Salvation Rift

On every corner the world around they took their stand last week as usual, just after nightfall. Tambourine shook, cornet squealed, trombone grunted. The thin bleat of pinched spinster voices, shrilling from time to time in accents of wailing fervor, took up the immemorial hymns. "Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb . . .?"

In all its gutters from Frisco to Bombay, Melbourne to Cape Town, the Salvation Army was on the job, inviting harassed and stricken souls to the peace which passeth understanding, doling alms. Some were saved and some scoffed; but neither gave three thoughts to a lonely old man in an isolated cottage in Southwold, Suffolk, who spent last week some harassed, stricken nights. He was General William Bramwell Booth, commander of the Salvation Army.* He was afraid of his sister, Commander Evangeline Booth of the Army in America.

Once he sought to depose her. Now she had come to London seeking to depose him.

Word of her arrival was kept from Brother Bramwell at first. Physicians who had cared for him for two years, ill with nervous collapse and enfeebled by his 72 strenuous years, said he could not stand the shock. But finally, fearing lest the moil and ferment at international headquarters should come in some more violent manner to his ears, his wife and his daughter, Commissioner Catherine Booth, gently informed him.

His tired head with its tossing white mane slumped back on the pillow. "Whatever people may think . . . they must feel this is rather rough on me."

Family Rows. Whatever causes were alleged, twice the family of General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, has been bitterly estranged, in each case over management of the American Army.

Brother Bramwell was his father's chief of staff in 1896 when the first break took place. A brother, Ballington Booth, was in charge in the U. S. With his wife he was very successful, made many friends. Nonetheless Father William Booth abruptly ordered him home. Brother Ballington refused to obey, resigned from the Army, organized the Volunteers of America in rebellion. The Volunteers are still in existence, although not at all powerful.

Commander Evangeline Booth was sent to take up the work in the U. S.

Eight years later Father William died. In the hands of executors he left a sealed envelope. It was solemnly torn open. Inside was the name of Brother Bramwell, nominated General of the world-wide tambourine Army in dynastic succession to Father William.

Before long Brother Bramwell became dissatisfied once more with the management of affairs in the U. S. In 1922 his differences with Commander Evangeline became acute. He sent her the same message which Father William had sent Ballington: get ready to come back to England. Commander Evangeline sent him the same message Ballington had sent Father William: I won't. This time, friends in the U. S. made things so hot for Brother Bramwell that he saw fit to reinstate his sister.

Meanwhile the American Army had grown until it represented more than half the strength of the whole terrestrial organization. Its properties were appraised at a reproduction value of $37,000,000. It could make use of 150,000 tambourines, to give one each to all its lads and lassies.

Democracy. A power greater in many ways than the Pope's was left in Brother Bramwell's hands. He could elevate or demote officers at will. He was sole trustee of all Army properties in England and Australia. By scribbling a name on a slip of paper he could nominate his successor.

This last Brother Bramwell is supposed already to have done, and it is rumored that the glittering name is that of his daughter Catherine, now 42.

Having defeated Brother Bramwell's effort to depose her, Aunt Evangeline suddenly took the offensive. She led a movement to lop away Brother Bramwell's autocratic power, and make the office of generalissimo hereafter elective rather than dynastic. Invoking the memory of Father William, Brother Bramwell rejected all such proposals. Then he fell sick.

A meeting of the High Council, composed of the 63 Army commissioners, was called. It had never met before. Its sole function is to oust an unfit leader, choose a fit one.

Bon Voyage. At distant ports on seven seas the Commissioners, panting, embarked for London. At New York Aunt Evangeline, shedding her army uniform and taking an assumed name, departed secretly on the Olympic. Reluctantly she left behind her horses, dogs and Pekingese pup Tiny, for British quarantine regulations denied their entrance. Arriving in London, she was not granted permission to see her sick brother. She engaged a suite at the Howard Hotel. Flowers sent by friends, baskets heaped with fruits, made it a bower. Niece Catherine did not send gifts.

At international headquarters Aunt Evangeline inquired for Niece Catherine. Niece Catherine sent word she would be down presently, and then departed privily by a side door for home. Eventually the two did meet, but what passed between them was kept a family secret.

As the commissioners arrived one by one speculation was furious. Aunt Evangeline and Niece Catherine were both named as candidates for Brother Bramwell's sabre. But it was reported that the sick man saw the writing on the wall and would resign, at the same time tossing under the ingle-log the fateful envelope with his name of names. It was acknowledged that the Army had reached the gravest crisis of its history, with reorganization ... or, at worst, disorganization ... to result.

The High Council was called to order at Sunbury on the Thames, the Salvation Army's West Point, 23 miles from London.

Sighed Brother Bramwell: "I've always loved the Army. And I've done my best for our people. . . ." ^

*Tradesmen in the neighborhood of the Southwold cottage stated that General Booth assumes the name "Bernard" when retiring there for rest. When Salvation Army members visit him they take off their uniforms, appear in plain street clothes.