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Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · August 11, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 31

Their Own Testimony.

The Christian Statesman and the Union Signal have denied that the brewers and saloon-keepers of Chicago are in favor of Sunday closing of the Fair, but they are contradicted by the brewers and the saloonists themselves and by the testimony of those who have taken pains to learn their views. The following interview is from the Washington Post:—

“I can state from actual personal knowledge that the brewers of Chicago are to a man in favor of Sunday closing of the World's Fair,” said S. R. Keogh, a well-known attorney of the Lake City, at the National Hotel. “The brewers and saloon men,” he continued, “are delighted at the action of Congress in requiring the Exposition to be closed on that day, and if necessary they would raise a big amount of cash to have that pernicious piece of legislation enacted. They know that the hordes of people, if debarred from inspection of exhibits, would seek solace and amusement in the bar-rooms, that will not be closed Sundays, and augment the revenues of the proprietors by many thousands of dollars. The sporting fraternity, also, advocates the proposition from the same spirit of self-interest that actuates the whisky men. The drinking element would not exhaust all their means in the rum shops, but would, after spending part of the day in imbibing, be ready for tempting fortune in almost any way that was convenient. “If we can only get the appropriation from Congress on condition of Sunday closing is simply in the nature of a money bribe to the Managers of the Exposition, offered by the Government at the instance of a portion of the Church faction of the United States. The purpose of the bribe is to secure enforced observance of a particular religious tenet. The Congress of the United States is certainly in a very peculiar position in the matter.”