The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1917-06-01
BILLY SUNDAY ~BAWLED OUT By
MANAGING DIRECTOR OF LABOR FORUM


through his secretary, invited Carl
Beck, managing director Of the
Labor Forum" 80 Union Square,
New York City, to an interview
mot officiaD, this what he got
Extract of Letter Sent BY Carl
Beck to Mr.. William A. Sunday.
There is tradition among a
large mass of organized labor that
as an economic movement labor
should not concern itself with poll
tics or religion. That can well be
understood in an organized associa-
ton of men and women, that in
cludes on the religious side Jew
and Gentle, Catholic and Protestant,
and those called unbelievers.
You know that the working people
are deeply concerned with building
up, corporate character as well as
personal character, and in building
up social honesty a well as per-
sonal honesty, and in building up
public morality as well as private
morality. They make for public
standards of decency. In the last
analysis the improvement of the
condition of workers depend on
these. Corporate, social, public
morality is the workingman's con-
Germ. About these we would like
to confer with you.
Copy of Prepared Interview of Carl
Beck, Managing Director of the
Labor Forum, With William A.
Sunday, May lst, 1917, At
New York Residence.
Since your secretary wrote me to
come and have chat with you he
said that your "sympathies have al
ways been strongly with the inter
ests you represent, and that fact
is quite generally known through
out the country" | feel free as a
church member, and as the son of
working people, of Scandinavian orr
gin, to talk frankly to you about
the needs and points Of view of
that section of the mass of work
ing people, of whom ] am one,
and about whom | know most. Since
you preferred not to receive an
official committee, l have come
personally with trade union as
sociate.
Many working people have great
admiration for your ability to get
popular attention, and for the able
organization behind your religious
campaign. Many of our people
90 to hear your message. They
come away with mixed feeling.
They say of you: Hes a wonder,
and puts across some hot truths"
and in the same breath eXclaim-
But I don't like the lineup behind
Sunday. They had Rockefeller open
up the Tabernacle, and to a work
ing man that tastes bad"
Mr.. Sunday, | am not here to
find fault, nor just to look for the
hole in the doughnut. Any fool
can poke his finger in the hole Of
doughnut, but any fool cannot
make doughnut! 1t is because
I believe that the bread-and-
questionable human struggle for
better living conditions-is funda-
mentally a religious question, that
we come to you in spirit of frank
inquiry, to work out a better under
standing of the working people who
comprise the great majority of the
community.
Your movement is militant
Christianity, ours is militant hui
manity, working through such or
ganized portion of the human fam
lily as is found in organized labor
the world over. The best way to
arrive at an understanding between
your militancy and our own, is to
be specific in our statement of our
observation and belief.
There are signs that the chasm
between the church and the masses
of working people is widening in
stead of lessening. The 'Tnside of
the Cup"-the Church-is unclean
with the support of wealth that
pays the piper and calls the tune
that tune being usually soft
avoidance Of such glaring moral and
ethical problems as the fact that
one square mile of Gods people on
the lower East Side have nothing
to contribute to the government In
come Tax, whereas the square mile
next to it representing Wall street
and "big business" interest con-
tribute two-thirds of the income tax
for the whole United State. When
facts prove that "The Heaven of
the Rich is built on the He'll of the
eli