Category: Period newspaper coverage

August 1934 Cleveland Plain Dealer says Billy Sunday, at 71, was penniless; but was that true?

BILLY SUNDAY. 71 and PENNILESS. MUST TAKE PLATFORM AGAIN

Once great wealth of evangelist gone in donations to children and strangers; now, old, wearied and sick, he renews exhortations to “hit sawdust trail”

By Henry George Hoch

DETROIT, MICH., Aug.

Broken in health and fortune, Rev. William A. (Billy) Sunday, most effective and spectacular evangelist of the age, is writing a tragic closing chapter in an eventful, glamorous life.

A few years ago, a popular idol, he was wealthy, as most men count wealth. Today, after years of success and affluence, he must traipse a weary, worn-out body about the land because fate has stripped him of his last penny and left him with obligations he didn’t make, but feels he must fulfill.

Neither hardship nor poverty is a stranger to Billy Sunday. Born in a log cabin, he had to start digging for himself when he was six. He knew the bitterness of an orphan’s home. He had to work for most of his education. He’s been “on his own” since he was a stripling.

Billy was born Nov. 19, 1862, in a ramshackle two-room cabin on a 160-acre farm in Story County, near Ames, Ia.

His father, a brick and stone mason who built some of the first brick buildings in Des Moines, had marched away in August, a volunteer in Company E, 23d Iowa Infantry. Billy was a few days more than a month old when word came to the farm of his father’s death.

Billy has been denied even the privilege of saying a prayer at his father’s grave, for a diligent search has failed to reveal its location. Not long ago, however, he received a touching tribute from his father’s old comrades. When he arrived at Des Moines some time ago to hold a campaign, he was met at the train by the thirteen living members of Company E. At their head was the flag they had carried in the Civil War, taken from the state house for the first time since the war, by special permission.

The Sundays were widely known and highly respected in Story County, but they were anything but well off. Billy’s grandfather, “Squire” Corey, at one time owned large tracts of land and helped found the institution that now is Iowa State University, a cousin of Gen. Grant. “Squire” received an invitation to visit him at the White House when he became president of the United States.

“But he didn’t go,” Billy recalled a short time ago. “You know, he was just an Iowa hill Billy, and he thought he’d better stay home where he belonged.”

Billy’s widowed mother did her best to keep her three boys at home, but the wolf was close to their door, and at 8 years of age he had to start running errands and doing odd jobs to help along the family income. Of course, it wasn’t all work and no play, and Billy had a game he liked immensely.

“I used to make a ball of string and cover it with strips I’d tear from mother’s old dresses. Then, when I was going after the cows, I’d toss it way up in the air, close my eyes and run, and then try to find it and catch it,” he recalled.

“When I was just a kid I used to play on a grown-up ball team because I could play better than any of them. They’d wait for me to come to them. I was the only one that knew how to go after it.

Billy was 9 when his mother finally had to give up the struggle to keep the little home together, and he and his older brother, Edward, were packed off to the Soldiers Orphans Home at Glenwood, Ia.

Thousands upon thousands throughout the land have heard Billy tell the story of that trip. His mother was so poor she lacked the money to pay their fare all the way, and the two little boys had to beg a meal at Council Bluffs and then “bum” a ride on a freight train for the last twenty miles to Glenwood.

It was years later that Billy and his mother were reunited, when he was a successful and famous evangelist. She lived with him the last 30 years of her life in the rainy days when he could do more for her materially than she ever had been able to do for him.

The brothers stayed at orphanages, first at Glenwood and then at Davenport, five years. Edward then had reached the age limit of 14, and when he was dismissed, the fourteen-year-old Billy left with him.

For a time they lived with their grandfather “Square” Corey, on his farm near Ames. But Billy didn’t take to farm life, and soon, after an undeserved tongue lashing over a broken yoke, he went to Nevada, Ia., to make his own way in the world.

His first job, in a hotel, gave him board and room. “I was bellhop, bus boy, clerk and everything else. Every morning at 5 o’clock I had to meet the train bulletin: Welton Hotel, dollar a day,” he remembered.

It wasn’t much of a job but it was one of the most important he ever had. Baseball still remembers his speed after more than 40 years, and millions have marveled at his speed on a tabernacle platform. That first job helped him develop it.

“The man who ran the hotel had a mare, and he was mighty proud of her. Every afternoon I had to trot that mare all over town to show her off. I got so I could run her off her feet. And I got so I could run 100 yards without taking a breath,” he declared.

After he lost that job, for staying away an extra day when he’d gone to visit his grandfather, Billy got another doing chores for Col. John Scott, at one time lieutenant governor of Iowa. That job enabled him to return to school and graduate from high school. His ball playing on the high school team made him one of the most widely known youngsters.

A volunteer fire department had much to do with getting Billy into professional baseball.

“All the towns had volunteer fire departments in those days, and they wanted men that could run fast,” he recalled. “They used to hold state tournaments to locate the speedy fellows. I was one of the contests and was asked to come to Marshalltown to join the fire department.

“We had a team at Marshalltown that could pull a 325-pound wagon 300 yards and attach the hose, all in 34 seconds,” he said.

Of course, young Elly got on the Marshalltown built team, and a big time at it, his speed and his ability to get the hard ones made him the star of the team.

“Once we played Des Moines for the state championship and $50 on

the side. We beat them 15 to 4, and I made six of those fifteen runs. I was playing center field, but I had to play left field, too, because the left fielder was drunk.

Ball playing like that made Billy the talk of the town, and, when ‘Pop’ Anson of the Chicago White Stockings, a Marshalltown boy, came home on time for a visit, his aunt told him he ought to ‘look over that Sunday kid.’ ‘Pop’ did, and, in 1884, when he was 22, Billy jumped straight from

the sandlots to the majors. He had several years there and if he hadn’t got religion his speed and pep and natural bent for the dramatic might have made him as much of a gate attraction as Babe Ruth with his brain and bat.

Pop Anson once said that Billy was a bit weak on the hitting side and not the smartest base runner in the game, but a brilliant fielder, a strong and accurate thrower, and one of the fastest men in the game.

There never was a speedier man on the diamond, nor one who liked to take longer chances. One of the fast men in the country to do 100 yards in ten seconds, Billy was the first man to circle the diamond in fourteen seconds “from a standing start, and touching all the bases.”

“No one ever beat that,” he declared recently, with pardonable pride. “Not even Ty Cobb, and he was the greatest baseball player that ever lived.”

Billy wanted more education and while he was with the old White Stockings he attended Northwestern University after the season closed. He had a winter job there coaching the football and baseball teams. Billy was not what you could call a hard drinker, but he used to take a little beer or wine with the boys now and then.

One night in 1887 he was in a downtown Chicago saloon with some other players—among them Mike Kelly and Ed Williamson—when a group from the Pacific Garden Mission started an outdoor meeting at State and Van Buren Streets, near by. Their hymns caught Billy’s attention and interest.

“I used to hear those hymns in Sunday school at home. I’d never heard another sing them. When one of the workers came into the saloon and invited us to attend their meeting at the mission I decided to go. The fellows laughed at me but I went. And I liked it. “I wasn’t converted that night.

But I liked their meetings and I went back several times. One night when Harry Monroe was preaching I found my way to God,” is Billy’s story of his conversion.

Many years later he was to repay in big measure his debt to the mission where he was converted.

Billy didn’t quit baseball immediately after his conversion but he joined the church and became an active worker. And baseball teams had to get along without him when he tore loose on a preaching star. He used to get frequent calls from Y. M. C. A.’s and other men’s groups to lead services and preach, both at home and on the road. He always responded and the novelty of hearing a diamond star deliver a sermon attracted big crowds and got him a lot of attention.

It was in Sunday school Billy first met Nell Thompson, whom millions in America know as “Ma” Sunday. It was love at first sight for him, but she had another beau, and Billy’s suit didn’t progress with the speed with which he circled the bases. Her family didn’t like the idea of her getting too thick with a ball player, either, and at the time forbade her to see him. But Billy was persistent, and soon he began to get a little encouragement. Finally, they overcame the family’s disapproval, and were married.

In the spring of 1891, the Brotherhood Association, forerunner of the American League, broke up and the market was flooded with players.

Billy got his release, and with a wife and baby to support, he left a job which paid him good money to become the first “Y” religious secretary in the country at $1,000 a year.

The Pittsburgh team, to which he had been transferred wanted him back to finish the season. Those weren’t the days of big money in sports, but they offered him $2,500, then $3,500 and finally told him, ‘name your own price.’

But Billy stuck to his $1,000-a-year job, organizing the religious activities of the Chicago Y. M. C. A. and doing the preaching himself now and then.

One of the men he frequently called on for help in these services as song leader was J. Wilbur Chapman, noted evangelist of the ’90s. When Chapman needed an assistant, Billy was recommended, and got the job.

‘I was with Chapman three years. I was his advance man. I put up his tents, took ’em down, sold his books, blacked his shoes—did everything,’ he recalled.

In 1893, while Billy was home for a brief visit with his family, he got a wire announcing Chapman was returning to his old church at Philadelphia.

There was a blow. Billy now had a wife and two children, and neither money nor a job. He and Ma always took their troubles to God in prayer, and they prayed hard and long over that one. Both say what happened is the most convincing answer to prayer they’ve ever had.

It was a letter from Garner, Ia., asking Billy to hold a ten-day revival in their 300-seat opera house. That call always has been a mystery to Billy. So far as he knows, no one in Garner knew him or had heard him preach.

That first campaign was a tough one. Billy, who’d never been on his own before, had to preach at ten meetings, and he had only eight sermons. A lot of midnight oil was burned in Garner before Billy filled the gap.

While that meeting was in progress Billy was invited to hold a campaign at Pawnee City, Neb., and another at Tecumseh, Neb. From that day to this there never has been a day when there weren’t calls ahead for Billy and Ma.

Billy started out with ‘sort of high falutin’ sermons with words as long as your arm, but he soon discovered his real forte, the Anglo-Saxon speech of the man in the street, with plenty of slang and action—the ‘Billy Sunday’ kind of preaching and preaching that nearly everyone in this country has heard, or heard about.

People liked his preaching. His crowds grew bigger and bigger until the Iowa and Nebraska Opera Houses—usually the biggest halls in town—couldn’t begin to hold the crowds, and he had to take to tent meetings.

Constantly the calls kept coming from larger and larger towns, and the middle west was filled with talk of this baseball evangelist who pulled off his coat and vest, tore off his collar and tie, and hopped about like a jumping jack as he blazed away at sin and the devil and booze with salty slang and blunt words never before heard from a pulpit.

There were some who criticized his language, calling it vulgar and out of place, but others talked of how people walked the famous sawdust trail, and how ‘deadbeats’ began to pay their bills after Billy had been in town a few days, and how churches were revitalized after his campaign, and saloons and dens of vice gave way to Y. M. C. A.’s and W. C. T. U.’s and places like that. The cities called to him. He went reluctantly. Elgin, Ill., was the first city to hear him.

“I was scared stiff,” he recalled the other day. “I used to say ‘he done it,’ instead of ‘did it,’ and I got all mixed up on ‘come’ and ‘come.’ But there was a Presbyterian minister there I wish there were more like him today and he took me in hand and helped me.

Billy became a public idol, the talk of the land. His calls took him to nearly every state in the Union, and he has held campaigns in all but four of the major cities of the country. He made his famous sawdust trail and his exhortation, “Get Right with God,” as well known throughout the country as radio today makes a popular tune.

No building was large enough for his city revivals. People used to stand for hours to get seats in tabernacles that would seat from 10,000 to 20,000 persons. One day, in Columbus, O., in 1913 he gave his famous “Women Only” sermon to more than 4,000 women who stormed the 10,000-seat tabernacle there and forced him to hold extra meetings.

During a ten-week campaign in New York he spoke to 1,500,000 people and nearly 100,000 of them hit the trail. His greatest campaigns were held in New York and Chicago in 1917. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was the financial “angel” of the New York meeting.

“He told me, don’t worry about the collections. You won’t have to worry about anything,” Billy said. This Billy Sunday who talked at meeting after meeting from early morning till late at night one New York newspaper estimated he spoke 1,290,000 words in ten weeks of

preaching there was an amazing thing to his old cronies on the ball clubs.

When Billy was in Detroit in the fall of 1933, he renewed acquaintance with Fred E. Goldie Goldsmith. They had been teammates on the old Chicago White Stockings in the ’80s, when that team came to Detroit and set an all-time record by scoring eighteen runs in one inning. “That Billy Sunday has got to be quite a talker,” Goldie commented. “He was such a quiet lad on the team. Never said hardly anything.”

Other friends have commented on that trait. The man who has preached to greater visible crowds than any other living American, talking generally for much more than an hour, is at heart a silent, retiring man. Away from his work he prefers to let others do the talking.

Through the years of success such as no other evangelist has known, great sums of money passed through Billy’s hands, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most of it was given away to needy people and institutions. Today, all of it is gone. New York gave him the biggest ‘love offering’ he, or any other evangelist, ever has received.

We had just entered the war when I began my New York campaign,’ he said. ‘The first day of the campaign I told them whatever they gave me I would give to the boys overseas through the Red Cross, the Y.M.C.A., the Salvation Army, and the like.

‘They gave me $120,465, and every penny of it went to the boys over- there. When I left New York I had to draw on my own funds for my railroad fare.’

Chicago also gave him a great offering $65.00, and all of that was given to the old Pacific Garden Mission, in which he had been converted 38 years before.

One of his converts, a former convict, once came to Billy and related the story of losing his home because he couldn’t meet the payments. Billy wrote him a check for $500 to pay off the mortgage.

Friends say he has financed the college education of more than 70 young men and that the country is dotted with homes and institutions that have been helped through dark days by Billy’s checks.

It was about six years ago that the tragic series of events began which he himself has called his worst years. He is on the road, although he needs rest — and wants it.

His eldest son, George, had worked with him for a time in his campaigns, but, after his first marriage he had established a real estate business in Los Angeles. His brother, Billy, Jr., was with him. In 1928, Billy, Jr., was sued for divorce by his actress wife. A week later George and his wife parted and she sued for a separation and support.

One October night in 1932 Billy was speaking in Detroit for the Michigan Anti-Saloon League. After the meeting, he received a call that his daughter, Helen, wife of Frank E. Hagan, surgeon of Mich., was about to die. A friend drove him there before she died, and Billy, marked by grief, returned for the remainder of his tour for the Anti-Saloon League.

A year ago he buried George in a grave beside Helen at Sturgis. And in that grave he buried his hopes of retirement and rest.

When the depression came along, George’s business was hard hit, and then he had family trouble. ‘I used the $8000 I’d saved up to try and save his business and help him out of his troubles. It’s all gone, every penny. And now, George is dead,’ he cried, sobbing with his sobs.

Then he revealed that he had pledged to pay George’s two children $15 a month until they are 21—the eldest now is 17.

A year ago February, at Des Moines, he was stricken by a heart attack during a sermon. A blood clot was found in the coronary artery. He had to spend three months in bed, with Ma nursing him back to health. Then three more months of rest.

He needed more rest, but, last September, past his allotted three-score years and ten, he had to take up again the hard grind of the itinerant evangelist, answering, for the first time in his career, calls from individual churches, and returning once again to the smaller towns.

For Billy Sunday is broke because he sacrificed everything for his children. ‘As long as he lives he must work to live and to meet the obligations he has assumed for others.’

Copyright, 1935, by the Plain Dealer Publishing Co. in co-op with American Newspaper Alliance.

Did Billy Sunday Die Penniless? Separating Fact from Fiction

In the twilight of Billy Sunday’s life, the press painted a picture of a once-glorious evangelist now broken in body and fortune. A 1934 article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer claimed that Sunday had been “stripped of his last penny” and was forced to continue preaching out of sheer necessity. But how much of that is true?

Let’s take a closer look at the facts and exaggerations surrounding the closing chapter of one of America’s most dynamic preachers.

What’s Historically Accurate

1. Great Personal Loss

Billy Sunday endured crushing personal tragedies in his later years. His daughter, Helen, died in 1932. Just a year later, his son George died—after financial ruin, a failed marriage, and spiritual drift. These losses left Billy heartbroken and emotionally drained.

2. Radical Generosity

Sunday wasn’t just a fiery preacher—he was known for extraordinary generosity. During his 1917 campaign in New York City, he received a staggering $120,465 love offering—and gave every penny to soldiers and wartime charities. He also gave generously to students, struggling families, and institutions like Pacific Garden Mission (where he himself had been converted).

3. Declining Health

In 1933, Sunday suffered a heart attack while preaching in Des Moines. Doctors discovered a blood clot in his coronary artery and urged rest. He spent months recuperating—but eventually resumed his preaching schedule despite serious health concerns.

4. Humble Return to Small-Town Preaching

In his final years, Sunday no longer drew the massive urban crowds of earlier decades. Instead, he accepted invitations from small-town churches—returning to the kind of humble venues where he began. This wasn’t a forced exile but a sober shift that reflected the times and his own desire to keep preaching.

What’s Probably Exaggerated

ClaimAnalysis
“Stripped of his last penny”Overstated. Sunday had certainly lost most of his wealth by 1934, but he was not destitute. He still owned property in Winona Lake, Indiana, and had the means to travel.
“He must work to live”Partially true. Sunday continued preaching due to personal obligation—particularly to support his grandchildren—but not because he was facing homelessness or poverty.
“Broken in health and fortune”Dramatic tone. He was declining physically, yes—but he still traveled, preached, and maintained a basic household. His condition was serious, but not total ruin.
“All of it is gone” (money)Unverifiable. He likely had very little liquid wealth by the 1930s, but “all” is a strong word. He retained enough assets to live modestly, and continued to support others financially.

Final Thought

Billy Sunday’s final years were indeed marked by sorrow, sacrifice, and strain—but not by absolute destitution. While the press dramatized his story for emotional impact, the truth is more nuanced: Sunday gave away fortunes, suffered deeply, and kept preaching to the end—not because he had to survive, but because he felt called.

He didn’t die penniless.
He died spent.

“I want to preach until I can’t preach anymore, and then I want to crawl up into the pulpit and die.”
—Billy Sunday

“Over-flow” crowd at Billy Sunday’s Tabernacle. Syracuse, NY. c. 1915

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Billy Sunday conducted a significant revival campaign in Syracuse, New York, from October 31 to December 19, 1915. This campaign was part of his broader evangelistic efforts during the 1910s, a period when he held major revivals in cities like Philadelphia, Kansas City, Detroit, Boston, Buffalo, and New York City.

Lincoln Journal Star

Fri, Dec 31, 1915 · Page 2

LEADING CITIZENS LINED UP

BIG MEN OF SYRACUSE HIT TRAIL AT SUNDAY MEETINGS.

Remarkable Results Achieved by Evangelist as Told by Member of Local Committee.

Here is the story of the Billy Sunday campaign in Syracuse, N. Y., as told by a local committeeman in the current issue of the Christian Advocate, one of the leading Methodist papers of the country:

The seven weeks of the ‘Billy’ Sunday campaign have passed altogether too quickly. The interest which was at the flood when representatives of fifty-four churches in 250 automobiles, and hundreds of the faculty and students of Syracuse university, led by the university brass band, met ‘Billy’ Sunday and his party at the railroad station on the afternoon of October 30, and escorted them to the handsome residence on Onondaga street which was to be their home while in Syracuse, has continued without abatement, and there has been no slump at any time in the attendance at the services, a somewhat unusual circumstance Mr. Sunday tells us. At the evening services and three times on Sunday the tabernacle has been packed with an audience numbering from 12,000 to 15,000 people and an evening when, on account of a snowstorm, the streets were well-nigh impassable, was no exception. People from as far west as Buffalo have come in large delegations to the afternoon services and members of the Sunday party have gone out into communities within a radius of fifty miles of Syracuse, and have held evangelistic services and organized classes for Bible study. Stores, factories, high schools and the university have given Mr. Sunday and his party the largest possible audience. No class of persons has been omitted by the ministry of these good people, from the maids in the kitchen to the people of refinement and wealth, into whose homes Mr. Sunday has been most welcome. The choir of 4,500 people was composed of persons without regard to race, color or creed, and this choir was divided into choruses of 1,500 each, one chorus being made up of men, and was under the masterful leadership of a member of the party known familiarly as “Rhody,” who is a soloist trombonist and between whom and Mr. Sunday there is the feeling that existed between David and Jonathan.

A Memorable Sabbath.

A service that stands out conspicuously as one of the most wonderful of the campaign was held on Sunday morning, November 14, when, following the sermon, Mr. Sunday gave the invitation for the first time for the people to come forward and take his hand and 1,500 responded, some for reconsecration, others to announce for the first time their desire to lead the christian life.

Memorable Sabbath that, for Pentecost repeated itself, when over 3,000 “hit the trail.” Another service not soon to be forgotten was on Sunday morning, December 12, when, after a powerful sermon by Mr. Sunday, and an appeal which brought hundreds to the front, Chancellor Day was invited to the platform, to pray for the penitents, and as he and the evangelist stood side by side, men equally great in their respective realms, and the chancellor poured out his soul in a wonderful prayer for those who were inquiring the way of salvation, the great assembly was mightily moved.

The greatest week-day evening, perhaps, was what was known as university night, when about 3,000 of the faculty and students, led by the university band, marched to the tabernacle.

Opportunity was given by the leader before the service for college songs and yells, and the people from the hill certainly owned things for a while. After the sermon, when the invitation was given, scores went forward and took Mr. Sunday by the hand, thereby indicating their desire to lead a Christian life.

Mr. Sunday and his co-workers have given much of their time to the students, speaking to them at mass meetings, chapel services and in their fraternities, sororities and dormitories, with the result that up to this time over 400 have hit the trail.

Hundreds Unite With Churches.

The results of this wonderful religious movement can only be tabulated in part at this time. While hundreds have united with the churches, hundreds who have not been active in the church for years have renewed their vows. Employers have come down the aisles of the tabernacles on evenings when their employees have been attending in a body, leading them by twos and threes to the front. Business men and manufacturers have suspended business and work that their employees might hear the message from Mr. Sunday or a member of his party. Firms which at the beginning were not especially friendly to the movement have extended warm welcomes to those who would hold meetings in the shops. As a striking instance of a change of front toward the Sunday campaign, one church which did not join in the invitation to Mr. Sunday to come to this city, and refused to be one of the co-operating churches in the campaign, was represented on the evening when the brotherhood of the different churches occupied reservations by the rector and over one hundred men. True it is that the people who are speaking against Mr. Sunday are the folks who have refused to hear him.

The liquor traffic has been roughly handled. While “Billy” Sunday does not preach a sermon in which he does not score the rum business, when he preached the booze sermon he said: “You have heard me make a few remarks about the liquor traffic that you might get your mental adjustments, but next Sunday I will preach on booze or get on the water wagon, and this sermon always gives the devil the pneumonia.” Afternoons and evenings he preached to audiences of men only, who packed the tabernacle, and that sermon and his general crusade against the liquor business have certainly made the liquor men sick (of their business). Business in some of the down-town places has fallen off 30 per cent. In three places, where crowds have been accustomed to gather at night, the clientele has been cut almost in two. The receipts of the most fashionable bar in the city have fallen off 80% and an aloonkeeper in referring to the matter said: “The Billy Sunday has about destroyed the saloon business in Syracuse.” Several bartenders have hit the trail and one or lookkeeper, after he had hit the trail, went back to his home and called up the brewers who were back of him in business and told them they could take the business, for he was through. On the day when the “booze” sermon was preached a card requesting the mayor to enforce the law relative to Sabbath observance and liquor traffic was signed by 18,000 voters.

Secular Press Endorses Sunday.

To quote from a recent editorial in one or but our evening papers not especially favorable to the campaign at the beginning: “Cleaner speech, the only reliable index of clean thought, is everywhere noted. There is a sensible abatement of vice of every kind. Moral derelicts have been rescued by the hundreds and have been placed on th solid ground of hope and renewed self-confidence, but the individual instances of strange conversations, better resolutions sand redeemed estrays do not begin to measure the results of the Sunday crusade. The whole atmosphere of the community has been charged with a fresh and bracing moral ozone and to Mr. Sunday and his party we extend our sincere expression of appreciation, respect and gratitude.”

Last Day of Campaign.

On the last day, Sunday, December 19, four services were held. One of the afternoon services was for men only and with such power did Mr. Sunday reason on the judgment to come that five hundred men responded to his appeal at the close of the sermon. In the evening the tabernacle was packed in every part by thirteen thousand people, hundreds being turned away. The evangelist urged the people to an immediate decision, with the result that fifteen hundred hit the trail. More of the leading citizens took a stand for Christ at these meetings than at any of the previous services. An impressive feature of the evening service was when Mr. Sunday invited members of his party to come on the platform and the vast audience, led by a choir of fifteen hundred voices, sang: “God be with you till we meet again” and gave the chautauqua salute.

Twenty-three thousand one hundred and fifty-five hit the trail during the campaign. Over $50,000 has been received through the offerings, several thousands going to local charities. Mr. Sunday received $11,155 as a free-will offering. The evangelist paid a high compliment to the people of Syracuse at the closing service. He said because of their co-operation with him and their effort to provide him with every comfort he was leaving a very much better man physically than when he came. Thousands went to the depot and sang the songs they had learned to love to Mr. and Mrs. Sunday, whom they had also learned to love, as they took their departure to their western home.

The [Wilkes-Barre] Times Leader. Mon, Dec 20, 1915 ·Page 25

SUNDAY CAMPAIGN CLOSES

Syracuse Gives Evangelist $23,000 and Nearly 20,000 Converts

With the free will offering amounting to more than $23,000 and the converts numbering nearly 20,000, the Billy Sunday campaign at Syracuse closed yesterday amid great enthusiasm. More than 2,000 converts marched down the aisle and grasped the evangelist by the hand during the day.

It is understood that personal checks amounting to several hundred dollars have not yet been counted in the free-will offering and the total collection is expected to reach close to $24,000. Syracuse now ranks third in point of attendance, conversions and free-will offering of all the cities in which the evangelist conducted campaigns.

The Buffalo News. Mon, Dec 20, 1915 ·Page 3

BILLY SUNDAY CLOSES SYRACUSE CAMPAIGN

911,000 Total Attendance—Trail-hitters Numbered 22,449.

Syracuse, Dec. 29—Rev. Billy Sunday closed his seven weeks evangelistic campaign in Syracuse last night. At four meeting during the day he preached to more than 50,000 persons. His thanks offering was $23,112.

The total attendance at the Sunday meetings was 911,000, trail hitters numbered 22,449. The evangelist and his wife left last night for their home at Winona Lake, Wis., to rest a week before opening the campaign at Trenton, N. J., one week from Sunday. Five thousand persons gathered at the railroad station to bid him farewell.

In one of his closing sermons Sunday took a fling at ‘cold church people,’ saying among other things: ‘I’ve got no use for a bottle-fed church. Some preachers are like huge nursing bottle with 500 rubber tubes running to a lot of 200-pound babies in the churches and the preacher has to be a wet nurse to the whole bunch.’

Burlington, Iowa (November 9 to December 17, 1905)

​Billy Sunday conducted his revival campaign in Burlington, Iowa, from November 9 to December 17, 1905. He saw 2,484 conversions and generated $4,000 in collections. A newspaper article tells how he fell ill and his very life was deemed threatened during the Burlington campaign.

Reported That Evangelist Sunday Was Taken Ill During Meetings.

It is reported that Rev. “Billy” Sunday, who has hundreds of friends in Dixon, has broken down from overwork and nervous strain and is dangerously sick at Burlington, Iowa. Friends here have heard nothing of this but the following item is published in an exchange:

“Billy” Sunday, the famous baseball evangelist, broke down at a revival near Burlington, Iowa, Monday, and his death is feared. Sunday started to preach to a crowd of 4,000 people when he toppled over on the platform in a dead faint. He had been preaching steadily day and night for months and during the preceding week had not slept.”

  • Dixon Evening Telegraph. Mon, Dec 18, 1905 ·Page 5

Additional related newspaper coverage of the Burlington, Iowa (1905) campaign

REV. “BILLY” SUNDAY.

Burlington is now in the throes of a religious awakening, engineered by that eminent and popular ex-baseball player who now is known as Rev. William A. Sunday, but whose numerous friends still love to call “Billy” Sunday. Sunday has been preaching the old gospel in his own inimitable style for several years, and has drawn to him the friendships of a great many people of all denominations, while he has also offended many good people by his “hammer and tongs” style of argument. He has also many friends among the people outside of all churches, for there is one thing of which “Billy” Sunday cannot be justly accused, and that is insincerity. He preaches just like he played ball—puts his whole heart into the work; in other words, he “plays ball” in his present profession. That he has done and is doing great good cannot be successfully denied, and Burlington will probably be better, for a time at least, for his coming; but he has many friends who do not believe it is necessary to use the language of the gutter in condemning evil, nor that everybody is quite as bad as Mr. Sunday would sometimes have his hearers believe.

Offensiveness and vulgarity may emanate from the pulpit as well as from any other source. And it is barely possible that a religious cathartic may not prove as effective in the long run as a less drastic and more constructive remedy.

Again, those who labor just as hard, year in and year out, and just as faithfully, in the noble calling, at a salary generally less per annum than Mr. Sunday receives in a fortnight, may be doing a more permanent work. But “Billy” Sunday is sincere, and sincerity is a virtue that is not to be despised.

  • The Cedar Rapids Gazette. Mon, Nov 13, 1905 ·Page 4

GREAT REVIVAL.

Evangelist “Billy” Sunday Stirs Up Burlington—Large Crowds.

Burlington, Ia., Nov. 28—The revival services conducted by Rev. William A. Sunday have already grown to be a remarkable thing for Burlington. They have been going on for two weeks, and the evangelist is now speaking to an average of 6,000 people daily. Sunday afternoon he held his first men’s meeting and was greeted by fully 6,000 men, old and young. He swayed this remarkable audience for an hour and a half like a storm beaten ocean and at the close 112 men responded to the call for converts, and it is estimated that 50 were turned away because of the crush in front of the evangelist. Including this number there have been a total of 602 converts since last Thursday night.

  • The Muscatine Journal. Tue, Nov 28, 1905 ·Page 1

SOME “BILLY’ SUNDAYISMS.

From Burlington papers: The indifference of many in the church is keeping back the kingdom of God.

Some of you are constantly breathing out in doing good to others, but do no breathing in; seldom or never give yourselves any time with God.

If you have done your neighbor in jury, go to him and confess it, and ask his forgiveness.

The greatest barrier to the advancement of God’s Kingdom to-day is the indifference and apathy of so many of our church members.

No wonder so many of our children go to the bad; they get no guidance, no inspiration, no help for good in the home.

There are hundreds here to-night who are convinced that Jesus Christ is the son of God, but have not back- bone enough to come down the aisle and confess it.

The historical Jesus? You may repudiate him as the son of God, but you still have the historical Jesus, and you could no more write the history of the world and leave Jesus out than you could write the history of this country and leave out George Washington.

Profanity damns and curses any man who indulges in it.

What would the world be were there no restraining influence? You say “it is nobody’s business what I do.” Bu’ hear me, it is everybody’s business what everybody does.

There are certain men who scoff at religion and at preachers, but when they come face to face with death and the fearful consequences of their dis- solute lives they begin to fear and tremble.

  • Muscatine News-Tribune. Tue, Dec 05, 1905 ·Page 6

Ten thousand people sought to hear “Billy” Sunday preach at Burlington last Sunday, 6,000 succeeding. Converts in his revival services in that city to date number 1,279.

  • Quad-City Times. Wed, Dec 13, 1905 ·Page 2

Closed by “Billy” Sunday.

Burlington, Ia., Dec. 20.—The wave of reform in Burlington, growing out of William A. Sunday’s revival meetings, resulted in the formation of the Civic Reform league of 150 members, and the issuance last night by Mayor Caster of an order closing all saloons on Sunday.

  • The Grand Rapids Press. Wed, Dec 20, 1905 ·Page 9

2,500 Converts

Secured by Rev. Billy Sunday in Burlington

Burlington, Ia., Dec. 19.—The Rev. William A. Sunday has closed his series of evangelistic meetings here. There were 7,000 people packed into the tabernacle, with at least 5,000 outside unable to get in, last night. The results of the meetings are 2,500 converts. The people of Burlington have given him a free-will offering of over $4,000.

  • Marion News-Tribune. Wed, Dec 20, 1905 ·Page 9

Post-Wilkes-Barre campaign results (published May 1913 in The South Bend Tribune)

WHAT SUNDAY DID AT WILKES-BARRE [February 23-April 13, 1913]

OFFICIAL OF CAMPAIGN MAKES STATEMENT ON RESULTS.

CITY BETTER GENERALLY

Business Was Improved, Politics Was Elevated and Social Life Was Raised to Higher Standard Says Man in Interview.

The Tribune’s Special Service.

WILKES-BARRE, Pa., May 6.

The Sunday party has gone from Wilkes-Barre to South Bend, Ind.

Exterior view of the Billy Sunday Tabernacle.
Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. Friday, February 21, 1913.

The tabernacle is being torn down day by day. The thousands who gathered beneath its roof to hear the greatest winner of souls in this generation have scattered and gone about doing the duties of their individual lives, but Wilkes-Barre and the Wyoming Valley will never be the same as it was a few months ago, before Billy Sunday came to this city. The moral and social life of the community has been given a new moral tone to the extent of which cannot be estimated for years.

This is the statement of Rev. J. W. Parkin, chairman of the Wilkes-Barre Ministerial Evangelistic committee, which had charge of the recent campaign in this city.

Moral Awakening.

“The most conservative,” he declared, “will admit that there has been a moral awakening the like of which has never been experienced here before. It is absolutely impossible to measure the immense amount of good that was accomplished, but I am sure that there is not one that regrets the hours and time and even money spent in planning for this campaign.”

“What,” he was asked, “do you consider the result of this visit on business here? You know it was prophesied that he would injure business.”

“An honest business could not have received greater help than came through the Sunday campaign,” was Mr. Parkhurst’s opinion. “A moral awakening such as we have had could not help but improve business. This has been evidenced in many ways, but particularly in the fact that people now realize more keenly than ever their obligations to each other and to the community. Hundreds of merchants have stated that accounts which they had considered closed because of inability to collect have been paid. There is a greater feeling of mutual respect now between employers and employes.

Politics Elevated.

“And politics; what about that? Do you think the campaign will have any influence on the politics of the country?”

“Well, I’m not much of a politician,” said the campaign leader, “but it seems reasonable to me to suppose that when a man finds himself in the position of a candidate for office he will be more careful in the future than ever before that there will not be any question about his private or business life.

There are many men in this city who have never been heavy drinkers for years who have bound themselves to abstinence. Hundreds of others who have been more or less indifferent or lukewarm in their opinion of intemperance have been aroused to a more active interest.”

“The moral wave,” he declared, “has been given a refining influence that is going to raise the standard of the community. Wilkes-Barre needed just such an indictment to make it realize where it was leading. I know hundreds of young people who have ‘cleaned house’ since Mr. Sunday came here.

‘You consider then that the people who criticized Mr. Sunday and his methods have been answered by the results which have been attained?’ was asked.

‘The critics have had nothing to offer that will accomplish the same amount of good that has been accomplished by Mr. Sunday.’

February 22, 1913

“Immediately following Columbus, Mr. Sunday opened a series of meetings at Wilkes-Barre, Pa., the farthest east of any district in which he had ever worked. The campaign opened on Washington’s Birthday—February 22—1913. Rev. W. M. Randles, pastor of the Bethesda Congregational church, gives the number of converts as 16,348, and the free-will offering as $23,527.66. In only this one respect did the Wilkes-Barre campaign exceed that of Columbus.”

  • Frankenberg, 1917: p. 132.