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“Hitting the Sawdust Trail”

An Evening with Billy Sunday

Show begins with a few Hymns. Slower to faster. Dan Introduces “Billy “ Ladies and Gentlemen, Brothers and Sisters. I take great pleasure in introducing the man who has single handedly lead over 100,000 men and women into salvation. A man who has preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ from one end of this Great nation to another.

I will take my text from the eight chapter of Matthew, the twenty-eight to the thirty-second verse, describing the casting out of the devils, which entered into the swine. Here we have one of the strangest scenes in the Gospels. Two men, possessed of devils, confront Jesus and while the devils are crying out for Jesus to leave them, He commands the devils to come out, and the devils obey the command of Jesus. The devil asks permission to enter into a herd of swine feeding on the hillside. This is the only record we have of Jesus ever granting the petition of devils. And he did it for the salvation of men. Then the fellows that kept the hogs went back to town and told the peanut-brained, weasel–eyed, hog-jowled, beetle-browed, bull-necked lobsters that owned the hogs, that a “ long-haired fanatic from Nazareth, named Jesus, had driven the devils out of some men, and they went into the hogs, and the hogs into the sea, and the sea into the hogs, and the whole bunch is dead. And then the fat, pussy old fellows came out to see Jesus and said that he was hurting their business. A fellow says to me, “ I don’t think Jesus did a nice thing.” You don’t know what you are talking about. Down in Nashville, Tenn., I saw four wagons going down the street, and they were loaded with stills, and kettles, and pipe. “ What is this?” I asked. United States revenue officers and they have been in the Moonshine district and confiscated the illicit stills, and they are taking then down to the government scrap heap. Jesus Christ was God’s revenue officer. Now the Jews were forbidden to eat pork, but Jesus Christ came and found that crowd buying and selling and dealing in pork, and confiscated the whole business, and He kept within the limits of the law when He did it. Then the fellows ran back to those who owned the hogs to tell what had befallen them and those hog owners said to Jesus: “ Take your helpers and hike. You are hurting our business. “ And they looked into the sea and the hogs were bottom side up, but the men were right side up. And Jesus said, “ What’s the matter?” And they answered: “Leave our hogs and go.” A fellow says it is a strange request for the devils to make, to ask permission to enter the hogs, I don’t know --if I was a devil I would rather live in a good, decent hog than in lots of men and if you will drive the hog out you won’t have to carry slop to him, so I will try to help you get rid of the hog. And they told Jesus to leave the country. They said:” you are hurting our business.” “Have you no interest in manhood?” “We have no interest in that; just take your disciples and leave, for you are hurting our business.” That is the attitude of the liquor traffic toward the Church, the state, the Government and the preacher that has the backbone to fight the most damnable, corrupt institution that ever wriggled out of hell and fastened itself to the public.

I am temperance Republican down to my toes. Who is the man that fights the whiskey business in the south? It is the Democrat! They have driven the business from Alabama; they have driven it from Georgia and from Mississippi and Tennessee, all but three cities, and out of 100 counties in Kentucky. And they have driven it out of 147 counties in Texas, and out of Carolina. And it is the rock-ribbed Democratic South that is fighting the saloon. They started this fight that is sweeping like fire across the United States. You might as well try to dam Niagara Falls with tooth picks as to stop the reform wave that is sweeping our land. The Democratic Party of every state would nail that plank in it’s platform, and the Republican Party of every state would nail that plank in their platform if they thought it would carry the election. It is simply a matter of decency and manhood irrespective of politics. It is prosperity against poverty, sobriety against drunkenness, honesty against thieving, Heaven against hell. Don’t you want to see men sober? Brutal, staggering men transformed into respectable citizens? “No,” said the saloonkeeper, “to hell with men. We are interested in our business; we have no interest in humanity. After all is said that can be said upon the liquor traffic, its influence is degrading upon the individual, the family, politics and business and upon everything that you touch in this Old World. For the time has long gone by when there is any ground for arguments of its ill effects. All are agreed on this point. There is just one prime reason why the saloon has not been knocked into hell, and that is the false statement, “that the saloons are needed to help lighten the taxes. “ The saloon business has never paid, and it costs fifty times more for the saloon than the revenue derived from it. I challenge you to show me where the saloon has ever helped business, education, church morals or anything we hold dear. You listen today and if I can’t peel the bark off that damnable fallacy, I will pack my trunk and leave. I say that is the biggest lie ever belched out . . . . I defy any whisky man on God’s dirt to show one town that has the saloon, where the taxes are lower than where they do not have the saloon. I defy you to show me an instance. . . . . Five Points, in New York, was a spot as near like Hell than any spot on earth. There are five streets that run to this point, and right in the middle was an old brewery, and the streets on either side were lined with grogshops. The newspapers turned a spotlight on the district, and before they could stop it, the first thing they had to do was to buy the old brewery and turn it into a mission, and today it is a decent, respectable place. The saloon is the sum of all villainies. It is worse than war and pestilence. It is the crime of crimes, it is the parent of crimes and the mother of sins. It is the appalling source of misery and crime in the land, and the principle cause of crime. It is the source of three-fourths of the crime, and, of course, it is the source of three-fourths of the taxes to support that crime. And to license such an incarnate fiend of hell in the dirtiest, low down, damnable business on top of this old earth. There is nothing to be compared with it . . . Do away with the cursed businesses and you will not have to support them. Who gets the money? The saloonkeepers, and the brewers, and the distillers, while the whiskey fills the land with misery, and poverty, and wretchedness, and disease and death and damnation, and it is being authorized by the will of the sovereign people. You say, “people will drink anyway.“ Not by my vote. You say, “ men will murder their wives anyway.“ Not by my vote. “They will steal anyway.” Not by my vote. You are the sovereign people, and what are you going to do about it? Let me assemble before your minds the bodies of the drunken dead, who crawled away “ into the arms of death, into the mouth of hell,” an then, out of the valley of the shadow of the drink; let me call the appertaining motherhood, and wifehood, and childhood and let their tears rain down upon their purple faces. Do you think that would stop the curse of the liquor traffic? No! No! In these days the question of saloon or no saloon is at the fore in almost every community, one hears a good deal about what is called “ personal liberty.” These are fine, large, mouth-filling words that certainly sound first rate; but when you get right down and analyze them in the light of common old horse sense, you will discover that in their application to the present controversy they mean just about this: “ Personal liberty,” is for the man who, if he has the inclination and the price, can stand up to a bar and fill his hide so full of red liquor that he is transformed for the time into an irresponsible, dangerous, evil smelling brute. But “ personal liberty” is not for his patient, long suffering wife, who has to endure with what fortitude she may his blows and curses; nor is it for his children who, if they escape his insane rage are yet robbed of every known joy and privilege of childhood, and to often grow up neglected, uncared for and vicious as the result of their surroundings and the example before them. “Personal liberty” is not for the sober, industrious citizen who from the proceeds of honest toil and orderly living, has to pay willingly or not, the tax bills which pile up as a direct result of drunkenness, disorder, and poverty, the items of which are written in the records of every police court and poor-house in the land; nor is “persona liberty” for the good woman who goes abroad in the town only at risk of being shot down by some drink-crazed creature. This rant about “ personal liberty” as an argument has no leg to stand upon. . . . Two years ago in the city of Chicago a young man of good parents, good character, one Sunday crossed and entered a saloon, open against the law. He found there boon companions. There was laughter, song and jest and much drinking. After awhile, drunk, insanely drunk, his money gone he was kicked into the street. He found his way across to his mother’s home. He importuned her for money to buy more drink. She refused him. He seized from the sideboard a revolver and ran out into the street and with the expressed determination of entering the saloon and getting more drink, money or no money. His little mother followed him into the street. She put her hand upon him in loving restraint. He struck it from him in anger and then his sister came and added her entreaty in vain. And then a neighbor, whom he knew, trusted and respected, came and put his hand on him in gentleness and friendly kindness but in an instant of drunken rage he raised the revolver and shot his friend dead in his blood in the street. There was a trial; he was found guilty of murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and when the little mother heard the verdict- a frail little bit of a woman- she threw up her hands in a swoon. In three hours she was dead. In the streets of Freeport Illinois a young man of good family became involved in a controversy with a lewd woman of the town. He went in a drunken frenzy to his father’s home, armed himself with a deadly weapon and set forth the city in search of the woman with whom he had quarreled. The first person he met on the public square in the city, in the daylight, in a place where she had a right to be, was one of the most cultured women of Freeport. She carried in her arms her babe, motherhood and babyhood, upon the streets of Freeport in the daytime, where they had a right to be, but this young man in his drunken insanity mistook her for the woman he sought and shot her dead upon the streets with her babe in her arms. He was tried and Judge Ferand, in sentencing him to life imprisonment, said,” You are the seventh man in two years to be sentenced for murder while intoxicated.” In the city of Anderson, you remember the tragedy in the Blake home. A young man came home intoxicated, demanding money of his mother. She refused it. He seized from the wood box a hatchet and killed his mother, and then robbed her. You remember he fled. The officers of the law pursued him, brought him back. And an indictment was read to him, charging him with the mother who had given him his birth, for her who had gone down into the valley of the shadow of death to give him life, of her who had looked down into his blue eyes and thanked God for his life. And he said, “ I am guilty, I did it all. “ And Judge McClure sentenced him to life imprisonment.

. . . I tell you, gentlemen, the American home is the dearest heritage of the people, for the people, by the people and when a man can go from home in the morning with the kisses of his wife and children on his lips, and come back at night with an empty dinner bucket to a happy home, that man is a better man, whether white or black. What ever takes away the comforts of home- whatever degrades that man or woman- whatever invades the sanctity of the home, is the deadliest foe to the home, the church and the state, on top of God's’Almighty dirt. And if all the combined forces of hell should assemble in conclave, and with them all the men on earth that hate and despise God, and purity, and virtue-if all the scum of the earth could mingle with the denizens of hell to think of the deadliest institution to home, to church and state, I tell you sir, the combined hellish intelligence could not conceive of or bring an institution that could touch the hem of the garment of the open licensed saloon to damn the home and manhood, and womanhood and business and every other good thing on God’s earth. In the Island of Jamaica the rats increased so that they destroyed the crops, and they introduced the Mongoose, which is a species of coon. They have three breeding seasons a year and there are 12 to 15 in each brood, and they are deadly enemies of the rats. The result was that the rats disappeared and there was nothing more for the mongoose to fed upon, so they attacked the snakes, and the frogs, and the lizards that feed upon the insects, with the result that the insects increased and they stripped the gardens, eating up the onions and lettuce and then the mongoose attacked the sheep, and the cats, and the geese. Now Jamaica is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get rid of the mongoose. The American mongoose is the open licensed saloon. It eats the carpets off the floor, and the clothes from your back, your money out of the bank, and it eats up character, and it goes on until at last it leaves a stranded wreck in the home, a skeleton of what was once brightness and happiness. . . . As Dr. Howard said: “ I tell you that the saloon is a coward It hides itself behind stained glass doors, and opaque windows, and sneaks its customers in at a blind door, and it keeps a sentinel to guard the door from the officers of the law, and it marks its wares with false bills-of-lading, and offers to ship green goods to you and marks them with the names of wholesome articles of food so people wont know what is being sent to you. And so vile did that business get that the legislature of Indiana passed a law forbidding a saloon to ship goods without being properly labeled. And the United States Congress passed a law forbidding them to send whisky through the mails. I tell you it strikes in the night. It fights under the cover of darkness and assassinates the character that it cannot damn, and it lies about you. It attacks defenseless womanhood and childhood. The saloon is a coward. It is a thief, it is not an ordinary court defender that steals your money, but it robs you of manhood and leaves you in rags and takes away your friends, and it robs your family. It impoverishes your children and it brings insanity and suicide. It will take the shirt off your back and it will seal the coffin from a dead child and yank the last crust of bread out of the hand of the starving child; it will take the last bucket of coal out of your cellar, and the last ten cents out of your pocket and will send you home bleary-eyed and staggering to your wife and children. It will steal the milk from the breast of a mother and leave her with nothing with which to feed her infant. It will take the virtue from your daughter. It is the dirtiest, most lowdown, damnable business that ever crawled out of the pit of hell. It is a sneak, and a thief and a coward It is an infidel. It has no faith in God; it has no religion. It would close every church I the land. It would hang its beer signs on the abandoned altars. It would close every public school. It respects the thief and it esteems the blasphemer; it fills the prisons and the penitentiaries. It despises Heaven, hates love, scorns virtue. It tempts the passions. Its music is the song of a siren. Its sermons are a collection of lewd, vile stories. It wraps a mantle about the home of this world and that to come. Its tables are full of the vilest literature. It is the moral clearing house of rot, and damnation, and poverty, and insanity, and it wrecks homes and blights lives today. The saloon is a liar. It promises good cheer and sends sorrow. It promises health and causes disease, It promises prosperity and sends adversity. It promises happiness and sends misery. Yes, it sends the husband home with a lie on his lips to his wife; and the boy home with a lie on his lips to his mother; and it causes the employee to lie to his employer. It degrades. It is Gods worst enemy and the devil’s best friend. It spares neither youth nor age. It is waiting with a dirty blanket for the baby to crawl into this world. It lies in wait for the unborn. It cocks the highwayman’s pistol. It puts the rope in the hands of the mob. It is the anarchist of the world and its dirty red flag is died with the blood of women and children, and it sent the bullet through the body of Lincoln; it nerved the arm that sent the bullets through Garfield and William McKinley. Yes, it is a murderer. Every plot that was hatched against the government and law, was born and bred, and crawled out of the grogshop to damn this country. I tell you that the curse of Almighty God is on the saloon. Legislatures are legislating against it. Decent society is barring it out. The fraternal brotherhoods are knocking it out. The Masons and Odd Fellows, and the Knights of Pythias, and the A.O.U.W. are closing their doors to the whisky sellers. They don’t want you wriggling your carcass in their lodges. Yes, sir; I tell you, the curse of God is upon it. It is on the downgrade. It is headed for hell, and by the grace of God, I am going to give it a push, with a whoop, and for all I know how. Listen to me! I am going to show you how we burn up our money. …I am John, a drunken bum, and I will spend my dollar. I have worked a week and got my pay. I go into a grog shop and throw down a dollar. The saloonkeeper gets my dollar and I get a quart of booze. Come home with me. I stagger and reel, in my wife’s presence, and she says: “ Hello, John, what did you bring home?” “A quart.” What will a quart do? It will burn up my happiness and my home and fill my home with squalor and want. So here is the dollar. The saloonkeeper has it. Here is my quart. There, you get the whisky end of it. Here you get the workingman’s end of the saloon. But come on; I will go to a store and spend a dollar for a pair of shoes. I want them for my son, and he puts them on his feet, and with the shoes to protect his feet he goes out and earns another dollar, and my dollar becomes a silver thread in the woof and warp of happiness and joy, and the man that owns the building gets some, and the clerk that sold the shoes gets some, and the merchant, and the traveling man, and the wholesale house gets some, and the factory and the man that made the shoes, and the man that tanned the hide, and the butcher that bought the calf , and the farmer that raised the calf, and the little colored fellow that shined the shoes, and my dollar spread itself and nobody is made the worse for spending the money. Say, wife. The bread that ought to be in your stomach to satisfy the cravings of hunger is down yonder in the grocery store, and your husband hasn't’ money enough to carry it home. The meat that ought to satisfy your hunger is hangs in the butcher shop. Your husband hasn’t any money to buy it. The cloth for a dress is lying on the shelf in a store but your husband hasn’t the money to buy it. The whisky gang has it. Come on; I’m going to line up the drunkards. Come on ready, forward, march, left, right, here I come with all the drunkards. We will line up in front of a butcher shop. The butcher says: “ What do you want, a piece of neck?” “No; how much do I owe you?” “Three dollars.” ”Here’s your dough. Now give me a porterhouse steak and a sirloin roast.” “Where did you get all that money?” “Went to hear Bill and climbed on the water wagon.” “Hello, what do you want?” “Beefsteak.” “What do you want?” “Beefsteak.” We empty the shop and the butcher runs to the telephone. “Hey, central, give me the slaughterhouse. Have you got any beef, any pork, any mutton?” They strip the slaughterhouse and then telephone to swift, and Armour, and Nelson Morris, and Cudahy, to send down trainloads of beefsteak. The whole bunch has gotten on the water wagon. And Swift and the other big packers in Chicago say to their salesmen: “Buy, beef, pork and mutton.” The farmer sees the price of cattle and sheep jump up to three times their value. Let me take the money you dump into the whisky hole and buy beefsteaks with it. I will show what is the matter with America. I think the liquor business is the dirtiest, rottenest business this side of hell. Come on, are you ready? Fall in! We line up in front of the grocery store. “What do you want?” “Why, I want flour.” “What do you want?” “Flour.” “What do you want?” “Flour.” “Pillsbury, Minneapolis, Sleepy Eye?” “Yes, ship trainloads of flour, send on fast mail schedule, with an engine in front, one behind and a mogul in the middle.” “What’s the matter?” “Why the working men have stopped spending their money for booze and have begun to buy flour.” The big mills tell their men to buy wheat and the farmers see the price jump to over $3 a bushel. What’s the matter with the country? Why the whisky gang has your money and you have an empty stomach, and yet you will walk up and vote for the dirty traffic. Come on, cut the booze boys. Get on the water wagon; get on for the sake of your wife and babies, and hit booze a blow. Come on, ready, forward, march. Left, right, halt! We are in front of a dry goods store. “What do you want?” “Calico.” “What do you want?” “Calico.” “What do you want?” “Calico.” “Calico, all right, come on.” The stores are stripped. Hey, Marshall Field, Carson Pirie Scott & Co., J.V.Farrell, send down Calico. The whole bunch has voted out the saloons and we have such a demand for calico, we do not know what to do. And the big stores telegraph to Fall River to ship calico, and they tell their salesman to buy cotton, and the cotton plantation man sees the cotton jump up to $150 a bale. What’s the matter? Your children are going naked and the whisky gang has got your money. That’s what’s the matter with you. Don’t listen to those old whisky-soaked politicians who say, “Stand pat on the saloon.” Come with me. Now, remember that we have the whole bunch of booze fighters on the water wagon, and I’m going home now. Over here I was John, the drunken bum. The whisky gang got my dollar and I got the quart. Over here I am John on the water wagon. The merchant got my dollar and I have got his meat, flour and calico, and I’m going home now. “Be it ever so humble, there is no place like home without booze.” My wife comes out and says “Hello, John, what have you got?” “Two porterhouse steaks, Sally.” “What’s that bundle, pa?” “Cloth to make a new dress, sis. Your mother has fixed your old one so often it looks like a crazy quilt.” “And what have you got there?” “That’s a pair of shoes for you, Tom. And here is some cloth to make you a pair of pants. Your mother has patched the old ones so often they look like the map of the United States.” What’s the matter with the country? We have been dumping the money into the whisky hole that ought to have been spent for flower, beef and calico and we haven’t filled that hole up yet. A man comes along and says: ”Are you a drunkard?” “Yes, I’m a drunkard.” “Where are you going?” “I’m going to hell.” “Why?” “Because the Good Book says:’ No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God,’ so I am going to hell.” Another man comes along and I say: “Are you a church member?” “Yes, I am a church member.” “Where are you going?” “I am going to heaven.” “Did you vote for the saloon?” “Yes.” “Then you shall go to hell.” Say, if the man that drinks the whisky goes to hell, the man that votes for the saloon that sold the whisky to him will go to hell. If the man that drinks the whisky goes to hell, and the man that sold the whisky to the men that drank it, goes to Heaven, then the poor drunkard will have the right to stand on the brink of eternal damnation and put his arm around the pillar of justice shake his fist in the face of the Almighty and say, ”Unjust! Unjust!” If you vote for the dirty business you ought to go to hell as sure as you live, and would like to fire the furnace while you are there. Some fellows say “Drive the saloon out and the building will be empty.” Which would you rather have, empty buildings or empty jails, penitentiaries and insane asylums? You drink the stuff and what do you have to say? You that vote for it, and you that sell it? Look at them painted on the canvass of your recollection. What is the matter with this grand old country? I heard my friend George Stewart, tell how he imagined that he walked up to the mill and said: “Hello, there, what kind of mill are you?” “A sawmill.” “And what do you make?” “We make boards out of loges.” “Is the finish product worth more than the raw material?” “Yes.” “We will make laws for you. We must have lumber for houses.” He goes up to another mill and says: “Hey, what kind of a mill are you?” “A grist mill.” “What do you make?” “Flour and meal out of wheat and corn.” “Is the finish product worth more than the raw material?” “Yes.” “Then come. We will make laws for you and protect you.” “He goes up to another mill and says: “What kind of a mill are you?” “A paper mill.” “What do you make paper out of?” “Straw and rags.” “Well, we will make laws for you. We must have paper on which to write our notes and mortgages.” He goes up to another mill and says: “Hey, what kind of a mill are you?” “A Gin mill.” “What is your raw material?” “The boys of America.”

(Five to six boy Scouts walk across the stage carrying American flags)

The gin mills of this country must have 2,000,000 boys or shut up shop. Say, walk down your streets, count the homes and every fifth home has to furnish a boy for a drunkard. Have you furnished yours? No. Then I will have to finish two to make up. “What is your raw material?” “American boys.” “Then I will pick up the boys and give them to you.” A man says, “Hold on there. Not that boy. He is mine.” Then I will say to you what a saloon keeper said to me when I protested: “ I am not interested in boys; to hell with your boys.” “Say saloon gin mill, what is your finished product?” “Bleary-eyed, low-down, staggering men and the scum of God’s dirt.” Go to the jails, to the insane asylums and the penitentiaries, and the homes for feeble-minded. There you will find the finished product for there dirty business. I tell you it is the worst business this side of hell and you know it. “Listen! Here is an extract from the Saturday Evening Post of November 9,1907, taken from a paper read by a brewer. You will say that a man didn’t say it: “ It appears from these facts that the success of our business lies in then creation of an appetite among the boys. Men who have formed the habit scarcely ever reform, but they, like others, will die, and unless there are recruits made to take their places, our coffers will be empty, and I recommend to you that money spent in the creation of appetite will return in dollars to your tills, after the habit is formed. What is your raw material, saloons? American boys/ Say, I would not give one boy for all the distillers and saloons this side of hell. And they have to have 2,000,000 boys every generation. And then you tell me you are a man when you vote for an institution like that. What do you want to do pay money in taxes or boys? I feel like the old fellow in Tennessee who made his living by catching rattlesnakes. He caught one with fourteen rattles and put it in a box with a glass top. One day when he was sawing wood his little five-year-old boy, Jim, took the lid off and the rattler wriggled through and stuck him in the cheek. He ran to his father and said: “The rattler has bit me.” The father ran and chopped the rattler to pieces, and with his jack-knife he cut a chunk from the boy’s cheek and then sucked and sucked at the wound to draw out the poison. He look at little Jim, watched the pupils of his eyes dilate and watched him swell to three times his normal size, watched his lips become parched and cracked and his eyes roll and little Jim gasped and died. The father took him in his arms, carried him over to the side of the rattler, got on his knees and said: “Oh, God, I would not give little Jim for all the rattlers that ever crawled over the Blue Ridge Mountains.” And I would not give one boy for every dirty dollar you get from the hell-soaked liquor business or from every brewery and distiller this side of hell. Listen! In a Northwest city a preacher sat at his breakfast table one Sunday morning. The doorbell rang, he answered it and there stood a little boy, twelve years of age. He was on crutches, right leg off at the knee, shivering, and he said, “Please, sir, will you come up to the jail and talk and plead with papa? He murdered mama. Papa was good and kind but whisky did it, and I have to support my three little sisters. I sell newspapers and black boots. Will you go up and talk and pray with papa? And will you come home and be with us when they bring him back? The governor says we can have his body after they hang him.” The preacher was at the little hut when up drove the undertaker’s wagon and they carried out the pine coffin. They led the little boy up to the coffin, he leaned over and kissed his father and sobbed, and said to his sisters: “Come on, sisters, kiss papas cheeks before they grow cold.” And the little, hungry, ragged whisky orphans hurried to the coffin, shrieking in agony. Police, whose hearts were adamant, buried their faces in their hands and rushed from the house, and the preacher fell on his knees and lifted his clenched fist and tear stained face and took an oath before God and before the whisky orphans, that he would fight the cussed business until the undertaker carried him out in a coffin. You men have a chance to show your manhood. Then in the name of your pure mother, in the name of your manhood, in the name of your wife and the pure, innocent children that climb up in your lap and put their arms around your neck, in the name of all that is good and noble, fight the curse. Shall you men, who hold in your hands the ballot, and in that ballot hold destiny of womanhood, and children and manhood, shall you the sovereign power, refuse to rally in the name of defenseless men and women and native land? No. I want every man to say: ”God, you can count on me to protect my wife, and home, my mother and my children and the manhood of America.” By the mercy of God, which has given to you the unshaken and unshakeable confidence of her you love. I beseech you to make a fight for the women who wait until the saloons spew out the husbands and their sons, and send them home, maudlin, brutish, devilish, stinking, bleary-eyed, bloated faced drunkards.

In 1896 God saved me. It was Sunday afternoon. I was in the company of some ballplayers that are famous in this world. We went into a saloon and got tanked up and went and sat on a street corner. Across the street a company of men and women from the Pacific garden Mission were playing on instruments- horns, flutes, and slide trombones and others were singing the gospel hymns that I used to hear my mother sing back in the log cabin in Iowa where I was born. And I bowed my face in my hands and God painted on the canvass of my recollection of other days, and the faces, which had long since, passed into dust. And a man stepped out and said: “ Do you want to come down here and hear some fellows who have done time in the penitentiary and who are now going square? Booze – hoisters, girls that used to sell their womanhood that are now married and living good lives through the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you want to come? “ I arouse and said to the bunch- and if I’d tell you their names you would recognize every one of them- “ Boys we have come to where the roads part; I bid you goodbye.” Some of the fellows laughed and sneered, some said nothing. But one fellow gave me a word of encouragement and pushed me towards the arms of Jesus Christ and the path which lead me here to this platform. I’ve been thirty years getting here. It’s a long trip from a little log cabin in Iowa to this tabernacle. It’s a long trip, and there have been many hardships, and battles, and struggles. “ I said, I bid you good-by, boys,’ and I went down to hear the story. “ I liked it and one night I staggered to the front and fell into the arms of Jesus Christ, and said: I am sick and tired of sin, Lord; I want to go square. Will you please help me? I went over on the West Side in Chicago and joined the Jefferson Park Presbyterian Church. I was keeping company with a girl named Nellie Thompson. Her name has been Mrs. Sunday since the 5th of September 1888. I married Nell and she was a Presbyterian that’s why I’m a Presbyterian. If Nell had been a Catholic, I’d have been a Catholic. I was hot on Nell’s trail-that’s all. My Ma was a Methodist, but I am a Presbyterian. We had a couple or three days off. I didn’t want the boys to see me because I was afraid of the horse laugh they would give me for going square, for it appeared in newspapers all over the country. I walked down on a Wednesday morning and put my key in the gate, and the first fellow to greet me was Mike Kelly. Mike had a heart in him as big as a woman’s. He came up to me and grabbed me by the hand, and said “ Bill, religion ain’t my long suit; but if ever I can help you, here’s my mitt, and old Kell won’t knock. Here she is my boy; I’m proud of you. “ Up came Cap Anson, up came Ed Williamson, up came every member of that old Chicago tea, one of the best teams that ever crawled into uniforms, take it from me! We went through the season with only eleven men and won the championship. We didn’t have as many men on the whole team as they have pitchers on the average Major league team now days. We only had two pitchers -- Clarkson and McCormick-- and we’d alternate them-two pitchers. And every member of that team came up and gave me the glad hand. There wasn’t a member on that team that knocked me My, I felt like a millstone had been rolled off my heart! That afternoon we were playing the old Detroit team and we were neck and neck for the championship, and those games were going to settle it. I was playing right field and Clarkson was pitching. Oh, we’ve got some fine pitchers nowadays- Walter Johnson is a crackerjack. Alexander is a good one. Babe Ruth is a good one. Sharkey is an excellent pitcher. Every club has one or two good pitchers-but nobody, in my opinion, has ever qualified as a better pitcher then Clarkson. He was the greatest of them all. I tell you I have seen them all, and he is the only one I have ever seen that could do this. I have seen the spitters and the fadeaways, and I have seen the speed and curves, but he was the only fellow that could do this. He was the only pitcher that could ever pitch a ball that could go down then up. With an overhand motion he could make ’er go down and then up. He used to let it go off the end of his fingernail. He’d get it like that, and when she went by you-good night! The thermometer would drop two degrees. Poor John died up in Massachusetts in an insane asylum. Cigarettes broke down his health. I have known him to smoke eight or ten boxes of them in a day. I used to room with John. The water would be stained with nicotine when he’d take a bath. John was pitching and Mike was catching, and I was playing right field. We had them beat in the last half of the ninth inning, three to two. Charlie Bennett, the old catcher- (Charlie went out hunting and got off the train to get some lunch; the train started before they thought it would; Charlie slipped and fell and had both his legs cut off. Charlie lived in Detroit. He was converted at a meeting one night) well, Charlie was at bat We had them beat three to two in the last half of the 9th inning. Charlie had three balls and two strikes on him. He batted right-handed and usually hit to right field. I hollered to John: One more and we’ve got ‘em.’ I can see John as he dug a hole in the box. Charlie couldn’t hit a high ball, but he could hit one down about his knees as good as any fellow that ever walked up to the plate. John intended to keep the ball high and in close, but it went low and I heard the bat crack. I took a glance into the air and I saw she was coming out to me. (We played barehanded in those days; we didn’t wear mitts like they do now.) I saw her coming toward me and I whirled and went after it with all the speed I could summon. You’ve seen a ballplayer turn and run. I could tell you within ten feet of where that ball would light, taking into account the upper current of air, and so I whirled and away I went. The people overflowed the field and were out on the playing ground. I saw the ball was going to drop over in the crowd, and I yelled, “ Get out of the way!” and that crowd opened like the Red Sea for the rod of Moses. I ran on and as I ran I made a prayer; it wasn’t theological either, I tell you that. I said “ O God, I am in an awful hole, and if you ever helped mortal man, help me to get to that ball! I ran and jumped over the bench and when I thought I was under it, I stopped, I looked back and saw it going over my head and I jumped and shoved out my left hand and the ball hit it and stuck! At the rate I was going the momentum carried me on and I fell under the feet of a team of horses. But I held on to it and jumped up with the ball in my hand. How they yelled! Tom Johnson who used to be the Mayor of Cleveland-dead now-rushed up to me and shoved a $100.00 bill into my hand. ‘Here Bill’ he cried to me, ‘ greatest thing I ever saw! Buy yourself a suit, the best in town. That catch won me $1,500.00. I bought a suit that cost $80.00. I told that tale out in Iowa, and a good old Methodist steward came up to me and stroking his bird-tail whisker, said : William, you didn’t take the money or the new suit did you? I said, you bet your life I did! Now wait a minuet. The Chicago ball club sold Mike Kelly to Boston for $ 10,000. Mike got half the purchase money. He shoved the check under my nose and said: “Bill, put your eyeball on that.” The Boston Club gave him $ 5,000.00. John L. Sullivan, the champion prizefighter, went around and collected money to buy Mike a house. (I didn’t get to see it when I was in Boston. I wanted to. There were two places I didn’t get to see in Boston; and that was one of the two. I am going to make a trip to Boston some day and put some flowers on Mike’s grave.) They raised $ 12,000.00. Mike was the best all-round player that ever crawled into a uniform. He spent all the money he had and put a mortgage on his home before he died. Mike sat on the corner of State and VanBuren Streets with me thirty years ago when I said: ‘I bid you good-by; I am through. A.G. Spaulding took a ballclub around the world; do you remember that? I was the second man he asked to sign a contract-Cap Anson was the first. I was sliding into second base one day when I cut a ligament loose. I was in danger of being crippled and they called in a Doctor. He said: ‘Bill if you keep off that leg this winter you will be as good as ever; but if you take that trip you will be a cripple for life. I took his advice and I didn’t take the trip. Ed Williamson, our old shortstop, never weighed less than 200 pounds. He was the most active big man I ever saw in my life. He weighed about 240 or 250 pounds. They were crossing the English Channel when a storm arose and the captain said: ’She’ll never make it, she’ll go down,’ “ Everybody had on life preservers, ready for anything that might happen. Williamson threw himself on his knees and said; O God, I haven’t lived right, and if you will spare the ship and my life I promise you I’ll cut out the booze and quit gambling, and I’ll be true to my wife. He had just said this when the Lord heard his prayer. He stilled the tempest and the ship went into harbor. He came back to Chicago and started a saloon on Dearborn Street, just north of Madison, in a basement. I used to go in there giving out tickets inviting men to come to the YMCA meetings. He would take me back into the gambling room, turn the lock, and say, ”Bill, pray.” And we’d both get down on our knees with our arms around each other, and I’d pray. Ed would cry and I would cry, and he would say: ‘Bill it’s no use. You’re right and I’m m wrong; but I’m to far gone.” Ed went to Hot Springs, where he died. He stood on the corner of State and VanBuren streets with me, drunk, thirty years age, when I said: I bid you good-by. I am through; I am going to Jesus Christ.’ Frank Flint was our old catcher. He caught before they ever had masks, before they ever had gloves, before they ever had chest protectors, before they even had these shin guards. Every bone in his face was broken, and his shoulder was broken where foul tips had hit him. He caught for nineteen years, and his salary was $3,200 a year. Chicago released him, and he got a little bunch of saloons in Chicago where he used to go around and panhandle for a handout. I have gone many a night and found him in these different joints lying there asleep, vomit trickling out of his mouth and the flies swarming around, and I have turned my pants pockets wrong side out, and said: Frank I haven’t as much money now as I used to have when I played baseball, but you can take it all- take all you need. As long as I have got a cent, come around. His wife left him. She started a boarding house on the South Side. One day in the Winter he started out of a stale beer joint and reached the corner of Monroe and Dearborn Streets, opposite the First National Bank Building that Hetty Green owned, and leaning over the railing he coughed and coughed and coughed. The blood dripped from his nose. Down the street came a woman with a sealskin coat and diamonds. It was his wife. She took one glance at him, and then said: “My God Frank, is it you?” And she kissed him. They called the police, summoned a carriage, and speed up In front of the boarding house. She summoned five of the best doctors in Chicago. They felt his pulse, took his temperature, looked at the whites of his eyes, and counted his heartbeats. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve- and they said: Come here, Mrs. Flint. He won’t live long, go tell him. She gritted her teeth and braced herself and walked to the bedside. Brushing his hair back from his forehead and leaning over him, she said: Frank the doctor says it won’t be long until the umpire calls you out. He looked up and said to her: Bess, I wish you would send for Bill. She telephoned for me. I jumped on a streetcar and hurried to his bedside. When I reached there he pulled me down by his side, and said: Bill, there is nothing in the life I used to live that gives me any comfort now. I can see myself going up to the cashier’s window and getting my money, and hear the Grandstand cheer when I win the game with a hit. Bill I can’t see the ball, and I’m batting nothing but fouls. Won’t you help me? He looked up again. I saw the pupils of his eyes beginning to dilate. It seemed like he was trying to stretch a three base hit into a home run, and he rounded third and as he leaped as if to try and make it, the umpire leaned over the battlements of the universe and said; “Your out!” Frank Flint sat on the corner of State and VanBuren streets with me, drunk, thirty years ago, when I said,” I bid you good-by, boys; I’m through.” Who won the game of life, they or I?

End Act I

I believe this is the end of Act I

Lights dim come up second level right on the single chair. Coat off, take hat off chair and place on head.

The age of twelve my brother Edward and I went to the Soldiers Orphan home in Ames Iowa. But because of over crowding we were move to the home in Davenport where we met by the superintendent Mr. Pierce.

Sit in chair with hat in hand

Yes Mr. Pierce. I came here with my brother Edward. What about me sir? Well… I was born in 1862 in a log cabin near Ames Iowa. My father was a stone mason and enlisted in the Union Army to fight in the War Between the States. He got sick in a camp in Missouri and died in an Army hospital a month after I was born. I have another brothe r, Albert. He was kicked in the head by a horse and has to have some take care of him all the time. Eventually Mother married a shiftless no good named Heizer. I never liked him sir. He left us after six years, one morning he was just gone. While he and mother were married she had two more children, Libby and Leroy. My sister Libby died when we were burning some old wood. She got too close to the fire and her dress caught fire. After Heizer left and with Albert the way he was and all, mother just couldn’t take care of us any longer. I remember the day at the train station when we left I looked into Mother’s face. Her eyes were red and her cheeks wet from weeping, her hair dishelved. While Ed and I slept she had prayed and wept. We went to the depot, and as the train pulled into the station she drew us to her heart, sobbing as if her heart would break.

Stand and put hat in chair. Lights down on chair and up second level center, on steps. Albert turned sixteen and had to leave the orphanage. I went with my brother. I stayed with Mother at Grandfathers, Squire Cory. I hated farm work, so I went eight miles to Marshalltown Iowa and worked for Colonel John Scott. Colonel Scott was the Lt. Governor at one time but was now raising racehorses. I used to run along side them when they showed. In those days almost every town had a volunteer fire department and they played baseball. The Marshalltown team recruited me. One of biggest fans was the sister of Cap Anson who was the player Manager of the Chicago White Stockings. She encouraged Cap to give me a try and he did.

Lights down center and up on pulpit Move back to pulpit

Billy Notes July 14/01 From Billy Sunday was his real name by Mcgloughin Mac Library

Opening sermon for every campaign was “ Have ye received the Holy Sprit?“ Paul, that stooped shouldered, dim eyed, wrinkled-browed, white haired gospel veteran, was full of the Holy Sprit. He was on the firing line for years, and he never dipped his colors… but an angel from heaven couldn’t come down to Jacksonville and trim two weeks with the crowd some of you trim with, that call themselves good, and go back to Heaven without a bath of Lysol, carbolic and formaldehyde…. Now I don’t believe in the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man You’re a creature of God. So is a hog eating slop out of a trough. You’ve got to be a child of God. And only conversion by the Holy Sprit can make Men children of God.

Joshua was full of the Holy Sprit. Joshua said, “ Lord, it’s taking me longer than I figured to clean up on this gang, if you’ll keep the sun in the skies, I can whip the bunch to a frazzle, and I’ll send your name down through the ages.’ And God reached up there and grabbed the sun and said: “ Stay there; don’t move till my servant Joshua, gives you the highball!”

Baseball career lasted 9 years, from 1893 – 1891 rounded the bases from a standing start in 14 seconds. Stole 95 bases in one season and had a lifetime batting average of .259. Bill, put your eyeball on that.” The Boston Club gave him $ 5,000.00. John L. Sullivan, the champion prizefighter, went around and collected money to buy Mike a house. (I didn’t get to see it when I was in Boston. I wanted to. There were two places I didn’t get to see in Boston; and that was one of the two. I am going to make a trip to Boston some day and put some flowers on Mike’s grave. ) They raised $ 12,000.00. Mike was the best all-round player that ever crawled into a uniform. He spent all the money he had and put a mortgage on his home before he died. Mike sat on the corner of State and VanBuren Streets with me thirty years ago when I said: ‘I bid you good-by; I am through. A.G. Spaulding took a ballclub around the world; Do you remember that? I was the second man he asked to sign a contract-Cap Anson was the first. I was sliding into second base one day when I cut a ligament loose. I was in danger of being crippled and they called in a Doctor. He said: ‘Bill if you keep off that leg this winter you will be as good as ever; but if you take that trip you will be a cripple for life. I took his advice and I didn’t take the trip. Ed Williamson, our old shortstop, never weighed less than 200 pounds. He was the most active big man I ever saw in my life. He weighed about 240 or 250 pounds. They were crossing the English Channel when a storm arose and the captain said: ’See’ll never make it, she’ll go down,’ “ Everybody had on life preservers, ready for anything that might happen. Williamson threw himself on his knees and said; O God, I haven’t lived right, and if you will spare the ship and my life I promise you I’ll cut out the booze and quit gambling, and I’ll be true to my wife. He had just said this when the Lord heard his prayer. He stilled the tempest and the ship went into harbor. He came back to Chicago and started a saloon on Dearborn Street, just north of Madison, in a basement. I used to go in there giving out tickets inviting men to come to the YMCA meetings. He would take me back into the gambling room, turn the lock, and say: Bill pray. And we’d both get down on our knees with our arms around each other, and I’d pray. Ed would cry and I would cry, and he would say: ‘Bill it’s no use. You’re right and I’m m wrong; but I’m to far gone.” Ed went to Hot Springs, where he died. He stood on the corner of State and VanBuren streets with me, drunk, thirty years age, when I said: I bid you good-by. I am through; I am going to Jesus Christ.’ Frank Flint was our old catcher. He caught before they ever had masks, before they ever had gloves, before they ever had chest protectors, before they even had these shin guards. Every bone in his face was broken, and his shoulder was broken where foul tips had hit him. He caught for nineteen years, and his salary was $3,200 a year. Chicago released him, and he got a little bunch of saloons in Chicago where he used to go around and panhandle for a handout. I have gone many a night and found him in these different joints lying there asleep, vomit trickling out of his mouth and the flies swarming around, and I have turned my pants pockets wrong side out, and said: Frank I haven’t as much money now as I used to have when I played baseball, but you can take it all- take all you need. As long as I have got a cent, come around. His wife left him. She started a boarding house on the South Side. One day in the Winter he started out of a stale beer joint and reached the corner of Monroe and Dearborn Streets, opposite the First National Bank Building that Hetty Green owned, and leaning over the railing he coughed and coughed and coughed. The blood dripped from his nose. Down the street came a woman with a sealskin coat and diamonds. It was his wife. She took one glance at him, and then said: “My God Frank, is it you?” And she kissed him. They called the police, summoned a carriage, and speed up In front of the boarding house. She summoned five of the best doctors in Chicago. They felt his pulse, took his temperature, looked at the whites of his eyes, and counted his heartbeats. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve- and they said: Come here, Mrs. Flint. He won’t live long, go tell him. She gritted her teeth and braced herself and walked to the bedside. Brushing his hair back from his forehead and leaning over him, she said: Frank the doctor says it won’t be long until the umpire calls you out. He looked up and said to her: Bess, I wish you would send for Bill. She telephoned for me. I jumped on a streetcar and hurried to his bedside. When I reached there he pulled me down by his side, and said : Bill, there is nothing in the life I used to live that gives me any comfort now. I can see myself going up to the cashier’s window and getting my money, and hear the Grandstand cheer when I win the game with a hit. Bill I can’t see the ball, and I’m batting nothing but fouls. Won’t you help me? He looked up again. I saw the pupils of his eyes beginning to dilate. It seemed like he was trying to stretch a three base hit into a home run, and he rounded third and as he leaped as if to try and make it, the umpire leaned over the battlements of the universe and said; ‘your out! ’ Frank Flint sat on the corner of State and VanBuren streets with me, drunk, thirty years ago, when I said,” I bid you good-by, boys; I’m through. ‘ April 1,1917. New York Times. City Revival opens in Tabernacle designed to hold 20,000 people. Largest building to date requiring 4,000 men two months to complete. The “Glory Barn” extends 344 feet along 168th street and 247 feet along Broadway. The tabernacle holds 400,000 feet of lumber and 250 barrels of nails. There are 38 doors and nearly 18,000 seats. It is equipped with a post office, numerous phone booths, a telegraph department and an emergency hospital care facility equipped with six beds, a small operating table and surgical supplies. The platform contains 2000 chairs hold the great choir. Headline -Sturgis Michigan Journal. October 13,1932 Helen Edith Sunday Haines, Wife of Mark Haines Editor/Publisher Sturgis Journal and Daughter of famed Evangelist Billy Sunday died early this morning of pneumonia.

Washington D.C. Revival closes with overflow crowd 17,000 inside with another 5,000 outside.

Sunday revivals claim over one million people accepting commitment call to “ Hit the Sawdust Trail”. Good stuff Good stuff Down center light comes up ½ on pulpit where Billy is standing reading a telegram Mr. William A. Sunday Somewhere U.S.A. We regret to inform you that your son ????San Francisco September 9,1933. . . . George Marquis Sunday, son of Evangelist Billy Sunday, dies of complications from surgery required after a fall from his fourth floor apartment window.

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