opened sundry large cities to the Army and had been a factor for good throughout New England, by reason of her earnest, sweet personality and her intellectual attainments.

For eight years they jointly directed the institution for training cadets in Chicago, in which city they rented the great Princess Rink, where thousands crowded every night and many remarkable conversions were recorded. Here it was that Major Winchell subpoenaed the well-known agnostic, Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, in a mock trial of Satan, precipitating a controversy that aroused comment all over this country as well as in Europe.

In 1897 the Winchells were detailed to organize the famous Fort Romie colony for the unemployed in Salinas Valley, California. The Mayor of San Francisco, Hon. James D. Phelan, now United States Senator, the late Claus Spreckles, and the Chamber of Commerce of that city, following Winchell's program, established that immense philanthropic work the success of which was so noteworthy that H. Rider Haggard was commissioned by the British Government to visit the colony and report upon it. ("The Poor and the Land," by H. Rider Haggard; Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1905.) The idea was waste labor on waste land by means of waste capital, converting the trinity of waste into the unity of production." Major and Mrs. Winchell returned last year to visit this poor man's paradise after an absence of seventeen years.

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For eleven years the Winchells have had charge

of Salvation Army work in Jersey City. The Major's methods of rescuing drunkards by stretchers, cabarets and cocktails have won world renown. Many men once in high positions but gone down into the wreckage have been restored to happy, useful lives.

As a successful, practical peacemaker, the Major has a unique reputation. The old Horseshoe district in Jersey City had long been known as one of the toughest sections about New York. Gangsters would meet nightly for stone fights. Men, women, even little children, would join in and serious, often fatal, injuries resulted. "Gamintowners" would fight "Hobokens," while Irish, Poles and Italians would exploit their individual grudges in battles royal. The fine, large, new Salvation Army building was a target for those who loved war. It was stoned regularly and so were its inmates.

From his office window, one day, Major Winchell saw a surging mob in a desperate affray. A young Irish girl, battling with a Polish woman, was overcome and knocked senseless. Men picked her up and, quickly recovering, she seized a derelict dishpan and proceeded energetically to pound the Polish head. A general mix-up ensued and, into the midst of it, rushed the Major with a bouquet of roses. The Irish girl's father had drawn a revolver and the Polish woman had produced a long butcher's knife, but an appeal to their better natures prevailed and the Irish lass was persuaded to present the roses to her enemy. The two women

became friends, the spirit of good will extending throughout the entire section. News of this achievement went all over the State with the result that the Major receives daily, in season, large consignments of flowers for distribution among all factions.' His big sightseeing auto, loaded with children of all nationalities, drives through the benighted district, leaving a trail of floral glory. Not a stone fight has there been in the section since the bouquet incident of five years ago. Now the police have only two or three arrests a week whereas forty or fifty were customary a few years ago.

The police and firemen of Jersey City, in expression of the esteem in which Major and Mrs. Winchell are held, made possible their trip to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915.

Crap shooting, a petty form of street gambling, used to be popular with thousands of young lads, but Major Winchell habitually entered the rings of gamblers and appealed to their manhood. The outcome was that, upon invitation, the boys either knelt on the sidewalk or raised their hats while the Major prayed for them. By pledges, extracted from the boys, the game is fast disappearing and the youths are aspiring to better things. The Major's auto, trolley and boat rides for children are widely known features of his Jersey City labors. His earnest efforts to turn the attention of the poor and weak to the noble and true things of life have

1The National Flower, Plant and Fruit Guild furnishes most of the flowers.

helped in the making of Jersey City. He has cooperated with the courts and with the Chamber of Commerce in city planning, and the present successful commission form of government (the first large Eastern city to adopt this form) has made this community one of the most attractive in the environs of Greater New York, a fact evidenced by the costly new apartments and other buildings constantly looming up within its confines.

Three years ago Winchell was sent to Ohio to direct a relief party among the flood sufferers. When called to Belgium, the Major was well equipped by years of successful experience to meet the ever new conditions. The story of his adventures in tumultuous Europe cannot fail to interest the reader.

Victories won along these lines, by his abiding faith in the power of love to make for peace, were officially recognized by a civic banquet under the auspices of the Chamber of Commerce in Jersey City upon his return from Europe, Colonel Austen Colgate presiding, and various distinguished citizens, among them the Governor and the Mayor, attesting their appreciation of the labors of this sterling American.

Peace has been his watchword; Peace is the key-note of his tale of work abroad; and it is his sincere belief, as he forecasts in his closing chapter, that the coming of Peace on Earth, Peace in the Human Heart, is to solve all of the problems of the nations.

G. T.

I

Preface

AM indebted to Mr. George Taggart, newspaperman and playwright, in writing this story

from material which I had given him, but in offering this volume to the public I assume personally all responsibility for its contents.

Describing work being accomplished by various organizations, I have endeavored to make it all a true record. These societies are doing an indispensable and far-reaching work under most trying circumstances.

I had no thought of writing a book. While lecturing, on my return, upon my experiences in Belgium, many people urged me to present my story in book form. They stated that many throughout the entire country would be eager to learn of my unique mission and its results. I have had little more in the way of personal notes than the correspondence with my wife, written before and after I was in Belgium, as no American mail is allowed to enter or to leave that country. Through the permission of the German authorities, I brought away my report to our London headquarters, the letter of the Brussels Chamber of Commerce and letters from the children, together with photographs and souvenirs. I include also the story of Dr. Maximo