73 hood, friendly policemen begged her to turn back. The Army uniform was the target of scorn everywhere in London. What would happen if the outcasts of that neighborhood caught sight of it? The girl did turn back that day. The next day she came again, this time clad in the rags of poverty of a match-seller. In this disguise she penetrated the dark alleys, and the places of horror. She wore the rags and learned to speak the language of the wretches there, but in spite of her disguise they called her the ‘White Angel,’ and no hand was ever lifted against her. . . . Dearly as it cost her, that slum experience gave her the key to success. She learned that a heart exists in every man, and she learned also that she was divinely gifted to touch that heart.”44 There was, quite clearly, an element of myth-making in the initial descrip- tions of Eva Booth’s early experiences as a young Salvationist—a degree of idolizing that went beyond the factual, especially when, within a year, she was included in a profile that named her one of the six best-known women in the world and equated her artistic talents with those of Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse, two of the greatest actresses ever to grace the stage. “She uses all the weapons of the artist,” wrote Rheta Dorr. “For she is an artist to the tips of her fingers. She might have been a famous musician if she had devoted herself to music. She would certainly have been a great actress, and she might have been a great playwright. Miss Booth, playing the harp, is a rare figure. Miss Booth, in one of the unique religious dramas she has written, and in which she appears before her people on special occasions, is a dramatist of no uncommon skill.”45 In spite of the obvious extravagance (some of it no doubt based on infor- mation fed to the reporters), it was an image which Eva Booth herself was anxious to cultivate and embody. Mainly because, as she so often avowed, it was her way of bringing people to the gospel. The initial newspaper assessments of both her character and her abilities were so magnanimous that when Eva Booth undertook her first trip across the nation, to inspect her troops and meet the American public, she was, in every city she visited, greeted as a well-known celebrity. In such unlikely plac- es as Canton, Ohio, for example, more than 4,000 people crowded the largest

44. Rheta Childe Dorr, Leslie’s Monthly Magazine, July 1905, 297-98. 45. Ibid. R.G. Moyles / 74 auditorium to hear her; in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, 10,000 (so the newspapers said) sat under her ministry; and in Kansas City, as many as 15,000 people filled the convention center (more, they said, than had come out to see and hear her famous father). “The Academy of Music,” the New York Times wrote of her meetings there, “was crowded to the doors yesterday at the three large meetings held there by the Salva- tion Army in celebration of the 25th anniversary of its activity in the United States. . . . At the night service, when Miss Booth spoke on the topic, ‘The Good Shepherd,’ she appeared on the stage, which had a sylvan setting, in a flowing robe of Orien- tal material, which was intended to represent the garb of an Eastern shepherdess in Biblical times. Her feet were sandaled, she carried a shepherd’s crook, and was escorted by eight children in scarlet robes carrying shepherd’s crooks and lanterns. Two of the little ones were Miss Booth’s adopted children, Pearl and William. They later sang a duet which was greeted with great applause by the audience.”46 Of her personal magnetism, the Baltimore American had this to say: “Com- mander Booth possesses a striking personality. She is about 36 years of age, of me- dium height and rather slender build, and possesses sharp, strong features. Like many other public personages, what she lacks in robust physique she more than makes up in nervous force, which is plainly exhibited in conversation and on the platform. . . . Commander Booth speaks without notes. Her manner is somewhat dramatic and readily holds the attention of her audience. She speaks rapidly and has an excellent command of language. She has an impulsive—what might almost be called an explosive—style, and displays a wonderful power in appealing to the emotional nature.”47 Some journalists, in fact, could hardly find superlatives enough to do justice to what they perceived to be a remarkable personality.

Miss Eva Booth, daughter of General William Booth, and commander of the Salvation Army forces in America, was the central and foremost figure in the adding of another page to the history of Atlanta yesterday. If there is such a thing as cosmopolitan Christianity, the platform or, more correctly, the stage of the Bijou theater, yesterday afternoon marked

46. New York Times, March 25, 1905. 47. Baltimore American, September 4, 1905. Booth Women / 75 just such a gathering. Many of the foremost divines of Atlanta were there representing almost as many denominations, while the commonwealth was represented by none other than Governor Joseph M. Terrell. In front of the stage a crowded parquet ended in a bank of humanity beyond the rail, where many considered it a privilege to stand and hear the words of the woman soldier. Boxes, galleries, the entire theater was filled, and it was even necessary for a big officer to preside at the overflow meeting and prevent hundreds of others from entering. . . . What Miss Booth said may soon be forgotten, but it is certain that all those who heard her yesterday carried with them an indescribable some- thing, a subtle influence that will work its way unknown to the helping of humanity and the sparking of the silver lining to the clouds that some- times gather in this world to threaten darkness, desolation and despair. As this has ever been the mission of the Salvation Army, a mission that has only in recent years become acknowledged and appreciated—since its very foundation—the coming of Commander Booth to Atlanta was not in vain. Miss Booth has a face that fascinates as being of the intensely spiritu- elle type, one that reflects the light from the inside and when lost in her message to the world, carries with it a sweetly beautiful suggestion of the divine note of love that dominates her every thought, a love of God, a love of humanity and a trusting faith in the Salvation Army that was some years ago more often labeled fanaticism than something higher and better. But for the absolute sincerity of the speaker, her gestures which, while bold, are always graceful, together with the flashing expressions of her face, might suggest the emotional actress. But the light of her face as she rises to the heights in her message of good will precludes this possibility and the soldier of peace brought to many minds that picture of perfect consecration to her cause of another woman soldier of history who was called from the great country fields of France to lead an army of the sol- diers of war. With the introduction of Miss Booth, she was given a reception as is seldom accorded any of the many distinguished visitors who have been welcomed to Atlanta. There is much of the wonderful magnetism of the Booth family in the personality of Miss Booth. Perhaps it may be true R.G. Moyles / 76

that she has neither the beauty of some of her sisters, nor the marvelous strength of her father, the founder of the Army. But, granting this, she has other qualities which stamp her individuality as a woman of exceptional force as well as a sensitive appreciation of the poetical and the beautiful. Although of slight figure, Commander Booth, in her trim, natty uni- form, carries with her a bearing that is as distinctly military as it is possi- ble for the feminine figure to carry. In her every speech and mannerism there is the mark of her English heritage, a heritage further accentuated by many years of life and activity in London and many of the British colonies. The absolute courage of conviction is the deep note of inspiration in the message that Commander Booth carries to her every hearer. Modest almost to the point of reticence in the beginning, as she proceeds with the message which she is carrying to the world, the slight hesitancy in speech is lost absolutely and she loses herself in a burst of oratory that is of the kind that absolutely loses itself in the championing of a cause that knows no selfishness, no thought of self. All effort of making an impression upon her hearers is swept into oblivion and there is in her every word the flam- ing sword which is her only weapon in a waging of a warfare that marks the mission of the Salvation Army. Once deeply in her subject, the message flows easily and without effort, coming directly from the heart. Another mark of the Booth family is with Miss Eva Booth in a wonderful sense of humor, although that could in no possible way offend the most sensitive and conventional. And she has to a wonderful degree the art of story telling that if turned in other directions would make for her a position high among the after dinner speakers of the world.48

If the effusiveness of that reporter was anything to go by, it might have seemed that Evangeline Booth had already reached the peak of her popu- larity. But not so. In the second year of her command (1906), while she still donned her shepherdess costume in venues not capable of a more lavish

48. “Miss Eva Booth, Soldier, The Modern Joan of Arc,” Atlanta Constitution, February 20, 1905. Booth Women / 77 production, in the larger theaters she reprised the famous “Miss Booth in Rags” performance that had made her such a celebrity in Canada. The first of these was at Carnegie Hall in New York, reports of which were featured in almost every newspaper in the United States:

Clad in the tattered raiment that she wore when she invaded the slums of London, Evangeline C. Booth, commander of the United States force of the Salvation Army, appeared last night at Carnegie Hall before an audience that packed the building from topmost gallery to the main auditorium and extended into the lobbies. At least 1,000 persons were unable to gain admission, and officers of the Army said the crush was equal to that in the huge Massey Hall, Toronto, when the Earl of Aberdeen, who was to act as chairman, had to be carried in on the shoulders of two stalwart Salvationists. The meeting was announced to be “the climax to which all the others have been leading,” and from the dramatic point of view it was, for all the arts of stagecraft were employed to lend theatre effect. A surpliced choir of men and women were seated at the rear of the stage. Two boxes on uprights, containing a nest of electric lights in orange colored lamps, cast a soft glow on a great harp with gilded strings, set in a golden framework in the centre of the stage. Alongside the harp there was built up, as the commander took up her themes of Love, Sympathy, Sacrifice and Action, a silver cross studded with incandescent bulbs, which flashed forth as the final climax was reached, and Miss Booth knelt beneath the glare with her hands uplifted, while the choir softly sang “Rock of Ages.” It was a remarkable spectacle. The posing and vivid pictures paint- ed by Miss Booth affected hundreds of women in the vast audience to tears. They were all sobbing when she came to her final effort in the story of an abandoned woman, who, struggling with the police as she was being carried to prison, was reclaimed with a kiss. The audience had been worked up to a tense pitch by the hymn singing of a Salvation Army hymn for 10 minutes before the princi- pal act of the evening was presented. The presiding officer held up R.G. Moyles / 78

his hand for silence, and Miss Booth entered playing an accordion. She advanced to the front of the stage where the orange-colored lights shone upon her. Her skirt consisted of an old gunny sack, torn and raveled from waist to hem. Her broken shoes were tied with white wrapping string. Over her shoulders was a shabby shawl of faded colors, which partly covered her hair—and her hair, by the way, had been curled most artistically. The surpliced choir arose, and then the audience came to its feet, and a great volume of song swept through the hall. There was a great burst of applause after the singing. The -com mander placed her accordion on a chair and began to speak. She has a well-modulated and not an unmusical voice, and understands thoroughly the niceties of inflection; the effectiveness of the tremolo, and the breaking of the voice with a half sob. “From childhood,” said Commander Booth, “a sob, a moan, or a sigh arrested my attention. I had seen much of poverty, and despair, but I was not satisfied with the mere visits to those abodes of misery. I wanted to go among the people where the cry of starving children for bread drove mothers mad. I wanted to go where men lived like animals and girls cursed God and died, so I took a room in a low, miserable neighborhood, in the very heart of this wretched territory. I had one table and two chairs, and a little open grate fire.” Miss Booth then described the conversion of the sunken father of six children amid these surroundings. “I shall not be able to reach the height ruled by love,” she contin- ued. “Lend me the six wings of the angels spoken of by Isaiah and I cannot fly beyond the point where sympathy reigns.” Then the stage was darkened as the last part of the cross was put in place and the commander sank to her knees as the choir sang “Rock of Ages.”49

49. “Salvation Leader Preaches in Rags: Eva Booth Pleads Spectacularly to Big Audience in New York,” Pawtucket (RI) Times, January 29, 1906. Booth Women / 79

In April 1906, an event occurred which showed a different side of Eva Booth—an ability to take action on the spur of the moment—and enabled her to combine her dramatic talents with her leadership skills. She did so superbly during the great San Francisco earthquake of April 18, 1906—described as one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the United States. On that morning, at 5:12 a.m., San Franciscans were shaken from their beds by the awful sound of smashed timer as their homes began to crumble about them. Though the earthquake lasted for only a minute, the devastation was indescribable, made more horrific by the fire which lasted for four days and destroyed over 80 percent of the city of 410,000. Approximately 3,000 died and, as catastrophic, nearly 300,000 were left homeless. And, though they too had lost everything—the provincial headquarters, all social institutions and corps buildings—San Francisco’s Salvationists were involved in the ear- ly rescue operations, housing and feeding many thousands at their Oakland headquarters and their Beulah Park campground. In New York, Evangeline Booth quickly organized—and became the public face of—a massive Salvation Army relief campaign. Putting out the Army’s Christmas kettles across the nation, she appealed to Americans to help the Army help San Franciscans. On April 23, she convened a public meeting in New York’s Union Square at which more than 3,000 people listened to speech- es supporting the Army’s campaign. “I consider the object of this meeting,” she said, “to be the most worthy occasion in which I have been privileged to take part. The fairest of California was not her flower gardens, mighty struc- tures or fruit vines, but her people, in whose breasts there reigns that spirit which misfortune cannot quench or earthquake shake or fire consume. . . . Put your hand to the rope, throw your practical sympathy into some offering to the great sea of assistance that is going out to Frisco.”50 And her eloquence, said the New York Tribune, resulted in an on-the-spot collection of $2,116 which, combined with more than $2,200 already collected from the kettles, made an impressive beginning to the Army’s contribution to the relief effort. To raise an awareness of her scheme, Eva Booth decided that the annual congress in May would be an opportune moment to reprise her popular “The Angel of the Slums” performance, which she now called “The Tale of a Broken Heart,” the proceeds of which would be dedicated to the San Francisco relief

50. New York Tribune, April 23, 1906. R.G. Moyles / 80 fund. “‘The Tale of a Broken Heart,’” stated the New York Times, in an advance notice, “is something quite spectacular, as many may remember who have seen it. But at the Hippodrome tonight, with the big stage and the facilities at hand, Miss Booth and her staff expect to excel themselves in scenic and other effects. At the Carnegie Hall meeting a cross was formed on the stage fringed with electric lights, at the foot of which Miss Booth knelt as the woman in the ‘Rock of Ages’ picture. Tonight 216 Salvation Army soldiers will be on the stage in the shape of a great cross of white fringed with red. In front of this great symbol the woman in rags will tell her story of the slums.” The reporter added, “The big theater will be packed from gallery to orchestra.”51 And in- deed it was.

With Commander Eva Booth in rags, the centre of a spot light, her eyes turned upward, and in her hands an old accordion to carry out the picture of poverty and distress, the twenty-sixth annual congress of the Salvation Army was opened last night before an immense audience in the Hippodrome. With all the arts of the orator at her command, with the skill- ful use of lights and appropriate organ music, Miss Booth made a profound impression as she recited her story of the “Four Keys”—“Love,” “Sympathy,” “Sacrifice” and “Action.” Despite the size of the audience and its evident accord with the Commander and the spirit of the gathering, there was no unusual display of emotion either before or behind the foot- lights. With the substitution of the art of an expert stage manag- er there disappeared the familiar tumultuous religious methods of the lads and lassies in blue and red uniforms. The resounding booming of bass drums, the merry jingle of tambourines, the loud voices of the singers were absent. There was nothing of the old army that has been for twen- ty-six years such a picturesque feature of metropolitan life. There were not even the hearty and encouraging “amens” as Miss Booth reached her climaxes and fell on her knees with uplifted, clasped hands or crouched near the footlights as she

51. New York Times, May 13, 1906. Booth Women / 81

related a terrible story of the London slums. When the wide curtain dropped at 8 o’clock, disclosing the stage, at least forty calciums illumined the platform where sat the high offi- cers of the Army. And then came the first stage picture. The choir en- tered in hooded robes of red and white, and as they took their seats they formed a gigantic red-rimmed cross. On a terrace encircling the rear was the band that would furnish the music. But it was not the Salvation Army band New Yorkers know. It was balanced so well that the bass drums were entirely subdued, nor was a tambourine heard. The leader made the musicians play as if symphony critics were in the boxes. Then as the stage was filled with this grouping the lights were dimmed to blue, and through this shot a single brilliant calcium shaft, and Miss Booth was discovered in her rags, the accordion in her hands. To the front of the stage she walked with the slow step of a weary and disconsolate musician of the gutters and took her place in the centre of the stage, fifty slum workers in gingham dresses and muslin aprons spreading on either side of her. Miss Booth began with the simple statement that she had no apol- ogy for her rags. She had worn them and worked in them in the slums. Then, with a smile she told how two well-dressed men in a bus had looked at her curiously, and one of them had given her a half dollar, saying to the other that she had, perhaps, seen better days.52

By the end of May, The Salvation Army, through such efforts, had collected more than $25,000 towards the millions already collected by other agencies for the relief of San Francisco. To witness the devastation for herself, and to bolster the spirits of her soldiers who were working so hard at relief work (more than 30,000 people had been fed and some 9,000 provided with tempo- rary accommodation in Oakland), Eva made the long trip to San Francisco. And at a mass meeting on May 30 in Golden Gate Park, she assured both Salvationists and the public that the Army would continue both its evangel- ical and religious work in San Francisco. The Army had taken a new step

52. “Miss Booth Exhorts Salvation Congress: Tells Tale of the Slums: Hippodrome’s Great Stage is Elaborately Set and Calcium Lights and Music Increase the Effect,”New York Times, May 14, 1906. R.G. Moyles / 82 towards public service, and Evangeline Booth again became the face most readily identified with that service.

As she settled into her command, Eva Booth became ever more popular with the American public—a public that seemingly refused to see her grow older (saying that she was just 40 in 1912 when she was actually 47) and which still saw her as a “beautiful, lithe and athletic young woman” (though age was staking its claim). She continued to perform what she called her “refined spec- tacles” across the nation, variously advertised as “The Commander in Rags,” “The Shepherd,” “My Father” (a retrospective look at her father’s career after he died in 1912) and “The World’s Greatest Romance.” And it was these, and her many public appearances, which chiefly defined her public persona, for they were what the newspaper reporters loved to describe and, therefore, how the public saw her.

Ten thousand persons sat in the Greek theater this afternoon, while hundreds stood on the hillside or perched in trees, endur- ing discomfort and fatigue, but apparently heedless of both, while Miss Eva Booth, commander of the Salvation Army in the United States, delivered a marvelously eloquent address upon the theme of the Christian army’s triumph on earth and in heaven. Thou- sands who came to the theater at 3 o’clock, the time appointed for the exercise to begin, found the vast auditorium even then packed to the limit and were obliged to leave without even so much as getting [a] glimpse of the young woman whose skill as adminis- trator and power as orator have given her a unique place in the world of religion. It was estimated that 5,000 persons were denied entrance to the Greek theater, as the gates were closed when the crowd had filled the place. The novelty of seeing and hearing a world famous Salvation Army woman leader under such auspices and on such a stage, with Governor Gillett as one of her sponsors, attracted the great- est multitude that ever found its way to the university campus. . . . Booth Women / 83

Salvation Army soldiers, brass bands from Salvation headquar- ters, religious folk of all denominations, thousands of the merely worldly sort, and a great host of [the] curious made up the mul- titude that went to see and hear Miss Eva Booth. She was pictur- esque, fascinating, eloquent as those who have the royal purple gift of oratory, and her audience was but little less interesting, a medley the like of which never before was brought together in the Greek theater and possibly will never again be seen assembled there. . . . Her address held the crowded theater full of people enthralled for an hour. Slight in person though she is, her voice carried eas- ily to the remotest point in the big theater. She was interrupt- ed with applause, unusual in such a religious service, but which came spontaneously after the speaker had achieved the height of her eloquence. Her theme permitted of skillful word-painting and the expression of deep religious emotion. She told of the trib- ulations of the Christian army on earth, its glorious triumph in heaven and the splendor of the reward which awaits the faithful of Christ’s disciples. Miss Booth was robed in the blue uniform of the Salvation Army and over her shoulder hung a white belt, indicating her rank in the army she leads. She wore neither bonnet nor hat. The girlish effect of her appearance was enhanced by the view of a shapely head covered by a wealth of short, curly hair. Command- er Booth has the strong, prominent nose that marked her father’s, General Booth’s, appearance, and in her oratory the suggestion of General Booth’s forceful, effective platform methods is vividly brought up at times. Clean cut, incisive speech, a voice rich in the chords that when touched quickly inspire emotion, a knowledge of the arts of the skillful pulpiteer and an earnestness that is overmastering. Al- ways—these things are part of the Salvation Army leader’s equip- ment as an orator and all came into play this afternoon in her address to the mighty throng.53

53. “Miss Eva Booth, Eloquent Commander of the Salvation Army in America, Addresses Vast Concourse in the Greek Theater at Berkeley,”San Francisco Call, June 3, 1907. R.G. Moyles / 84

A reporter for the Boston Journal had this to say after a performance of “My Father” in that town:

“My father—my mother was his inspiration. Churches have ac- claimed him the world’s greatest evangelist; the world called him the greatest philanthropist; to the poor he was the greatest benefactor.” To upward of 3,500 men and women in Tremont Temple yester- day afternoon, Evangeline Booth, daughter of the founder of the Sal- vation Army, and herself a commander in its service, told the life sto- ry of the man who made in the world what is probably the greatest mark by peaceful means in the history of nations. Tracing from its humble beginnings in the slums of London the movement of the Salvation Army, she told of its spread, under the leadership of Gen. William Booth, over the civilized world. The his- tory of twenty years of privation, persecution and adversity, she de- scribed with word and pictures. Tears standing in her eyes, her voice shaken with emotion, she told of her father, whose favorite she was. When she came to the story of his death she broke down completely and for several min- utes was forced to interrupt her lecture. But with renewed strength she finished the story of his literal interpretation of the Golden Rule. Tremont Temple was crowded. For more than two hours she held the audience by the great strength and simplicity of the lesson she told. Her voice rang with her enthusiasm and her inspiration. When she wept, there were many men and women who wept with her. “My father,” she began, and was forced to pause because her eyes filled with tears and her voice trembled perceptibly. Quickly recov- ering herself, however, she continued the sentence—“held the entire planet as his field for work. By untiring and superhuman effort he reached many parts of it. Ever energetic and enthusiastic, in his last years of life he traveled thousands of miles in an unceasing effort to benefit humanity.” The impression created by Miss Booth upon her audience did not die at the close of her lecture. Though she retired immediately Booth Women / 85

when she had finished speaking, an awe-struck crowd hung about the doors of the building, waiting for her to come out. So great did the crush become that a score of police officers were required to clear the street.54

It must not be supposed, however, that Eva Booth devoted her whole time to theatricals and public lectures. She spent, as we saw, much of her first years as commander getting acquainted with her officers and soldiers and attending to the day-to-day business of the Army, especially its fund-raising efforts. Under her leadership—with the dedicated support of her senior officers—The Sal- vation Army made great strides forward. Social institutions were increased, an anti-suicide bureau was introduced, special campaigns against “booze” were conducted, Christmas charity was a signature effort, and public support (amid criticisms from some quarters) flourished. As for the evangelical wing, though less conspicuous, membership between 1906 and 1914, say historians, increased by almost 50 percent. Eva Booth was, everyone agreed, a capable and energetic commander. She was also—mainly by virtue of her public popularity and vibrant per- sonality—diligent in cultivating influential supporters for the Army’s social work, among whom she numbered President and Mrs. Taft. On occasion, in fact, President and Mrs. Taft, along with many members of the diplomatic corps, would attend one of her lectures, at which she would often take time to pay tribute “to the lives of Lincoln and McKinley, and [speak] of the great characters of history who had devoted themselves to the uplift of their fel- low-men.” She also took advantage of such encounters to further the cause of female enfranchisement (the right to vote not finally being granted until 1920), insisting that if women could vote, and even if some were elected as politicians, the country would be a better place.

“It is only fair that women should have the vote. Men have had it a long time. Why is it not the turn of women?”

54. “Men Weep at Story of Gen. Booth Told by Favorite Child,” Boston Journal, April 21, 1913. R.G. Moyles / 86

Thus spoke Commander Eva Booth of the Salvation Army last night in the Belvedere Hotel. She is here to deliver two addresses today. Governor Goldsborough will introduce her in the theater. Miss Booth has not been in Baltimore for more than a year, but recollection of her reception here upon the previous visit is vivid, and she retains a high regard for the hospitality of those she met on that occasion. If she has grown older, it is not apparent. Her tall, lithe figure and quick movements indicate the vigor for which every member of her noted family is famous. Her voice is clear, not high-pitched, and her accent is more American than English, although all her early train- ing was received across the sea. She wears the regular costume of the Army, the red epaulets being the only mark to distinguish her from the private in the ranks. Miss Booth delights in telling of the work of the Army, but in so doing likes to place herself in the background. She refers continually to her “excellent staff of officers” and the 75,000 trained soldiers who carry on the work of the organization in this country. When asked if the Army would take an active part in the cam- paign for “votes for women,” she replied: “I am afraid that we shall have to keep out of politics, although I would dearly love to see the ballot given to women. They should be allowed to try their hand at government, and my belief is that they would improve conditions. “Women must remember, however, that their highest work is in the home, where they can direct and train the youth of the country in the proper directions. Let them vote, but have them understand that the home must not be neglected.”55

It need not be supposed that every single newspaper mention of Eva Booth was favorable. There was, as a few of them suggested, some concern that she was changing the nature of Salvation Army worship—the drums and tam-

55. “She Leads 75,000: Thinks Women Should Vote,”Baltimore Sun, February 18, 1912. Booth Women / 87 bourines and loud singing were, in her meetings at least, not all that promi- nent. And it was further suggested that perhaps her private life did not accord with her public image. She lived, so one inquisitive reporter discovered, in a three-story mansion in Chappaqua, a Quaker district on the outskirts of New York, with 65 acres of grounds, a “retinue of servants,” and a large collection of dogs (ranging in estimates from 12 to 60). The dogs were not only annoying the neighbors (which drew attention to her seeming ostentation) but were making people “wonder if all these possessions square with the conduct of an entirely unselfish campaign of benevolence.” She had as well, it was reported, a cottage on Lake George, where she kept a horse and a 30-foot houseboat—all of which not only, she said, allowed her to keep fit (she was an avid horse- woman and swimmer)—but gave her privacy both for herself and her imme- diate staff. Not everyone agreed that it was all necessary. But, seen as part of the larger picture, such criticisms were mere minuscule specks on the Eva Booth landscape. For she was, by universal admission, the foremost female evangelist of her day, a brilliant administrator of Salvation Army affairs, and one of the most notable females in American society. She had certainly gained, as many observed, the cult of personality. “There are some,” wrote a reporter for the Seattle Daily Times, “who believe harsh things concerning the Booth family and the Salvation Army. There are some criticisms which seem to apply to them with a force which even their deeds have never been able to refute in terms of sufficient emphasis but we have never yet heard anyone say anything concerning the honesty, the zeal or the devotion to their cause of the women of the family which was worth listening to and of these women Eva Booth is certainly one of the most to be admired. She is a beautiful, cultured, zealous, self-sacrificing woman any man should be proud to protect and know. She is as good a woman as any sister a man ever had. She believes in her work and in the cause which her work represents as firmly as any sister ever believed in a brother—and that is saying a great deal. . . . There are some women wearing the uniform of the Salvation Army and many men in the same cloth whom we cannot admire but so far as Eva Booth is concerned no man can do aught save take off his hat to a good and beautiful woman who is devoting her life to a cause which the workaday world prefers to neglect and overlook.”56

56. Seattle Daily Times, November 19, 1909. R.G. Moyles / 88

Evangeline Booth—the daughter of the famous author of [In] Darkest England and the founder of the now world-wide Salvation Army—today occupies one of the most remarkable positions ever accorded to woman’s genius! Her wonderful personality entitles her to the place. As an evangelist she has few equals in courage, strength and energy, in fighting for the betterment, mentally, physically and spiritually, of the great masses of non-church-going people. As com- mander-in-chief of the Salvation Army in America, this Woman Ex- ecutive controls the destiny of a trained organization larger than that commanded by George Washington. . . . The Salvation Army flag, the street-praying bands, and the hal- lelujah lassies with their tambourines, have become familiar sights in both England and America. Not so many years ago, this strange army was regarded by the world at large as a nuisance, if not worse. Even the most liberal and broad-minded looked with pity upon the blue bonneted lassies—poor, misguided soldiers! But a remarkable change has been wrought in public opinion! Many things have com- bined to bring about this change, but one of the most potent factors has been—Evangeline Booth herself. Her earnest enthusiasm, rare gift of eloquence, high endeavor, and wonderful courage has enabled her from a slender, fragile child, to achieve many victories for the or- ganization, that even the founder and general of the Salvation Army himself could not have accomplished. . . . Not only has Eva Booth an exceptionally sweet voice, but she has more than ordinary musical talent, and had she devoted herself to music she would probably have made a celebrated musician. She is a proficient harpist—a poet, a dreamer; a gifted elocutionist who could have made a great actress and she could also have made a great playwright. Indeed, she has written religious dramas of no uncommon merit. Another accomplishment of this slender, frag- ile-looking girl, who has no appearance of the athlete, is that she is a daring and fearless horse-woman, and her favorite recreation is to mount her horse and go for a long blood-stirring gallop, such as Eva Booth’s horse is capable of, for no horse could belong to this Booth Women / 89

unusual young woman that cannot show speed. Today, as head of the Army in the United States, controlling her forces from Alaska to the Mexican border, from Atlantic to the Pa- cific, the wonderful executive ability of this young commander has universally won the respect and esteem of the nation.57

It is no wonder then, that, when America abandoned its neutrality and entered the war in April 1917, Eva Booth’s offer of Salvation Army auxiliary service should have been gratefully accepted.

In June 1914, when Evangeline Booth accompanied 700 American Salva- tionists to the international congress in London, she was probably aware of the European tensions then developing, though she gave no indication that she was. Instead, she enjoyed the moment, as she shared the spot- light with her brother, Bramwell, and often stole it, for the newspapers at home were as delighted with her personality as were those back in the United States. Remembering her youthful work in London’s slums, they called her “The White Angel” and lavished their affection on her, telling how, as she rode through the streets of London, “voices were raised here and there, calling ‘Miss Eva! Miss Eva!—do you remember me?’” She basked (though modestly some suggested) in the well-deserved adula- tion. When she returned home, however, she could not escape the fact that England and Germany were on the slippery slope towards war, making her dread the awful possibility that German and English Salvationists might meet on the battlefield. But when war was declared on August 4, 1914, and even though the United States chose to remain neutral, she made it clear that The Salvation Army would do whatever it could to re- lieve the horrors that the war inflicted on participating soldiers of all na-

57. “Salvation Army Lass Who is One of the World’s Greatest Women: Aristocracy and Mob Alike Yield to Personal Charm of Evangeline Booth—Brilliant Musician, Gifted Elocutionist and Daring Horsewoman,” Trenton (NJ) Evening Times, February 16, 1913. R.G. Moyles / 90 tions. In early November, therefore, she launched the “Old Linen Cam- paign” designed to prepare clean bandages for soldiers on both sides.

Commander Evangeline Booth, of the Salvation Army, who is on a brief tour of the South, will invite the cooperation of the citizens, especially the ladies, in each town she visits in her ef- forts to gather the nation’s old linen. The linen is to be used for bandages for the wounded soldiers in Europe. The French, English, Belgian and German ambassadors at Washington have written Miss Booth approving and commending the project. While it is called the “Old Linen Campaign,” linen is used as a generic term which includes cotton and any material that may be useful for bandages or which can be made into handkerchiefs for the use of men in the trenches. The material is gathered by Salvation Army workers in every section of the United States. The Army is aided by club and society women who have volun- teered their services. Miss Booth hopes to be able to especially interest the women of Augusta in this novel scheme. In conversation she said: “I think this old linen proposition is one of the most practical philanthropies ever undertaken by the Salvation Army. In letters from the foreign ambassadors at Washington and from other sources I get the information that a terrible dearth of hospital supplies is experienced wherever the wounded are undergoing treatment. “Our plan, which is already in operation, is simple in the ex- treme, but exceedingly effective. We have installed at 120 West Fourteenth Street, New York, a powerful and modern sterilizing plant. There, every Friday, about 200 women assemble. They cut and fold the linen in strips and, under the supervision of a competent physician, these are subjected to the sterilizing pro- cess. The linen is wrapped in especially prepared paper and on the outside covering is printed, under the crest of the Salvation Army, information in English, French, German and Russian, stating exactly what the packages contain. “The bandages are ready for immediate use by the doctors Booth Women / 91

or nurses in the field or in the hospital. I am told that in some hospitals there are only five doctors to every 5,000 wounded. Of course the service[s] of physicians are supplemented by the ef- forts of faithful nurses but when readily adaptable bandages are lacking the attendants are tremendously handicapped.” Miss Booth said that there is enough old linen discarded every month in the United States to make bandages and handkerchiefs for every man who is wounded in the trenches. She wants bed sheets, old table nap- kins, table cloths, pocket handkerchiefs, linen shirts and any and every kind of cast-off linen or cotton garment. She also wants as much gauze as every community can spare and all the available cotton batting. . . . The commander said 20,000 bandages had either been made already or were in process of preparation. The British and French liners will take the material to Havre, Liverpool, Southampton or other ports free of charge. “Naturally this is a neutral work,” said Miss Booth, “but because of the greater accessibility of the French ports and the fact that the bulk of the fighting is done on French soil, the bulk of the material will reach that country. But if we can get supplies to Germany and Russia these countries are welcome to them. Our effort is a humanitarian one and we only consider the sufferers and not the nations in whose cause they are suffering. God knows America has a great heart and I feel sure under the present distressful conditions that heart will further expand.”58

Occasionally, while Eva Booth was promoting her “Old Linen Campaign,” she would (for the photographers) don a nurse’s uniform. In April 1917, however, when the United States Congress voted to ally itself to the British cause (its ships having been sunk by German u-boats), she donned yet another uniform—an improvised khaki military uniform—to signal to the nation that her Army would fully support the American military. Even though, as she made quite

58. “Bandages for Use in Foreign War: ‘Old Linen Campaign’ which Miss Eva Booth Has in Charge,” Augusta (GA) Chronicle, November 8, 1914. R.G. Moyles / 92 clear, her Salvationists should “deplore all war” (save that against sin), and she regretted that Salvationists of opposing nations might fight each other, she ad- amantly affirmed that not only would American Salvationists take up arms to protect their families but that they would stand ready, “trained in all necessary qualifications in every phase of humanitarian work, and, to the last man, will stand by the President for the execution of his orders.” Almost immediately, therefore, she launched her War Services League and invited 500,000 Americans to join at 50 cents a head in support of the Salvation Army’s war effort. In just over a month the Army had collected over $10,000 and, with money borrowed from international headquarters, had enough to buy and equip 23 ambulances for service with the American troops in France; and she expected to raise another $100,000 in the weeks following. The Army, she said, would not only buy the ambulances but would also pay the expense of maintaining them while they were in service. It was a bold and decisive action, one which convinced influential people such as President Wilson and General Pershing that, in spite of some reserva- tions expressed by other military officials, The Salvation Army would indeed make a valuable adjunct to the military’s auxiliary services (the Red Cross and YMCA having been the two already chosen). And their confidence was not unjustified, for not only did the Army provide “rest and refreshment hutments” at bases across America, but at the 40 similar makeshift shelters near the war- front in France, staffed by hand-picked volunteers. Eva’s “doughnut girls” soon had American soldiers and their families back home, as their stories reached the American press, once again singing the praises of The Salvation Army. The “Hallelujah Lass” was transformed into “Sallie, the Doughnut Girl,” and was soon a central image of the American war effort.

A good many of us who hadn’t enough religion, and a good many more of us who mayhap had too much religion, looked rather contemptu- ously upon the methods of the Salvationists. So some have gone so far as to intimate that the Salvation Army was vulgar in its methods and lacking in dignity and even in reverence. Some have intimated that converting a sinner to the tap of a bass drum or the tinkle of a tambou- rine was an improper process altogether. Never again, though, shall I hear the blare of the cornet as it cuts into the chorus of hallelujah Booth Women / 93 whoops where a ring of blue-bonneted women and blue-capped men stand exhorting on a city street under the gas lights, without recalling what some of their enrolled brethren—and sisters—have done and are doing in Europe. . . . Among officers as well as among enlisted men one occasionally hears criticism—which may or may not be based on a fair judgment— for certain branches of certain activities of certain organizations. But I have yet to meet any soldier, whether a brigadier or a private, who, if he spoke at all of the Salvation Army, did not speak in terms of fervent gratitude for the aid that the Salvationists are rendering so unostenta- tiously and yet so very effectively. Let a sizable body of troops move from one station to another, and hard on its heels there came a squad of men and women of the Salvation Army. An army truck may bring them, or it may be that they have a battered jitney to move them and their scanty outfits. Usually they do not ask for help from anyone in reaching their destinations. They find lodgement in a wrecked shell of a house or in the corner of a barn. By main force and awkwardness they set up their equipment and very soon the word has spread among the troopers that at such-and-such a place the Salvation Army is serv- ing free hot drinks and free doughnuts and free pies. It specializes in doughnuts, the Salvation Army in the field does—the real old-fash- ioned homemade ones that taste of home to a homesick soldier boy. I did not see this, but one of my associates did. He saw it last winter in a dismal place on the Toul sector. A file of our troops were finish- ing a long hike through rain and snow over roads knee-deep in half- thawed icy slush. Cold and wet and miserable they came tramping into a cheerless, half-empty town within sound and range of the Ger- man guns. They found a reception committee awaiting them there— in the person of two Salvation Army lassies and a Salvation Army cap- tain. The women had a fire going in the dilapidated oven of a vanished villager’s kitchen. One of them was rolling out the batter on a plank with an old wine bottle for a rolling pin and using the top of a tin can to cut the dough into circular strips. The other woman was cooking the doughnuts, and as fast as they were cooked the man served them out, spitting hot, to hungry wet boys clamoring about the door, and R.G. Moyles / 94

nobody was asked to pay a cent. At the risk of giving mortal affront to ultradoctrinal practitioners of applied theology I am firmly committed in the belief that by the grace and the grease of those doughnuts three humble benefactors that day strengthened their right to a place in the Heavenly Kingdom.59

Reporter Frederic J. Haskin also wrote about the “Salvation Nell in the Trenches.”

Over a hundred Salvation Army girls from this country have discard- ed the blue poke bonnet, full skirt and tambourine for a khaki-colored uniform, and tin hat and a gingham apron. In this costume, with gas mask convenient, they are ready to meet shrapnel, mud and roaring hot kitchen fire while they prepare doughnuts and coffee for our men at the front. The Salvation Army works unobtrusively, but effectively. Since America entered the war 150 of its men and women have quietly gone to France to supply some of the soldiers’ needs, such as home-made pie, buttons sewed on to stay, a place to spend off-time duty, and, not the least important, disinterested advice. Close to the front lines, in dug-outs, cottages or made-to-order huts, they set up shop and hang out their signs. A kitchen stove is the most important item of equipment. A Salvation Army unit may struggle along with a well-behaved stove and no roof to cover it, but lacking a means of cooking, the most elaborate hut is a failure. For the Salvation Army speciality is cooking. Doughnuts, apple pie, cookies, coffee and cocoa—these the capable young cooks turn out in quantity every day for the edification of the American soldier to whom life without pie is a calamity. One girl’s record for doughnuts rests at 2,500 in a morning. Even 2,500 doughnuts do not last long in a line of hungry soldiers extending far down the road waiting its turn at the morning’s baking. At night, about the time when the soldiers are shifted, Salvation

59. “An Unsolicited Tribute to the Salvation Army,” The Evening Missourian, reprinted in The Saturday Evening Post, June 20, 1918. Booth Women / 95

Army lassies, escorted by officers of the organization, go on expedi- tions to the trenches, armed with coffee and baskets of pastry. As the men relieved from duty come out from the trenches the girls distribute their gifts. As one soldier says, “A cup of steaming coffee may not look like a luxury to the civilian, but to the tired, muddy soldier just out of the trenches it is the last word in material comfort.” One fact about these girls which the soldiers note and appreciate is that they are real workers with no fuss and feathers, going calm- ly about their work under fire, and infusing the elusive home atmo- sphere into the huts where they cook and sew. . . . Besides cheering up the soldier with home-made apple-pie, the workers keep open house for men off-duty. From 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. the huts are full of soldiers writing, playing checkers, reading, playing the gramophone or piano—if the hut is so fortunate to possess one—and making themselves comfortable at home. At one end of the structure, behind a counter where chewing gum and other necessaries are sold, sits the wife of the officer in charge. She furnishes information, ad- vice if asked, and help in any difficulty. She is a middle-aged woman, probably with sons on the firing line, and her motherly solicitude for a boy with a cold or the blues have made her an important element in keeping up the morale of the army, according to more than one army officer. Her husband, responsible for the hut, may be called upon to cook, draw water, conduct meetings, or visit hospitals. If his hut is near a hospital, he makes frequent visits to write letters and send messages. If he is stationed some distance from an army post office, he undertakes to send money to relatives for the soldiers. A receipt is given each man and the money is cabled to this country, together with a list of address- es to which the stated amounts are to be forwarded. On Sunday, undenominational religious services are held, to which the soldiers come in such crowds that other meetings have to be held in the middle of the week. These meetings, say the reports, are popular with the soldiers, especially with those about to go into the trench- es. Soldiers returning from trench duty prefer doughnuts to sermons, particularly at first, and the Salvation Army, understanding this, sup- R.G. Moyles / 96

plies the immediate need. Soldiers near the hut soon learn that they can call upon the young women to eliminate a hole in a coat sleeve or sock. The Salvation Army lassie usually “rests” with a bit of sewing in her fingers and a watchful eye on the stove. When she has a little extra time she gathers roses and daisies and goes out to the military cemetery to scatter flowers between the rows of white crosses. The Salvation Army was the first organization to dec- orate with flowers the graves of the soldiers.60

The doughnut became a symbol forever after tied to The Salvation Army:

The humble doughnut, alias the cruller, alias the fried cake, alias the “sinker,” finally has won a niche among the illustrious in the Hall of Fame. As long ago as the oldest ancestors among us could remember this more or less digestible bit of fried dough has occupied a distinct place among American foods, but, though it has survived many more pre- tentious offerings of the culinary art, it remained for the great war to give it opportunity to achieve the post of distinction it now holds. And it has gained this fond position only through the untiring ef- forts of the lassies of the Salvation Army to place it upon a pedestal, that all might gaze and render deserved homage. Just as soon as this country declared war against the Huns the Sal- vation Army in the United States determined to play an important part in looking after our boys in the war zones, and arrangements quickly were made to send considerable forces of men and women to Europe to open canteens and minister to our men at arms in every possible way. Even in the early days the program of helpful endeavor was made to embrace the cooking of innumerable doughnuts and the distribution among our fighting boys, and later the “kind of pie which mother used to make,” was added to the menu. With this plan in view, it was obvious that the Salvation Army lass- ies sent abroad must be able to cook, and a qualification necessary to

60. Frederic J. Haskin, “Salvation Nell in the Trenches,” Lexington (KY) Herald, July 25, 1918. Booth Women / 97

remain near the front was that the young woman must be able to turn out a certain number of doughnuts and pies a day. Three lassies—they work in shifts of three, one mixing, one cutting and one baking—must be able to turn out about 250 appetizing pies or about 2,500 doughnuts a day. When the first detachment of lassies arrived near the firing lines and began to turn out doughnuts by the thousand the French soldiers stood about watching in amazement. The dexterity of the cooks they characterized as juggling, and “Le jongleur” was heard on every side. The American soldiers think it is the greatest fun to assist in cook- ing the doughnuts, and they carry wood and water and help mix the dough. As quick as the doughnuts leave the boiling lard and the pies come out of the oven they are handed to the boys in khaki, who always are waiting in lines at times three blocks long. A quarter of a pie is cut. Rates are cheap. The lassies sell three big, fat doughnuts for about 5¢ each, and the portions of pie also are within reach of the soldier’s purse. At night the food is given away, for no money changes hands between sunset and sunrise.61

This service even inspired the following poem to be published by the Wash- ington Times.

My Doughnut Girl

In the glory of light That comes after the fight To hallow a nation’s brave, There stands forth a girl Who in war’s bloody whirl Helped the fighter this country to save.

Lassie! My Doughnut Girl! There in the battle’s mad swirl,

61. “The Doughnut Enters the Hall of Fame,”The Bourbon News (Paris, KY), November 19, 1918. R.G. Moyles / 98

Oh, how your smiles helped us through As we toiled in the trenches for the Red, White and Blue! Mother, sister and friend, You stuck to the war’s bitter end. We lift our helmets to you— My little Doughnut Girl!

When the shrapnel flew fast And our fellows were gassed You sang and baked and prayed, As we went back the line Of the Hun toward the Rhine Cheered on by the doughnuts you made.62

It is obvious, of course, that in much of this reporting, Eva Booth’s name does not appear; that, deservedly, the “doughnut girls” themselves—Hel- en Purviance, Margaret Sheldon, Irene and Gladys McIntyre, Gertrude McAllister, Katherine Holbrook, Ethel Renton and many others—com- manded a large share of the spotlight. But, it was always recognized that Eva Booth’s genius—her sheer audacity in borrowing and raising so much money to finance the Army’s war services—was the driving force behind it all. And when the war was over, it was her idea to take advantage of the nation-wide good will generated by that service to launch the most ambi- tious financial campaign in the Army’s history. The Salvation Army’s Home Service Fund campaign (May 19-26, 1919) asked the American public for $13,000,000, “every cent to be spent right here in America for rescue homes, orphanages, hospitals, lodging houses for the poor, day nurseries, infant shelters, industrial centers, free clinics and dispensaries, fresh air farms for tenement children, shelters for the aged and helpless, free employment bureaus, prison and rescue work, free ice and coal stations, comfort and aid for the boys who fought in the war,

62. “My Doughnut Girl,” Washington Times, February 23, 1919. Booth Women / 99 and for their families and relatives.”63 It was a bold request, but brilliantly pitched by the most imaginative kind of advertising the Army had ever employed (and perhaps would ever employ). In the last week of May, every newspaper in America featured full-page advertisements, and stories of the wonderful work the “Sallies” had done for the soldiers. Pictures were included of young women in tin hats (many posed for the purpose), some peering through large dough- nuts, and a proliferation of the Army’s now-famous poster with the Sal- vation Lassie sheltering a young girl in the folds of her cape, and of Evan- geline Booth herself in her American military uniform. At the kick-off so many symbolic doughnuts were baked that the campaign itself was popu- larly known as “Doughnuts for Dollars,” and it was stated that the first one baked by Eva Booth herself was, after it had cooled, auctioned for $550 and, when not eaten, it was re-auctioned for $5,500. The success of that financial campaign, which ultimately raised more than $16,000,000, marked the apogee of The Salvation Army’s popularity in the United States, and that of Eva Booth herself. On October 19, 1919, she was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by the United States government and in 1921 she received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Tufts College, Massachusetts. “She has,” read part of the citation for the first award, “been tireless in her devotion to her manifold duties. The contribution of the Salvation Army toward winning the war is con- spicuous, and the results obtained were due in marked degree to the great executive ability of the commander.” She was now, as she herself readily acknowledged, an American icon.

For the remainder of her command in the United States, Eva Booth, now entering her 57th year, was less the fervent evangelist and more a kind of elder stateswoman. She less often showed her flamboyant, theatrical side but often demonstrated her capabilities as an administrator and her wisdom as a leader (one who, some newspapers suggested, could run the country

63. Salvation Army advertisement appearing in many American newspapers. R.G. Moyles / 100 itself if she were allowed.) As an evangelist, though she traveled extensively and still drew vast audiences, she only rarely gave her “Miss Booth in Rags” performances, preferring instead to talk about “The Great Romance” of The Salvation Army, a less ambitious and less demanding production. And the newspaper reporters, who had seen it all before, and who had sung her praises sufficiently hitherto, though their affection did not wane, had little new to write about, except on notable occasions. The first such occasion, in 1922, was when Bramwell Booth let it be known that he would within the year issue Eva with her farewell orders from America. She had, of course, been there for 18 years and, in the course of Army affairs, it was only natural that she should be given another ap- pointment. Though, as some historians have pointed out, there might have been another reason: the Salvation Army in the United States was, in Bram- well’s opinion, becoming too powerful and, under Eva, too independent of London’s (his) authority. It was rumored, via the newspapers, that Bramwell would not send a national commander but would have the commanders of the three new territories recently created (Eastern, Central and Western) report directly to him. When the news broke, as indefinite as the replacement plans were (for Bramwell was a master of equivocation), both American Salvationists and the American public were outraged. From across the nation—from the most influential businessmen and politicians and from the highest ranks of the Army itself—the protests flooded the Army’s international headquarters. “To remove Miss Booth,” stated Myron T. Herrick, America’s ambassador in Paris, “would be as disastrous to the people of the country as to the Salva- tion Army in America.” With names like Herbert Hoover, John Wanamak- er, Henry Taft, Adolph Ochs, and even Rabbi Joseph Silverman attached to the cablegrams of protest, Bramwell Booth was literally battered by adverse public opinion. “She has,” they pointed out, “labored so long and with so much devotion, so much lofty idealism for the work of the Army in America that her personality is closely bound up with that of the great institution she has served so well. She has won the respect, the admiration and the affection of the American people, and in their minds the cause of the Army is closely associated with her personal efforts in its behalf. If she is recalled, it will be a great misfortune to the Army and to the country. We are sure the best Booth Women / 101 interests of the organization require her to stay in America.”64

J. Edgar Master, Grand Exalted Ruler of the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, today sent a cablegram to General Bramwell Booth, head of the Salvation Army at headquarters in London, condemn- ing in behalf of the B.P.O.E., the announced intention to remove Evangeline Booth as a commander of the American Salvation Army. “If the removal is enforced,” the cablegram says, “your ac- tion will greatly offend the intelligence of our more than 800,000 members as it will, I am sure, every friend of the Salvation Army in the United States. The order of Elks stood solidly back of Miss Booth in your army’s dark hour and claim the right to protect her removal from America where she has become an institution as well as an angelic personification of all that the Salvation Army means h e re .” 65

The Wilkes-Barre Times reported on the outrage amongst the ranks of American Salvationists:

The Salvation Army of America will break cleanly from the English parent organization and establish itself as an absolutely independent unit with Evangeline C. Booth as commander-in-chief if the “insur- gent officers,” who number 90 percent of the American Salvation Army, are able to translate their present plans into action. This revolt is the result of the “brutal and arbitrary” order of Gen- eral W. Bramwell Booth which he issued in London through the newspapers recalling his sister from the American command which she has held for eighteen years. Only one obstacle halts the insurgents. That obstacle is the loyalty of Commander Booth to the tradition of discipline instilled in her by her father, the founder of the organization. Against this barrier, is the pressure from insurgents within the organization and friends from without.

64. New York Times, November 11, 1922. 65. “Elks Protest Plan to Retire Miss Booth as Salvation Army Head,” Grand Forks (ND) Herald, September 30, 1922. R.G. Moyles / 102

“The spirit and blood of a soldier is in my veins,” said Commander Booth. “I have never had a thought of doing anything other than obeying orders, even when they entail a sacrifice. But I will say that I have never before been called upon to make such a sacrifice as this order of my brother entails.” Reports of bitter indignation have been pouring into New York headquarters ever since General Booth’s announcement about his sister’s removal has become known. The order was criticized first on the grounds of the “insulting and unmilitary” manner of issuance. It was first given to the press and then an official copy was sent to America. It was scored for its “heart- lessness” in the removal against her wishes of a commander who had been in America for 18 years. No excuse of organization custom could be given, as the officers with whom General Booth has sur- rounded himself in London have held their places for 20 or 30 years. But the fact that caused the move for independence on the part of the American Salvation Army was the decision by General Booth to have no national head in America and to divide responsibilities among three commissioners, each of whom would be individually responsible to London. This would prevent such unified work as the Salvation Army ac- complished in America during the war. It was this that caused the independence movement to gain ground so rapidly. “I am in absolute ignorance of where I shall be sent or how soon I shall have to go,” said Commissioner Booth today. “I have not yet had any definite word from my brother relative to my removal.” “Have you any reason to doubt that he intends to take you from America?” she was asked. “The newspaper statement was over his signature and I have no reason to doubt its authenticity,” she replied. “There is no command equal to that of America, either in respon- sibility or importance,” the commander replied when asked if her transfer could in any way be construed as a promotion. “Will not your brother’s decision to do away with a national head impair the loyalty of the organization?” she was asked. Booth Women / 103

During this part of the interview it was easy to see that the com- mander was making a sincere, but futile effort to defend her broth- er’s order and to protect the Salvation Army discipline. “The Salvation Army organization in America is in harmony with America’s ideal of national unity,” she replied. “The separate divi- sions achieve unity under a single national head. While my brother is doing away with our national head, I do not think he is doing this with any purpose to break up the Salvation Army organization in this country.” “But won’t the breaking up of the American organization be the sole and inevitable result?” she was asked. “Well I only hope it won’t then; in unity there is strength.” When asked about the strong sentiment in the Salvation Army in America which believes that it should break away from London control and ignore the recall, Commander Booth replied: “I have never had a thought of doing anything other than obeying orders, even when they entail a sacrifice. The spirit and blood of a soldier is in my veins. There are no influences that could make me rebellious to discipline. Obedience to this order is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. But I shall go.”66

In the end, of course, as the history shows, Bramwell Booth backed down. In a communique, issued on December 3, he claimed he had been misun- derstood, but still left the possibility that Eva could, within a year or so, be removed. That possibility, however, was never realized, for Eva had become too powerful, The Salvation Army under her command owning half the total property of the whole organization. Americans now loved her too much to let her go and in April 1925, as she celebrated the 20th anniversary of her term, they again re-affirmed their affection.

How Commander Booth maintains her vigor and vitality af- ter twenty years of continuous and tumultuous leadership in America and half again as many in other lands can best be seen in a brief glance at her private life. Her prescription for

66. “Salvation Army of America May Stage a Revolt: Indignant at the Order Calling Evangeline Booth to London,” Wilkes-Barre (PA) Times, October 13, 1922. R.G. Moyles / 104

“beguiling” the years, as she calls hard labor, is “the Bible, the newspapers, music, a saddle and living for others.” “It is unnecessary to grow old,” she declares, “unless one wants to. Recording birthdays is a very bad habit and should be discontinued by men as well as women.” Those who live with her in her modest home on the out- skirts of New York City are obliged to follow a vigorous pro- gram. For the young Eva long ago developed athletic habits that the middle-aged Commander Booth has not abandoned. On one of the coldest nights last winter she returned home from a speaking engagement about 11 o’clock and roused one of her assistants out of a warm bed for an hour’s skating on a near-by pond. The assistant groaned but obeyed. Last summer she swam every day at an up-state camp, and gave many of her young friends and neighbors expert pointers and demonstrations in fancy diving. Long-distance swimming is still a favorite diversion of this energetic woman, now well past 50, and one of her best endurance records in recent years was a little more than five miles. Not many months ago she beat a group of her younger friends in a one-mile run. When not out on the many speech-making journeys which are a large part of her task, Miss Booth spends hours in her flower garden. She is a great lover of nature, and finds recre- ation, she asserts, in spading her flower beds, planting seeds and pulling weeds. She has given up her saddle horse, but still plays tennis. Officials of the Salvation Army say that much of the Army’s popularity is due to Commander Booth’s personality and to her ability to make friends. Gifts to the organization of prop- erty and buildings have been made by many people who have watched the hard work and high spirit of this woman in the face of what a whole country at one time considered losing odds. Her faith in the cause which she came to sponsor when the mob in Cooper Union hissed her has never wavered, and her pluck has changed a hissing mob, if not in all cases into Booth Women / 105

followers, at least in most cases to admirers.67

Twenty years in, and her position was now unassailable. But it was one which was now beginning to create a rift between brother and sister—between the General and his most powerful subordinate (some might say more powerful than he was himself). That they were growing apart, both in terms of their modes of command and in their views regarding the future of the Army, was (though their discussions were kept secret) becoming known to the American public. When the Chief of Staff, Edward Higgins, and Commissioner Lamb both visited the United States at the same time, in September 1925, and both stayed at the same hotel as Eva Booth, it was generally believed they were am- bassadors from the General, perhaps trying to clarify her views regarding the reform measures she was now advocating. For not only was it clear that a personal rift had developed, it would soon become clear that Eva was actively promoting reform. Specifically, she wanted an end to the custom which allowed the General to appoint his own successor, believing that an election would produce a person more fit to command. And she also was growing tired of always submitting to the will and whims of Lon- don, asserting that greater autonomy should be given to the various territories. When she visited England in 1927, after having participated in an American Legion convention in Paris, she confronted her brother with her reform agenda, which Bramwell instantly rejected, and thereafter the rift widened and became more publicly known, with many senior officers supporting her position. In 1928, the Army’s highest-ranking officers realized that a crisis now exist- ed and it was time to act. On November 28, Commissioner Edward Higgins called into existence the first High Council, at the written insistence of seven commissioners, to convene at Sunbury Court, London, on January 8, 1929. The Salvation Army, in an unprecedented move, was willing to discuss reform and, if thwarted, was also willing to depose General Booth and elect its own leader.

67. “Salvation Army Celebrates ‘Miss Eva’: In Twenty Years She Has Led it from Itinerancy to Permanence,” New York Times, April 5, 1925. R.G. Moyles / 106

Commander Evangeline Booth, chief executive of the Salvation Army in the United States, sailed for London on the Olympic early this morning on a journey that may end in the removal of her brother, General Bramwell Booth, as international head of the Army and in her election to succeed him. Serious unrest has existed in the ranks of the Salvation Army in various parts of the world for several years because of the belief that the one-man system of government was not suited to present-day demands, and because of fears for the future of the Army if the governmental structure was not brought into harmony with modern democratic ideals and modern efficiency methods in administration, it is said in Army circles here. The reformers point out that a governmental system suitable to a small organization with forty-seven posts in the east end of London fifty years ago could not be expected to meet the demands of the tremendous international institution to which the Army has now grown, with more than 15,000 corps and out- posts, and with 23,000 officers and cadets, 100,000 local offi- cers, and many others in its ranks, in so many different parts of the globe. Moreover, they say, the “sealed envelope” appointment of Bramwell Booth received universal approval, as he had grown up with his father in Salvation Army work and was regarded everywhere as his father’s logical successor from the standpoint of ability, experience and temperament. On the other hand, the reformers assert, none of Bramwell Booth’s children stands in the same relation to him with respect to training and experience as he stood to the founder. . . . These views, together with other arguments dealing with more technical and legal aspects of the problem, have been pre- sented to General Booth by the reform element through Com- mander Booth. The reformers selected her as their spokesman because of her family relationship to the General, because of her more than twenty years’ successful administration of Army af- fairs in the United States, and because of her lifelong and world- wide experience in the Army, dating back to the early days when Booth Women / 107

the Army was subject to bitter persecution.68

Eva Booth denied any intention to secede from the international Salvation Army movement, regardless of the outcome of the high council.

Commander Evangeline Booth announced decisively tonight that the American Salvation Army, of which she is the head, will not se- cede from the organization even if an American General is not ap- pointed to succeed General Booth. The question was put to Commander Booth by an interviewer who received this prompt reply: “There is no question of secession. Nowhere in the Army is the international spirit stronger than in America. We feel perfectly safe in leaving our destinies and the army’s destinies in the hands of the High Council. America does not come with a grievance. It is satisfied with its representation on the High Council.” The headquarters of Commander Evangeline Booth tonight clari- fied for the Associated Press several obscure points regarding the at- titude of her followers in connection with the forthcoming meeting of the High Council. This meeting has been called to decide whether Miss Booth’s brother, General Bramwell Booth, shall continue as command- er-in-chief or whether he shall be replaced and the constitution of the world-wide organization shall be changed. Epitomized, this is what Miss Booth’s headquarters had to say: There is no split in the Army but there is admittedly a decid- ed difference of opinion anent future control of the organization. The two groups are headed respectively by Bramwell and Evange- line Booth. The Evangeline Booth group claims that the General is physically unfit and should be replaced; that the present scheme whereby he is practically absolute as ruler of the army is wrong; that the constitution should be altered so that the control of the organization would be taken out of the hands of one family and

68. “Miss Booth Sails to Demand a New Head for Salvation Army: As Reform Leader She Has the Support of Our Delegates to High Council Meeting,” New York Times, December 23, 1928. R.G. Moyles / 108

placed under control of an independent group. Miss Booth’s followers, who are said to include the entire Ameri- can section, think she is the logical successor to her brother.69

The results of the High Council’s deliberations—its eventual (after much heart-searching and some family wrangling) deposition of Bramwell Booth and its first election of a General (in this instance, Edward Higgins)—is now a matter of history. The Salvation Army, thanks largely to Eva Booth’s influence and action, had entered on a new, more democratic, form of government. Her leadership of the reform movement had not, of course, been without its critics—especially the Bramwell Booth family itself and some British news- papers which argued that she did so purely for personal reasons. So decided was the family in this opinion that they refused to allow her to see her sick brother before she returned to the United States. To those accusations many Americans took offence and, in defense of Eva’s integrity, they responded as follows.

No one who knows Evangeline Booth, Commander of the Salva- tion Army in the United States, can fail to understand the peculiarly trying position that the great growth and development of the orga- nization has, inevitably, led her into—a position that forced upon her one of two alternatives. The one was comparatively easy and in accord with the family affection and with a certain line of tradition which would not have been too impossible to have continued for the immediate present, at all events. The other was difficult, not only in its leading away from much that is sacred and beautiful in life, but also in its possibilities for misconception of her motives. It seems as surprising as it is regrettable that this misconception should be formulated and asserted by the family of Gen. Bramwell Booth; such an attitude is inconsistent with the general impressions and estimates of the character of his wife and daughter which have always been of a high order. The misconception is one peculiarly hard for Commandant Evangeline Booth to meet, because, on the surface, to persons unfamiliar with the special problem involved,

69. “Evangeline Booth Denies Secession,” New York Times, January 1, 1929. Booth Women / 109 a superficial contact with the outer and immediate circumstances would suggest just this totally erroneous view—the view that the sister wished to depose the brother out of mere personal ambition. Nothing could be more remote from the truth than such a surmise, and nothing could be more impossible to the American commander. As has been said, to those who know Evangeline Booth, no act or mental attitude of hers would ever need explanation or interpre- tation. The confidence in her spiritual uprightness is too complete; too reinforced by her work as well as by her personal life. But the superficial view, while it is immediately dispelled by further illumi- nation, may also be revealed as having no basis. The founding of the Salvation Army, by the father of Gen. Bramwell and Commander Evangeline Booth, was, in its first inception, almost a family affair. It was so individual that it was hardly more than a domestic event. It was, what shall one say? The call of the divine love for aid to those to whom no aid had been given? Did he not respond as one of old, “Lord; Here I am, send me”? The first inception of the Salvation Army was like the sowing of a mustard seed. The marvelous proportions to which the work has developed exceed description. But that this organization can no lon- ger be limited to a family surveillance is too obvious to require any argument. With her far-seeing comprehension, Evangeline Booth discerns this. Like all organizations, the Salvation Army must be brought into conformity with modern conditions. It cannot longer be maintained on patriarchal lines. The redemptive energies take on new forms. It is unfortunate that Gen. Booth could not, himself, have discerned the signs of the times. The gentle counsel of Lord Da- vidson (the former archbishop of Canterbury), was one of practical wisdom, but to it Gen. Booth did not respond. His illness may be partly responsible. Be this as it may, the Salvation Army will always hold in mind his long years of faithful and devoted service that merit appreciation. The life of Evangeline Booth reveals a remarkable combination of the consecration and self-sacrifice for which all words are too poor; and of an intellectual vigor and brilliancy, and a rare balance R.G. Moyles / 110

of judgment and common-sense, that have made her leadership one of constantly increasing creative activity. Her personality, with its intense and winning tenderness, its freedom from any mere senti- mental emotionalism, its joyous and beautiful responsiveness, its generous and lofty outlook—all these qualities, all the beautiful gifts that would have made her a noted figure in literature; or as a lecturer, on general themes, whose eloquence, wit, grasp of realities, and wide knowledge of science, of economics, of statecraft, whose power in this work would have made her one of the most valuable among the influences for human welfare—all these, all that she is and aspires to, are transfigured by her faith. This faith in humanity, and in God’s purposes for each and all, is creative in its energy. “There is no down and out,” she says; “a man may be down, but he is never out.” It is on this basis that she works with the recuperative magic of faith. Personal consecration to the Holy Spirit is a power invincible; neither life nor death, nor things present, nor things to come can prevail against the consecrated en- ergy and it is that power which is the mainspring of the life of Evan- geline Booth.70

When Evangeline Booth returned to the United States after her prominent participation in the Army’s first High Council, she did so as both a happy and sad woman—happy that the High Council decision would eventually result in seeing some (but not all) of the reforms she had worked for put into ac- tion; but sad because the family had again been divided and she had not been permitted to see her brother. And many Americans shared the same mixed emotions: they were disappointed that Eva had not been elected General but they were extremely pleased that she would remain in America. The mixed emotions were quite evident at her “welcome home” meeting.

With tears trickling down her cheeks, Commander Evangeline Booth told last night at a “welcome home” meeting in Mecca Tem- ple of the meeting of the High Council of the Salvation Army near

70. Lilian Whiting, “Miss Evangeline Booth: A Tribute to the Salvation Army Leader,” Springfield (MA) Daily Republican, March 25, 1929. Booth Women / 111

London in January and February in which she brought about the deposition of her brother, Bramwell Booth, as General and started a complete reform of the organization. George W. Wickersham and Commissioners of the Army joined in tributes to her. With many of the uniformed Salvationists and others in the audi- ence weeping, Miss Booth told of her love for her brother and said she had been prevented from seeing him. “The most painful wound of all that I brought back from London,” she said, “was that, though I pleaded and pleaded and got others to plead and promised only to stand in the doorway and not to go near him, his wife would not permit me to see him. I still believe that I could have persuaded him to resign. If I were to receive word from London that I would be permitted to see him, I would start back tonight.” Commissioner William Peart, retired, of California, who was Miss Booth’s secretary for twenty-four years, said the British accused her of selfish motives and charged the America delegation with wishing to “boss” them. He said the “insidious propaganda” had been “put out for the purpose of undermining every influence of ours, both in London and in the High Council.” All the speakers asserted that Miss Booth’s one objective was the welfare of the Salvation Army. Mr. Wickersham paid tribute to Miss Booth’s course of action and to the wisdom of William Booth, her father and founder of the Army, in providing for such an emergency. Other speakers were Lieut. Commissioner Richard E. Holz, Com- missioner John McMillan and Commissioner William A. McIntyre. About 1,000 persons attended.71

It has been suggested by at least one historian that, by the 1930s, Eva Booth “began to fade from view.” That statement is difficult to justify, at least as far as her public image was concerned. For, during the Depression when The Salvation Army itself struggled to “make ends meet,” she was as conspicuous

71. “Salvationists Greet Commander Booth,” New York Times, March 8, 1929. R.G. Moyles / 112 as ever, and more determined than ever to alleviate suffering. And during her final years as Commander she conducted several noteworthy campaigns and traveled widely across the nation and across the Pacific Ocean. She was, indeed, almost constantly in the news. In May 1930, for example, the Army, and Evangeline Booth, were front- page stories as the golden jubilee of the Army’s warfare in America was cele- brated in grand style. In the music festival, attended by 3,000 people, the Ar- my’s massed bands played a new march, “The Salvation Army,” composed and conducted by the great impresario John Philip Sousa himself, who dedicated the march to Commander Evangeline Booth. And on the following day, an- other 3,000 (no doubt many of the same as the night before) met for a service at Battery Park where, 50 years earlier, the Army’s “eight pioneers” (George Scott Railton and his seven “hallelujah lasses”) had unfurled the Army’s flag in America. TheNew York Times described the event as follows:

Twenty bands played for thirteen divisions of the parade, headed by an open automobile in which Miss Booth stood to received the cheers given in recognition of the twenty-fifth anniversary of her leadership. Salvation Army members from all sections of the coun- try followed, dressed in uniforms or costumes appropriate to their territory, and three floats added to the mass of colors. The procession was welcomed at City Hall in the name of Mayor Walker by Ten- ement House Commissioner William F. Deegan. Foremost among the guests at the Battery services were two pioneers of the Salvation Army movement in the United States. One of these, Field-Major Emma Westbrook, was one of the seven who landed at Castle Gar- den on March 10, 1880, with Commissioner George Scott Railton, sent by General William Booth to establish the Army here. The other was Mrs. Commandant Eliza Symmonds, who as Eliza Shirley came from England in 1879 with her family, an unofficial group which laid the foundation for the Army work in Philadelphia. . . . In the colorful parade up Broadway, one of the most popular sec- tions was the float on which “Miss Los Angeles” stood in a gigantic artificial orange, throwing out flowers to the spectators. The Florida division had a float representing Ponce de Leon and his band of ex- Booth Women / 113

plorers. The third float depicted the Army slogan, “A man may be down, but he is never out,” with an Army soldier and a lassie taking charge of a tramp on a park bench. The Kansas delegation bore a banner inscribed, “Prohibition produces prosperity.” Red, blue and yellow umbrellas carried by the Western group rivaled in vividness the Indian, Mexican and cowboy costumes worn by representatives from the Southwest, the white of the Hawaiian delegation and the bright yellow and blue uniforms of a woman’s band, while many Salvation Army and American flags added additional color.72

At the six-day congress, Eva Booth was honored by The Salvation Army by being awarded the Order of the Founder, and by the president of the United States, Herbert Hoover, who sent the following message: “The fiftieth anniversary of the work of the Salvation Army in the United States and the twenty-fifth anniversary of your command is not only an occasion for con- gratulations to you, which I cordially extend, but to the country as a whole, which has so largely benefited by the humanitarian activities and high ideals which you and the Army have consistently advanced. I am sure the heart of the country goes out to you in spontaneous gratitude and good wishes.” And, as she celebrated her years of service, and as she opened the new $2,500,000 headquarters, congratulatory messages poured in from many of the leading citizens of America. In the summer of 1931, Eva organized her first “gospel motor tour” through four eastern states—New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The mo- tor entourage, including six automobiles and a large bus, transported the commander, a large staff (including Commissioner and Mrs. John McMillan) and the territorial staff band. In all, 60 communities were visited, 85 meetings were held and Miss Booth preached over 12 days to some 127,000 people. She was again the much-celebrated “Miss Booth,” who, when she returned to the usual welcome in New York, had her right arm in a sling (from too much “handshakeitis,” she said) and a big bouquet of roses which had been dropped to her from an aeroplane by the mayor of Allentown, Pennsylvania, along with a note of welcome.

72. New York Times, May 18, 1930. R.G. Moyles / 114

The “noble commander” (as she was now often called) had clearly not -re ceded into the background of American religious life. For the next three years, until she was elected General of The Salvation Army (on September 3, 1934), she continued her public appearances, being feted and honored, and speaking on many varied subjects from the value of prohibition and the benefit of a League of Nations to the role of women in public life. And when she was elect- ed General, the whole nation considered that it was “one of their own” who had been accorded a great honor. TheNew York Times reported: “Americans have special reason to be pleased by the election of Miss Evangeline Booth as Commander-in-Chief of the Salvation Army. A large part of her eminent service has cast her lot in this country. Here she has made herself an admired and respected figure, not alone because of the work of rescue and relief which she has ably directed, but also on account of the fine personal qualities which have won for her so many friends in all walks of life. She herself declares that it gives her a ‘pang’ to think that she must leave America for a time. But when- ever she returns she may be assured of a welcome which her new honors may enhance but cannot make more cordial and sincere.”73 That sentiment was ostentatiously endorsed when Eva Booth returned to New York to settle her affairs before taking up her new duties. When the steamship Leviathan docked, Eva was met by more than 200 of New York’s leading citizens for a welcome orchestrated by Mayor LaGuardia himself. The harbor was filled with boats, with Salvationists, whose sirens often drowned out their welcomes. A city-owned fireboat sent showers into the air, and from the sky the well-known female aviator, Ruth Nichols, dropped hundreds of roses in the vicinity of the arriving General.

After the Riverside and the other craft had landed, a parade was formed. It included a band and company of the Sixteenth U.S. Infantry, a detachment from the U.S.S. Chester, police, firemen and hundreds of Salvation Army members in uniform. The march up Broadway was between sidewalks crowded with people, but only a scattering of the old welcoming cloud of ticker tape fell from the buildings along the way. At City Hall General Booth was first welcomed by Mayor

73. “The New Commander,”New York Times, September 5, 1934. Booth Women / 115

LaGuardia in his reception room but after that the ceremony was moved to the City Hall steps where microphones and mov- ing-picture cameras had been set up. Mr. Patterson introduced Mayor LaGuardia, who said: “My personal welcome, General Booth, was presented to you on the ship by Mr. Patterson. May I now extend to you the official wel- come of the city of New York, and its congratulations. You are the General of the greatest and most useful army that was ever orga- nized or commanded. When the armies of the world can dedicate themselves to humanity, as does your Army, then we will have reached the millennium.74

When we see that nearly 20,000 people crowded into Madison Square Garden in New York, and nearly as many came to say their farewells in Chicago, we can confidently conclude that Eva Booth was truly loved by the American people. For nearly 30 years, from 1905 to 1934, she had been the public face of The Salvation Army in America. Her penchant for the- atre and music, and her ability to use it to promote the Christian religion; her personal charm; her voice of reason heard so often on many civic oc- casions; her manifestation by example of what women could achieve; and her noted executive brilliance all endeared her to the American people as they read about her in their leading newspapers and magazines. And when they went to see and hear for themselves, they were never disappointed.

74. “Evangeline Booth Welcomed by City,” New York Times, September 15, 1934.

Booth Women / 117

AFTERWORD

The Salvation Army in America came to prominence as an evangelical mission, and sustained that prominence, partly (some would even say mainly) because it allowed women to share in that ministry as preachers, special evangelists, social workers, and spiritual counselors. Though most of them were not as gifted, and certainly not as prominently placed, as the “three Booth women,” they were, be- tween 1886 and 1934, constantly inspired by their passion and persuasiveness. They often modeled their careers on those of Maud, Emma and Evangeline. And, in the communities they served, they too were often celebrated for their daring and dedication. In her impressive statement on female ministry, Catherine Booth, the moth- er-in-law of Maud, and the mother of Emma and Evangeline, wrote this: “Judg- ing from the blessed results which have almost invariably followed the ministra- tions of women in the cause of Christ, we fear it will be found, in the great day of account, that a mistaken and unjustifiable application of the passage, ‘Let your women keep silences in the Churches,’ has resulted in more loss to the Church, evil to the world, and dishonor to God, than any of the errors we have already referred to.”75 Her own daughters, Emma and Evangeline, and her daughter-in-law, Maud, were living proofs of that claim, and the inspiration they provided to countless other women, both in the Army and in the American community, was inesti- mable. By recounting their stories it is hoped that they might again inspire a whole new generation of Salvationists, both women and men.

75. Catherine Booth, “Female Ministry” (1873), reprinted by The Salvation Army (1975).