Salvation Crisis

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 591, 18 February 1929, Page 14

Salvation Crisis

KEEN REVIEWER WRITES Able Bramwell Booth SUCH tilings will happen. But it would be a sad ami pitiful thing were the Salvation Army so to act as to tear itself to pieces before ihe face of all people (writes "One Who Knows” in the “British Weekly"

I bring no charge of conspiracy against the seven commissioners who have summoned the High Council. I do not doubt that they have the interest of the Army at their hearts; nor do I question that they are entirely unselfish and quite logically convinced in their determination to effect a drastic change in the Army's autocracy. But the fact remains that they have taken this revolutionary step at a time when their autocrat is not desperately ill as to be entirely ignorant of what is afoot. The inevitable consequence of this action is to spread dismay and confusion through all ranks of the Army. It does not matter how many are for the commissioners and how many are against them: the stubborn and alarming fact discloses itself that there is a division in the Army. Whatever happens it is now as certain as the existence of oil and water that the old loyalty for its leaders which distinguished the Army for fifty yea.rs has suffered a shock and that in consequence the stability of the whole structure may be shaken. Many people, perhaps, do not realise that this impressive organisation. world-wide in its ramifications, is the creation of the man who lies so tragically stricken in a cottage on the Suffolk coast. William Booth, his father, was the creator of all that boundless enthusiasm which led to the formation of the Army, but Bramwell, working silently and ceaselessly in the shadow of that picturesque personality, was the organiser of victory. He it was who built up and consolidated the extraordinary structure which startled people from the first by its solidity, and he it was who quietly and persistently controlled the statesmanship of the organisation when it was powerfully attacked by public men of great eminence and sensationally deserted by members of the General’s own family. Bramwell Booth, it should be clearly known, is not merely the second General of the Salvation Army, but its original organiser, its only statesman, and in truth its first autocrat. A DUAL PERSONALITY He is a man of a most curious personality. Far more emotional than his father, almost as ready to weep as Job Trotter himself, with a tearfLil voice and the manner of an old-fash-ioned revivalist preacher, he is also as cool and precise, as hard-headed and far-seeing, as any of the masters of “big business.” It is, I think, the strain between this dual personality which has been too much for his nervous strength. I have never met a man who more suddenly and disconcertingly could turn from a heart-broken sympathy with human suffering, utterly sincere, to a vigorous and bloodless handling of some detail in organisation. At such moments the very aspect of the face changes in a flash, and iwth it the tension of the body and tone of the voice. He has always seemed to me a strained and perplexing spirit living the double life of a man and a woman, consecrated by a spiritual experience in his childhood

to a life of holiness, and yet driven by the hard facts of the world to fight the forces of evil with all the subletv of a casuist, all the opportunism of a statesman, and all the intense decisiveness of a dictator. Whatever may be the truth of this baffling personality, so suave and gentle, and yet so masterful and so inflexible, certain it is that he has created the Salvation Army as an organisation, and up to this moment by his genius and his diplomacy has held it together as a living force. Therefore-, we must not think that the meeting of the High Council, may lead merely to the overthrow of William Booth’s successor, but rather that it may lead to the dismissal of the Salvation Army’s founder. And this is the real crux of the present situation. It is the end of an autocracy. The world is witnessing i n _the affairs of the Salvation Army a - crisis such as it is certain to witness in the more complex affairs of Italy j when Signor Mussolini is overtaken by * the enfeeblement of age. TWO PERILS OF AUTOCRACY Autocracy is easily the simplest and j swiftest way to great achievement; but it has these two perilous defects, that j it breeds no heir and tends to rob its i satellites of resolution, initiative and ! individuality. Bramwell Booth lias I created the most formidable autcracy ! m the religious world, and now. at the ' first overshadowing approach of death I to his pillow, there is a call for a ; change of government. There is to be a new leader or a new form of leadersmp. But who is to be this new leader ‘ lias tlle aut °cratic system of tne Army encouraged genius for leadi * s tlie Arm >* to be conti oiled by a committee? But the Army came into existence because Wilalnn Booth found that the committee of the Christian Mission stood in the way of a forward and fiery advance against the forts of evil. Surely it would be a sad and ironic case of reveision, or, as the Booths would say, of backsliding, if the Army fed into the tentative and delaying hands of a committee. I confess that I see no. way for the Army out of its present difficulty. 1 think that Mrs. Bramwell Booth, who is an able and well-informed person, : might have carried on the General’s A\ork for a number of years; but sooner o.r later some such crisis as " hich now threatens the Army with disruption was certain to develop Autocracy, so admirable and essential in making a start, always ends in a ditch. URE OF FAITHFUL OFFICER. What pains me more than anything else m the present situation of the Army is the future of those faithful, humble officers, who for and for so small a pittance.

have served the cause of righteous*, in the darkest places of our industr civilisation. I feel that the lives' those people, particularly the wo® have ennobled the Salvation Army ai won for it the respect, the sympar and affection of multitudes who <=• like its theology and feel a certain - pugnance for its more public metbo of propaganda. That these demand loyal friends of the poor should caught up into the politics of movement seems to me altogether plorable, and I hope that whale, steps the High Council may decide take next month will not involve thin suffering and loss. But we are confronted by one dnite danger to the organisation of • Army which must, I think, have a:, reaching effect on the whole body. F many' years the rich and power: branch of the Army in America, r. millions of caiptal, has ‘ been rest under the tutelage of England. Or the perfet tact and occasional subm siveness of Bramwell Booth have pr vented that great body' of the Ar from declaring its independence 2 going its own way under the leaders: of his sister Evangeline. For ample, if Bramwell .had ordered sister to take up a command ink or Australia it :s safe to say that whole Army in America might h risen to defy' his order ard to br. the link with England. That is say. his autocracy never ventured cross the Atlantic. WHAT OF AMERICA? But will Ame *ica maintain the u of the Array if one of the innova English commissioners is elected ( : eral, or if a committee is electee manage its affairs in Queen Viet - Street? I do not think so. It r that mutiny' of this kind would followed by' division at home, and the whole body would soon find i> paralysed by disunion. The At became a mighty thing because • the English nation and then 1 wliole world fell under the spel William Booth’s magnificent upu ance and his obvious sincerity grew in wealth, power, and prestige cause Bramwell Booth mastered guided its enthusiasm, establish-i businesslike intimacy' with the riel - ; charitable, and maintained the i > j tradition. Let him go, let qu£T someness and fractiousness appear . headquarters, let America break:* and half the Army in England deoA for the Booths and half for a r:- 1 form of leadership, and the Ptshocked and scandalised, will r*-T----fully' conclude that the Army ; longer that great body of devotee r and women who up to this have given their lives so mindedly to save the lost and U-' friend the homeless. The only' person who cou.d sau. Army from this calamitous e*. such a man may be found in itsi is one who by a real love of tre General and a real faitli in the > tradition could stamp out the sdering embers of mutiny and pei--the Armv to continue its cracy until a mare peaceful hoi. arrived for reconsidering the

question of leadership. . *... In the meantime I feel that tn * , pathy of the whole world wi« to the stricken General in nis • cottage.