McNairy County independent. (Selmer, McNairy County, Tenn.) 1902-1969, 1917-05-04

SIX Gays week (ne rests on Monday
is marvel to all. One day of i
J would lay out the average preacher
Billy raises bowls of delight among
his hearers by his savage thrusts a
the saloon-keepers, for the better side
! of New York is now nightly down OF
the booksellers. 1t is generally re-
, ported that these whisky men, realiz
ing the damage he would do to Their
J nefarious interests, have been offer
J ing all sorts of money to variou;
; preachers to work against him. One
Baptist minister is said to have turned
} down bride of forty thousand dollars
to work against him, but others are
not so hard to deal with. Trashy
editions of pamphlets are plentiful on
lower Broadway. giving so-called lex.
poses" of Billy, sold for five cents
apiece, showing him up as a grand
rascal. but nothing hurts Billy Sc
much as being let alone, and all this
is grist to his mill.
! Suddenly, while telling of the ter
rible nature of the liquor traffic, Bill
ly doubled up his fists, ,frowned like
Satan, rushed around the platform,
and shouted: You weasel-eyed. white
livered, bull-necked imps of hell, you
saloon'keepers of New York, you
thought you would down me, Ell
You have put up half a million dollars
to do it, but New York will spew you
out of it's mouth yet. | will give any
man one thousand dollars if hes can
prove that | have taken, or will take,
one cent of all the money collected at
these meetings. They say | am a
CRATER. | fling the damnable lie in
their teeth" Then you ought to have
heard the crowd yen, There must
have been lots of Southern people. in
the congregation, for there was great
cheering when he said of Robert E.
Lee: when that white-souled, grand
old man Of the Confederacy came out
of the war, he was financially ruined.
And then, that spawn of hell, the
Louisiana State Lottery, which had
already gotten old Beauregard into
its clutches, went to Lee and wanted
him TO be their president. They said
he didn't need to know anything about
their business; they only wanted his
name. He told them he had nothing
but his name, but that must remain
unspotted for his children. So he
went to teaching in Washington Col
lege at about thousand dollars a
year, when he was offered ten times
that much in the lottery company.
Then Billy mounted on top of his pull
pit and said: Look at that grand old
figure of Robert E. Lee: a Caesar
without vice, Napoleon without
sgotism. a Frederick without tyrany,
and Washington without victoryw
And then the vast crowd yelled again.
They accuse Billy of stealing his ideas
from Bob Ingersoll and other great
orators. Well, what if he does? In
gersoll stole the livery of heaven to
serve the devil in" and should not
Billy steal it back to serve the Lord?
This is my own view. and am going
to send a marked copy of this to Bill.
ly, and see what he says about it.
More than $500 people "hit the
TRAIL" as they call it, the night we
were there. After he had preached
an hour in that wonderful strain, he
sat down in sort of box below the
pulpit and with both hands shook the
upstretched hands of the thousands
who struggled to get in reach of him.
Some of them we're in tears, and there
is no doubt that many, very many, of
them will date change in their hearts
for the better from the night when
they heard Billy Sunday.
Big recruiting stations for the
army and navy have been erected in
the neighborhood of Billy Sundays
tabernacle, and number of young
men have gone straight from the
services to enlist. Billy has been pay
ing his respects to the tango pirate
and lounge lizards" and to the
"huffy-haired, pencil browed, rag lime
singing sissies of New York society,""
but there are also lot of good men
here, and Billy brings out the best
that is in them.
A few words about the war will
finish this letter. 1t is cheering to
note what response is being given by