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The War Romance of the Salvation Army

E >> Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill >> The War Romance of the Salvation Army




Signed "Jean"

He found great tears coming into his eyes and his throat was full of
them, too. It didn't matter if that Salvation Army lassie behind the
counter did see them roll down his cheeks. He didn't care. She would
understand anyway, and he laughed out loud in his joy and relief, the
first joy, the first relief since he was hurt!

Some one else was coming in the door, another fellow maybe, but the lassie
opened a door in the desk and drew him behind the counter in a shaded
corner where no one would notice and brought him a cup of tea, which she
said was all they had around to eat just then. She didn't pay any
attention to him till he got his equilibrium again.

She was the kind of woman one feels is a natural-born mother. In fact, the
fellows were always asking her wistfully: "May we call you Mother?" Young
enough to understand and enter into their joys and sorrows, yet old enough
to be wise and sweet and true. She mothered every boy that came.

A sailor boy once asked if he might bring his girl to see her. He said he
wanted her to see her so she could tell his mother about her.

"But can't you tell her about your girl?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, but I want you to tell her." he said. "You see, whatever you say
mother'll know is true."

So presently she turned to this lonely boy and took him upstairs through
the pleasant upper room with its piano and games, its sun parlor over the
street, lined with trailing ferns, with cheery canaries in swinging
tasseled cages, who looked fully as happy and at home as did the soldier
boys who were sitting about comfortably reading. She found him a room with
only one other bunk in it. Nice white beds with springs like air and
mattresses like down. She showed him where the shower-baths were, and with
a kindly good-night left him. He almost wanted to ask her to kiss him
good-night, so much like his own mother she seemed.

Before he got into that white bed he knelt beside it, all clean and
comfortable and happy like a little child that had wandered a long way
from home and got back again, and he told God he was sorry and ashamed for
all the way he had doubted, and sinned, and he wanted to live a new life
and be good. Then he lay down to sleep. To-morrow morning Jean would be
there. And she didn't mind about the foot! She didn't mind! How wonderful!

And then he had a belated memory of the little Salvation Army lassie on
the wharf who had brought all this about, and he closed his eyes and
murmured out loud to the clean, white walls: "God bless her! Oh, God bless
her!"

This is only one of the many stories that might be told about the boys who
have been helped by the various activities of the Salvation Army, both at
home and abroad.

It would be well worth one's while to visit their Brooklyn Hospital and
their New York Hospital and all their other wonderful institutions. In
several of them are many little children, some mere infants, belonging to
soldiers and sailors away in the war. In some instances the mother is
dead, or has to work. If she so desires she is given work in the
institution, which is like a real home, and allowed to be with her child
and care for it. Where both mother and father are dead the child remains
for six years or until a home elsewhere is provided for it. Here the
little ones are well cared for, not in the ordinary sense of an
institution, but as a child would be cared for in a home, with beauty and
love, and pleasure mingling with the food and shelter and raiment that is
usually supplied in an institution. These children are prettily, though
simply, dressed and not in uniform; with dainty bits of color in hair
ribbon, collar, necktie or frock; the babies have wee pink and blue wool
caps and sacks like any beloved little mites, they ride around on Kiddie
Cars, play with doll houses and have a fine Kindergarten teacher to guide
their young minds, and the best of hospital service when they are ailing.
But that is another story, and there are yet many of them. If everybody
could see the beautiful life-size painting of Christ blessing the little
children which is painted right on the very wall and blended into the
tinting, they could better comprehend the spirit which pervades this
lovely home.

The New York Hospital, which has just been rebuilt and refurnished with
all the latest appliances, is in charge of a devoted woman physician, who
has given her life to healing, and has at the head of its Board one of the
most noted surgeons in the city, who gives his services free, and boasts
that he enjoys it best of all his work. Here those of small means or of no
means at all, especially those belonging to soldiers and sailors, may find
healing of the wisest and most expert kind, in cheery, airy, sanitary and
beautiful rooms. But here, too, to understand, one must see. Just a peep
into one of those dainty white rooms would rest a poor sick soul; just a
glance at the room full of tiny white basket cribs with dainty blue satin-
bound blankets--real wool blankets--and white spreads, would convince
one.

And what one sees in New York in the line of such activities is duplicated
in most of the other large cities of the United States.

Not the least of the Salvation Army service for the returning soldiers is
the work that is done on the docks by the lassies meeting returning troop
ships. They send telegrams free, not C.O.D., for them, give the men
stamped postal cards, hunt up relatives, answer questions, and give them
chocolate while they wait for the inevitable roll call before they can
entrain. Often these girls will sit up half the night after having met
boats nearly all day, to get the telegrams all off that night. It is
interesting to note that on one single day, April 20th, 1919, the
Salvation Army Headquarters in New York sent 2900 such free telegrams for
returning soldiers.

The other day the father of a soldier came to Headquarters with an anxious
face, after a certain unit from overseas had returned. It was the unit in
which his boy had gone to France, but he had written saying he was in the
hospital without stating what was the matter or how serious his wound. No
further word had been received and the father and mother were frenzied
with grief. They had tried in every way to get information but could find
out nothing. The Salvation Army went to work on the telephone and in a
short time were able to locate the missing boy in a Casual Company soon to
return, and to report to his anxious father that he was recovering
rapidly.

Another soldier arrived in New York and sent a Salvation Army telegram to
his father and mother in California who had previously received
notification that he was dead. A telegram came back to the Salvation Army
almost at once from the West stating this fact and begging some one to go
to the camp where the boy's Casual Company was located and find out if he
were really living. One of the girls from the office went over to the
Debarkation Hospital immediately and saw the boy, and was able to
telegraph to his parents that he was perfectly recovered and only awaiting
transportation to California. He was overjoyed to see someone who had
heard from his parents.

A portion of one troop ship had been reserved for soldiers having
influenza. These men were kept on board long after all the others had left
the ship. A Salvation Army worker seeing them with the white masks over
their faces went on board and served them with chocolate, distributing
post cards and telegraph blanks. When she was leaving the ship a Captain
said to her rather brusquely: "Don't you realize that you have done a
foolish thing? Those men have influenza and your serving them might mean
your death!"

Looking up into the man's eyes the Salvationist said: "I am ready to die
if God sees fit to call me."

The officer laughed and told her that was the first time in his life he
had known anyone to say they were ready to die and would willingly expose
themselves to such a contagious disease.

"Aren't you ready to die?" asked the girl. "Certainly not," replied the
Captain. "Sometimes I think I am hardly fit to live, much less die."

"Don't you realize that there is a Power which can enable you to live in
such a way as to make you ready to die?"

"Oh, well, I don't bother about going to church, in fact, I don't bother
about religion at all, although I must say once or twice when I was up the
line over there I wished I did know something about religion, that is, the
kind that makes a fellow feel good about dying; but I don't want to go to
church and go through all that business."

"It is possible to accept Christ here and now on this very spot--on this
ship--if you'll only believe," said the girl wistfully.

The Captain could not help being interested and thoughtful. When she left,
after a little more talk he put out his hand and said:

"Thank you. You've done me more good than any sermon could have done me,
and believe me, I am going to pray and trust God to help me live a
different life."

Sad things are seen on the docks at times when the ships come into port,
and the boys are coming home.

A soldier in a basket, with both arms and both legs gone and only one eye,
was being carried tenderly along.

"Why do you let him live?" asked one pityingly of the Commanding Officer.

The gruff, kindly voice replied:

"You don't know what life is. We don't live through our arms and legs. We
live through our hearts."

Some of our boys have learned out there amid shell fire to live through
their hearts.

One of these lying on a litter greeted the lassie from Indiana, just come
back to New York from France to meet the boys when they landed:

"Hello, Sister! _You here?_"

Her eyes filled with tears as she recognized one of her old friends of the
trenches, and noticed how helpless he was now, he who had been the
strongest of the strong. She murmured sympathetically some words of
attempted cheer:

"Oh, that's all right, Sister," he said, "I know they got me pretty hard,
but I don't mind that. I'm not going to feel bad about it. I got something
better than arms and legs over in one of your little huts in France. I
found Jesus, and I'm going to live for Him. I wanted you to know."

A few days later she was talking with another boy just landed. She asked
him how it seemed to be home again, and to her surprise he turned a
sorrowful face to her:

"It's the greatest disappointment of my life," he said sadly, "the folks
here don't understand. They all want to make me forget, and I don't want
to forget what I learned out there. I saw life in a different way and I
knew I had wasted all the years. I want to live differently now, and
mother and her friends are just getting up dances and theatre parties for
me to help me to forget. They don't understand."

Forty miles west of Chicago is Camp Grant and there the Salvation Army has
put up a hut just outside of the camp.

During the days when the boys were being sent to France, and were under
quarantine, unable to go out, no one was allowed to come in and there was
great distress. Mothers and sisters and friends could get no opportunity
to see them for farewells.

The Salvation officer in charge suggested to the military authorities that
the Salvation Army hut be the clearing place for relatives, and that he
would come in his machine and bring the boys to the hut, taking them back
again afterwards, that they might have a few hours with their friends
before leaving for France.

This offer was readily accepted by the authorities, and so it was made
possible for hundreds and hundreds of mothers to get a last talk with
their boys before they left, some of them forever.

One day a young man came to the Salvation Army officer and told him that
his regiment was to depart that night and that he was in great distress
about his wife who on her way to see him had been caught in a railroad
wreck, and later taken on her way by a rescue train. "I think she is in
Rockford somewhere," he said anxiously, "but I don't know where, and I
have to leave in three hours!"

The Ensign was ready with his help at once. He took the young soldier in
his car to Rockford, seven miles away, and they went from hotel to hotel
seeking in vain for any trace of the wife. Then suddenly as they were
driving along the street wondering what to try next the young soldier
exclaimed: "There she is!" And there she was, walking along the street!

The two had a blessed two hours together before the soldier had to leave.
But it was all in the day's work for the Salvation Army man, for his main
object in life is to help someone, and he never minds how much he puts
himself out. It is always reward enough for him to have succeeded in
bringing comfort to another.

One of the Salvation Army Ensigns who was assigned to work at Camp Grant
hut had been an all-round athlete before he joined the Salvation Army, a
boxer and wrestler of no mean order.

The fame of the Ensign went abroad and the doctor at the Base Hospital
asked him to take charge of athletics in the hospital. He was also
appointed regularly as chaplain in the hospital. Every day he drilled the
five hundred women nurses in gymnastics, and put the men attendants and as
many of the patients as were able through a set of exercises. Thus
mingling his religion with his athletics he became a great power among the
men in the hospital.

The Salvation Army asked the hospital if there was anything they could do
for the wounded men. The reply was, that there were eighty wards and not a
graphophone in one of them, nothing to amuse the boys. The need was
promptly filled by the Salvation Army which supplied a number of
graphophones and a piano. Then, discovering that the nurses who were
getting only a very small cash allowance out of which they had to furnish
their uniforms, were short of shoes, the indefatigable good Samaritan
produced a thousand dollars to buy new shoes for them. The Salvation Army
has always been doing things like that.

The Salvation Army built many huts, locating them wherever there was need
among the camps. They have a hut at Camp Grant, one at Camp Funston, one
at Camp Travis, San Antonio, one at Camp Logan, Houston, Texas, one at
Camp Bowie, Fort Worth, one at Camp Cody, Deming, New Mexico, one at Camp
Lewis, Tacoma, a Soldiers' Club at Des Moines, a Soldiers' Club with
Sitting Room, Dining Room, and rooms for a hundred soldiers just opened at
Chicago. There is a charge of twenty-five cents a night and twenty-five
cents a meal for such as have money. No charge for those who have no
money. There is such a Soldiers' Club at St. Louis, Kansas City, St. Paul
and Minneapolis. All of these places at the camps have accommodations for
women relatives to visit the soldiers, and all of the rooms are always
full to the limit.

In Des Moines the Army has an interesting institution which grew out of a
great need.

The Federal authorities have placed a Woman's Protective Agency in all
Camp towns. At Des Moines the woman representative of the Federal
Government sent word to the Salvation Army that she wished they would help
her. She said she had found so many young girls between the ages of
fourteen and sixteen who were being led into an immoral life through the
soldiers, and she wished the Salvation Army would open a home to take care
of such girls.

With their usual swiftness to come to the rescue the Salvation Army opened
such a home. The Brigadier up in Chicago gave up his valued private
secretary, a lovely young girl only twenty-four years old, to be at the
head of this home. It may seem a pretty big undertaking for so young a
girl, but these Salvation Army girls are brought up to be wonderfully wise
and sweet beyond others, and if you could look into her beautiful eyes you
would have an understanding of the consecration and strength of character
that has made it possible for her to do this work with marvellous success,
and reach the hearts and turn the lives of these many young girls who have
come under her influence in this way. In her work she deals with the
individual, always giving immediate relief for any need, always pointing
the way straight and direct to a better life. The young girls are kept in
the home for a week or more until some near relative can be sent for, or
longer, until a home and work can be found for them. Every case is dealt
with on its own merits; and many young girls have had their feet set upon
the right road, and a new purpose in life given to them with new ideals,
from the young Christian girl whom they easily love and trust.

So great has been the success of the Salvation Army hut and women's hostel
at Camp Lewis that the United States Government has asked the Salvation
Army to put up a hundred thousand dollar hotel at that camp which is
located twenty miles out of Tacoma. The Salvation Army hut at this place
was recently inspected by Secretary of War Baker and Chief of Staff who
highly complimented the Salvationists on the good work being done.

A Christmas box was sent by the Salvation Army to each soldier in every
camp and hospital throughout the West. Each box contained an orange, an
apple, two pounds of nuts, one pound of raisins, one pound of salted
peanuts, one package of figs, two handkerchiefs in sealed packets, one
book of stamps, a package of writing paper, a New Testament, and a
Christmas letter from the Commissioner at Headquarters in Chicago.

No Officer in the Salvation Army has been more successful in ingenious
efforts to further all activities connected with the work than
Commissioner Estill in command of the Western forces. He is an
indefatigable and tireless worker, is greatly beloved, and his efforts
have met with exceptional success.

It was a new manager who had taken hold of the affairs of the Salvation
Army Hostel in a certain city that morning and was establishing family
prayers. A visitor, waiting to see someone, sat in an alcove listening.

There in the long beautiful living-room of the Hostel sat a little
audience, two black women-the cooks-several women in neat aprons and caps
as if they had come in from their work, a soldier who had been reading the
morning paper and who quietly laid it aside when the Bible reading began,
a sailor who tiptoed up the two low steps from the café beyond the living-
room where he had been having his morning coffee and doughnuts--the young
clerk from behind the office desk. They all sat quiet, respectful, as if
accorded a sudden, unexpected privilege.

[Illustration: Thomas Estill Commissioner of the Western Forces]

[Illustration: The hut at Camp Lewis]

The reading was a few well-chosen verses about Moses in the mount of
vision and somehow seemed to have a strange quieting influence and carried
a weight of reality read thus in the beginning of a busy day's work.

The reader closed the book and quite familiarly, not at all pompously, he
said with a pleasant smile that this was a lesson for all of them. Each
one should have his vision for the day. The cook should have a vision as
she made the doughnuts--and he called her by her name--to make them just
as well as they could be made; and the women who made the beds should have
a vision of how they could make the beds smooth and soft and fine to rest
weary comers; and those who cleaned must have a vision to make the house
quite pure and sweet so that it would be a home for the boys who came
there; the clerk at the desk should have a vision to make the boys
comfortable and give them a welcome; and everyone should have a vision of
how to do his work in the best way, so that all who came there for a day
or a night or longer should have a vision when they left that God was
ruling in that place and that everything was being done for His praise.

Just a few simple words bringing the little family of workers into touch
with the Divine and giving them a glimpse of the great plan of laboring
with God where no work is menial, and nothing too small to be worth doing
for the love of Christ. Then the little company dropped upon their knees,
and the earnest voice took up a prayer which was more an intimate word
with a trusted beloved Companion; and they all arose to go about that work
of theirs with new zest and--a vision!

In her alcove out of sight the visitor found refreshment for her own soul,
and a vision also.

This is the secret of this wonderful work that these people do in France,
in the cities, everywhere; they have a vision! They have been upon the
Mountain with God and they have not forgotten the injunction:

"See that thou do all things according to the pattern given thee in the
Mount"

But the stories multiply and my space is drawing to a close. I am minded
to say reverently in words of old:

"And there are also many other things which these disciples of Jesus did,
the which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the
world itself could not contain the books that should be written;" but are
they not graven in the hearts of men who found the Christ on the
battlefield or the hospital cot, or in the dim candle-lit hut, through
these dear followers of His?



XII.

Letters of Appreciation



MY DEAR MISS BOOTH:

You may be sure that your telegram of November fifteenth warmed my heart
and brought me very real cheer and encouragement. It is a message of just
the sort that one needs in these trying times, and I hope that you will
express to your associates my profound appreciation and my entire
confidence in their loyalty, their patriotism, and their enthusiasm for
the great work they are doing.

Cordially and sincerely yours,
Woodrow Wilson.
Nov. 30,1917.


MY DEAR MISS BOOTH:

I am very much interested to hear of the campaign the Salvation Army has
undertaken for money to sustain its war activities, and want to take the
opportunity to express my admiration for the work that it has done and my
sincere hope that it may be fully sustained.

(Signed) WOODROW WILSON.
The President of the United States of America.


Commander Evangeline Booth,
Paris, 7 April, 1919.
122 W. 14th Street, New York, U.S.A.

I am very much interested to know that the Salvation Army is about to
enter into a campaign for a sustaining fund.

I feel that the Salvation Army needs no commendation from me. The love and
gratitude it has elicited from the troops is a sufficient evidence of the
work it has done and I feel that I should not so much commend as
congratulate it.

Cordially and sincerely yours,
Woodrow Wilson.


British Delegation, Paris, 8th April, 1919.

DEAR MADAM:

I have very great pleasure in sending you this letter to say how highly I
think of the great work which has been done by the Salvation Army amongst
the Allied Armies in France and the other theatres of war. From all sides
I hear the most glowing accounts of the way in which your people have
added to the comfort and welfare of our soldiers. To me it has always been
a great joy to think how much the sufferings and hardships endured by our
troops in all parts of the world have been lessened by the self-sacrifice
and devotion shown to them by that excellent organization, the Salvation
Army.

Yours faithfully,
W. Lloyd George.


General J. J. Pershing, France.

The Salvation Army of America will never cease to hail you with devoted
affection and admiration for your valiant leadership of your valiant army.
You have rushed the advent of the world's greatest peace, and all men
honor you. To God be all the glory!

Commander Evangeline Booth.



Commander Evangeline Booth, New York City.

"Many thanks for your cordial cable. The American Expeditionary Forces
thank you for all your noble work that the Salvation Army has done for
them from the beginning."

General Pershing.


With deep feeling of gratitude for the enormous contribution which the
Salvation Army has made to the moral and physical welfare of this
expedition all ranks join me in sending heartiest Christmas greetings and
cordial best wishes for the New Year.

(Signed) Pershing.


Salvation, New York.
Paris, April 22, 1919.

The following cable received, Colonel William S. Barker, Director of the
Salvation Army, Paris: My dear Colonel Barker--I wish to express to you my
sincere appreciation, and that of all members of the American
Expeditionary Forces, for the splendid services rendered by the Salvation
Army to the American Army in France. You first submitted your plans to me
in the summer of 1917, and before the end of that year you had a number of
Huts in operation in the Training Area of the First Division, and a group
of devoted men and women who laid the foundation for the affectionate
regard in which the workers of your organization have always been held by
the American soldiers. The outstanding features of the work of the
Salvation Army have been its disposition to push its activities as far as
possible to the Front, and the trained and experienced character of its
workers whose one thought was the well-being of its soldiers they came to
serve. While the maintenance of these standards has necessarily kept your
work within narrow bounds as compared to some of the other welfare
agencies, it has resulted in a degree of excellence and self-sacrifice in
the work performed which has been second to none. It has endeared your
organization and its individual men and women workers to all those
Divisions and other units to which they have been attached and has
published their good name to every part of the American Expeditionary
forces. Please accept this letter as a personal message to each one of
your workers. Very sincerely,

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