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By 1914, he was a national celebrity, conducting multi-day campaigns in big cities which attracted tens of thousands of people. He fiercely opposed alcohol:
By 1914, he was a national celebrity, conducting multi-day campaigns in big cities which attracted tens of thousands of people. He fiercely opposed alcohol:
:Whiskey and beer are all right in their place, but their place is in hell.... The saloon is the sum of all villainies. It is worse than war or pestilence. It is the crime of crimes. It is parent of crimes and the mother of sins. It is the appalling source of misery and crime in the land and the principal cause of crime. It is the source of three-fourths of the taxes to support that crime. And to license such an incarnate fiend of hell is the dirtiest, low-down, damnable business on top of this old earth.<ref>[http://billysunday.org/sermons/booze.html Famous 'Booze Sermon'], billysunday.org</ref>
:Whiskey and beer are all right in their place, but their place is in hell.... The saloon is the sum of all villainies. It is worse than war or pestilence. It is the crime of crimes. It is parent of crimes and the mother of sins. It is the appalling source of misery and crime in the land and the principal cause of crime. It is the source of three-fourths of the taxes to support that crime. And to license such an incarnate fiend of hell is the dirtiest, low-down, damnable business on top of this old earth.<ref>[http://billysunday.org/sermons/booze.html Famous 'Booze Sermon'], billysunday.org</ref>
Gale's ''American Decades'' says that by 1920 he was the best-known evangelist in America. He was also financially successful. It was his practice to keep the proceeds of the last day of his campaign. In 1914, the last day of his eight-week campaign in Philadelphia yielded $35,000<ref>"Billy Sunday Gets $35,000. Revivalist's Share of Pittsburgh Receipts a Free-Will Offering." ''The New York Times,'' February 23, 1914, p. 16</ref> (equivalent to over $600,000 in 2006 dollars<ref>[http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ The Inflation Calculator]</ref>. In 1920 Dun and Bradstreet estimated his worth at $1.4 million ($16 million today).
Unabashedly uneducated, speaking in the plain speech of the masses, Sunday fascinated the liberal intelligentsia of the time and became a target of their mockery. [[Sinclair Lewis]]' novel [[Babbitt]] includes a character named Mike Monday, "the
distinguished evangelist, the best-known Protestant pontiff in America.... As a prize-fighter he gained nothing but his crooked nose, his celebrated vocabulary, and his stage-presence. The service of the Lord had been more profitable."
==Notes and references==
==Notes and references==
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