The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-01-01
IN DEVILS LAIR
Billy Sunday to Chase Him
Out of Gay Gotham.
Mammoth Tabernacle for
Meetings to Begin April l.
BY GEORGE MARTIN.

Now york Tan. Powerful forces,
both sinister and benign, are inning 10
here today for the case OF Billy sun
day versus Broadway, Wall street, 30,
hernia, ct al, winch goes 10
April 1.
What sort of reception Sunday and
his old time shouting Methodist camp
meeting style will get in the Worlo
gayest, richest, wickedest, most ma.
terial city, is the subject OF mucn
speculation among the residents. he
will be the biggest attraction the Ola
Town has seen for years. anu IL -
predicted that great mobs Will literaiiy
fight to get near his giant taperIldcle
# will he a battle royal, and prepa-
rations are being made accordingly
Billy and Broadway have been SPAR
ring for position for several years,
and now at last the evangelist is com
ing to fight the devil in his own nome
town.
Broadway, as Broadway. seems TIC
have paid little heed to Sundays plans.
But scratch the surface and you flnd
that which cyclone Davis calls tho
Bows of Booze and Doodle are not
asleep.
Busy With Boston Now.
The bel1igerent Billy, tho busy with
Boston, is watching carefully every
move in his preliminary campaign
here. Already a small army or sum
dayites are organizing the Big IoWh.
On January IA a brigade OF the evan
gelist's most remarkable trail h1tters
from every city he has invaded, will
march on the metropolis and take II
by storm. This is one of many or the
preliminaries calculated to create at
mosphere for Billy's coming. 80
Billy Sunday, Incorporated, with
John D Rockefeller, Jr., as one
of the principal stockholders, is Off
cialIy in existence in New York CITY
Plans for the erection of the mann
moth tabernacle, the great pine ana
saWdust temple for the spiritually un-
washed, are well under way. soon
it will rear it's rough-hewn dome
above the Upper Manhattan h1nter-
land of the great and gay white way
whose cleaning searchlights ever
beckon the pleasurelorn from the FAR
four corners of the earth.
Committeeman and women nave
divided the city into sections and the
population into classes for organ1za-
ton on a house to house and man 10
man basis. Mrs. William Asher, for
instance, has charge of all work among
New York scrubwomen, domestics,
factory girls and hospital nurses.
Services in Stock Exchange.
No one has been neglected. Bible
meetings and song services will be held
daily on the New York curb and at
the portals of the New York Stock ex-
change. Wall street will be combed
work is even now under way.
Unquestionably, Sunday faces the
chance of a lifetime in New York.
Here will be Broadway, Citadel of
Champagne and home of The Sinful
Supper.
Wall street, whose hall mark is
Midas shearing a Lamb.
Bohemia, with it's loose leaf ledger
weddings, it's lavender souls and sun
god cults.
The slums, steep in squalor and
degradation from which uptown re-
spectability distills pure gold.
The home of the gunman with his
regular scale of murder prices and of
the painted lady who drives her
limousine and reckons her income in
six figures All these and more are
here for Sunday to deal with
Homer Rodeheaver, Sundays choir
director, expects to organize a double
| choir of 5000 to 10000 voices.