The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-04-20
SUNDAY OPENING.
What Talmage Says About It in Con-
nection With the Fair.

mage lectured in the Auditorium this
evening. His subject was, From the Gar.
den of Eden to Our Worlds Fair" and by
request he referred in his lecture to the
Sunday opening question, and said as fol-
lows:
have been asked by the Press Club, uu-
der whose auspices have the honor to de-
liver this lecture, to say what think about
the opening Of the worlds fair on Sunday.
My programme for the worlds fair differs
from any have seen, and know enough
| Of Chicago to know that may here give
my independent view on this subject. You
do not want to know from me what others
think. Tonight you would rather hear what
l think
l have three or four things to say on this
| subject
l. Stop this fight! or it will damage your
| fair beyond all estimate If you are going
| to open this fair with Waterloo, there will
| be antagonism aroused as wide as the con-
tinent, and from the opening to the close
there will be acerblties and bitterness and
outrages of speech and type that will be
lamentable and destructive. Stop this fight3
But how will you stopit3 By compromise
such as will propose.
There are two things you and cannot
| dAplu W say blbuoE uI6Cbll OF INDIRECTLY.
| The first thing we cannot afford to say is:
1T makes no difference whether the work.
| ing people see the fair or not. Let them
| work from Monday morning to Saturday
| night and read about it in the newspapers,
| or let them take a few days off for this
sightseeing and surrender their wages for
| the time they are off" Ny hearers, 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 their families And
| to have such a stupendous glory in
| Chicago, and the working people no
| opportunity of seeing it, would be the
| disgrace of the century, and it would
| be more advantage to Chicago to have
! the fair In Kamchetka or Iimbuctoo. An
| other thing we cannot afford to say: THE
| churches are made up OF lot of Puritanic,
| straight-laced people, with large inter-
| spersing of hypocrites, and what they say
about Sunday opening or closing is of no
| Importance. Let them go into the churches
| on the Sundays while the fair is open and
! do as they please" My hearers, the re-
| ligious aud church element is so mighty in
all our American cities that we cannot az
| ford to disregard it. Any project antagon>
lied by the majority of the religious peo-
| pie of Chicago or New York or Brooklyn
| or America will come to grief.
| Now, | propose a compromise. A tuning
violin, may give the pitch to 5 900 voices
| or 5000 musical instruments, and it would
| be no strange thing if your humble servant
| who now addresses you should bring all the
; voices discordant on this subject, into one
mighty harmony. My compromise is this:
| Split all your Saturdays while the worlds
| far is here into two parts When the clock
strikes II, Saturday noon, let every store,
! shop, factory and business place in Chicago
| quit work. Let every hammer drop, every
| yard stick be put aside, and every wheel of
| hard work cease its revolution, and turn the
faces Of all the Woodworking people within
fifty miles of Chicago toward the worlds
| fair. Let it be by common consent UNDER
stood that all those persons who are
master of their own time and can come aud
| go when they will, keep off the grounds
| that afternoon and evening. From IL
| o'clock Saturday noon, till 10 o'clock Satur-
day night, let the worlds fair be taken
possession of by those who cannot go at
any other time. That will not only be
justice to the hard working people Of the
city and It's surroundings, but bring them
into kindliest sympathy with the worlds
fair. Does some one say it will be great
damage to employers and capitalists to give
up Saturday afternoon? No, if your men
understand that you are giving those to
| favor them, they will do more work and
better work in five and a half days than in
| six.
Then, make the Sundays the chief days
| of all the fair for great moral and reforma~
tory exhibits. Have all your auditoriums
and churches open three times on Sunday
| to discuss the great questions in which all
nations are interested. Close up the secular
exhibits. Stop ali the wheels that are
| moved by electricity and steam and set in
motion the mightier wheels that can be seen
| by the whole earth-the wheels OF moral
! Improvement. You will have the most
| illustrious men and women Of the
whole earth here, and they will be ready to
take your platforms and help in your
| pulpits and shake the continent and shake
the earth with a revolution for good that
will 60 on after Chicago is twice the size of
! London, and the United States have
| under them a supremacy of 10000 900
| souls. Give us who come as visitors
| at that time-and we are all coming
| give us opportunity of hearing your great
preachers of Righteousness, than whom no
| city ON earth has more brilliant and conS
secrated band. Put your great educators,
| your great lawyers, your great doctors,
| your great unprofessional men on the moral
platform, to give their opinion as to how the
physical and mental and moral interests of
the world may be advantaged, as well as
the story of what has already been achieved.
We look to you by that moral exhibit to put
| this country quarter Of a century further
on and higher up In intelligence and moral
ity than il would have been without the
fair. You can do this aud believe you
will II you moral and intelligent citizens
let the people who have no regard for
morals have it their own way, they will
make each Sunday commercial
as well as moral damage.
Each Sunday will be like fifty
Fourth of July dumped into one, and
| drunkenness and. ell forms Of evil will
take possession of this fair city, and as
moral and financial interests are so closely
allied, Chicago. at the close of the fair, in
stead of being quarter of century further
| on, as it may be, and we expect it will be,
| Chicago will be put back twenty-five years,
! and you will wish that the worlds fair were
at the bottom Of the sea, l,500 miles from
| each continent.
| Now, take my compromise. All of the
| Saturday afternoons for the working people
and Sunday for moral exhibit, and this bit
ter fight about Sunday opening or Sunday
closing will end, and the blessings and pros
perity which has been on this city in the
| past will be collapsed by the thousandfold
mightier prosperity of the future. God save
the United States of America. God save the
world
The Collapse Of a Rotten Tenement,
With crumbing foundation and shaky, bulging
walls, is not more certainly to be looked for
| than the sudden giving way Of a constitution
| Slapped by overwork unremitting anxiety or ex-
| posure to hardship and malign climatic in