Читать книгу The Goose-step: A Study of American Education онлайн

158 страница из 178

For the benefit of posterity, I explain that Sunday was an incredibly vulgar and blatant religious revivalist, who abused the labor movement and extolled the rich, and was used by the interlocking directorate to keep the eyes of the masses fixed on heaven. They carried him from one city to another all over the United States, and in Philadelphia they financed for him a four weeks’ campaign. Sunday had already received the degree of doctor of divinity from one American college; he was now welcomed with open arms by the University of Pennsylvania, which had barred Samuel Gompers from speaking, and more recently has barred James Maurer, president of the Pennsylvania State Federation of Labor.

About the reception of the Rev. Billy, you may read in his biography, a chapter headed “A Wonderful Day in a Great University.” “The greatest day of his crowded life,” the biographer comments, and quotes a few samples of the eloquence whereby the great evangelist promoted the cause of culture and scholarship. “Oh, Jesus, isn’t this a fine bunch?” he began his closing prayer. “Hot Cakes Off the Griddle” was the title of his address, and he portrayed the wife of Pilate—“one of those miserable, pliable, plastic, two-faced, two-by-four, lick-spittle, toot-my-own-horn sort of women”; and then Pilate himself—“one of those rathole, pin-headed, pliable, stand-pat, free-lunch, pie-counter politicians.” Speaking in the largest auditorium of the university, before the assembled students and instructors, Billy Sunday declared that “Jesus Christ is either the son of God or the natural offspring of a Jewish harlot.”