Billy Sunday was used in Pittsburgh, Newcastle and other cities
to break the unions and was paid by manufacturers.
He has no ideals, but is a business man, who
measures his religion in dollars and cents.
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Sunday March 21, 1915
Paterson, New Jersey - Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Takes on the Preacher Billy Sunday
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World and heroine of the Paterson Silk Strike, has had a few things to say about Billy Sunday, recently as it was learned that that preacher intends to bring his traveling fire-and-brimstone show to the city of Paterson.
From yesterday's Fort Wayne News of Indiana:
From last Thursday's Chicago Day Book:
I. W. W. LEADER CHARGES BILLY SUNDAY BROKE UNIONS
Paterson, N. J., March 18.-Hot retort was expected today from Billy Sunday, baseball evangelist, to criticism voiced by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn at an I. W. W. meeting of laboring men.
"Billy Sunday was used in Pittsburgh, Newcastle and other cities to break the unions and was paid by manufacturers. He has no ideals, but is a business man, who measures his religion in dollars and cents," and Miss Flynn.
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Billy Sunday Rakes It In:
From yesterday's Fort Wayne Sentinel of Indiana.
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From The Boston Daily Globe of March 16, 1915:
BOSTON GASPS AT $100,000 OFFERING
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Billy Sunday Will Not Get All of This, However.
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"God's Tenth" Set Aside, Besides Contributions for Charity.
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Boston ministers and church workers learned with a gasp from yesterday's Globe that Billy Sunday's free-will offering received at the end of his 10 weeks' campaign in Philadelphia would probably total $100,000.
The contributions came in to the Philadelphia campaign committee through so many channels that no accurate estimate has yet been made and $100,000 is only an approximate. The total will probably be much nearer that figure than $50,000, which was talked of in Philadelphia during the campaign as the probable size of the final offering.
In reply to repeated inquiries to the immense collection, whatever it may be, will not be taken away by Sunday himself.
The salaries of 18 or 20 members of the Sunday party total $500 a week. Of this Sunday pays out of his receipts a quarter, which in Philadelphia, will be nearly $15,000. It is also understood that he will make further gifts to his assistants from his large offering. The balance of the salaries of his assistants is paid from the general campaign fund, handled by the local committee.
From the free-will offering Mr. Sunday also sets aside what he calls "God's tenth," and those close to him assert that he and Mrs. Sunday make other large gifts to religious and charitable work. Many instances of quiet contributions by the evangelist are told.
As in the free-will offering, the Philadelphia campaign will break many of the evangelist's records. He has preached there 144 sermons, besides the 16 more he will preach to finish up this week. Taking the average attendance at 10,000, which is conservative, he has been heard by nearly 1,500,000. The number of converts enrolled is nearly 40,000, which breaks his record for "trail-hitters."
Never has Sunday received so many presents other than money. "We think we will have to build an addition to our home to hold the things you have given us, and call it the Philadelphia annex," he said in a recent address.
Sunday's final free-will offering receipts in other recent campaigns were reported as $13,000 in Des Moines, Ia, $46,000 in Pittsburg, and $22,398 in Scranton, Penn.
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"Fire Away!," Says Billy Sunday:
From the Illinois Belvidere Daily Republican of March 19th
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Frank P Walsh Takes On Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is not the only one taking on the corporation's preachers. Frank P. Walsh, chairman of the Commission on Industrial Relations, had a few choice words for Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis of Brooklyn.
From the Chicago Day Book of March 8, 1915:
FRANK WALSH DENOUNCES PREACHER AS A "MASTERLY LIAR"
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Chairman of Industrial Relations Commission
Attacks Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis
for Boosting Big Business-
Also Takes Shot at Newspaper Report
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Frank P Walsh
A slam was handed the newspapers of New York and the American Press ass'n for carrying a sermon of the Rev. Dwight Hillis of Brooklyn, whitewashing the Rockefellers in the labor war, by Frank Walsh, chairman of the U. S. commission on industrial relations, before Rev. Wm. Waters' Open Forum at the Grace church last night. Low wages, millionaire foundations and great fortunes came in for their raking also. Henry Ford was commended for his "$5-a-day" plan.
"A masterly liar" was the term used by Walsh when he told of the sermon by Hillis, which was quoted widely by eastern papers, finally made up in pamphlet, form by the Rockefellers and distributed throughout the U. S.
The Rev. Dwight Hillis and New York newspaper men responsible for the stories objected to by Walsh were placed on a level with the "captain of industry" who "shoots his way to a fortune by underpayment of his help," foes of union labor and "leaders of thought," who are supported by the millionaires and who carry out the ideas of capital.
Parts of the sermon which, according to Walsh, made Hillis a "disgrace to the pulpit," are as follows:
Strikers think that when they ask for an increase of 25 cents a day for their wage and it is refused they have a right to buy guns and declare war.
If the state tries to police the property until the courts can decide the issue and the strikers barricade themselves in mines they do not own and kill the guards and then themselves are killed while committing burglarious acts, then a lot of silly people say the owners are guilty of murder.
Clerks who labor blindly for wealthy men, hoping themselves to gain riches in the same way were called offenders along with the labor exploiters, "owners" of legislatures and millionaires who leave foundations.
Walsh blamed the inertia of the people for the present economic conditions. Wise politics, a minimum wage for the workman and recovery of land stolen from the people by the great corporations, were remedies.
[Declared Walsh:]
God made the land...Man should have free access to the land. A thief never secures title to stolen property. Why then should the thieves who stole the land of the people in the west be allowed to keep it? The government should take it back.
Law does not protect the economically weak multitude. Why should a proper wage for telephone girls be overlooked when setting the rates for phone service? We should have laws regulating hours of work and wages for all workers.
I blame you who think as much of the man who has made a "success" of life and a great fortune by exploiting labor and fighting unions as of the real benefactor. You honor the man who, after robbing the poor for years until he has millions, gives a small part of it back in the form of foundations to keep his name before the public.
Wealth is above the law. People think great fortunes are "O. K." Every great fortune is wrong in itself. An immense fortune was never raised without infractions of criminal law.
While I disagree with the idea behind Henry Ford's "$5-a-day" plan for workmen, his proposition is the best thing yet done for the man who labors. His experiments have proven that poverty caused by low wages results in crime and disease.
Ford's raise in wages brought a corresponding raise in the morality of his men and a betterment in their environment.
Infant mortality can be traced to poverty. Figures show that among families where the father is paid $10 a week 256 out of 1,000 babies born died within the first year. In the families where the supporting wage was $25 a week only 80 of 1,000 failed to live to their second year. We are losing almost one-fourth of our babies because of low wages.
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SOURCES
The Fort Wayne News
(Fort Wayne, Indiana)
-Mar 20, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
The Boston Daily Globe
(Boston, Massachusetts)
-Mar 16, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
The Day Book
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Mar 8, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
-Mar 18, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES
EGF on Billy Sunday
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Billy Sunday Rakes It In
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Ad for Story on Billy Sunday
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Frank P Walsh
(search: Frank P Walsh, & choose p.24)
http://books.google.com/...
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The Preacher and the Slave-Utah Phillips
Long-haired preachers come out every night
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right
But when asked how 'bout somethin' to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet:
You will eat bye and bye
In that glorious land up in the sky.
Work and pray and live on hay
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.
-Joe Hill
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