The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1921-01-20
JUST one GLOOM
AFTER ANOTHER
United Press "Liye One"
Spends a Whole Day in
Zion City.
WOE TO SLEEPY ONES
(By Carl Victor Little)
Stan c0rrespondent, UNITED Pressl


Zion City, Ill.-Next to sitting up
at wake, the least exciting expert
ence extant is to spend Sunday in the
bluest of blue law towns-Zion City.
Having good time is one thing
Sunday in Zion City is another
It's this way: The city's population
of 5000 arises and dresses with alacri-
ty-and nothing else but-at $3.50 a. m.
A mad scramble across the $500
dreary acres of Zion City brings the
town to the Shiloh tabernacle. The
Rev. Wilbur Glenn Voliva starts the
service when the gong sounds at $3.50
and the city of Zion is seated. Woe
betide the sleepy brother who has not
kept his rendezvous with the blue laws.
Overseer Voliva breaches for one
solid and sombre hour. He stops. You
nudge your pew-mate, not suspender-
wearing and bewhiskered brother, but
the kind of a man you meet in your
own church-and ask if church is over.
Blank looks aplenty are given but
no answer.
A hymn is expected to liven things
up a bit. But not so. Others of the
ten ministers sitting on the platform
follow with their austere messages.
The first service of blue Sunday con
cludes at 800 a. m. The city Of Zion,
after sitting for 21a hours, arises. and
hurries home.
The advent of three-minute prayer
service about the family affairs is ush-
cred in by a gong at $50. At 1000
the tabernacle is again filled. Eight
sermons, four prayers and three
hymns comprise the service which
lasts another 21a hours.
You find you have only been through
the preliminary routine of blue Sun
day. The real service starts at $3.50
insthe afternoon. A hymn sung by the
choir of 600, clothed in flowing white
robes and accompanied by the NAM
moth pipe organ, is first on this pro-
gram. Sombre sermons by ten min
listers, clothed in black gowns. follow.
Overseer Voliva then breaches the
sermon of the day. You don't watch.
the clock-there's none to watch. Zion
arises, sings a hymn and walks out at
$50, retreating homeward.
The lights are dimmed in the great
tabernacle. Surely church must be
over in the strictest city i'm America.
But it isn't-services in eight churches
in various parts of Zion start at 1880.
and last until 10000.
Then the city sleeps.
Wilbur Glenn Voliva is stout and
somewhat handsome man of 81, who
succeeded to the dictatorship of Zion
upon the death of it's founder, John
Alexander Dowie; is student and
scholar and talks of politics, litera-
ture and world relations with the same
ease as he quotes the Bible. He is
monarch of all he surveys, he said, as
he owns the entire city and the in
dustries therein.
the following things on blue Sunday:
Pursuit of pleasure of any kind;
reading of newspapers; work Of any
kind with the possible exception of
preparation of meager meals; use of
automobiles except to and from the
church. He permits and demands the
following: Prayer. going to church,
and reading the Bible.
This sign at the entrance Of the
city greets the visitor: "The use of
Intoxicating liquor, tobacco, profanity
and vulgarity are forbidden in Zion
Only he clean may enter here"
After submitting to the bluest of the
blue laws all day, the visitor strolled
to the railroad station-the only
bright spot in town.,
Four chic girls and four snappy
young men were paired off, talking,
laughing, signing and looking longing
ly into each others eyes as they were
chaperoned by the station master in
blue. They had been AWOL from
church all day.