SALVATIONISTS & SECRET SOCIETIES.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 April 1924, Page 4

SALVATIONISTS & SECRET SOCIETIES.

NEW YORK, Feb. 26

The dissemination of orders approved by General Bramwell Booth in London, calling upon all Salvation Army officers to sever their connections with any secret societies of which they may he members, lias created a profound sensation in the United States. General Booth is now on the way to India. Consequently it is impossible for anyone in America to communicate with him except by wireless. Yet the issue which his orders have broached is regarded as so important that it may not impossibly result in the secession of the American branch of the Salvation Army.

The New York World, which maintains the closenC touch with Salvatioiz Army officers in this country, states that they interpret the general’s orders as a renewal of the attempts to make the three great divisions of the army which are under tlio command of Evangeline Booth tributary to London. This interpretation is disputed by Commissioner Estill, of New York, who says that the association of officers with secret societies lias long been a source of anxiety here. The fact remains that a large percentage of American Salvation Army officers are either Fretmasons or belong to the Elks or other societies which are described in the orders published in the Salvation Army Staff Review as “openly worldly" and as condoning habits, such as the use of intoxicants, which are “too often at variance with our teaching and standard.”

These societies have been liberal contributors to tile funds and work of tlie Salvation Army in America. During the war their co-operation was particularly close. Buildings which have boon erected in nearly 1,000 cities in the United States have been built with money largely raised by them.

.American Salvation Atlny officers contend that to antagonise them would fatally cripple the operations ol the army.

General Bramwell Booth is spoken of with the utmost reverence in this country, but there is a widespread impression that lie fails lo understand tlio peculiar problems of America, which are very diflerent from those of England. The best friends of the Salvation Army are convinced that the existing differences can only be healed by a visit to the United States by the general. Without such visit it is feared that tlio cry of British domination is destined to spread. At the Salvation Army headquarters in London last night Commissioner Higgins, the Chief of the Staff, said :

The Salvation Army has always considered that for its officers to be associated with any other organisation was not eonduieve to the freedom necessary for the furtherance of the objects for which the organiastion exists.