Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-20
rALMAars COMPROMISE.
How He Would Solve tho Worlds Fair Sun.
dav OueSffOn.

How He Would Solve tho Worlds Fair Sum
day Question.
CHICAGO, April 19.-Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage
lectured in the Auditorium last evening.
His subject was, "From tho Garden of Eden
to Our Worlds Fair" and by request he re-
ferred In his lecture to the Sunday opening
question, and said:
have been asked by the Press Club, under
whose auspices have the honor to delive r
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 Chi
cago to know that may give my independ-
ent view on this subject.
1 have three or four things to say'on this
subject. First: Stop this fight! or 1t will
damage your Fair beyond ali estimate. II
you are going to open this Fair with q
Waterloo, there will be antagonisms
aroused as wide as the continent. and from
the opening to the close there will be acerb-
titles and bitterness and outrages OF speech
and type that will be lamenfable and de-
structive. Stop this fight? But how will
propose.
There are two things you and I cannot
afford to say, either directly or indirectly.
The first thing we cannot afford to say il,
ut makes no difference whether the work
ing people see tho Fair or not. Let them
work from Monday morning to Saturday
night and read about 1t in the newspapers,
or let them take few days of for this sight
seeing and surrender their wages for the
time they are or" My hearers, the working
The most of them, with all the wages they
get, have fearful struggle to support them
selves 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 1t
would be more advantage to Chicago to have
the Fair In kamchatka or Timbuctoo. An
other thing we cannot afford to say: "The
straight-laced people. with a large inter-
spersing of hypocrites. and what they say
about Sunday opening or closing is of no in,-
portance. Let them go into the churches on
the Sundays while the Fair is open and do
as they please and we will do as we please"
My compromise is this: Split all your Sat
urdays while the Worlds Fair IS here into
two parts. When the clock strikes l2, Satur-
day noon, let every store, shop, factory and
business place in Chicago quit work. Let
every hammer drop every yardstick be put
its revolution, and turn the faces of all the
hardworking people within 50 miles of Chi
ca-o toward the Worlds Fair. Let it be by
common consent understood that all those
persons who are master Of their own time
and can come and go when they will, keep
of the grounds that afternoon and evening.
From - oclock Saturday noon till 10 O'Clock
=
at any other time.
Then. make the Sundays the chief days of
all the Fair for great moral and reformatory
exhibits. Have all your auditoriums and
churches open three times on Sunday to
discuss the great questions in which all ma
tions are interested. Close up the secular
exhibits. Stop all 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 improve
ment. If you moral and intelligent citizens
let the people who have no regard for
morals have it their own way they will make
each Sunday q commercial as well as moral
Each Sunday will be like so Fourths
of July dumped into one, and drunkenness
and all forms of evil will take possession of
this fair city, and, as moral and financial in
terests are so closely allied, Chicago, at the
close of the Fair, instead of being q quarter
of century further on, as 1t may be, and we
expect it will be, Chicago will he put back 25
Fair were a t the bottom OF the sea, 500 miles
from each continent.