ays,

The dirty, low-down, contemptible, weazen-brained,
impure-hearted, shrivelled-souled, gossipping devils do not
deserve to be noticed.... Scandal-mongers, gossip-lovers,
reputation-destroyers, hypocritical, black-hearted,
green-eyed slanderers.... Corrupt, devil-possessed, vile
debauches.... Immoral, sin-loving, vice-practicing,
underhanded sneaks.... Carrion-loving buzzards and
foul-smelling skunks.

You will be prepared after this to hear that when the Socialists were
near to carrying Los Angeles, this clergyman preached a sermon in
support of the candidate of "Booze, Gas and Railroads".

In so far as Billy Sunday is trying to keep the neglected youth of our
streets from drinking, gambling and whoring, no one could wish him
anything but success; but his besotted ignorance, his childish crudity
of mind, make it impossible that he could have any success except of a
delusive nature. He is utterly devoid of a social sense; utterly
unaware of the existence of the forces of capitalism which are causing
depravity ten times as fast as all the evangelists in creation can
remedy it. So he is precisely like the Catholics with their "charity",
cleaning up loathsome and unsightly messes for a thousand years, and
never stopping to ask why such messes continue to come into existence.

More than that, I question whether the spirit of commercialism which
he fosters does not help the development of evil more than his
preaching hinders it. The newspapers always report the cost of the
tabernacle, and of the "free-will offering", which amounts to hundreds
of thousands of dollars in each "campaign". In each city the expenses
are guaranteed by men who are generally the most sinister exploiting
forces of the community; they welcome and fete him, and he visits
their homes, and is in every way one of the crowd. After the big silk
strike in Paterson, N.J., the employers, Jews and Catholics included,
all subscribed a fund to bring Billy Sunday to that city; and it was
freely proclaimed that the purpose was to undermine the radical union
movement. This was never denied by Sunday himself, and his whole
campaign was conducted on that basis.

Later Billy came to New York, where he met a certain rich young man,
perhaps a thousand times as rich as any that lived in Palestine. This
young man came to Billy and said: "What shall I do to inherit eternal
life?" And Billy told him to keep the commandments--