Why in the....world.... would Father E. A. Devine, Catholic priest from the Transfiguration Rectory in Philadelphia, purchase 100 Krag rifles in 1926? I could see a few, maybe. It still had to be a small sum of money, that went to what purpose? Anyway, below is a link to a Congressional report on munitions. It shows the Father's purchase along with many others by Bannerman, etc.

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Here is a link to the same report highlighting other Krag sales.

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From the same report on page 13297, Sedgley reports that the rifles were purchased for a "Boys Brigade". This is a recorded discussion with Bannerman, Sedgley and others by an investigator (Wemple) for Congress. I hadn't seen this before doing my original post.

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See a little bit of humor further down on the same page, just for kicks.

Yeah, I was. I haven't read thru this whole inquiry from 1937, but it seems to be the start of machine gun control along with other gun control measures by the government.

The "Boys' Brigade" concept seems to have been started in Protestant churches in Great Britain in the 1800's. In the U.S. it was used by churches to keep the older boys interested in coming to church. There were a lot of debates over the years about the "military" teachings of the Boys' Brigade program. It involved drills with dummy and real rifles. Rifles were meant for killing and that is where the rub was. Churches had a problem with teachings involving weapons of killing.
Father Devine must have been a promoter of the Brigade. Not sure where his teachings of it was coming from. Couldn't find anything on the net about him.

I guess the Boys Brigade movement started in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1883, and spread Worldwide, (and still exists). It spread to the U.S. around 1915.

It influenced the creation of the Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, and many other youth groups.

The Catholic Boys Brigade seems to have started in Boston, spread to New York, around 1910, and was picked-up in most urban areas.

As 'Knute' mentioned, in the early days real rifles & 'Drill' rifles and military style uniforms were in use. This practice eventually died out.

Catholic Boys Brigade movement eventually 'fizzled out', probably morphing into CYO - Sports and Scouting.

attached: Philadelphia Catholic Naval Battalion photos with enlarged detail showing some type of drill arm.