Kansas City daily journal., 1897-02-08
COMESDOWN WITH BOFHFEET
REV. DIR. JENKINS SCORES SUNDAY
BASEBALL.
Says the Game Is Run by Gamblers
and That Players Are Bought
and Sold Like CattIe-LiguOr
at the National Capitol.

In a prelude to the sermon before his
congregation at the Second Presbyterian
church last night, Rev. II. d. jenkins eX-
pressed. in unmistakable terms, his views
on Sunday baseball and the sale of whisky
at the national capitol. He began his ser
mon by quoting from the current number
of the Century magazine the following edi-
torial:
1T is not unusual to find the lawmakers
OF state or nation undertaking the strength
of popular reforms With the lamentable,
but incorrigible. tendency of legislators to
follow rather than TO lead public opinion,
il has not infrequently occurred that they
have walked up to find themselves very
far behind the progress of public opinion"
'aThe editor of the Century said DR..
Jenkins, points out the fact that it was
the people, not the legislator, that grew
weary of the dominance of Slavery; 1t
was the people who forced civil service
upon congress; it was the people who de-
manded that political platforms should say
what they meant regarding the monetary
system of the country.
1T is the people who are demanding that
men who earn their living by pounding
balls with bats shall have no more right
TO disturb the quiet of our national and
traditional day of rest than the men who
men is not a class so deserving of popular
consideration that they should have privi-
Ieges not accorded to the carpenter or ma
son. Baseball, as played py our hired
clubs, is not an entertainment, but trade;
and the worst of it is that it is not an
honest trade. Sunday baseball is only a
part of this whole system OF SamphnS
which is destroying the manhood and en-
feebling the industries and corrIpting the
youth of the nation. 1t is run by lew
professional gamblers. with players and
umpireS who are bought and sold almost
as openly as mules at the stock yards, and
no man does much credit to himself or ms
constituents who, when consideration or
such a nuisance is before the assembly,
talks about suDpressing little girls ana
their dolls in the parlor. The people VINO
live in the vicinity of these Sunday games
fairly dread the opening of warm weather.
since with it the plague of Sunday baseball
comes back, a plague which destroys the
quiet and rest to which they are entitled
as citizens, and practically wipes out the
value of their real estate abutting upon
these grounds.
1T may seem very funny to congress-
men that the people who build the national
capitol with their money object to its be-
ing used, directly or indirectly, as sa-
loon. But there has probably not been
session of congress for the past fifty years
which has not been disgraced by drunken
ness uDon the floor of house or senate.
One of our senators lately, last week, in
fact, said that IL was a slander to accuse
DielubtEs VI GlAlGE BIdllCu VI GAASSSlNS hSG
of liquors. And yet it was only a few
months ago that one of the senators there
listening TO him made such a maudlin fool
of himself as to put him effectually out
of the list of presidential possibilities. The
people have not forgotten these things, and
have no intention of forgetting them
There is no need for good people who
love righteousness and hate iniquity to
grow impatient. Little by little just views
and temperate practices and honest recrea-
tions come TO the front. Thirty years or
n the 'DOSSf Of New York mSad ask
sneeringly, What are you going to do
about it?' He lived to find out. There is
nothing on earth can stop one of these
moral reforms when once started. The
only choice offered to legislator is wheth-
er he will get out of its way or feel it
roll over him"