Buoyed by a fiery 1907 speech from aging General William Booth, his last in New York City, members of his Salvation Army decided to declare war on “sin in the streets,” including the “drink traffic.”
The first “volley” was fired on Thanksgiving Day in 1909 with a spontaneous parade that was the idea of Colonel William McIntyre and Major G. W. Baillie. They called it the “Boozers’ Convention” or “Boozers’ Day,” and it featured people dressed up as beer and whiskey bottles and carrying catchy signs. (See photo.)
The double–decker buses that would become a fixture on Fifth Avenue in the coming years were hauled into service, and the Army went around the Bowery picking up drunkards and other “idlers” off the city streets.
The buses formed a parade that included five brass bands and a municipal water wagon pulling a 10–foot papier
mâché whiskey bottle with the words “bona fide bums.”
The Salvation Army picked up about 1,200 men that day and took them to Memorial Hall for a free meal and meeting, where they heard the testimonies of former alcoholics who had accepted Jesus Christ and were delivered from their “demons.”
The “Boozers’ Convention” became an annual event and spread to other cities.
One man picked up in the 1910 sweep was Henry Milans, former editor of the New York Daily Mercury newspaper. His alcoholism had ruined his career, and he was discharged from Bellevue Hospital in 1908 as a “hopeless incurable.” The Army literally found him in a Bowery gutter.
Milans was converted during the evangelistic meeting and “never again touched liquor nor had any desire to do so.”
Until his death, he had a “lively ministry” of writing, and his testimony and publications about his conversion “became a mainstay of the Army’s growing temperance crusade.”
The Salvation Army had supported Prohibition since the 1880s, but then as now, rejected supporting any political party. The Prohibition Party had courted the Army’s endorsement.
“The Army’s traditional view was that Christ alone was its Candidate, Who alone could solve the problems of this world; any more advocacy would only alienate one or another part of the public,” Edward H. McKinley wrote in Marching to Glory. “The Army preferred to attack Demon Rum by direct association.”
Material gathered from Marching to Glory: The History of The Salvation Army in the United States by Edward H. McKinley and The History
of The Salvation Army (Volume 5, 1904–1914) by Arch Wiggins.
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