When General Booth Packed the Seattle Armory

General Booth, commander-in-chief of the Salvation Army, was introduced to the crowd at the Seattle Armory. On the platform were civic and religious leaders, including Roger S. Greene, delegates, and officers of the Salvation Army. The mayor turned to the audience and said:

'Ladies and gentlemen and fellow citizens of Seattle: You may consider that I am late in arriving here, but I wish to say that I am not late. So many thousands are here ahead of me that they made it impossible for me to find my way through to the stand. I thank God that this is so, because you came of your own accord and your own free will to welcome General Booth. For you, I am sure that I welcome General Booth to the city. I express the unanimous sentiments of Seattle. This great demonstration is itself, without any attempt at an extended address from me, sufficient proof of the welcome which I know you wish me to convey to the general. We know the Salvation Army, and all of us attest the good work it has done. Seattle, through its municipal officers and by the thousands of citizens congregated here, extends the heartiest welcome to Gen. Booth, as it does to all others who are devoting lives and means to the uplifting and betterment of humankind.'

On behalf of the pastors and churches of Seattle, the pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church welcomed Booth to the Queen City. He called the Salvation Army leader a chosen vessel and a leader of men, praised his moral heroism, and said the Army pre-eminently stood for the idea that 'a man's a man for a' that,' and that Jesus Christ died for him. 'I bid you welcome, thrice welcome,' he concluded.

General Booth, his face pale and his tall black hat in his hand, came forward and replied in a tremulous but distinct voice. He thanked the citizens and friends of Seattle from the bottom of his heart for the kindly welcome. He said he had been suffering from illness during the past weeks, which had affected his work, but he was glad to find the Salvation Army in Seattle and to find its people struggling there for the glory of God. He thanked those who had met him and greeted them again.

Later, at the residence of Rev. Wallace Nutting, 1226 University Street, Booth told a Post-Intelligencer reporter that he was writing to his chief of staff in London to send men into Japan, war or no war. He said his reception in America had been royal, that the Army had made much headway in the United States, and that he had been well received in California. He asked about the Keeley cure and said that if it did cure, he had thought of introducing it into his work, because many poor, hard-working men had wives who had become drunkards.

That evening the Armory was filled to capacity, and fully one-half of those present were members of the Salvation Army. Representatives had come from every post in Washington, Oregon, and Montana. The platform was crowded with Army dignitaries, including General Booth and his staff. When Booth entered he was cheered loudly, and trumpets sounded. Col. Lawley opened with prayer, and Rev. Wallace Nutting, as chairman, introduced the general.

Booth said the greeting was not for him personally but for the Lord Jesus Christ and for him as His humble instrument. The social operations of the Army, he said, were but the outgrowth of its religious operations. The movement had begun twenty-nine years earlier in a corner in London, where he saw the spiritual and temporal miseries of thousands in the modern Babylon and resolved to devote his life to their amelioration. Four years earlier the Army had taken a leap into the chasm and put its arms around the men and women found in the slums of the great cities. He described the hunger and destitution, crime and misery of those slums, and said he believed governments should help the Salvation Army because it was doing so much to reform criminals and lawbreakers. His latest plan was to get the starving millions onto the land, where they could get enough to eat, and to colonize vacant land. He told of the thousands fed and sheltered by the Army in London at nominal cost—two cents for a sleeping place and four cents for a bed—and said that no more people need sleep outdoors in London since the Salvation Army had got to work in earnest.

At the conclusion, Roger S. Greene moved a vote of thanks. Major Malan of Italy sang in Italian, and the audience joined the chorus. A rising vote of thanks was tendered to General Booth and to Rev. Wallace Nutting. Col. Lawley announced that the general would meet field officers the next day and would speak again at the Armory that evening.