Billy Sunday. Ellis William T.

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СКАЧАТЬ porterhouse steaks, Sally."

      "What's that bundle, Pa?"

      "Clothes to make you a new dress, Sis. Your mother has fixed your old one so often, it looks like a crazy quilt."

      "And what have you there?"

      "That's a pair of shoes for you, Tom; and here is some cloth to make you a pair of pants. Your mother has patched the old ones so often, they look like the map of United States."

      What's the matter with the country? We have been dumping into the whisky hole the money that ought to have been spent for flour, beef and calico, and we haven't the hole filled up yet.

      A man comes along and says: "Are you a drunkard?"

      "Yes, I'm a drunkard."

      "Where are you going?"

      "I am going to hell."

      "Why?"

      "Because the Good Book says: 'No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God,' so I am going to hell."

      Another man comes along and I say: "Are you a church member?"

      "Yes, I am a church member."

      "Where are you going?"

      "I am going to heaven."

      "Did you vote for the saloon?"

      "Yes."

      "Then you shall go to hell."

      Say, if the man that drinks the whisky goes to hell, the man that votes for the saloon that sold the whisky to him will go to hell. If the man that drinks the whisky goes to hell, and the man that sold the whisky to the men that drank it, goes to heaven, then the poor drunkard will have the right to stand on the brink of eternal damnation and put his arms around the pillar of justice, shake his fist in the face of the Almighty and say, "Unjust! Unjust!" If you vote for the dirty business you ought to go to hell as sure as you live, and I would like to fire the furnace while you are there.

      Some fellow says, "Drive the saloon out and the buildings will be empty." Which would you rather have, empty buildings or empty jails, penitentiaries and insane asylums? You drink the stuff and what have you to say? You that vote for it, and you that sell it? Look at them painted on the canvas of your recollection.

The Gin Mill

      What is the matter with this grand old country? I heard my friend, George Stuart, tell how he imagined that he walked up to a mill and said:

      "Hello, there, what kind of a mill are you?"

      "A sawmill."

      "And what do you make?"

      "We make boards out of logs."

      "Is the finished product worth more than the raw material?"

      "Yes."

      "We will make laws for you. We must have lumber for houses."

      He goes up to another mill and says:

      "Hey, what kind of a mill are you?"

      "A grist mill."

      "What do you make?"

      "Flour and meal out of wheat and corn."

      "Is the finished product worth more than the raw material?"

      "Yes."

      "Then come on. We will make laws for you. We will protect you."

      He goes up to another mill and says:

      "What kind of a mill are you?"

      "A paper mill."

      "What do you make paper out of?"

      "Straw and rags."

      "Well, we will make laws for you. We must have paper on which to write notes and mortgages."

      He goes up to another mill and says:

      "Hey, what kind of a mill are you?"

      "A gin mill."

      "I don't like the looks nor the smell of you. A gin mill; what do you make? What kind of a mill are you?"

      "A gin mill."

      "What is your raw material?"

      "The boys of America."

      The gin mills of this country must have 2,000,000 boys or shut up shop. Say, walk down your streets, count the homes and every fifth home has to furnish a boy for a drunkard. Have you furnished yours? No. Then I have to furnish two to make up.

      "What is your raw material?"

      "American boys."

      "Then I will pick up the boys and give them to you."

      A man says, "Hold on, not that boy, he is mine."

      Then I will say to you what a saloon-keeper said to me when I protested, "I am not interested in boys; to hell with your boys."

      "Say, saloon gin mill, what is your finished product?"

      "Bleary-eyed, low-down, staggering men and the scum of God's dirt."

      Go to the jails, go to the insane asylums and the penitentiaries, and the homes for feeble-minded. There you will find the finished product for their dirty business. I tell you it is the worst business this side of hell, and you know it.

      Listen! Here is an extract from the Saturday Evening Post of November 9, 1907, taken from a paper read by a brewer. You will say that a man didn't say it: "It appears from these facts that the success of our business lies in the creation of appetite among the boys. Men who have formed the habit scarcely ever reform, but they, like others, will die, and unless there are recruits made to take their places, our coffers will be empty, and I recommend to you that money spent in the creation of appetite will return in dollars to your tills after the habit is formed."

      What is your raw material, saloons? American boys. Say, I would not give one boy for all the distilleries and saloons this side of hell. And they have to have 2,000,000 boys every generation. And then you tell me you are a man when you will vote for an institution like that. What do you want to do, pay taxes in money or in boys?

      I feel like an old fellow in Tennessee who made his living by catching rattlesnakes. He caught one with fourteen rattles and put it in a box with a glass top. One day when he was sawing wood his little five-year old boy, Jim, took the lid off and the rattler wriggled out and struck him in the cheek. He ran to his father and said, "The rattler has bit me." The father ran and chopped the rattler to pieces, and with his jackknife he cut a chunk from the boy's cheek and then sucked and sucked at the wound to draw out the poison. He looked at little Jim, watched the pupils of his eyes dilate and watched him swell to three times his normal size, watched his lips become parched and cracked, and eyes roll, and little Jim gasped and died.

      The father took him in his arms, carried him over by the side of the rattler, got on his knees and said, "O God, I would not give little Jim for all the rattlers that ever СКАЧАТЬ