Part 64

“A good many of us who hadn’t enough religion, and a good many more of us who, mayhap, had too much religion, looked rather contemptuously upon the methods of the Salvationists. Some have gone so far as to intimate that the Salvation Army was vulgar in its methods and lacking in dignity and even in reverence. Some have intimated that converting a sinner to the tap of a bass drum or the tinkle of a tambourine was an improper process altogether. Never again, though, shall I hear the blare of the cornet as it cuts into the chorus of hallelujah whoops, where a ring of blue-bonneted women and blue-capped men stand exhorting on a city street-corner under the gaslights, without recalling what some of their enrolled brethren—and sisters—have done, and are doing, in Europe!

“The American Salvation Army in France is small, but, believe me, it is powerfully busy! Its war delegation came over without any fanfare of the trumpets of publicity. It has no paid press agents here and no impressive headquarters. There are no well-known names, other than the names of its executive heads, on its rosters or on its advisory boards. None of its members are housed at an expensive hotel and none of them have handsome automobiles in which to travel about from place to place. No campaigns to raise nation-wide millions of dollars for the cost of its ministrations overseas were ever held at home. I imagine it is the pennies of the poor that mainly fill its war chest. I imagine, too, that sometimes its finances are an uncertain quantity. Incidentally, I am assured that not one of its male workers here is of draft age unless he holds exemption papers to prove his physical unfitness for military service. The Salvationists are taking care to purge themselves of any suspicion that potential slackers have joined their ranks in order to avoid the possibility of having to perform duties in khaki.

“Among officers, as well as among enlisted men, one occasionally hears criticism—which may or may not be based on a fair judgment—for certain branches of certain activities of certain organizations. But I have yet to meet any soldier, whether a brigadier or a private, who, if he spoke at all of the Salvation Army, did not speak in terms of fervent gratitude for the aid that the Salvationists are rendering so unostentatiously and yet so very effectively. Let a sizable body of troops move from one station to another, and hard on its heels there came a squad of men and women of the Salvation Army. An army truck may bring them, or it may be they have a battered jitney to move them and their scanty outfits. Usually they do not ask for help from anyone in reaching their destinations. They find lodgment in a wrecked shell of a house or in the corner of a barn. By main force and awkwardness they set up their equipment, and very soon the word has spread among the troops that at such and such a place the Salvation Army is serving free hot drinks and free doughnuts and free pies. It specializes in doughnuts—the Salvation Army in the field does—the real old-fashioned home-made ones that taste of home to a homesick soldier boy!

“I did not see this, but one of my associates did. He saw it last winter in a dismal place on the Toul sector. A file of our troops were finishing a long hike through rain and snow over roads knee-deep in half-thawed icy slush. Cold and wet and miserable they came tramping into a cheerless, half-empty town within sound and range of the German guns. They found a reception committee awaiting them there—in the person of two Salvation Army lassies and a Salvation Army Captain. The women had a fire going in the dilapidated oven of a vanished villager’s kitchen. One of them was rolling out the batter on a plank, with an old wine-bottle for a rolling pin, and using the top of a tin can to cut the dough into circular strips; the other woman was cooking the doughnuts, and as fast as they were cooked the man served them out, spitting hot, to hungry, wet boys clamoring about the door, and nobody was asked to pay a cent!

“At the risk of giving mortal affront to ultradoctrinal practitioners of applied theology, I am firmly committed to the belief that by the grace and the grease of those doughnuts those three humble benefactors that day strengthened their right to a place in the Heavenly Kingdom.”

My Dear Colonel Jenkins:

I take pleasure in sending you a copy of my report as Commissioner to France, in which I made reference to the work of the Salvation Army with our American Expeditionary Forces.

I cannot recall ever hearing the slightest criticism of the work of the Salvation Army, but I heard many words of enthusiastic appreciation on the part not only of the Generals and officers but of the soldiers.

I saw many evidences showing that the unselfish, sometimes reckless, abandon of your workers had a great effect upon our men.

I am sure that the Salvation Army also stands in high respect for its religious influence upon the men.

It was pleasant still further to hear such words of appreciation as I did from General Duncan regarding the work of Chaplain Allan, the divisional chaplain of General Duncan’s unit. He has evidently risen to his work in a splendid way. It is a pleasure to have this opportunity of rendering this testimony to you.

Faithfully yours,

Charles S. MacFarland, General Secretary.

The New York Globe printed the following:

Huns Don’t Stop Salvation Army. Meeting Held in Deep Dugout Under Ruined Village—Mandolin Supplants the Organ.

By Herbert Corey.

Just behind the Somme front, May 31.—Somewhere in the tangle of smashed walls there was a steely jingle. At first the sound was hard to identify, so odd are acoustics in this which was once a little town. There were stub ends of walls here and there—bare, raw snags of walls sticking up—and now and then a rooftree tilted pathetically against a ruin, or a pile of dusty masonry that had been a house. A little path ran through this tangle, and under an arched gateway that by a miracle remained standing and down the steps of a dugout. The jingling sound became recognizable. Some one was trying to play on a mandolin:

“Jesus, Lover of My Soul.”

It was grotesque and laughable. The grand old hymn refused its cadences to this instrument of a tune-loving bourgeoise. It seemed to stand aloof and unconquered. This is a hymn for the swelling notes of an organ or for the great harmonies of a choir. It was not made to be debased by association with this caterwauling wood and wire, this sounding board for barbershop chords, this accomplice of sick lovers leaning on village fences. Then there came a voice:

“By gollies, brother, you’re getting it! I actually believe you’re getting it, brother. We’ll have a swell meeting to-night.”

I went down the steps into the Salvation Army man’s dugout. A large soldier, cigarette depending from his lower lip, unshaven, tin hat tipped on the back of his head, was picking away at the wires of the mandolin with fingers that seemed as thick and yellow as ears of corn. As I came in he stated profanely, that these dam’ things were not made to pick out condemn’ hymn tunes on. The Salvation Army man encouraged him:

“You keep on, brother,” said he, “and we’ll have a fine meeting for the Brigadier when he comes in to-night.”

Taking His Chances.

Another boy was sitting there, his head rather low. The mandolin player indicated him with a jerk. “He got all roughed up last night,” said he. “We found a bottle of some sweet stuff these Frogs left in the house where we’re billeted. Tasted a good deal like syrup. But it sure put Bull out.”

Bull turned a pair of inflamed eyes on the musician.

“You keep on a-talkin’, and I’ll hang somep’n on your eye,” said Bull, hoarsely.

Then he replaced his head in his hands. The Salvation Army man laughed at the interlude and then returned to the player.

“See,” said he, “it goes like this——” He hummed the wonderful old hymn.