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JAIL YAWNS FOR 102 ACCUSED BY PRIESTBilly Sunday (1862-1935) was a popular, if mediocre, outfielder with the Chicago White Stockings (1883-1887), Pittsburgh Alleghenys (1888-1890), and Philadelphia Phillies, batting .248 with 12 home runs and 170 runs batted in in 499 games. He was known for his speed, and stole 246 bases--84 in his last season.
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Metuchen Authorities Put to It to House Men Father Camadia Says Libeled Him.
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NOT CELLS ENOUGH FOR ALL
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Wholesale Arrests Follow Charge That Pastor Drank Too Much at a Pig Roast.
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Special to The New York Times
METUCHEN, N.J., APRIL 5--Unless there is a big supply of ready cash on hand tomorrow, Metuchen will have to build a lean-to to the town jail to accommodate the 102 members of the Hungarian Roman Catholic Church of South River, who are charged with having libeled criminally their pastor, the Rev. Father Paul Camadia. Fifteen of the parishioners were arrested today. The others will be apprehended tomorrow.
Furthermore, the order has gone forth to lock them up if they can't furnish bail. Among the accused are some of the most important citizens of Metuchen. The town jail hasn't nearly enough room for so many prisoners. Justice of the Peace William B. Black signed so many warrants today that his hand became cramped and Chief of Police Eberwin said it would be an all-day job to serve the warrants on the South River congregation.
The trouble started over a pig roast some weeks ago. Some of the congregation charge that Father Camadia became "intoxicated and hilarious," and proceeded to sing songs and strike persons in the street. They drew up a petition to this effect and sent it to Bishop John F. McFaul at Trenton. Whereupon Bishop McFaul sent it to Father Camadia.
The priest asserted that the charges were untrue. On the question of pig roasts, rum, duck suppers, and the like he has ideas akin to those of the Rev. Billy Sunday, and he even preached a sermon, he said, denouncing such things. Then he took the petition to court. The warrants followed.
"The petition which the congregation signed is so libelous," said Justice Black today, "that Father Camadia is justified in taking drastic action. Prosecutor William E. Florance is co-operating with me. Those who cannot furnish bail will be locked up."
And that isn't all. Father Camadia went before the Middlesex Grand Jury as complaining witness against his sexton and organist and another member of the congregation. He complained that they had broken up a service in the church on Feb. 28 by removing an emblem from the church and putting it in a saloon at Drury Hill.
The troubles of the South River folk have torn Metuchen in two. Father Camadia gave a parade and picnic tonight, and his followers turned out in force. Their rivals also got up a celebration. The police were ready to do their part if called on.
In the 1886 or 1887 season, Mr. Sunday came to saving faith in Jesus Christ through the ministry of Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. In 1891, he turned down a lucrative baseball contract offer in order to accept a position with the YMCA in Chicago. Mr. Sunday began hitting the "sawdust trail" as an evangelist in 1896, aided by his wife Nell, and became the most prominent evangelist in the United States in the first two decades of the 20th century. His popularity waned in the 1920s with the coming of radio and motion pictures. By the time of his death, it was estimated that Mr. Sunday had preached 20,000 sermons, to a total of over 100 million people (including repeat attenders). For more on Mr. Sunday, see Billy Sunday Online.
On December 26, 1908, Jack Johnson, a Negro American, defeated white Canadian Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia to win the world heavyweight boxing title. Mr. Johnson's win, and his flamboyant behaviour--including his preference for white women--outraged white Americans. Former world champion Jim Jeffries yielded to public pressure and came out of a five-year retirement to fight Mr. Johnson in 1910, but Mr. Johnson won easily. After several years of attempts to find a "white hope," Jess Willard knocked out Mr. Johnson in the 26th round to take the title on April 5, 1945. The fight took place in Havana because Mr. Johnson was wanted in the United States for alleged violation of the Mann Act for transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes. Billy Sunday was in Paterson, New Jersey when the Johnson-Willard fight took place, and offered his comments on the event.
Unitarians, as their name indicates, believe that God exists in just one person, and thus deny the Trinity and the deity of Jesus Christ. Unitarians also deny original sin and biblical inerrancy. The American Unitarian Association was established in 1825; it united with the Universalist Church of America in 1961 to form the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). It was the earlier Unitarian organization that was opposing Mr. Sunday. As reported on page 6 of The New York Times, April 6, 1915 (bold, capitals, in original):
SUNDAY IS HAPPY OVER PRIZEFIGHT
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He Picked Johnson for Winner, but Says White Men Should Be Glad Willard Won.
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AND "MA" SAYS "HURRAH!"
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"Too Much Booze and Too Much Paris," She Adds, in Diagnosing the Black Bruiser's Defeat.
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Special to The New York Times
PATERSON, N.J., April 5--Billy Sunday took a day off today, and in the limousine which has been put at his disposal as long as he is here he and his wife, "Ma" Sunday, toured the city and paid several visits, among them calls at several banking houses.
First, Billy dropped in on Mayor Robert Fordyce at the City Hall, and in response to a hearty greeting exclaimed:
"Well, you have a regular city here. I had no idea Paterson was such a large and bustling place. You should be proud of it."
Mrs. Sunday said she was pleased with the city also.
At Police Headquarters Sunday met Chief Bimson and the other officers and hen slid a couple of weights down the shuffleboard in the platoon room, declaring the exercise was "bully" for the stomach muscles.
Next the couple went to see "Jim" McCormick, Sunday's old "baseball sidekick, " who was in bed with an attack of rheumatism. McCormick greeted Sunday with the exclamation:
"Hello, Bill. You don't look five years older."
"The pleasantest moment in months," was the way Sunday described this meeting with his old friend. They talked over old baseball days for half an hour until Mrs. Sunday suggested that it was time for Sunday to get home and receive his newspaper interviewers.
Thought Willard "Easy Meat."
Sunday received a score of newspaper men. He was gowned in a silken bath robe, reclined in a big easy chair, and talked of his early baseball days. He showed considerable interest in the Johnson-Willard fight at Havana, and early in the afternoon picked "a winner" in the person of Johnson. When the returns came in Sunday said:
"I thought Willard was easy meat for Johnson, but the result is great. Every white man should be happy."
"Hurrah!" was "Ma" Sunday's comment. "It's a case of too much booze and too much Paris. Booze defeated Johnson."
Billy talked of the time when he quit baseball to work for the Y.M.C.A. at a salary of $83 a month. Previous to making the decision to enter evangelistic work for the Y.M.C.A. Sunday was swamped with telegrams, he said, offering him flattering salaries to stay in the baseball game.
"I remember my first meeting after I had started out to be an evangelist," he said. "It was in a tent in Perry, Iowa, and there were 500 people. Ma and I were more than worried, because we were afraid expenses would not be met."
Asked what he was going to do tonight, Billy said: "To bed at 7 o'clock and a good night's rest to be ready and fit for tomorrow's work."
Sunday said he intended to cut his meeting short tomorrow night, closing at 8:30 o'clock in order that he might attend the Philip Sousa Band concert at the Fifth Regiment Armory. The evangelist is acquainted with several members of the band, and said it was his intention to have a seat with them on the platform.
Unitarians Ready to Fight.
That the Unitarians are ready for Sunday's expected attack and are prepared to retaliate with well-known speakers armed with legions of facts about their religion was evidenced by the appearance of stacks of printed matter in the reading room which will be opened tomorrow at Orpheus Hall.
Mrs. Ethel B. Robinson of Paterson and Montclair, author of "The Religion of Joy" and "Glimpses of God," and prominent in the work of Unity Church, Montclair, is in charge for the present, and told something of the plans of the campaign. She said no meetings had been planned for April, but four would be held in May.
"Of course, if Mr. Sunday makes any attack on our religion or doctrines, speakers will be brought on at once," she said. Among the possibilities as speakers are former President William H. Taft, Dr. Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University, John Haynes Holmes, pastor of the Church of the Messiah of New York, and Rabbi Stephen M. Wise of New York.
Informed of Sunday's remark that he had no more fear of the Unitarians than he had of the saloonkeepers and that Taft was a "good scout," Mrs. Robinson said:
"Billy Sunday has no fear of the Unitarians and the Unitarians have no fear of Billy Sunday. We are all trying to do God's work in this world. The Unitarians are only too glad Billy Sunday is in Paterson,and they hope and expect he will do marvelous work here. No truly religious man scorns another religious man. Man needs to have his soul set on fire with a zeal to do God's work. The tiny baby is not devilish, but is a spark of God."
Among the pamphlets of the Unitarians is one entitled, "What Do Unitarians Believe?" In addition to an analysis of the Unitarian pledge it contains a long list of America's prominent men who profess the Unitarian faith. Mrs Robinson said that from now on until the close of the Billy Sunday meetings the reading rooms would be open to the public and every opportunity would be given the people of Paterson to learn the true principles of the Unitarian faith.
