An interior view of Sunday's tabernacle in Portsmouth. You can see the word Portsmouth on the banner behind the pulpit. Pictures in this post are from from the Portsmouth Public Library's digital collection.
“Chicago, Chicago,
that toddling town
Chicago, Chicago, I'll show you around, I love
it
Bet your bottom dollar, you'll lose the blues in
Chicago
Chicago, the town that Billy Sunday couldn't shut
down
“On State Street, that great street, I just want to
say
They do things that they don't do on Broadway
They have the
time, the time of their life
I saw a man, he danced with his wife
in Chicago
Chicago, my home town”
"Chicago" is a popular song in the genre of Tin Pan Alley written by Fred Fisher and published in 1922. At the time the song was written, prohibition prevailed , and the gangs of Al Capone and John Dillinger also dominated the cityscape.
Billy Sunday mentioned in the lyrics is an evangelist preacher who praised the infamous Mayor William Hale "Big Bill" Thompson for enforcing the Sunday rest. The song text tells the preacher Billy Sunday that even he could not shut down the city ("Billy Sunday could not shut down"), and only the mayor was able to enforce the closure of the restaurants with his formal power.
The tabernacle was located at the corner of Gallia and Lincoln Streets and extended south to Seventh (7th) Street. It was built in five days by local volunteers and was opened to the public on December 29, 1910. The Billy Sunday campaign in Portsmouth lasted 6 weeks.
Portsmouth Connection
On January 1, 1911, the famous preacher William Ashley “Billy” Sunday (1862 – 1935) began a six week revival in Portsmouth as part of his nationwide evangelistic campaign. This was a very important event for the time, as Sunday was widely considered the most influential American evangelist during the first two decades of the 20th century.
Why made this event so memorable? It's a great story. Of course, all stories with a local touch are good reading for area residents. Billy Sunday was an ardent champion of temperance whose most famous sermon was "Get on the Water Wagon,” in which he preached on countless occasions with both histrionic emotion and a "mountain of economic and moral evidence." Sunday said, "I am the sworn, eternal and uncompromising enemy of the Liquor Traffic. I have been, and will go on, fighting that damnable, dirty, rotten business with all the power at my command."
Consider the times and the purveyor of the message – I think you can see why Billy Sunday coming to Portsmouth was such “a big deal.” By the turn of the century, temperance societies were a common fixture in communities across the United States. In 1906, a new wave of attacks began on the sale of liquor, led by the Anti-Saloon League (established in 1893) and driven by a reaction to urban growth, as well as the rise of evangelical Protestantism and its view of saloon culture as corrupt and ungodly.
In addition, a modern reader must consider that Sunday's events were so well-populated that the locations of his revivals would prepare months in advance, constructing wooden tabernacles able to hold up to 10 percent of a smaller town and up to 20,000 people in a major city. The intense preparation and pre-revival hype stoked the fires of anticipation at a time when people found immense enjoyment in attending public events. Yep, this was big. Please, let me try to rekindle the feelings of a little over 100 years ago.
Billy Sunday – Brief Bio
Born into poverty near Ames, Iowa, in 1862, Sunday spent much of his youth in orphanages before embarking on a career in Major League baseball, where he was known as a good fielder and average hitter. During Sunday's baseball days, he became deeply religious. He underwent a religious conversion in 1887, and in the 1880s he converted to evangelical Christianity and left baseball for the ministry.
Historical Note:
Billy Sunday would later used his hard-scrabble past as a justification for his plain-spoken style:
“The mal-odors of the barnyard are on my feat. I have greased my hair with goose-grease; I have blackened my shoes with a cob; I have wiped my proboscis with a gunny sake; I have drunk coffee out of my saucer and eaten peas with a knife … I am a graduate from the University of Poverty and Hard Knocks.”
If you wanted to get on Sunday’s nerves, just try suggesting to him that baseball was rigged. He once responded …
“When some withered-up, walrus-jawed, limber-legged, gimlet-eyed, pink-tea-blooded old fool of a pessimist comes to me and tells me in a voice like a dying calf and the gurgle of a wheezy cistern pump that the game is crooked as the devil, and that pennants are bought and sold, I feel like knocking his block into the middle of next week.”
(Justin Taylor. “What Was It Like to Hear Billy Sunday Preach?” www.thegospelcoalition.org. August 03, 2016.)
In 1903, the Presbyterian Church ordained Sunday as a minister. Sunday started as a a pulpit evangelist in the Midwest, and then blossomed into the nation's most famous evangelist with his colloquial sermons and frenetic delivery (which included an occasional baseball-like slide across the stage and perching atop the pulpit).
Sunday held widely reported campaigns in America's largest cities, and he attracted the largest crowds of any evangelist before the advent of electronic sound systems. He also made a great deal of money and was welcomed into the homes of the wealthy and influential. Sunday was a strong supporter of Prohibition, and his preaching likely played a significant role in the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919.
Despite questions about his income, no scandal ever touched Sunday. He was sincerely devoted to his wife, who also managed his campaigns, but his three sons disappointed him. His audiences grew smaller during the 1920s as Sunday grew older, religious revivals became less popular, and alternative sources of entertainment appeared. Nevertheless, Sunday continued to preach and remained a stalwart defender of conservative Christianity until his death.
(William G. McLoughlin, Jr. Billy Sunday Was His Real Name. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1955)
Greatest Campaign
To give you some idea of the magnitude of Sunday's campaigns, let me share with you some information about his March 1913 trip to Columbus, Ohio.
Sunday led a seven weeks revival in Columbus, Ohio. Columbus papers said it was not only his most successful campaign, but also “the greatest evangelistic demonstration of modern times.” The Ohio State Journal reported that Columbus “now holds every record in modern evangelism including largest number of converts (18,149), largest sum raised for the evangelist ($18,590.98 for expenses and over $21,000 for the evangelist), largest last day, and largest number of people interested.”
For over seven weeks, hundreds of businessmen in Columbus neglected their private affairs for Billy Sunday's mission, and sixty churches closed their doors as their pastors helped to advance the campaign. There were 95 tabernacle meetings, and at all but two, Billy Sunday spoke.
At these meetings were present between 750,000 and 1,000,000 persons. The total number of cards signed was 18,149 – the greater than any number ever secured anywhere in this country in a like period of time by Sunday or by any other evangelist. It was estimated that ten percent of the people in Columbus, roughly 18,000 people, became members of Sunday's congregation.
(“William A. Sunday.” Ohio History Central. https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/William_A._Sunday.)
The Literary Digest reported …
“Under the spell of his oratory and the persuasive influence of his coworkers, all manner of men were made to take a new view of life. City and county officials, saloon-keepers and professors, society women and shop girls, school children, and avowed agnostics, stood up and said, 'I publicly accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior.'”
(“Billy Sunday's Greatest Campaign.” The Literary Digest. http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/Billy_Sunday_promoted_Prohibition_article-pdf. March 15, 1913.)
“Sunday was a whirling dervish that pranced and cavorted and strode and bounded and pounded all over his platform and left them thrilled and bewildered as they have never been before.”
– Louisville newspaper, 1923
The Sunday Style
The apex of Sunday's career was in 1917, during World War I, when 98,000 people “hit the sawdust trail” (came forward for commitment or recommitment to Christ) during a 10-week revival in New York City.
Sunday's popularity waned after World War I, when many people in his revival audiences were attracted to radio broadcasts and moving pictures instead. Still, he continued to preach and remained a stalwart defender of conservative Christianity until his death.
Billy Sunday returned to speak in Canton, Ohio in 1931. He was 68 then. Still, his energy remained high and his personality was vibrant.
The Canton Repository reported that the first night of the revival, his message came in the style that Sunday had made familiar to his followers …
“Billy Sunday, flashing with the fiery vigor that 40 years of militant, pulpit-smashing evangelism has not cooled, turned 3,000 away from the city auditorium Sunday night and gave the 4,500 others who filled every seat, the aisles and standing space up under the eaves a sermon that crackled with his famous epigrams and flared now and then with picturesque Sundayisms.”
Canton Repository staff writer Robert H. Marriott on November 6, 1931, used a wonderful football analogy when reporting on Billy Sunday’s high-energy sermonizing (intense fire-and-brimstone sermons preached twice a day) …
“Straight-arming Satan, running interference for Righteousness, clearing paths for Christianity, Billy Sunday, all-time all-American in any contest with right living the goal, battled a picked team from Hades in City Auditorium Thursday night, scattered the opposition to the four corners of his all-embracing gridiron and shouted for the substitutes.
“Scorning moleskins and headgear, the agile warrior took the field in immaculate double breasted blue serge, handsome as any of the college boys that were frequently called into his sermon. Nor did he trifle with huddles, time-outs and deception plays. But, with a perfect straight driving attack and a defense that apparently had no vulnerable points, he emerged from the battle as spotless has he had begun it – even down to these trim, gray spats that danced across the bare platform that served as his playing field.”
(Gary Brown. “The Monday After: Billy Sunday came to Canton with a fiery brand of preaching.” https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/local/canton/2015/12/14/the-monday-after-billy-sunday/32879824007/. December 14, 2015.)
Sunday preferred to preach in tabernacles. “In the tabernacle we have sawdust on the ground and the whole congregation can move around without a sound,” he explained after lengthy negotiations obtained his consent to use the city auditorium in 1931 to save the time and expense of erecting a special building.
Still, the platform from which he spoke in 1931 was an exact duplicate of the one he had used two decades before – the same as the platforms he used for evangelistic meetings he held throughout the country.
The Repository reported …
“A floor of two-inch boards gives a space exactly 14 feet long and 8 feet wide, raised 6 feet above the auditorium pit. There is no railing. At the front is the simple pulpit of unfinished boards, built as strong as a bridge … Mr. Sunday uses every inch of the platform. Back and forth with quick dashes that halt abruptly on the very edge of the platform, heels stamping until the boards crack, right knee drawn up until it almost touches his chin … Mr. Sunday is never still.”
(Gary Brown. “The Monday After: Billy Sunday came to Canton with a fiery brand of preaching.” https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/local/canton/2015/12/14/the-monday-after-billy-sunday/32879824007/. December 14, 2015.)
Other publications from other times reported that Sunday “had an ear for the rhythm of language and for evocative word pictures, and he delivered his adjective-laden descriptions in rapid-fire succession.” So instead of saying, “I’m against sin; I’ll fight it as long as I live,” he would put it this way:
“I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I have a foot. I’ll fight it as long as I have a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I have a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old and fistless and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition.”
Instead of praying, “Lord save us from weak Christianity,” he prayed:
“Lord save us from off-handed, flabby-cheeked, brittle-boned, weak-kneed, thin-skinned, pliable, plastic, spineless, effeminate, ossified three-karat Christianity.”
(Justin Taylor. “What Was It Like to Hear Billy Sunday Preach?” www.thegospelcoalition.org. August 03, 2016.)
As he harangued audiences, Sunday often conveyed the impression that he was something of a prophetic pugilist battling for righteousness. When he grew fervent, he would shuck his collar, coat, and tie; roll up his sleeves; and adopt a a fighting stance. He might shake his fists in the faces of local clergymen as he condemned the ineffectiveness of their churches or point an accusing finger at his audience as he recited a lengthy litany of contemporary sins.
As thousands of enthralled worshipers watched, Sunday would run, jump, hurl unseen baseballs, smash imaginary home runs, slide for home plate, and shout in umpire-like fashion “you’re out,” thus announcing God’s judgment on the unsaved. Congregations marveled at the evangelist’s remarkable agility and energy, and journalists commented upon his stamina. One reporter estimated that as he preached Sunday traveled a mile during each sermon and more than 100 miles in every campaign.
(Justin Taylor. “What Was It Like to Hear Billy Sunday Preach?” www.thegospelcoalition.org. August 03, 2016.)
An interior photograph of the Billy Sunday tabernacle that was built in Lima for his six-week revival in 1911.
Postscript
I found this item of interest in an article by The Lima (Ohio) News. I thought it was a fitting ending to my blog post on Billy Sunday … the day after as you will soon see. The event described after a Billy Sunday crusade just a couple months after he had been win Portsmouth in 1911. Let me share just a couple of lines of the article with you. You may get a chuckle out of it. I did.
“Just a day earlier, evangelist Billy Sunday had held in his thrall the thousands who trudged through an early spring stew of snow, sleet and mud to pack the big, barn-like building in South Lima.
“Now, on the first Monday of April 1911, the day after Sunday’s six-week Lima religious revival ended, neighborhood kids flocked to the cavernous building like prospectors to a gold strike.
“'Every inch of the great Tabernacle has been gone over the past week by lynx-eyed boy sleuths of the South Side who have reaped a rich harvest,' the Lima Daily News noted in its Town Topics column for Friday, April 7, 1911. '
“At dawn on Monday the first advance was made down the saw-dust trail, and since then from morn till night the youngsters have been passing the saw dust through their fingers and sorting out coins and jewels, stick pins, diamond rings, hat pins, trinkets and every conceivable sort of valuables.'
“By the Lima Times-Democrat’s reckoning, those opportunistic boys weren’t the only ones to profit from Sunday’s six-week stay in Lima. The evangelist and his aides left behind 'a spiritually awakened' city when they boarded a Pennsylvania Railroad train that morning, the newspaper wrote April 3, 1911.”
(Greg Hoersten. “Billy Sunday’s Lima revival.” The Lima News. September 10, 2019.)
Billy Sunday Leaving Portsmouth, Ohio
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