SALVATION ARMY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 203, 28 August 1934, Page 7

SALVATION ARMY.

CHOICE OF LEADER.

Enthusiastic Meeting in

London.

GENERAL HIGGINS , WELCOME.

[United P.A.-Electric Telegraph-CopyrighO

(Received 1.30 p.m.)

LONDON, August 27.

The conference of the Salvation Army, which is being held to elect a successor to General E. J. Higgins, who is retiring under the ago limit provision, was opened to-day, when General Higgins presided over a crowded meeting in the Central Hall, Westminster, which was arranged as a welcome to overseas delegates to the High Council.

It is expected to be two or three days before secret ballots give the necessary two-thirds majority for the election of a new leader.

Strong opposition is displayed towards the choice of a woman general, otherwise Commander Evangeline Booth, daughter of the founder, has an excellent chance. Commissioner Mapp, Chief of Staff, and Commissioner David Lamb are other possibles.

Hundreds of people, including many Salvation Army lassies were turned away, the hall being packed long before the commencement of the proceedings.

It was the most fervent gathering of all held in recent years.

General Higgins declared that reports, intrigues and jealousies, which had found expression, were maliciously false. General Higgins will not be present at the election.

A cablegram received on August 9 was as follows:—"The 'News-Chronicle' states that only five out of the 47 candidates for the position of head of the Salvation Army in place of General Higgins stand a chance of election on August 28. They are: Commander Evangeline Booth, Commissioners Henry Mapp, Catherine Booth, and Charles Rich, commanding the Army in Sweden, and Territorial-Commissioner Samuel Hurren, principal of the Denmark Hill Training College in London. The choice seems to lie between Commander Evangeline Booth and Commissioner. Mapp, who is chief of staff at international headquarters. He stands for th? maintenance of the existing system of government of the organisation. Miss Booth also is unwilling to make changes though she is not averse from seeing others make them."

Evangeline C. Booth, fourth daughter of the founder of the Salvation Army, is Commander-in-Chief for the United States. As a young woman she worked actively in some of the London slum districts, and later, as a Field Commissioner, travelled extensively. Before taking over the command in the United States she was for a time Territorial Commissioner for Canada and Newfoundland. Recently she has taken part in campaigns in Japan and Europe. Shu was a candidate for the generalship ill 1929, when General Higgiris was appointed.