To A Contemporary Bunkshooter Analysis

You come along. . . tearing your shirt. . . yelling aboutJesus.Where do you get that stuff?What do you know about Jesus?

Jesus had a way of talking soft and outside of a fewbankers and higher-ups among the con men of Jerusalemeverybody liked to have this Jesus around becausehe never made any fake passes and everythinghe said went and he helped the sick and gave thepeople hope.You come along squirting words at us, shaking your fistand calling us all damn fools so fierce the froth slobbersover your lips. . . always blabbing we're allgoing to hell straight off and you know all about it.I've read Jesus' words. I know what he said. You don'tthrow any scare into me. I've got your number. Iknow how much you know about Jesus.

He never came near clean people or dirty people butthey felt cleaner because he came along. It was yourcrowd of bankers and business men and lawyershired the sluggers and murderers who put Jesus outof the running.I say the same bunch backing you nailed the nails intothe hands of this Jesus of Nazareth. He had linedup against him the same crooks and strong-arm mennow lined up with you paying your way.This Jesus was good to look at, smelled good, listenedgood. He threw out something fresh and beautifulfrom the skin of his body and the touch of his handswherever he passed along.

You slimy bunkshooter, you put a smut on every humanblossom in reach of your rotten breath belchingabout hell-fire and hiccupping about this Man wholived a clean life in Galilee.When are you going to quit making the carpenters buildemergency hospitals for women and girls drivencrazy with wrecked nerves from your gibberish aboutJesus--I put it to you again: Where do you get thatstuff; what do you know about Jesus?Go ahead and bust all the chairs you want to. Smasha whole wagon load of furniture at every performance.Turn sixty somersaults and stand on yournutty head. If it wasn't for the way you scare thewomen and kids I'd feel sorry for you and pass the hat.

I like to watch a good four-flusher work, but not whenhe starts people puking and calling for the doctors.

I like a man that's got nerve and can pull off a greatoriginal performance, but you--you're only a bug-house peddler of second-hand gospel--you're onlyshoving out a phoney imitation of the goods thisJesus wanted free as air and sunlight.You tell people living in shanties Jesus is going to fix itup all right with them by giving them mansions inthe skies after they're dead and the worms haveeaten 'em.

You tell $6 a week department store girls all they needis Jesus; you take a steel trust wop, dead withouthaving lived, gray and shrunken at forty years ofage, and you tell him to look at Jesus on the crossand he'll be all right.

You tell poor people they don't need any more moneyon pay day and even if it's fierce to be out of a job,Jesus'll fix that up all right, all right--all they gottado is take Jesus the way you say.

I'm telling you Jesus wouldn't stand for the stuff you'rehanding out. Jesus played it different. The bankersand lawyers of Jerusalem got their sluggers andmurderers to go after Jesus just because Jesuswouldn't play their game. He didn't sit in withthe big thieves.I don't want a lot of gab from a bunkshooter in my religion.

I won't take my religion from any man who never worksexcept with his mouth and never cherishes any memoryexcept the face of the woman on the Americansilver dollar.I ask you to come through and show me where you'repouring out the blood of your life.I've been to this suburb of Jerusalem they call Golgotha,where they nailed Him, and I know if the story isstraight it was real blood ran from His hands andthe nail-holes, and it was real blood spurted in reddrops where the spear of the Roman soldier rammedin between the ribs of this Jesus of Nazareth.

.: Bunk Shooter :.

This poem was titled To Billy Sunday, a well known evangelist at the time the piece was written. Of course, fearing a defamation suit, Sandburg's publishers would not include it in his book unless he changed the name. (After Carl's death, his family released a book called Billy Sunday and Other Poems, but both men were passed by then)
But the readers of the day knew what this was about. Carl wasn't railing against religion, not even organized religion. He was angry that Sunday was being taken care of by big business to scare poor working people into "submission" Note the phrases Carl uses:

"You tell $6 a week department store girls all they needis Jesus; you take a steel trust wop, dead withouthaving lived, gray and shrunken at forty years ofage, and you tell him to look at Jesus on the crossand he'll be all right.
You tell poor people they don't need any more moneyon pay day and even if it's fierce to be out of a job,Jesus'll fix that up all right, all right--all they gottado is take Jesus the way you say.

At this time Carl was trying to raise a family on about $35 to $50 a week, and having a hard time of it. Women working in the retail stores were only getting about $6 a week and some were getting $3. A few of these stole from their employers and were dealt with mercilessly. The 'steel trust wop' remark, the steel trust was how he refered to the Carnegie monopoly of the steel business, and although wop is a derogatory term, Sandburg frequently started out refering to someone in seemingly derogatory terms, and then would turn to show the same person in a fonder light, thus coming full circle to show his true love of hardworking common people. In Child of the Romans he does this with a railroad worker he calls a "Dago Shovelman" working 12 hours days (like his dad did when Carl was young) so that the genteel people would have a smooth ride on the trains that went by. This side of Sandburg was dominant in writing that came out during the early years of the labor movement. He was friends Samuel gompers, leader of the AFL, American Federation of Labor, and Bill Haywood (who later fled to Russia) the IWW, Woblies, International Workers of the World. In a lot of these early stages of labor organization, striking workers were beaten, falsely arrested, falsely imprisoned, and worse. Private armies were organized by the trusts (coal, steel, etc) and police and politicians turned a blind eye to the abuse.
No, Sandburg wasn't railing so much against religion as against this type of evanelist who told the unfortunate that they should just go along and suffer and get their rewards later.
Carl always spoke this way til his death. Although he would become quite comfortable with the success he was destined to have later in his life, this was written before those rewards were apparent to him. If you've gotten this far, thanks for playing and do ask if you have any more questions!
Dave

| Posted on 2005-02-08 | by Sandburg