WILLIAM BOOTH

Evening Post, Issue 25, 30 January 1935, Page 18

WILLIAM BOOTH

FOUNDER OF "THE ARMY"

A RELIGIOUS AUTOCRAT

AND HIS SUCCESSOR

On October 20, 1912, William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, died, and Bramwell, his son, reigned in his stead. No one who witnessed General Booth's funeral procession through the streets of London is likely to forget it, writes C. B. Mortlock. in the "Daily Telegraph." ;

The old warrior, went to his grave full of years .and honour. He was a religious genius who in his lifetime had been more reviled by professedly religious people . than any, leader since the Founder -of, Christianity Himself.

With no endowment ljut his own indomitable spirit, and in the face of persecution, ridicule, and venomous misrepresentation, he created an organisation which in his.own lifetime spread to all peoples, nations, and languages of the world. ■ ' . - . ' ' ■

Like Wesley, a hundred yeara earlier, he took the world for his parish People were always querulously asking by what authority he did' things. I Queen Victoria was incensed that he raised an Army and called himself a general. His authority was his conviction of Divino inspiration—-a-' conviction 'which his Army shared, and still shares. Religious genius, like: any other genius, is akin to"madness. "Madness,'' said Socrates/ "is of;two kinds: the one is produced by human disease, the other by an inspired departure from established usages." It is in'the.second of these senses that Mr./St. John Ervine, whose '■ monumental biography of Booth has just been published, asserts that Booth was one of the maddest men in the world.'

There has probably never-been a more autocratic system of religioD than that which Booth devised.. "He arrogated to .himself," writes Mr. Ervine "powers of authority and discipline over his followers that the Supreme Pontiff, despite his claim to be ; infal lible, would scarcely have dared to take; and exacted from his officers and soldiers of whatever rank' an unquestioning obedience which could hot unfairly be described as servile. FEROCITY OF FAITH. When it is remembered that these, powers were assumed and conceded at a time when Booth; was being reviled and slandered and. his followers brutal ly beaten and persecuted, the intellectual arid spiritual dominance of the man borders on; the miraculous ,/■;.■

■The existence of the .Salvation' Army as a vast international organisation is evidence'enough of the,- greatness of WUliam /Booth.. What1 Mr. Ervine has done is to exhibit in his fuli stature the astonishing' figure which sets the mind searching vainly for' a just and

single epithet by which to describe him. He was a, man ruthless, despotic, ill:, mannered, yet. possessed with such "ferocity of faith and purpose" that he could entrench himself in the love and loyalty of his abused followers. Mr. Ervine disposes finally of the polite fiction whereby Booth has been represented as being born of a substantial middle-class family which had fallen on hard times. His father was an illiterate speculative builder, and his mother the daughter of a cottager, whj) may have been a farm labourer, but was more probably a hawker. For the whole of Booth's childhood the family was desperately poor. Illness was to afflict the greater part of his life.. There is a vivid picture of the days when, as a young man,.he was employed as a pawnbroker's assistant in South London, using his Sunday evening freedom to speak at street corners, and panting^ back, frail and halffed just in time to save himself from being shut, out' at 10 o'clock. His meeting with Catherine Mumford resulted in one of the strangest stories of courtship. Their love-letters are unlike any other examples in that gentlest of arts. They are concerned .first and last with: the work. But they do not lack ardour. In one Booth signs himself "Yours in the closest alliance of united soul, spirit, and body, for time and eternity, for earth and for heaven, for sorrow; and for joy, for ever and ever. Amen.", ■■;' A TRUE PICTURE. So far as human observation goes, that grandiloquent superscription was a true picture of the life-long/alliance in which William, and Catherine Booth sought to reach the homeless and degraded by methods startling in their sensationalism. It is not always a pleasant picture which Mr. Ervine gives of Booth. But everything was justified in the eyes of. his followers ,by the certainty of his Divine mission. He was a magnificent despot ruling in the name of the Lord. . ■ . , ■■■ Thera , never was such a Divmerighter aa William Booth; There never was a body, so utterly devoid of'any trace of democratic principle- as( the Salvation Army. Boath had seen to that in the Deed Poll which he exe : cuted in 1878, and supplemented in 1904. '•-,. ■■. ■ ■. ■ ■■•■". : On the da> of . William Booth's funeral his officers and soldiers marched in thousands- Urough the streets with banners flying and trumpets blowing. The General was .dead iong.live the Generafl The old man had nominated'hia son Bramwell to succeed him. What is more, in 'a letter to the new General, he suggested - that , Herbert Booth, a younger son, might be nominated as the third of the dynasty.

Bramwell was invested with" all the authority enjoyed by his father, but the seeds of disaffection which led to his deposition were' already being sown in fertile soil.'• ■ : .-. ;•":, : '": ::. :/' "■; So far as Mr. Ervine's two closelypacked volumes:are the storyof •William Booth, and the Army•; he created they will be read with pride by every Salvationist. But there is a bitter sting in: the tail. In an epilogue Mr; Eryine sets but the facts as he has been able to gather them of the events which led up to Bramwell Booth's deposition.

Their publication is certain to make a painful impression on all who have the good name of the Army at heart. Whether or no any good purpose ia to be served by the disclosure of the melancholy story is a question which it is too late to argue. ATTACK FROM AMERICA. Evangeline Booth, the. present General, when commander in America, was resolved to secure some alteration in the method of appointing the General. She also desired to limit his powers, and Bram well remembered, When crisis was approaching, "that his sister had threatened to tear him from his seat." A highly-organised attack on the General was being conducted in America, largely in the form of bulletins signed "W. L. Attwood," a private soldier of the Army who was so private that Mr. Ervino' has been unable; to discover hiss real identity. ■Whispering calumnies were set going, in which the General was accused openly aud by implication- of misuse of power and funds, to say nothing of nepotism. ■ As'chief of staff Commissioner Higgins, afterwards himself to' be»General, stood closest to" Bramwell Booth. Mr. Ervine.prints many letters,in which hia unswerving loyalty and devotion to Bramwell are expressed. In January, 1928, he returned from America, and reported to the General that "the campaign, undoubtedly has begun to fail." On March 9 Chief of Staff Higgins attended a private meeting of several members of the higher command. They met in mufti. "The chief of staff failed to tell the General'that he himself had been invited to a meeting of disaffected officers, and proposed-to attend it." On March 5 Commissioner fliggins' visited Bramwell Booth "and expressed his profound sympathy to the General" over the action of his sister. Evangeline, "but did not tell him that .he himself "intended to be present at a meeting of disquieted Commissioners in London that very night, nor did ho (Bramwell Booth) ever know that hia chief of staff, who had sent him many affection ate letters in which eternal fealty was vowed, had attended this meeting and another which was held on March 0." GLOOMY FORECAST. When Brarcwell Booth was taken ill, "intrigue," says Mr. Ervine, "developed at a febrile speed. A vast fear pervaded the minds of many important officers'that a Booth would succeed a Booth before they could arrange to break the dynasty. "This was their plight: It Bramwell Booth should die before the High-Coun-cil were formally called, his nominee, whoever ho or she might be; would automatically become General, and the dynasty would become more difficult to remove." ' i The meeting of the High Council sum-1 moucd while Bramwell Booth was ill in \ bed deemed all proof Of his alleged | "'mfitness" to be unnecessary. Their refusal to hear his defence by counsel is an incident sad as it is surprising. Mr. Ervine's study of Bramwell Booth's deposition leads him to «. gloomy conclusion. "Bureaucratic business men will," he says, ".henceforth rule the Army; men of high spiritual perception are now, humanly speaking, debarred from the Generalship, and perhaps from all great authority." What, then, is to be th'e future ■of the Salvation Armyt ;Mr. Ervine answers that "the prospect is dismal, and may justly cause those who admire the Army to fear that its life will' b<j short and spiritually barren." Tlie accession of General Evangeline Booth to power in circumstances of fervid enthusiasm does not,promise early, fulfilment of that gloomy prophecy.