Salvation Jubilees

Evangeline Cory Booth, Commander of the Salvation Army in the U. S., passed some of the brightest days of her life last week. She led some 4,000 Army men and women assembled in Manhattan through the climax of celebrating two jubilees--the golden anniversary of the Army's 1880 "invasion" of the U. S. (TIME, March 24) and the silver anniversary of her taking command in the U. S. (1904). Herbert Hoover sent her greetings. Lou Henry Hoover sent an armful of roses. Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt of New York regretted that he could not attend the celebrations but his wife presided at one of the meetings. Mrs. Coolidge sent a telegram. So did Viscountess Astor of England and Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick of Illinois. Henry Waters Taft, head of the Army's New York City Advisory Board, helped Commander Booth dedicate a new building in Manhattan, the Centennial Memorial Temple, costing $2,500,000. Financial Broadway cast ticker tape on a parade of Salvationists. John Philip Sousa composed a march and led massed Army bands playing it. Not since the late King Edward VII invited her father, the late William Booth, Methodist founder of the Salvation Army, to his coronation (1902) and thereby made street-corner soul-saving a socially commendable labor, has a time been so happy for Miss Booth.

Next Christmas she will be 65. Last week she looked her age. She wept at the dedication of the Memorial Building, recalling events of 50 years ago when she was helping her father set the Army going in England. Hoodlums, hecklers and police would break up their street meetings. To be among the lowliest poor, she lived in filthy tenements. Her clothes were ragged.

She earned money as a flower girl and match-seller. She would clout fighting drunkards apart, would take stray babies to her own bed.

She has many just prides--that she is neither an ascetic nor recluse,* that her U. S. Army is wealthy in property and deeds. Meticulously she keeps tab of her U. S. work. Last year it totaled: 1,735 corps, 4,814 salaried officers, 24,881 unpaid local officers, 124 industrial institutions, 35 maternity homes and hospitals, 10 children's homes.

Such accomplishments she meant when, in vigorous exhortation, she cried: "We've arrived at last! Such a journey we've had! . . . The Salvation Army is now an empire without frontier. But our work is not finished. March on until Paganism has burned its last idol and Mohammedanism has renounced its false prophet and Christianity prevails everywhere."

* Excerpt from a biographical sketch (by The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography): "She has pronounced athletic tastes, is an accomplished horsewoman, swims and dives as another diversion, plays the harp, and is devoted to animals and birds. She is withal a poet and composer. . . ."

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