Field-Major Emma

Fifty years ago last week, seven black-coated women and one man landed in Manhattan from a trans-Atlantic steamship, proceeded to Castle Garden (present site of New York's aquarium), knelt in prayer. Rubberneckers observed that the women's straw hats were circled with crimson ribbons lettered in gold. Later in the week the troupe sang, prayed and sermonized between performances of Uncle Tom's Cabin at Harry Hill's Gentleman's Sporting Theatre, Billiard Parlor & Shooting Gallery in the Bowery. Admission price was 25-c-. The troupers refused any share of the profits, saying that Harry Hill's money was the Devil's.

These eight people constituted the Salvation Army's first invasion of the U. S. Only one was alive for last week's golden anniversary: Field-Major Emma Westbrook, 86, onetime corps officer at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Last week she went down to the Battery to help the Army. She still actively bangs her tambourine in the corps of Yonkers, N. Y. To newsgatherers she related how her first U. S. convert was an unfortunate who, ejected from a saloon, had landed head down in an ash barrel. Peering over an improvised rostrum at a great throng she cried: "We began here 50 years ago, and always we'll go on. Hallelujah!"

From its eight founders, the Salvation Army of the U. S. has developed into an organization numbering 1,735 corps, with 4,814 salaried officers, 24,881 unpaid local officers, 124 industrial institutions, 35 maternity homes and hospitals, 10 children's homes, an Army well equipped to make good use of the $2,500,000 work fund for which a campaign began last week.

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