In one day Bramwell created chaos in what his siblings rudely called “Bramwell’s game of musical chairs.” Letters and telegrams of complaint flew across the ocean to reach William in India.
Most of the resentment came because Bramwell had not consulted any of his brothers and sisters before issuing his orders. While they were used to taking orders from their father, none of the Booth children took well to obeying their brother, especially since he appeared to be high-handedly disrupting their lives and their work.
William understood how they felt. Kate, who wrote passionately, reminded him that she had served in France for ten years, starting two hundred stations and commissioning four hundred officers. Kate spoke French more fluently than English and had raised her seven children to think of themselves as French. She wanted to know what could possibly be achieved by removing her and Arthur from their post and replacing them with Lucy and Emmanuel, who had absolutely no experience in France.
Ballington was extremely angry about the challenge to his authority. He wrote to say that the people of New York were planning a mass protest rally at the thought of losing him. Even the mayor of the city promised to be on the platform at the rally.
Before all else, the Salvation Army was just that, an army, and success in an army depends on every soldier obeying his or her commanding officer. Bramwell was the chief of staff, and he had issued orders that were well within his jurisdiction, and so William would back them up. William saw himself as a general first and a father second. There was no way he was about to interfere and give his own children the right to disobey a command. He wrote to them, “The Salvation Army does not belong to the Booth family. It belongs to the Salvation Army. So long as the Booth family are good Salvationists and worthy of commands, they shall have them, but only if they are. I am not the ‘General’ of a family, I am the General of the Salvation Army.”
Once he had declared his support of Bramwell, William could only wait and see what his children would choose. Would they put their own personal feelings over their duty or not?
Meanwhile William continued on to Japan, where the Salvation Army had recently begun working. One of the main focuses for the army there was the thousands of girls imprisoned in the Yoshiwara, a square-mile walled city just one mile from the heart of Tokyo. Most of the girls who worked in the horrible trade of the three-centuries-old Yoshiwara did so because their parents had sold them to the owners of the evil businesses there to raise money for food or other family needs that arose during hard times. Technically the girls weren’t sold; rather, a loan was made to a girl’s parents, and when the loan was repaid, the girl would be free to leave. In practice this was not what happened. The interest rates were so high that the loans were never paid back, and the girls became the property of the business owners.
This terrible situation greatly concerned the Salvation Army officers in Japan, and they decided to do something about it. In researching the problem, they discovered that the buying and selling of girls had been outlawed in 1872. However, the law was written in such archaic language that few people understood it. The Salvation Army wrote out in plain language what the law said and what it meant to the girls trapped in the Yoshiwara. It published its explanation of the law in the Toki-no-Koe, the Japanese version of The War Cry, under the heading “An Open Letter to the Women in Licensed Quarters.”
Early one morning fifty Salvation Army officers gathered in a hall to pray before setting out to distribute copies of Toki-no-Koe in the Yoshiwara. To the surprise of the owners of the shameful businesses, they marched right into the center of the complex and began distributing the magazine. Many of the girls appeared at the windows of the buildings and accepted copies of Toki-no-Koe. Several of the Japanese officers announced to the girls that any of them who wanted to escape would be welcome at the Salvation Army’s rescue home, which they had just opened. “Why not come right now—today!” they added emphatically.
Suddenly the Salvation Army officers were under attack. Around three hundred stick-wielding thugs and bullies came charging down the street after them. The thugs surrounded the officers and began to beat them savagely. Finally a contingent of police arrived, chased off the thugs, and escorted members of the Salvation Army to safety. The officers were bloodied but unbowed. When newspaper reporters heard of the attack, they descended on Salvation Army headquarters, where officers vowed publicly that they would keep up the fight to end the illegal enslavement of girls. This declaration in turn led to one Salvation Army officer being taken prisoner, after which he was beaten and tortured by the owners of the disreputable businesses and their enforcers. Still the Salvation Army would not give up the fight. As one Western reporter stated, “There is no place where the Salvation Army women fear to enter, nor are the men less courageous.”
Almost every newspaper in Japan backed the Salvation Army’s stand with banner headlines such as “March on, Salvation Army, and Bring Liberty to the Captives.” Such declarations got the attention of the Japanese people, who began to clamor for change. Eventually, after nearly a year of public outcry and the unrelenting efforts of the Salvation Army to rescue girls from the Yoshiwara, the Japanese government passed a new law. The law mandated that any enslaved girl who wished to receive her freedom could do so simply by going to the local police station and declaring her desire to be set free from her owner. Within two years of the beginning of the Salvation Army’s efforts, thousands of girls had sought their freedom, and business in the Yoshiwara was less than half what it had been. The army had won an important battle! As in India, William reveled in all that was being done by the Salvation Army in Japan.
When William returned to England, some good news was waiting for him. Oxford University had awarded him an honorary doctorate of civil laws. As he was handed his diploma, William smiled to himself. Here he was, a man who had left school at age thirteen to become a pawnbroker’s apprentice being awarded a degree from such a prestigious university. He just wished Catherine could have been there to experience the moment with him.
Meanwhile, the controversy that Bramwell had created hung like a black cloud over William. One year after the orders were issued, the worst possible outcome occurred. Ballington and Maud Booth formally resigned from the Salvation Army. One-third of the army’s officers in America followed their lead and handed in their commissions. They then swore allegiance to an all-American counterpart that Ballington had founded. It was called the Volunteer Army, and in just about every way it mimicked the Salvation Army, with flags and uniforms and homeless shelters. There was, however, one major difference. The Volunteer Army was to be democratically run, with a five-yearly election to determine the next general. Ballington Booth won the vote for the first general, and so the Booth family now had two armies and two generals.
William was horrified by this move. In his eyes Ballington and Maud were defectors—traitors not only to the army they had sworn to serve but also to William personally. And now that they were not in the Salvation Army, he had no time for them. Over the years since he had become general, William had come to view every relationship, every moment of his day, in light of how it affected his army. In choosing to found the Volunteer Army, Ballington had cut himself off from his family.
Worse still, William had an idea that such defections would not stop with Ballington. Kate and Herbert were having a difficult time adjusting to their new postings, and he fretted that they too might leave the army.
Still the work went on. In December 1896 William was invited to visit British Prime Minister William Gladstone at Hawarden Castle in North Wales. Gladstone had read William’s book, and the two men passed a pleasant afternoon discussing the ideas expounded in it.
In February of the following year, William met with the political leaders of the United States as well. He had the honor of opening the Senate with prayer and spending half an hour with President William McKinley. The president was eager to know William’s impressions of Japan and the Far East and also to hear of the Salvation Army’s work in America.
While William was in North America, he spent time with Emma and Fredrick and kept in close contact with Eva, who was off on her own adventure. Eva and seven other Salvation Army officers had gone to the Yukon Territory in Canada to share the gospel with the miners swept up in the Klondike gold rush. To get to the men they had paddled upriver for thirty-five days in freezing cold weather. Finally they arrived at Dawson City and set to work. It was a rough-and-tumble place and definitely a man’s world. Eva wrote to her father, telling him that despite the hardships they were making good progress. Men were becoming Christians and attending church on Sunday, and many down-on-their-luck miners were being served hot cocoa or a meal and given a warm bed to sleep in.
William was proud of his daughter. Eva exemplified everything the Salvation Army was about. She was devoted, selfless, and fearless. Wherever there were people who needed to hear the gospel preached or to have the hand of Christian charity extended to them, she was willing to go, no matter what hardships she encountered along the way. William had seen that same spirit over and over again as he had traveled the world visiting Salvation Army corps. And as far as he was concerned, things were only just beginning. The old century was winding down, and a new one would dawn filled with more opportunities than ever for the Salvation Army to wage its battle around the world.
Chapter 15
Promoted to Glory
A new century dawned filled with hope and promise. William, who was an old, gray-bearded man of seventy, kept up his punishing schedule. On a trip to Norway, he was delighted to learn that the Salvation Army there was about to launch a fifty-foot lifeboat named the Catherine Booth. The idea for a lifeboat had been advanced several years before by a Norwegian Salvation Army officer named Emil Ovsen, but the real need for it was brought to the public’s attention in October 1899, when a frigid storm swept through the cod-fishing grounds. When it had abated, the sea was strewn with the wreckage of twenty-nine vessels and 140 fishermen had perished.
The Catherine Booth was built to a radical new design. The vessel had airtight compartments so that even if she were hit or swamped, she would not sink or capsize. She was also equipped with the latest innovations, such as a cannon that fired flares and drums of oil to calm the waves while fishermen were transferred from their sinking vessel to the lifeboat.
William seldom allowed himself to slow down. Ever punctual, he began his day at 6 A.M. with one hour of paperwork and letter writing before eating his spartan breakfast of dried toast and hot tea. He never napped and took every opportunity to keep working. On train trips he converted his carriage into an office on rails. While his secretary sat on the floor with the typewriter on the seat, William would dictate letters to him for three or four hours straight.
Although the general had no intention of slowing down, three events over the next two years left him feeling weary and alone. In January 1902 Kate made the announcement that she and her husband Arthur Booth-Clibborn were resigning from the Salvation Army. Even though William had thought this might happen, it was still a terrible shock to him. Of all his children, Kate was the one most like him—strong-willed, talented, and stubborn. In turn, Kate’s resignation stirred up Herbert and Cornelie Booth’s frustration, and by May their resignations were also sitting on William’s desk. This left Bramwell, Emma, Marian, Eva, and Lucy loyal to the Salvation Army and, in William’s strict interpretation of things, loyal to him as father.
