Salvation Army: The Story of William and Catherine Booth

On this episode of Our American Stories, the Salvation Army's Christmas Red Kettle has been an American icon for 125 years. But for many Americans, this is all they know about the Salvation Army… until now. We’d like to thank the folks at Vision Video for giving us access to their wonderful documentary, Our People: The Story of William and Catherine Booth.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habibe and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your stories. Send them to
our American Stories dot com. There's some of our favorites,
aside from Ho Ho Ho, and several songs by Perry
Como and Johnny mannethis. Perhaps no other sound says Christmas

(00:33):
more than the ring of a Salvation Army red kettle bell.
But for many Americans this is all we know about
the Salvation Army. In the Empire of the Young Queen Victoria,
the story of the Salvation Army is conceived within the
heart of a young boy named William Booth. Here's Greg
Hengler with this story. William Booth's father, sam built houses

(01:01):
in Nottingham, England, for the children of the Industrial Revolution.
When in eighteen forty three his business collapsed, it was
the end of his world. Within months, Samuel was dead,
leaving his family in ruin. Thirteen year old William Booth
had to drop out of school and commenced what would
be an education in poverty. His primary classroom was the

(01:23):
pawn shop, where he had taken work as an apprentice.
Here's Professor Roger Greene, a longtime member and scholar of
the Salvation Army. Pawnbroking business in England, and that day
was a very very difficult business because pawnbroking was people
brought in their goods from their home and sold their

(01:44):
goods to have a little bit of money to put
bread on the table. And he knew too that many
people were coming in and selling a little bit of
what they had in their home, or pawning off a
little bit of what they had in their home, not
in order to put bread on the table for the children,
but to buy more alcohol for that evening. Handkerchiefs were

(02:04):
pawned first, wedding rings came last. Nottingham's urban district extends
into rural Derbyshire, where Catherine Mumford was born. From a
young age, she displayed an unusually intense nature. When she
was nine years old, she saw a drunk called through
the streets to the police station, taunted by a mob.

(02:27):
She was unwilling to let him walk alone and be humiliated,
so she ran and walked beside him. Here's Professor Pamela Walker,
author of Pulling the Devil's Kingdom Down The Salvation Army
in Victorian Britain. She suffered from a number of different illnesses.
It's hard to know in modern terms what we would
call those things, but she had a curvature of ver

(02:49):
spine which she suffered with her whole life, and she
was sometimes bedridden for long periods of time. So she
read a lot. She read Methodist magazines and other religious
works by a number of leading methods as theologians. She
was reading them at a very young age. She read
the Bible every day. By the time she was twelve,
I think she'd read it cover to cover eight times.
And it made for a very quiet childhood, a very

(03:10):
studious childhood, and often, I think a very lonely one.
In the booth household, William had heard very little about
the Bible or God until a neighbor took the fifteen
year old boy to church to hear the visiting American
minister James Cohe preach for six weeks, William was inspired.

(03:30):
For the next two years, he would often wander off
into the meadow and try preaching to himself. He was
always disappointed with the results, though the preachers he heard
were powerful and spoke with a fiery conviction. It was
obvious they believe what they were preaching with all their heart. William,
on the other hand, was not sure what he believed.

(03:52):
Even though he had now been going to church for
two years, William was still a spectator. That was the
case until Booth strolled into his Bible class. The teacher
opened with the words a soul dies every minute. For
some reason, these words penetrated right into William's heart. Shortly after,

(04:13):
when a friend persuaded William to join him in a
mission in Nottingham's poorest district, William stepped right into his
natural space. After visiting the poor in the sick William
would go out into the grimy streets, stand on top
of a box and preach. Poor women would bring their
own chairs. Some ignored him, others cursed him. In eighteen

(04:38):
forty nine, William left Nottingham for London, working more than
twelve hours a day, six days a week as an
apprentice at another pawnbroker's shop. It was here where William
met Catherine Mumford. A month later, they were engaged. Here
Salvation Army member and historian Professor Sir Gordon Moyles. Katherine

(05:02):
Booth was the thinker. She grew up in a home
where she was self educated or home educated, and she
read a lot of theology books. William was a duer.
William was a doer all his life. William was an activist.
At the age of twenty two, William left pawnbroking for
good to pursue what he felt was God's calling as

(05:25):
an evangelist. On June sixteenth of eighteen fifty five, Katherine
and William were married. Three years passed until William became
the preacher of a Methodist church, while Katherine became pregnant
with her third child. Feeling restless, Katherine began to visit
the families of heavy drinkers two nights a week in

(05:47):
the slums. It was at this time where she too
would have a life changing encounter with an American preacher.
Here again is Pamela Walker. In eighteen fifty nine, Phoebe Palmer,
who was an American holiness teacher and preacher, came to
England and it was a big event for Catherine. She

(06:07):
was already well known to Catherine's for her writing. It
also occasioned a law to debate in the English press
because here was this American and a woman, and she's preaching.
William had plenty to do inside the church, but it
was the people outside, the people who never dreamed of
setting a foot inside a church, who really concerned him.

(06:29):
Booth's outreach had become known by the locals as the
Converting Shop. When members of his church attempted to restrict
his wider ministry, Catherine urged William to resist and become
an independent evangelist. At a critical moment, when a motion
to limit boots ministry was put, Catherine shouted from the balcony.

(06:51):
Never William looked around to see his wife being escorted
towards the door. William stood up, waved his hat in
the air as a salute to his wife, and walked
deliberately out the door. Catherine was standing on the steps.
He hooked her arm in his, and they headed down

(07:12):
the street together. And when we come back, we'll continue
with the story of William and Catherine Booth, without whom
there would not be a Salvation Army. More after these messages, folks,
if you love the stories we tell about this great country,

(07:34):
and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that
all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation, culture,
and faith are brought to us by the great folks
at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all the
things that are beautiful in life and all the things
that are good in life. And if you can't cut
to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free
and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu to

(07:58):
learn more. And we returned to our American stories in
the story of William and Catherine Booth and the Story
of the Salvation Army. Let's pick up when we last

(08:18):
left off. William boost days of being a pastor were over.
He was a thirty two year old man with a
wife and now four small children to feed. He returned
to the insecure life of a traveling evangelist, preaching and
rented warehouses, ragged tents, and in the open air. He
got an occasional odd job and spent the money he

(08:40):
earned on soup bones and two day old bread to
feed his family. In July eighteen sixty five, William was
in a sense still looking for his life's work. The
Boosts were living in London and now had six children.
On July second, Williams set out for an eight mile
walk to London's East End to preach at a tent meeting.

(09:02):
As he walked, he was shocked by what he saw
for liquor. Parents neglected their children, girls sold their virtue,
men became criminals. A man could get drunk for a penny.
Five year olds were commonly seen passed out in the doorways.
It was this area that drew William Booth like a magnet.

(09:23):
Booth burst into the house, swept Katherine into a hug
and shouted, Kate, I've found my destiny. Here's the great
grandson of William and Katherine Booth, Colonel Bramwell Booth. When
my grandfather was twelve or thirteen, William took him out
one evening to the East end of London where he

(09:45):
was working, and took him into some of the public
houses that lined the roads. They came in and found
the people with a many of them drunk could women
were with their little babies, and the situation was really
very sad. Of course, these men were out of work,

(10:08):
they were poor, they were uneducated and in desperate need.
And as they looked at them, William turned to Bramwell.
William Bramwell his name was, and he said Willie. These
are our people. These are the people I want you
to live for and to bring to Christ. The work

(10:32):
was hard, and the funds for the operation were near nonexistent.
Workers were poor, but there were men and women of
influence and wealthy philanthropists who came staunchly to the rescue.
Checks were written in. Buildings were loaned free of cost
for Booth to preach in or operate soup kitchens. Once inside,

(10:53):
crowds of idle and dissolute characters filled the building, but
William held their attention. Booth look eighty of the most
popular tunes of the time and changed the lyrics to
reflect a gospel centered message. Booth said, why should the
devil have all the best tunes? Both William and Catherine

(11:13):
would preach each usually an hour to an hour and
a half. Here again is Roger Greene and Gordon Moyles.
The preaching styles were a bit different. William Booth was
tended to roam on the platform, and tended to move
on the platform and so forth. He was a very
dramatic preacher. Of course, you could see the people drowning.

(11:36):
You could see the people reaching their hands above the waves.
Katherine Booth on the other hand, had a very different
style of preaching. Katherine tended to preach like a lawyer.
Katherine tended to argue her point and make her point
very clearly. In fact, the story goes that there was
a gentleman who heard Katherine Booth preach, and at the

(11:57):
end of the sermon, he turned to his son, a
future Archbishop of Canterbury, and he said to his son,
if I am ever in trouble with the law, don't
get me a lawyer. Get me that woman. When the
Christian Mission began, those involved wanted to adopt committees in
order to enact strict government protocol. Here's doctor Glenn Horridge,

(12:20):
author of the Salvation Army origins in early days and
Roger Greene. William Wall was getting very, very frustrated by
the constant talking on the fact that many people wanted
to formulate rules about how things should be done rather
than actually doing it, and he felt this was this
had been a problem of many of the other organizations

(12:43):
that were trying to do good work. Needless to say,
William and Catherine Booth were not people who favored committees.
They were both quite autocratic by nature. As you come
to eighteen seventy seven, some very important decisions were made,
and the primarily in decision was made was to have
William Booth totally in charge of the Christian Mission. When

(13:06):
their eighteen seventy eight report was drafted, it said the
Christian Mission, under the superintendence of the Reverend William Booth,
is a volunteer army. The report was shown to William
and his son Bramwell, and bram will sit here. I'm
not a volunteer, I'm a regular soldier. And William took

(13:27):
the pen in his hand, crossed off the word volunteer
and wrote in instead, the Christian Mission is a Salvation army.
And so the ranks he came in, and little by
little the military structure of the Salvation Army developed. Here's
Pamela Walker, Glenn Horridge and UCLA professor Diane Winston, author

(13:51):
of the engrossing study Red Hot and Righteous, the Urban
Religion of the Salvation Army. In the eighteen eighties, brass
bands were very popular in England. A lot of trade
unions had a brass band, and workplaces had a brass band,
so lots of people knew how to play brass instruments.
It was quite a common pastime in Salisbury. The Salvation

(14:11):
Army officer decided to use a local Methodist family to
play their instruments to drown out the rowdies. The Fry
family were the first people to do this, and they
found it very effective. With the rowdies start getting too loud,
they just bring out their brass brand instruments and start
playing and just bring up the tune and bring up
the sound of music, and that would just drown out
the crowd and they became very popular and it became

(14:31):
a very much a part of the Salvetion Army's appeal.
And the brass band would stand on the corner, they'd
do its testimony, they play some music, that sing some songs,
and that would also just help to draw an audience.
William Booth was a man ahead of his time because
he really appreciated the value of good publicity. He could
have been a great pr man had he gone in
a different direction. His credo was attract attention, and he

(14:54):
told his soldiers and officers to do anything possible to
get that attention. Booth really had a sense of marketing
and of branding, and he made sure that people knew
who the army was and the uniform was one of
the ways to do this. By far. The majority of
the Army's officers were very young. In at least half

(15:18):
were women. Here again is Gordon Moyles. William Booth always
said it, you know, my best men are women, and
in the eighteen eighties, for example, almost fifty percent and
sometimes more than fifty percent of the officers were women.
Here Salvation Army Major Christine Parkin. William both had a

(15:39):
rare genius for understanding the needs of young people. He
also had this fifth for being able to use people
in a way that made them fear that they were

(15:59):
in charge, They were responsible, they were challenged to do
something really good for the Kingdom of Art. Here's William
Booth's granddaughter, Commissioner Catherine Bramwell Booth. He was very interested
in what we did in the little call that you
might call it a little church, the group to which

(16:22):
we belonged to see. So if he was at home,
it was important to tell him what how it had been, Unsundy. Well,
how do you get on? And I said that day, yes, yes, Grandpa,
I sang a solo. Oh. He said, how did you
get on? Well? I said, well, I did my best
and then he suddenly seemed to be angry with me,

(16:46):
roared at me, and he could, you know, he could shout,
and he had a splendid voice. Well he shouted at
me that day, you see, an I was all in
a shiver, And he said, your best. What's the good
of that? Catherine? You'll never be any good to me

(17:06):
in the army if that's all you can do. And
then he suddenly stopped and changed, did you see, dear child,
when we believe in God and God helps us, we
can do better than our best? And then he opened

(17:28):
up all that idea of God being within reach and
understanding how we felt, and my goodness, what words, When
we believe in God and God helps us, we can
do better than our best. We're following the story of
William and Catherine Booth. The story of William and Catherine Booth,

(17:49):
The story of the Salvation Army continues after these messages,
and we continue here with our American Stories and the

(18:11):
story of William and Catherine Booth and the story of
the Salvation Army. And every once in a while, though
the show is entitled Our American Stories, you'll sometimes hear
some British voices and that's because as we look back
in time, so many of the important organizations, so many
the important events that happened here in this country, were
shaped by some of the things that happened across the pond,

(18:33):
so to speak. And so we continue with the story
of William and Catherine Booth. Among the thousands of recruits
the army, especially prized men and women whose lives had
been radically transformed. William Booth told his officers, when you
go into a town, search for the worst alcoholic, go

(18:54):
after the woman at the end of a rope. He
would rather his meetings were crowded with such people then
churchgoers who are not broken by their sin. One of
his mottels was go for souls and go for the worst.
Here's Christine Parkin and a couple testimonies of the time.
They were able to see it before their eyes. Really

(19:19):
they saw the little homes transformed because the father of
the household wrote a George to meet home an Assassinday
night instead of spending or his money at the pub,
and the children starting to go to school because there
was money. It used to be starvation before they came.
Now he brings his wages home to me instead of

(19:41):
taking them to the public house. If you want to
know what God has done for me, go and ask
my poor wife, whom I've beaten him a mad and
fury until I've endangered her life and smashed everything I
could lay my hands upon. Hear the words of Catherine Booth,
Glenn Horridge and Bram Booth. We teach that a man

(20:02):
cannot be right with God while he is doing wrong
to men. In short, decide that holiness means being saved
from sin and filled with love to God and man.
So important was the message of holiness that in eighteen
seventy at the Conference of the Christian Mission, William Booth said,

(20:23):
holiness is to us a fundamental truth. It stands to
the forefront of our doctrines. The first Alvision Army flag
was presented in eighteen seventy eight, and Catherine often explained
when she presented flags later on that the red stood
for the blood of Jesus Christ, which purifies from sin,

(20:46):
the blue stands for purity of holiness, and the fire
of the star was the fire of the Holy Spirit,
which actively leads his people. The flag and its soldiers
were encountering intense opposition in his play Major Barbara Committed
socialist master wordsmith and playwright George Bernard Shaw criticized the

(21:11):
Salvation Army for using tainted money to do its work.
To this, Booth answered, we will wash it in the
tears of the widows and the orphans and lay it
on the altar of humanity. The media hated the Salvation
Army too, and continually wrote fictional stories that were successful

(21:31):
in inflaming public opinion against them. Booth would tell his
very upset son Bramwell, fifty years from now, it will
matter very little how these people treated us. It will
matter a great deal how we dealt with the work
of God. I don't care what they say about me,
as long as they say something and announce where I'm preaching.

(21:54):
Even Queen Victoria objected to the Salvation Army on the
grounds that she should have the only army England and
that all generals should belong to the British Empire. The
authorities offered little if no protection, and in many cases
they charged the Salvationists with disturbing the peace. In fact,

(22:14):
the British Home Secretary pushed a piece at any price policy,
and this meant that the results of any legal Salvation Army.
Activity that hooligans turned into a riot were blamed on
the Salvation Army. The Home Secretary's logic went thus, if
the Salvation Army had not been there in the first place,

(22:36):
the peace would not have been disturbed. Here again is
Gordon Mones. When they were charged and sent to jail,
they had the option of a fine or say ten
days in jail. And you know what they always chose.
They chose the ten days in jail, and they would
go to jail for the ten days, and at the
end of the ten days, the Salvation Army Corps, the

(22:58):
whole battalion would line up, marched to the jail, bring
out the jailbird, and leave that jailbird dressed in the
uniform of a jailbird, marched them back to the citadel
and they would have a great meeting where the person
would testify and talk about it. And of course it
got publicized in all the newspapers. All the newspapers loved

(23:21):
it because they now knew they could get away with it.
Schools of angry and restless young men organized into a
group whose stated aim was to destroy the Salvation Army.
They called themselves the Skeleton Army. The Skeleton Army didn't
confine the harassment just to the streets. They went to
and attacked the homes of anyone who sympathized with the organization,

(23:47):
smashing windows and hurling dead cats and rats, bricks, stones, tar,
rotten vegetables, and sticks into their windows. One Army officer
named Elijah had his nose broken and face bloodied while
the riot was going on around him. William Booth asked
the bloodied Elijah how the officers were. Elijah replied, the

(24:10):
officers will be all right, dead or alive. In the
midst of all this, William received the news that one
of his first converts, Susannah Batty, had been killed. She
had been pelted with rotten fish and rocks. One of
the rocks knocked her off her feet, and as she
lay in the street, a thug kicked her heart in

(24:31):
the stomach, and she died of internal injuries. The Skeleton
Army was financially and politically supported by breweries, pub owners,
and politicians outraged by the army's unorthodox approached. This led
to a strange alliance among politicians, hoodlums, and brewery owners,
all of whom wanted the Salvation Army to march right

(24:54):
out of sight. Here again is Glenn Horridge. Anything that
seemed to be deviating from the noolm has often been
ridiculed and attacked. They set themselves up to be different,
and so what best on a Friday night or Saturday,
then to jeer at the Salvation Army. During eighteen eighty two,

(25:14):
six hundred and sixty nine Salvation Army soldiers were assaulted.
One third of them were women, including twenty three children.
Sixty Salvation Army buildings were seriously damaged. William wrote many
letters to Parliament and the police urging them to set
aside the piece at any price policy, but it failed

(25:35):
to move them. Eventually, four thousand angry young men from
the Skeleton Army descended on a small band of Salvation
Army soldiers, pelting them with rocks and tar When a
few officers arrived on the scene, the leader of the
Skeleton Army assaulted one of the officers. The man was
immediately arrested, and as their leader was dragged away, the

(25:58):
Skeleton Army began throwing rocks into the police station and
taunting the officers to come out. Finally, the police saw
the truth of the matter. It was impossible to ignore
the rights of one group of people and allow thugs
to roam the streets without putting everyone's liberty at risk.
And what a story we're hearing, by the way, and

(26:21):
I just love the beginning where Booth's admonition was to
search for the worst alcoholic and the woman at the
end of her rope, go for souls, he said, souls
at the end of their rope. These stories are important stories. Again,
the story about England and America, this is one that's
inextrictably intertwined. You can't imagine the Salvation Army without Christmas,

(26:45):
or Christmas without the Salvation Army. They become a part
of the DNA of this country. And by the way,
they serve so many families in need, and that's families
of every kind, every gender, every religion, non religion of course,
folks of every sexual orientation too. They don't ask for
any of these things when you walk into the door

(27:08):
of the Salvation Army. So give whenever you get a
chance to this great organization. More on the story of
William and Catherine Booth, the Salvation Army story. Here on
our American stories, and we continue here with our American

(27:41):
stories in the story of William and Catherine Booth. Let's
return to our final installment. In this great hour long story,
the persecution of the Salvation Army brought about a new protocol.
The Army began to station officers at prison gates as
disheveled men came out, Salvationists would offer help with accommodation

(28:04):
and legitimate work. Here's Roger Greene. There was a Salvation
Army family by the name of the Shirley family who
in eighteen seventy nine went over to the United States.
Their daughter was a captain in the Salvation Army. They
decided that they were going to begin the work of
the Salvation Army, albeit unofficially, in Philadelphia. So at Fourth Oxford,

(28:30):
the Shirley family, with Captain Eliza Shirley, just a young
woman at the time, began to work as Salvationists and
open the work of the Salvation Army in the United States. However,
this was not an official opening, and the Shirleys wrote
back to William Booth and asked if William Booth would
send reinforcements to help to establish the work of the

(28:53):
Salvation Army in America. And so William Booth chose George
Scott Railton and seven young women for this task, And
on March tenth of eighteen eighty George Scott Railton and
the seven young women, the seven Hallelujulasses, walked down the
gangplank of their ship to the base of the Manhattan

(29:17):
and they opened the work of the Salvation Army officially.
By the end of eighteen eighty three, the Salvation Army
was operating in twelve countries, and everywhere it fought an
evangelistic war. We are a salvation people, said Booth. That
is our specialty. On September twenty third, eighteen eighty six,

(29:40):
fifty seven year old William Booth stepped onto New York's
Cunard Pier. By now the Salvation Army boasted one hundred
corn America, manned by three hundred officers and over five
thousand soldiers and cadets. On this two and a half
month visit, over two hundred thousand Americans flocked to hear
him speA At his core, William Booth was an evangelist,

(30:05):
but he was also intensely practical. The social ministry of
the Salvation Army usually did not begin at the instigation
of William Booth. Social ministry began as officers and soldiers
were working in their own local situations with people, and
as they had compassion for these people and wanted to

(30:25):
aid them and assist them. And so, for example, in
eighteen eighty six, the Salvation Army opened up a home
for alcoholic women. They're again not at the instigation of
William Booth, but because there were local officers and soldiers
in that situation who saw a need and they wanted
to meet that need. What Booth did was support these

(30:46):
ventures with personnel and funds. Here again is Diane Winston
and Colonel Bramwell Booth. William Booth, unlike many of his contemporaries,
was not particularly interested in the big issues of the day.
Booth only cared about saving people. The army was a
religion of action. One evening on the cold winter's night,

(31:08):
William Booth was coming home over a bridge and realized
that men were sleeping out in the cold underneath the bridge,
finding what shelter they could. And when he first saw
my grandfather Bramwell, he said to him, Bramwell, did you
know that men were sleeping under the bridges in this weather,

(31:30):
and Bramwell answered, well, I thought everyone knew that, general,
And William then said, Bramwell, go and do something. Find
a warehouse, put some mathiss on the floor, get a
coke stove and look after me a little bit. But
mind no coddling. Here's Roger Greene and a quote from

(31:52):
William Booth. William Booth was very moved by the compassionate
ministry of his officers and soldiers, and in eighteen eighty
nine he wrote one of his most important articles. That
article was called Salvation for Both Worlds. William Booth says
very clearly that he has to fight not only against

(32:12):
the sin of this world, but he has to fight
also against the prevailing evils of poverty and idleness, and
prostitution and alcoholism and so forth in this world. If
these people uh to believe in Jesus Christ, become the
servants of God and escape the miseries of the ruth

(32:34):
to come, they must be helped out of their present
social miseress. In eighteen eighty eight, Catherine had discovered she
had terminal breast cancer. She would continue to write and preach,
but after two years she was confined to bed. Finally,
on October fourth, eighteen ninety at sixty one years of age,

(32:57):
Catherine Booth in Salvation Army terminology was promoted to glory
the following year. In December eighteen ninety one, Captain Joseph McPhee,
an energetic Salvation Army officer in San Francisco, had a
goal of providing a free Christmas dinner to anyone who
was in need. McPhee borrowed a large crab pot from

(33:21):
the Oakland Ferry landing and hung it from a tripod
at the foot of Market Street and posted a sign
that said fill the pot for the poor, free dinner
on Christmas Day. He collected enough to feed one thousand
people and thus began the now iconic Salvation Army Christmas

(33:41):
Red Cattle campaign. The sounds of bells ringing throughout America
has become a very important part of the holiday season.
Americans contribute some one hundred million to the Army's Christmas
Kettle campaign that provides Christmas cheer to the less fortunate.
Kettle donations remain in local communities, supporting year round services,

(34:05):
and the USA Christmas Kettle tradition was too good to
remain exclusive, and in recent years has become exported to
other nations in which the army serves. William now handed
much of the day to day running of the army
to his son Bramwell, and returned to his first love.
William began to travel the globe preaching the gospel. There's

(34:28):
a story of him sitting on a railway carriage with
Cecil Rhodes, the great South African colossus, the great imperialist.
And he says to Cecil Rhodes, how's your soul? And
Rhodes says not very well. William Booth puts his hand
on his shoulders, bends them over, get on the floor
of the carriage and the train, and prays with him.

(34:50):
And he would pray with everybody. He would ask everybody,
how's your soul? Are you saved? When he was in
the presence of the king, he was asked to sign
guest book, and on that guest book he wrote this,
some men's ambition is gold, some men's ambition is fame.
My ambition is the souls of men. Into his eighties,

(35:15):
William Booth would still preach. At one of his last meetings,
the old soldier gave his final call to battle while
women weep as they do now, I'll fight well, children
go hungry as they do now. I'll fight while men

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go to prison, in and out, in and out as
they do now. I'll fight while there is a drunken left,
while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets,
while there remains one dark soul without the light of God.
I'll fight. I'll fight to the very end. At the

(36:03):
age of eighty three. On August twentieth, nineteen twelve, the
old general who commanded a worldwide army for fifty three years,
was promoted to glory. The Salvation Army announced the General
has laid down his sword. For weeks after William was buried,

(36:23):
the rumors spread that Queen Alexandra had come to the
funeral in disguise. No one could prove whether the rumor
was true or not, but in one sense, it did
not matter. What mattered was that no one thought it
strange or unbelievable that a queen might have been standing
shoulder to shoulder with the most gaudy and destitute of
the attendees. Today, the Salvation Army spans the globe, reaching

(36:49):
out to others with the love of God, the courage
of their convictions, and the discipline of good soldiers, raising
more than one billion annually. The Salvation Army is now
established in eighty countries with sixteen thousand evangelical centers and
operates more than three thousand social welfare institutions, hospitals, schools, orphanages,

(37:14):
homeless shelters and social service agencies. I'm Greg Handler and
this is our American Stories, and great job as always
to Greg Handler. And what a story, the story of
William and Catherine Booth and the story of the Salvation Army.
One billion dollars a year, three thousand separate organizations. It's

(37:40):
really unbelievable, and not a stitch from the government. This
is just the generosity of people around the world giving
to a great cause. A special thanks, by the way
to the folks at Vision Video for giving us access
to their great documentary, Our People, the story of William
and Catherine Booth, the Self Asian Army story. Here on

(38:02):
our American Stories.