Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1892-05-14
Vanan's Christian Temp. Union Column,

The great question III Chicago, al
well as In all parts of the land, Is
"Shall tho worlds fair be open "r
Sunday~ In all our cities AMI neigh
borhoUds the question has become
vehement, and in many cases, bitter
Now propose q compromise. There
are three or four things to be said on
this subject. First, this fight on the
subject of opening or closing the fair
must be stopped. Ii this fair is 10 be
opened as u Waterloo Of conflict, there
will be antagonism aroused AS wide
as the continent, and from the opening
to the close there will he acerbities
and bitterness and outrages OF speech
aud type that will be lamentable and
destructive. There are two things
YOU and cannot afford 10 say; that
neither Chicago nor Brooklyn can af-
ford TO say. The first thing we cannot
afford TO say is, at makes no difference
whether the working people see the
tair or not. Let them work from
Monday 10 Saturday night and read
about il in the newspapers, or let them
take few days off for this sight see
ing and surrender their wages Tor the
time they are off.
The working people cannot afford
to lose their wages. The most OF
them, with all the wages they get,
have a fearful struggle to support
themselves and families. To have
such Il stupendous glory in Chicago,
and the working people 10 opportun-
ity of seeing it, would be the disgrace
of the age, and it would be OF more
advantage 10 Chicago and all America
to have the fair in Kamschatka or
Timbuctoo. Another thing we cam
not afford TO say is that "the churches
are made up of lot Of puritanic,
straight-laced people, with large in
tormingling of hypocrites, and what
they say about Sunday is of no i'm
portance. Let them 60 into their
churches on Sunday while the fair is
open and do as they please, and let all
others do as they please" My answer
to that is that the religious and chris
tian element is so mighty in all of our
American communities that no great
enterprise can afford TO disregard it.
ANY project antagonizcd by the ma
jority of religious people of Chicago,
of New York, of Brooklyn, or Amer
lea will come 10 grief.
Now l propose compromise. 1t Is
this: Split all the Saturdays while
the worlds fair is open into two parts.
When the clock strikes twelve Satur-
day noon let every store, shop, factory
and business place in Chicago, and for
70 miles around, quit work. Let every
hammer drop, every yard-siick be put
aside, and every wheel of hard work
cease its revolution and turn, the faces
of all the hard working people toward
the worlds fair. Let il be by common
consent understood that all those per-
SONS who are masters OF their own
time and can come and go when they
please, shall keep off the fair grounds
that afternoon and evening. From II
o'clock noon until 10 o'clock Saturday
night let the worlds fair be taken pos
session of by those who cannot so al
any other time. That will not only
do Justice to the hard working people
of Chicago and its surroundings. but
will bring them into kimdliest sympG-
thy with the worlds fair. Then make
Sundays the chief days of all fair for
great moral and reformatory exhibits.
lave all the auditoriums and churches
of Chicago open three times on Sunday
to discuss the great questions in which
all nations are interested: the prison
reform question, the temperance ques.
ton, the International peace question
and thousands OF questions 0f social
reform. Chicago will have the most
illustrious men and women of the
whole earth there. They will he ready
to take the platform aud help IN pull
pits, and shake the continent and
shake the earth with a revolution for
good that will 90 on after the United
States have under their supremacy one
hundred and fifty million souls. BY
the great moral exhibit this country
may be put quarter OF u century
further Oh aud higher up in intelli-
gence and morality than It would
have been without the fair.
This can, aud believe will be done.
But il the moral and intelligent people
of Chicago aud Brooklyn and Ot the
United States let the people who have
no regard for good morals have it
their own way, they will make each
Sunday a commercial rs well as a
moral damage. Each Sunday in Chi
cago would he like fifty fourth of Ju-
lys dumped into one. aud drunkenness
and all forms of evil will take posses
sion IN that city, and its moral and
financial interests being so closely al
lied, Chicago al the close Of the fair,
Instead of being quarter of q century
further on, as il may be, and we ex-
pect it will he. will be- put back twen-
iy-flve years aud they will wish the
xvntId'a fair were Hi the bottom of The