An old and bitter contest between two potent oldsters General Evangeline Booth, 71, and Commissioner Henry W. Mapp; 67—to control the world-wide Salvation Army flared up again last week for perhaps the last time. Tall, ruddy Henry Mapp came within the orbit of the Booth dynasty in India 50 years ago, when he joined the Army under Commissioner Edward Booth-Tucker, son-in-law of Founder William Booth. Mapp moved upward alone, to become the Army's Chief-of-Staff, administrator of some 26,000 officers and candidate for its Generalship when General Edward John Higgins made ready to retire. But formidable Evangeline won that post (TIME, Sept. 10, 1934) Implacably last week she ousted Commissioner Mapp from his.
General Booth had cut short a world tour, hastened from the Orient to London. Soon Commissioner Mapp took to his bed with high blood pressure, and his superior caused it to be announced that he was taking an extended furlough because of ill health. Commissioner Mapp, however, as if calling a bluff, demanded, under Army rules, a hearing before a secret court of inquiry. The five-officer court unanimously convicted Commissioner Mapp of whatever charges General Booth had brought against him. and gossips said that those charges involved "a woman." Indignant Commissioner Mapp announced he would sue for defamation of character.
Commissioner Mapp's successor as Chief of Staff: Commissioner John McMillan, 63, Scottish-born onetime secretary to Herbert Booth, Evangeline's brother, onetime commander of Central and Eastern territories in the U. S.