What shall we do with the drunken sailor?
- deansimpson7
- Aug 1
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 2
BY BARRY GITTINS
On 1 August 1925, 100 years ago today, The Salvation Army in Australia reported it had “opened its doors and its big international heart to welcome the men of … the American Fleet”, and “let loose its Officers on the streets of Melbourne to act as guardian angels to any of the sailor lads who were exposed to moral danger”.
That last gig – playing guardian angel – kept the Salvos busy indeed, according to the War Cry.
The sailors from the Prohibition-era US (alcohol was criminalised from 1920-1933) took advantage of the liquor licensing laws in Australia. Local criminals and barkeeps had a field day.
“Over forty men” were gathered up on the lower hall of the Melbourne City Temple “who had succumbed to the effects of doped liquor”; they were “carefully watched over” by the Salvationists.
The Salvos had met the Americans as the battleships arrived at Port Melbourne, and the fabled Salvation Army vehicle ‘Lizzie Tinribs’ was put to good use, transporting inebriated seamen from dens of iniquity to Salvation Army centres for coffee and food.
Not that all the visitors were happy to be sobered up; the report noted that “after a tussle, we succeeded in dragging out a budding admiral who had evidently been drugged and very likely fallen among thieves. He was doubled up like a ball and absolutely helpless, so we bundled him in”.
Ushering sailor lads out of “drink shops and … the clutches of some of the Melbourne crooks, who seemed to be like a cloud of blowflies hovering around the boys” was a precursor to transporting them to Little Bourke Street Hall and the City Temple, where the faithful were aided by comrades from Carlton and South Fitzroy.
Police officials had requested The Salvation Army lasses keep the sailors away from houses of ill-fame. “Your bonnets can do what we can’t,” said one constable.
“Time and again we would bring along loads of helplessly drunk sailor lads [in scenes of] disgrace to those citizens of Melbourne, who were guilty of putting drink in the way of our American visitors”, the report added. One sailor Yank “has been knocked about badly; the Salvos dragged him from an angry crowd and took him to the hall to have some of the Yankee blood bathed from his face … Back and forth we went, loaded with drunken sailors [and] half-dead marines”, all stowed precariously on the platform of the Army hall.
The Salvos delivered their American charges “out of the clutches of the harpies and crooks that are after them. Great crowds of crooks of the worst type are dogging their footsteps. The brewers and drink shops are reaping a rich harvest. Racing, boxing and all kinds of sport, legitimate and otherwise, are being offered in attractive garb”.
In the limelight in 1908
Things were less dramatic but more prophetic in August publications 17 years earlier, when “the Great White Fleet” had previously visited. The 22 August 1908 War Cry reckoned Australia welcomed “her brothers of the Anglo-Saxon family, whose territory, language, arts and arms embrace the world … Australia and the United States are one in blood, language, ideals and destiny …”
“… No exigency, or combination of interest or policy, in or related to the Pacific, can be realised in the future without recognising the United States as an important factor in its adjustment.”
The Salvation Army was at hand to film the fleet’s much-heralded arrival, in one of the Limelight Department’s last great ‘shoots’.
The very next week’s issue (29 August 1908) recorded the US sailors making land in Melbourne, greeting them with the Aboriginal words ‘Monomeath Mirainbeena N’ Yaalingo (Welcome a thousand times)’.
