The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1915-08-21
EXPOSURE Of
BILLY SUNDAY

UlLLl VUllUnI
| Harper's Magazine, under the editor
ship of Norman Hapgood, is not pub
LEGATION which can be generally recon-
mended. 1t is quite frequently full of
the odds and ends of radical and I'M
healthy thought. in some instances,
as in the articles of DR.. Washington
GLADDEN. on "The Anti-Papal Panic,
however, it has contained matter
which was interesting and enlighten-
ing and worthy of study and con-
sideration. Such an article has ap-
peared in recent issue in regard to
| Billy Sunday. the well-known base
ball evangelist. (VoI. LX. No. 3052.)
1t shows the uses to which this SEN
sational and blasphemous speaker has
been put by those forces which are
seeking to Cypress the working classes.
The author of the article, Mr..
George Creel, has indeed strange ideas
as to faith and religion, but the facts
which he cites in concrete cases of the
injury which Sunday has done the la
boring people by diverting attention
from their efforts to better their con-
ditions are none the less true on that
account. In the summer of 1914" he
says, BILLY Sunday went to Colorado
and conducted a series of revivals
that brought religion to thousands.
The whole state swan in glory At the
| time of his coming, coal strike was
in progress. Some twenty-four thou
sand men, women, and children were
huddled In tents on the mountain side,
enduring cold and hunger as protest
against low wages, broken laws, swind-
ling tricks and unbearable living con-
ditions. A few months before, mine
guards had attacked the colony in Lud-
low, and among those who lost their
lives were nursing mothers and help
less little ones"
THE people of Colorado" we learn,
were aroused as never before. An
election was to be held in November,
and the strike was the one big ISSUE
By stubborn refusal to confer with the
strikers, even informally, the operat-
ors had cost Colorado over SIS, 200, 900,
while their importation Of machine
guns and gunner had stained the
state with blood and shame. 1t seemed
certainty that the voters would de-
stroy the coal oligarchy."
The advent of Sunday turned. the
current of events in this regard. Pro-
hibition became the great issue in Col
orado, rum the sole cause of the work
ers' ill success. THE men who invit-
ed Billy Sunday to come to Colorado,
who raised the money for his REVEALS,
| were the men whose lawlessness had
precipitated the strike, and whose AFRO.
gance was responsible for the policy of
determination adopted towards the
strikers by the operators" They made
use of Sunday for the purpose of elect
ing safe" man as Governor of Col.
orado on a Prohibition issue.
The same things happened in West
Virginia in the great Industrial dis.
turbances there. Sunday was called
upon for aid. Prohibition became the
issue, and when the election was
over. the people discovered that the
officials elected were strike-crushers
first, and prohibitionists on the side. -
OF Pennsylvania and New Jersey the
same story is told. Never has Sunday
in all his TRADES on iniquity and evil
as he has seen it, ever said one word
| against the sins of avarice and greed
which have created so much havoc in
this country.
Certainly 1t must be recognized that
| industrial disturbances should not be
encouraged. Discomfort, continually
irritated and carried to excess, will
inevitably lead to anarchy. But the
way to cure discomfort and to bring
| about industrial equilibrium and qui
etude is not by becoming tool in the
hands of the oppressors of the people
to divert attention from their, iniqui
ties towards another ISSUE 1t is time
that the people awakened to the real
purpose which lies behind the so-called
success of Billy Sunday.
c. B. of C. v.