"Billy" Sunday, the Man and His Message: With his own words which have won thousands for ChristEllis, William T. (William Thomas)
Religion
"Billy" Sunday, the Man and His Message: With his own words which have won thousands for Christ
Ellis, William T. (William Thomas)
Baseball players -- United States -- Biography; Evangelists -- United States -- Biography; Sunday, Billy, 1862-1935
Like Hamilcar of old, who swore young Hannibal to eternal enmity
against Rome, so I propose to perpetuate this feud against the liquor
traffic until the white-winged dove of temperance builds her nest on
the dome of the Capitol of Washington and spreads her wings of peace,
sobriety and joy over our land which I love with all my heart.
What Will a Dollar Buy?
I hold a silver dollar in my hand. Come on, we are going to a saloon.
We will go into a saloon and spend that dollar for a quart. It takes
twenty cents to make a gallon of whisky and a dollar will buy a quart.
You say to the saloon-keeper, "Give me a quart." I will show you,
if you wait a minute, how she is burned up. Here I am John, an old
drunken bum, with a wife and six kids. (Thank God, it's all a lie.)
Come on, I will go down to a saloon and throw down my dollar. It
costs twenty cents to make a gallon of whisky. A nickel will make a
quart. My dollar will buy a quart of booze. Who gets the nickel? The
farmer, for corn and apples. Who gets the ninety-five cents? The United
States government, the big distillers, the big corporations. I am
John, a drunken bum, and I will spend my dollar. I have worked a week
and got my pay. I go into a grog-shop and throw down my dollar. The
saloon-keeper gets my dollar and I get a quart of booze. Come home with
me. I stagger, and reel, and spew in my wife's presence, and she says:
"Hello, John, what did you bring home?"
"A quart."
What will a quart do? It will burn up my happiness and my home and
fill my home with squalor and want. So there is the dollar. The
saloon-keeper has it. Here is my quart. There you get the whisky end
of it. Here you get the workingman's end of the saloon.
But come on; I will go to a store and spend the dollar for a pair of
shoes. I want them for my son, and he puts them on his feet, and with
the shoes to protect his feet he goes out and earns another dollar, and
my dollar becomes a silver thread in the woof and warp of happiness
and joy, and the man that owns the building gets some, and the clerk
that sold the shoes gets some, and the merchant, and the traveling man,
and the wholesale house gets some, and the factory, and the man that
made the shoes, and the man that tanned the hide, and the butcher that
bought the calf, and the little colored fellow that shined the shoes,
and my dollar spread itself and nobody is made worse for spending the
money.
I join the Booster Club for business and prosperity. A man said,
"I will tell you what is the matter with the country: it's
over-production." You lie, it is underconsumption.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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