Billy Sunday's Anti-Mr.-Booze-Fu

Creepy. I find early tent evangelists fairly creepy. And fascinating. Fairly fascinating. This is evangelist and media sensation Aimee Semple McPherson in action. In her teens, she was an agnostic. Then, she married a Pentecostal minister and went on the "Glory Trail."
She knew how to work it. She had her schtick:
Lots of movies about her. Character in Elmer Gantry based on her. Went to the ocean, disappeared for 12 days, everyone thought she was dead, and then she came staggering out of the desert with some wild kidnapping claims. Hmm. In the newsreel footage at right, she tries to make a humorous speech about prohibition's hypocrisy--kinda cool--but appears to be more intent on playing with the head of her fox stole. Creepy. Fascinating. But, this is keeping me from the Anti-Mr.-Booze-Fu of Billy Sunday.

Billy Sunday was obsessed with "Mr. Booze." Before he was, though, he did time in an orphanage. Former pro-baseball player for Chicago, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia:
Pro-women's suffrage, pro-sex education, anti-child labor, included blacks in his revivals, even when he toured the deep South. Supported Roman Catholics and Jews. Anti-evolution, anti-card playing, anti-movie going. Most of all, anti-"Mr. Booze."Here are Billy's thoughts on sin: "I'm against sin. I'll kick it as long as I've got a foot, and I'll fight it as long as I've got a fist. I'll butt it as long as I've got a head. I'll bite it as long as I've got a tooth. And when I'm old and fistless and footless and toothless, I'll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition!"

Granted. That is catchy. Yet the thought of a fistless, footless and toothless Billy gumming sin gives me the heebie-jeebies.

So, let's forget all of that and enjoy a brief sampling of Billy's Anti-Mr.-Infrastructure moves.

Everybody was Mr. Booze Fightin'!
Those kids were fast as lightnin'!
In fact it was a little bit frightnin'
But they fought with expert timin'