South Bend News-Times, Volume 39, Number 179, South Bend, St. Joseph County, 28 June 1922 — Page 9

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; , ' v. . . I v tX 'v .V. ' - ' IN a season of disappointmenta, low box-offico receipts and frequent failures, at least one attraction along Broadway has always been iure of its crowd. This attraction doesn't feature any of the usual a u re-fire hokum neither plantation choruses, Russian costume acts, nor society queens doinpr a temporary turn before the footlights. It features limply a youthful, yellow-haired frirl in a bonnet. And this girl, with nothing more to cfTer than the faith that is in hr, has successfully competed with the highest paid star3 in the world. At least fenr times a week Capt. Rheba Crawford of the Salvation Army invades New York's white light district, summons Its habitues with a drum beat, and strikes fire from their hearts. In one year she has made Broadway her own. Her following is ns fixed a3 Elsie Ferguson's. In and about Ftae doors and dressing-rooms, mart hotel lobbies and smarter tea-rooms, Capt. Crawford is known as "The Vamp Evangelist." This expression, .while an eloquent tribute to her natural equipment of color, contour and personality, i3 never meant in a sinister sense. It is Broadvay's methbd of saying that she has reached its heart; that she has vamped its reckless children into the ways of grace; that Eh has made religious observance a part of New York's nitfht life. Capt. Crawford's conquest of Broadway is, as a matter of indisputable fact, one of the conspicuous achievements of modern evangelism. Broadway Wouldn't Listen For rnnny years the Salvation Army, together with other Christian societies, made inefTectual attempts to obtain a foothold on Broadway. The Army sent its best speakers into that blazing stretch from Herald Square to Columbus Circle and tried to turn aside, for a few moments at leaft, the pleasure-bent crowdä. The experience of the Broadway corps was always the fame. They not only couldn't get cnouch collections to support the effort they couldn't even get the people to listen. As one Army missionary declared: "The crowds will step for half an hour to watch a man mend a tire or a collar-buttcn demonstrator perform in a show-window. But they won't stop more than a minute to hear a religious ir.e??age." Broadway wasn't disrespectful; Broadway was simply indillerent. The Ar:r.y finally abandoned the Broadway corps. Two year aero Rheba Crawford, the 18-year-cU daughter cf Bri. Crawford, a veteran in the Army, went to New York from the South for the purpose of editing the Salvation Army's children's faper, "The Young Soldier." Miss Crawford, by virtue cf whirlwind campaigns conducted in the principal cities cf Georgia and Florida, had jus earned her commission in the Army. She fell to her job of getting cut "The Young Soldier" with characteristic zeal. She soon found, though, thai the Job made far too small a draft cn her energies. She longed for action. The white-hot fire cf the special pleader was burning within her. She applied to the commanding officer for field service, but no territory around New York was available just then. Finally the question of

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. ; - .A" , -v . . . --v . ,7 1.x . - r Juri .tfinrtj - - " ' il i'l in 1 "Quick J Quick! A Songl" making another effort to win Broadway came up. Capt. Crawford volunteered. Her superiors in the Army were frankly skeptical over the prospect, but she was nevertheless told to go ahead. After her first Broadway meeting she went home and wept all night. She had attracted a crowd all right and the crowd, after its own fashion, had been pleased with her. But a peculiar atmosphere of cynicism and curiosity was about them. They lcoked upon her meeting as a show. When she made a telling hit someone shouted " 'At a girl!" When she completed her speech they burst into, applause. As she looked out over the circle of faces that ever grew broader she noticed they represented different stages of culture and prosperity. But each face seemed to have the same expression an expression of, amusement and good-natured worldliness. She felt her voice growing flat; she repeated meaningless phrases over and over. She heard a young man turn to a friend and 'ay: "She's a darn good-looking blonde, all right." When she passed through the crowd taking the collection a portly gentleman asked her to take supper with him that night. She closed the meeting as soon as she could. She felt defeated and humiliated. - By the next night, however, she had got back her fighting spirit. She took off her bonnet, rolled up her sleeves, ran her fingers tr.rough her hair and went after them, horse, foot and dragoons. There'3 a different spirit in her Broadway audiences now. Their cynicism has gone. They are not all believers in the orthodox sense, but they respect her faith, her message and her enthusiasm. But to this day they applaud her. She ha3 found that Broadway insists on applauding whatever it likes. "It'3 different from a congregation in a church," said Capt. Crawford. "They're not so stiff and formal, they're sort of rough and ready. B.it I love 'em. I know how to treat them now" and they knjw how to treat me." First of all, she believes that if one lays claim to a faith that will move mountains one should stand up straight and deliver that faith with all the fire one commands. To Capt. Crawford's way cf thinking a Christian soldier should never mope or languish or be too consciously pious. As a result one finds CapL Crawford going after her aud'ences with all the acrobatics of Billy Sunday plus her own tricks of expression.

tke Stae s Sell-Out

Winning Applause Where Otker Revivalists Found

- . .. w ' I.; 3Iy Religion Each 3Ian to His Vision! Mission To Make This Life a Little ' for as Many People as I Can." She shouts and sings, stamps her feet, whirls her arms, windmill fashion, stands on cne foot, leans against a wall. Sometimes when she feels that the thought she is trying to get across i3 too big and explosive for words or gestures she will stop Abruptly in the middle of a sentence and turn to the cornet player. "Quick! Quick! A song!" she will shout. And before he can get the instrument to his lips will start singing. " Turning Aside from Money One night, a promment church worker from a Western town was passing along Broadway at Forty-sixth street and stepped to hear her speak. He was so impressed with her magnetism that he sought her out after the meeting and asked if she wouldn't undertake a revival meeting in his town. Capt. Crawford refused. "In the first place," she said, "I don't like the idea of making too much money out of religion. In the second place, I think I can do more actual service in the Salvation Army. A revivalist only begins his work. It's easy enough to put religion in people's hearts, but it's hard to keep it there. In the Salvation Army you can follow up your work. Of course I may sometime undertake evangelical work on a larger scale, but I doubt it. I love my Broadway crowds too much." The finer doctrinal points Capt. Crawford is quite content to leave to the professors of theology in the seminaries. "I don't pretend to know everything about God. And I think it would be impertinent for me to give people a blueprint of heaven. I try to build up a spirit of mutual helpfulness and tolerance in this life. I can't understand hard and fast Christianity. In fact, I must confess w paper feature rrlr. 1321.

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I i- - i 1 . i-" :. 4 - t . 1- ? 1: i. ... t , . . . '.. v. - 4 i if ' I'" : ' r VV 4t ., : I 1 - - "I'm Glad Dresses Are Longer This Year. I Look Better in Long Ones." that I don't like pious people very much. My religion is simple Each man to his vision. My mission is simpler To make this life a little easier for as many people as possible. I try to understand weakness because I am so weak myself, sometimes. I offended a pious person in my audience very much one night by saying that women didn't like good men. And they don't. I rouldn't tell you why." Capt. Crawford considers it only typical of Broadway psychology that she ehould get "mash notes" ju?t as an actress doe. "I got &n eleven-page letter the other day from a man in the Somerset Hotel," she said. "It was filled with devotion but whether for me or for God I couldn't say. I'm sorry men are like that. But you have to take them as you find them." While she w-as talking a fashionably dressed girl crossed the street. "I'm glad dresses are longer this year," she said. Somebody asked why, expecting to hear a strictly moral reason. "Because," she anJ UTt (. rN. ewerea, a loo DevTV ..t.w term long arease. 1 1 1 ! f.- -, . - r 4 .4 -r y

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