125834
STRIKE THE TENTS
THE STORY OF THE CHAUTAUQUA
CHARLES F. HORNER
STRIKE THE TENTS
The Story of the Chautauqua
By
CHARLES F. HORNER
Author of
The Life of James Redpath
The Speaker and the Audience
The Road that Leads . . .
DORRANCE & COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA
COPYRIGHT 1954
By DORRANCE & COMPANY, INC.
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 54-6752
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATKS OF AMEKKA
To
CRAWFORD A. PEFFER
AND
HARRY P. HARRISON
AND TO THE MEMORY OF
KEITH VAWTER
AND
VERNON HARRISON
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE SOIL WAS FERTILE 11
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT 27
SYSTEMATIZING THE SYSTEM 59
THE ORGANIZATION 68
THE SYSTEMS MULTIPLY 91
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 105
As THEY ROLLED ALONG 132
SPELL THEM IN CAPS 145
FROM PEAK TO PIT 173
THE SOIL WAS FERTILE
The lives of three Horner men, Grandfather Joel,
Father William and I, Charles, have spanned more
than all the years of the life of this Republic.
The history on the maternal side is similar. Mother's
father, James Barren, was born a few months after
George Washington became President. Mother lived
to a good old age and I, by the Grace of God, livq
happily in an America which my forbears could not
have envisaged, and which I cannot quite comprehend
as a reality.
The story of my life, which seems to be but a flash
from the perils and the joys of storm and fire on the
open prairie, to the bewildering movement of today,
may scarcely merit the printing in a book. Yet the
kind of life it was, the scenes in it, the character of
the people who crossed its trail or traveled part of
the way with me, the riches here, the poverty there,
the hope, the ambition, the liberty, and, may I say
modestly, the self reliance in it, all are of an America
which I can never find again. No doubt I live in a
greater America today, but of its flaming effulgence
or of its occasional sickening despair, I have no ade-
quate concept.
Without any thought of compiling an autobiography,
I sketch a few incidents and facts in my early life,
because the way I lived, the hope that loomed high in
(ID
12 STRIKE THE TENTS
my mind, the physical hardship that I endured, and
the stern realization that if I would acquire or achieve
anything of worth, I must expect both without aid;
those things were of the common experience of the
people I knew so many years ago. That experience is
of the essence of an Americanism in the days gone by
and it found expression in the Chautauqua movement
that swept the country in the first three decades of this
century.
My grandfather, Joel Horner, was a good type of
American pioneer. He was born in Trenton, New
Jersey, in 1788, the year before George Washington
became president. His wife died when their two sons
were just reaching manhood. The lads soon left for
the Far West, leaving Joel alone. In 1837 he yielded
to the lure of the West and traveled by team through
Pennsylvania. When he reached the Ohio River he
built a raft, upon which he loaded his possessions, and
floated downstream until he reached Indiana. He
abandoned his raft and rolled onward in his lumbering
wagon drawn by sad-eyed oxen. He explored Indiana
and Illinois, pausing here to look around and there
to get a job. Wisconsin was his goal, but his journey
stretched through two years before he finally arrived.
Chicago wasn't much of a town and Milwaukee was a
village that had been organized only two or three
years. He felled trees on what became the site of
some of Milwaukee's finest buildings.
Joel found land sixteen miles from Milwaukee and
acquired title to it. His acres were covered by a dense
forest, which he finally cleared. There were weeks
THE SOIL WAS FERTILE 13
at a time when he never saw a white face, although
he saw many Indians who never did him any harm.
After a few years he found and married a dark-eyed
Irish immigrant named Bridget Curran, who was my
grandmother. Her people, the Kelleys, the Coons, the
Daileys and the Burns, were numerous around Mil-
waukee and Racine.
Joel and Bridget had four sons. My father, Wil-
liam, was born in 1847. When he was seventeen and
lacked seven inches of the stature he afterwards at-
tained, he enlisted in the Union Army, and found him-
self on the battle line within sixty days. Not much
time for training for him, and he didn't need much
because the lads of the neighborhood had been drilling
and marching for many weeks. Besides, with a rifle,
he could pick a squirrel from a tree and, occasionally,
a bird from the air. Although he was in service
only the last year of the Civil War, he participated in
five important battles.
Returning to Wisconsin, he acquired a farm in Dunn
County. The land was covered with trees and brush,
and he cleared it with his own hands. He bought and
sold stock, raised some crops and spent some of his
winters in the lumber camps to get cash for his opera-
tions.
James Barron was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1789.
Twenty-odd years afterwards he sailed for Philadelphia
with his young wife, but she died and was buried at
sea. Later, he married a bright Irish girl named Mary
Alice Leigh, an immigrant from County Meath. The
two pushed out into Wisconsin and settled in Dunn
14 STRIKE THE TENTS
County, where most of their neighbors were Indians.
James Barron, for all his adventurous spirit, was a
recluse. He was always surrounded with books and
spent the latter years of his life in meditation. He and
Mary Alice had eight sons, all six-footers, and one
daughter, Martha Barron, my mother. She was a very
beautiful girl, and William Horner fell in love with
her at once. They were married when she was sixteen.
I am their third child and only son,
William Horner was a giant in strength. He labored
with his muscles as no other man I ever saw. He could
strip from his body the filth of soil and stockyards,
dress himself in white linen and broadcloth and drive
good horses with pride. He surrounded himself with
books, and in the dim light of an oil lamp at night he
memorized page after page which he would repeat as
he went about his work.
Martha Horner almost literally danced her way
through the drudgery of my boyhood days. Through
all her toil she moved with the grace of tall lilies bending
in the breeze. There was always a song on her lips
and her voice was like a lark.
We moved to Nebraska in 1886, when I was eight
years old. My father erected good buildings on his
ranch near the old town of Plum Creek, in the Platte
Valley. The country was young and most of its soil had
not been disturbed by the plow. The prairies, bound-
less and beautiful, stretched in level lustre to the cast
and the west until their encircling vastness was merged
into the horizon. To the north and south, miles away,
the grassy expanse lost itself in the viridity of low hills
THE SOIL WAS FERTILE 15
that skirted the valley. It was a land of bare beauty
and a place for dreams, but it held hidden terrors which,
all too often, raged across the endless plains.
We were scarcely settled in our new and wonderful
home before a prairie fire scourged the valley for miles.
In the charred waste of our acres, only our house re-
mained. Our barns, our equipment and some of our
stock were consumed.
We survived that and learned to meet fiery rage
with cunning. We lived through the historical bliz-
zards of 1888, when with all my nine-year-old strength
I helped my father drag freezing people from the fury
of the storm into the living warmth of our ranch home.
Through spring, summer and fall, day in and day
out, until I was fourteen, I rode herd on the open
range. I suffered the pangs of heat and thirst and
weariness, but there was ample reward in the expansive
feeling the far-flung plains conferred. The vista wast t
boundless and my vision was limited only by my capac-
ity to think.
The old Mormon trail stretched across our grazing
land. The ruts of the old road were still deep al-
though grass grew over the tracks made by the unnum-
bered thousands of covered wagons and laboring teams
of oxen and horses and mules. My imagination was as
free as the fleet legs of my horse as we galloped along
the worn road. In fancy, I beheld the mighty empire
in the West built by the survivors of the tens of thou-
sands of sweating pioneers who struggled and prayed
and swore and fought their course along the old high-
way.
16 STRIKE THE TENTS
The days were long and hot and sometimes wet.
My food was the lunch I carried in my saddlebag,
The canteen of water was usually dry long before the
day was spent and I had to suffer from thirst or drink
the bitter alkaline water from buffalo wallows. When
the bellies of the herd were filled and the animals were
content to rest, there was ample time for thought and
for books. My father's example was always before
me. Out there on the prairie I read Barnes' History
of the United States, Townsend's Civil Government, the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, until
I could recite them from first to last. I was not par-
ticularly bright, but there was nothing else to do. I
lived in a Union Soldier community where the Gov-
ernment of the United States and a devout patriotism
for America were of the fabric of speech and ideals.
At least it was that way around our house.
After our disastrous fire, although we had been in
Nebraska less than six months, the kind settlers, for
miles around, raised a sizable fund of cash among them-
selves and offered it to my father. Many of thorn could
ill afford the money they gave, but their action was
characteristic of men who had had much trouble of
their own. Father refused to accept their bounty, but
he was deeply touched by their generosity.
When drought, blizzards and low prices scourged the
valley, goodhearted people from afar sent seed, coal,
clothing and cash to our community. Father, like
many others of his kind, would have none of the kindly
charity. He scoffed at the idea of applying for a pen-
sion for many years. It seems that he was entitled to
THE SOIL WAS FERTILE 17
it, but he held that his debt to the country was greater
than any obligation the Government owed to him.
During the winter months I attended our country
school. It was a good one with an admirable teacher.
It was two miles away, but my sisters and I thought
nothing of walking to it and back again each day.
Father was director of the school board, a position he
held in the various places where he lived for nearly
forty years.
When I was thirteen years old Father placed me in
high school in Lexington, Nebraska, the old cow town
which has become quite a little city. It was the same
Plum Creek of earlier days. There again he was
promptly elected as director of the school board. It
was the first regular schooling I had, although on
Saturdays, Sundays and during vacation it was always
back to the herds for me.
Due to Father's urging for hard work, and to the
genius of the superintendent of schools who gave me
much tutoring, I managed to graduate when I was
fifteen years old. That was in 1894. I was successful
in passing an examination and received a teacher's
certificate. Then came the most devastating drought
in the history of the valley. Day after day a yellow
sun spat its malicious fire onto the land. The grass
curled under the blasts, and farmers, their leathery
faces blistered anew, watched their crops die. There
was little to do because the crops were gone and the
cattle could roam almost at will. Every day that I
could be spared I rode far and wide looking for a
school to teach. My grades were high in the nineties
18 STRIKE THE TENTS
and I carried warm letters of praise from important
men. School-board men looked at them with approval
but regarded my lank frame with doubt. Inevitably
came the killing question "How old are you?" They
were kind and explained that there would be many
pupils older than I and that I was far too young.
Finally, the last day before school was due to start I
was engaged. I think all the other teachers didn't care
for the place I found. At any rate, I was a teacher at
thirty dollars a month. I taught in a sod schoolhouse
and lived two miles away in a dugout. The place was
off in the hills and many of my pupils lived miles away,
I taught that school for two years. It was in a poor
district that people had named Hardscrabble. There
was money enough for only six months of school each
year. The other six months I worked. Meanwhile,
Father had sold most of his stock, and, while he still
operated our farm ranch, he had opened a retail store
in Lexington. I spent the open time working in that
store and studying law in the office of Captain Me-
Namar, a splendid and learned lawyer of the town.
In fact, for eleven years I read law and haunted the
courts in my spare time.
That portion of Nebraska was developing rapidly
enough, but it was still thinly settled, AH of the amuse-
ments we had we provided for ourselves. Wild fowl
were everywhere, and nearly every man owned a gun
and a hunting dog. We raced our horses, we broke
wild ones and vied with each other in throwing a rope
and shooting at a mark. Once each fall we had a
coyote hunt. Scores of riders would circle a wide
THE SOIL WAS FERTILE 19
area and drive the poor yellow beasts towards a center
where scores of them were slaughtered. Each young
fellow aspired to possess a horse and buggy in which
to drive his girl to picnics and to church.
People today would smile at our culture, but it was
something vital and real to us. Nearly every neighbor-
hood and town had a Lyceum or Literary Society.
There we gathered on Friday nights to sing, speak
pieces, act in dialogues and debate important questions.
At first we argued affirmatively and negatively, "Re-
solved that there is more happiness in pursuit than in
possession"; "Resolved that the saloon should be
abolished." Once, after some of us had had a little
college training, we. very soberly debated the question
"Resolved that the earth was flat," and proved that
it was. I thought that father was the best debater
in the community, but as he was quite dignified, spoke
rather precise words and always wore black clothes
and a white shirt in public, he usually was chosen to
act as chairman or judge.
Those Literary Societies were the forerunner of the '
Chautauqua. Nearly every one did something. All
of the people would sing, or try to, and the less tuneful
voices waxed the loudest. I remember one huge cow-
boy who wore his hair long and had a mustache that
must have measured fourteen inches from tip to tip.
He would recite parodies on well-known rhymes in a
singsong voice. For example, he took the "Old oaken
bucket that hangs in the well," and made it read, "The
dear little kittens, the sweet gentle kittens, the milk-
loving kittens we drowned in the well." Another
20 STRIKE THE TENTS
cowman, who wore four-inch heels and a flaxen mus-
tache that almost equaled that of the first, would sing
mournfully, "Oh bury me not on the lone prairie
where wild coyotes would howl o'er me," and would
play a prelude and interlude on a mouth organ.
Very few people were self-conscious as almost every-
one was trying to sing, recite or play something. They
made up original orations, recitations and songs. They
played a fiddle, a mouth organ, a jew's-harp, a guitar
or banjo, or a horn in the band. My father was a
real good fiddler and played for dances. When he
joined the Methodist Church, he eschewed "Old Zip
Coon," "The Devil's Horn Pipe/' and "The Irish
Washerwoman," and often played sacred music instead.
When our economic troubles multiplied, we debated
matters of great weight. Free Silver, Wall Street,
the Populist Party and the Tariff engrossed our
thoughts and forensic prowess. We would ride for
many miles to attend a political meeting. Once when
I was teaching, I rode my horse twenty-two miles in
the evening to hear Bishop McCabe speak, and had
to ride back in time for school the next morning. Our
family traveled in a covered wagon for fifty miles to
attend a G. A. R. reunion, where Senator Thurston
was the chief attraction. Another time, about fifteen
of us traveled in covered wagons sixty miles. We
camped by our vehicles and cooked our meals at a fire
of buffalo chips. It was a hard journey, through the
hills, with only trails for roads. Going, returning and
listening, we werc k a week on the way. We heard Wil~
THE SOIL WAS FERTILE 21
Ham Jennings Bryan and felt well rewarded for our
efforts.
I would ride almost any distance to hear a congress-
man or some other politician. I listened to so many of
them with such avidity that I fear I almost memorized
the words of their eloquence. The very man who
sang "The Cowboy's Lament" with feeling was so
much impressed by my eloquence that he staged a
debate on Free Silver for me in a town more than
twenty miles away. My opponent was a scholarly,
dignified Colonel and I was a callow youth of seven-
teen but I wore a Prince Albert coat. The two of us
and the local band were the only attractions, but the
hall was packed to the walls. I spoke with such im-
passioned eloquence that people might have been swept
off their feet had they not been standing so close
together. Such was the enthusiasm that the school
board met at once and elected me principal of the
schools that boasted of a school bell and two teachers.
Alas, how little the good men of the town knew the
source of my burning words. The voice and ardor
were mine, but I fear the arguments were largely those
of the eloquent Judge Bill Green who was running for
Congress, and to whom I had listened so often.
I was principal of that village school for two years.
It seems to me that most of the young people of the
time were forever seeking to find a way to express
themselves in song and story, in home-talent plays and
in oratory. Probably no one of us had heard an opera
or a symphony orchestra or anything better than a
traveling company playing "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or
22 STRIKE THE TENTS
"East Lynn." It is no wonder that we flocked to
political meetings and regaled our talents in Literary
Societies. There, in the warmth of our friends'
applause, we were neither self-conscious nor afraid.
Our boys tapped their boots in the rhythm of the local
band. It sounded good for they had heard nothing
better than the circus band.
When my two years were up I managed a period of
study at the university, where I did nothing worthy of
note but made both the debating and oratorical teams.
I sketch some of the incidents that happened and the
cultural impulses of the people I knew in my early
years because they exerted a profound influence in
the making of a nation that was just then really begin-
ning to feel its own strength. All over rural America,
where the larger share of the people of the nation lived,
conditions were much the same. In an awakening
power of the country, a yearning for knowledge and
an impulse for creative effort, though scarcely recog-
nized as such, were dominating the lives of the people.
It is quite different today. Now, entertainment is
a major industry. Perhaps, in the aggregate of human
hours absorbed, it may be the largest of all activities.
But in each city, today, it is the same as in every
other place. The people of the small town and the
large city see the same moving pictures. They hear
the same boogiewoogie or symphony on the radio.
They listen, or pretend to listen, to the same high-
minded radio speakers and to the same garrulous self-
appointed prophets who attempt to analyze what they
do not even understand themselves. There is much
THE SOIL WAS FERTILE 23
that is good and so much that is bad, and I suppose
it was the same in the meetings and entertainments
of other years. But there is a difference in then and now.
People came out of the simple little Literary Societies
happy and joyful and proud of their neighbors. They
walked out of a Chautauqua tent with a new light in
their eyes.
So it is interesting to study the reaction of an audi-
ence, or lack of it, to a modern moving picture. I marvel
at the amazing spectacle of some screen productions.
Again, I am puzzled with some of the dramatic offer-
ings which, for popular purposes, are geared to a simple
mind.
Often, most often, I think, people swarm from a
wonderful theatre and such a performance sated and
without expression on their faces. All of the com-
mercialized entertainment, movies, radio and all the
rest, could not have found a place in the imagination,
of the people fifty years ago. My greatest regret is
that they have so dominated the abundant leisure of
the people, and so filled the press with glamorous
stories of performances, that there is but little incentive
for people to do things for themselves.
In any event, when I returned from the university
to Lexington, Nebraska, I went into business for my-
self. The country was growing fast. Land seekers
came our way. I bought and sold lands and lots. I
had a good office for abstracting and insurance that
represented important landowners as well. I made
money and could gratify my passion for good horses.
I married and we led a most agreeable life. We went
24 STRIKE THE TENTS
to operas and symphonies, even traveled far to reach
them. I rarely missed a political convention and made
speeches at some of them. We all kept on with our
debates and home-talent shows.
In spite of my profit the cattle were murmuring
a bewitching song in my ear, and had a lure I could
not resist. All of my experience with the herds had
entailed much hardship and little profit. But I yearned
for the saddle as a drunkard longs for his cup. There
was no ease in my heart that was like the peace I
could find on the trail. I liked to ride afar. There
was no rest so sweet as that I could find sleeping
on a blanket laid on the ground, with my horse grazing
near, and one could fall asleep without first being
sleepy. One would awaken at night in the whispering
quiet of the resting herd while the stars were big and
near. The light would streak upwards through a
purple haze at dawn, like flaming daggers, and I could
watch the westward soaring of the morning star for
hours after the sun rose. In the sweep of the grazing
land there was space for thought and room for dreams.
I am not given to quote poetry but I often echoed
the lines of William Cullen Bryant :
These arc the Gardens of the desert.
These, the unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
for which the speech of England has no name,
The Prairies,
I behold them for the first and my heart swells,
While the dilated sight takes in the encircling
vastness.
THE SOIL WAS FERTILE 25
Springtime on the prairie brought me a kind of peace
I could not find, and never found, in any other place
in the world. There was pure joy in the feeling that
the winter storms had spent themselves without avail.
Wild flowers, called forth, perhaps, by a thousand
meadow larks, would come with the grass, and the
viridity of the level land was grayed only by the horizon
or skirting hills. It was the place not for sinful plow-
shares, but for the cattle, and maybe the rider's dreams.
I acquired a couple of ranches of my own and
operated others for clients. I got caught in the cattle
depression of 1903 and I lost nearly all the money I
had made. But business was good and in three or
four years I recovered. In all of those years I was
associated in a law office, and suddenly my wife and I
decided that we would go to Lincoln, Nebraska, spend
a year at the university, where Dean Pound told me he
thought I could then pass the bar examinations.
Thus ended an era in my life, the like of which I,
or no other man, will see again. Through the twenty
years spent on the plains, my lean body had survived
blizzards, sod houses and pneumonia. There had been
labor and hungry days, with frozen clothes on my back
and wet boots on my feet. But neither then, nor since,
did they seem to be hard. The prairies, from the
virgin sod, had been transformed into fertile and fruit-
ful farms. Trees were growing along the open spaces
and good roads had taken the place of the cattle paths.
The worn ruts of the old Mormon trail, which took
its straight course through the very pastures where
my horse, Topsy, and I had galloped, had been plowed
26 STRIKE THE TENTS
under. Blistering hot winds and prairie fires had seared
nothing, but, perchance, our memory of them. It had
been a bounding, joy-filled and adventuresome twenty
years, when the men I knew thought they had to walk
on their own feet, if they walked at all, and make their
way for themselves. Who would not wish to live
through such days again?
All of those disconsolate and hopeless ones today,
who would have men to be nurtured by the Government,
and the pattern of their lives made a matter of public
care, should forgive some of the old-timers of a half
century ago, who knew no such thoughts, and would
have spurned such things.
Well, in any event, I was headed for the law, at
last, but I never reached the Promised Land.
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT
There have been many books and stories written
about the Chautauqua. I have read some of them.
Some of the writers were quite sincere in their efforts
to describe a vast movement. Others treated the matter
with humor and occasionally with ridicule. Still others
approached their subject with some condescension. No
doubt they wrote what they felt or observed, or were
told.
I have been asked by friends and publishers to write
a history of the American Chautauquas. I have always
been reluctant to attempt to do so. The task would
involve much more research than I am capable of
undertaking. Even then, much of the story would be
undocumented to a great degree, for the larger share of
the record of its scope and ideals rests only in the mem-
ory of its participants. Some eight years ago my
own files, which completely filled an entire floor of
a sizable building, were destroyed. In the current
interest in the social and historic significance of the
movement, that collection, if it were in existence, would
have unusual value. It would have financial value
for the collector as well, for in it were countless letters
from presidents and princes, from philosophers and
poets, from college presidents and maybe charlatans.
There were letters from senators and scientists. Gov-
(27)
28 STRIKE THE TENTS
ernors, congressmen, Chambers of Commerce, com-
munity welfare workers, clergymen, soldiers, artists,
actors, and, most zestful and heartening of all, thou-
sands of eager, ardent and hopeful letters from boys
and girls.
The Chautauqua movement, in its enlarged form,
began with the establishment of the circuit Chautau-
quas. A circuit comprised, say, sixty to a hundred
towns. The program in each town began one day
later than its predecessor, from first to last. The
first two of the approximately one hundred circuits
began operations in 1907. Mr. Keith Vawter was the
manager of one, the larger of the two, and I was the
manager of the other. Vawter has been dead for a
number of years. At this point it is quite fitting to
mention another man who made an indelible impression
upon the ideals of the movement and must surely be
reckoned as a pioneer in it. That man is Air. J.
Roy Ellison, who later became co-owner and manager
of a large system. In the beginning Ellison was man-
ager of the booking department of Independent Chau-
tauqua programs for the Redpath Lyceum Bureau.
He and Vawter made some experiments in the pre-
liminary organizing of a circuit. The chief motive
of these experiments was to dispose of surplus dates
of attractions for which they had contracts.
A discussion of those early efforts usually results
in arguments concerning the date of the first circuit.
The matter is not very important but in the years pre-
ceding the actual beginning of a well-organized cir-
cuit, Vawter and Ellison were clearly pioneers. They
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT 29
were not alone, although their work in 1904 to 1906
was perhaps the most important. However, other
high-minded gentlemen were making important ex-
plorations in what came to be a very great field. Many
of them, along with Vawter and Ellison, deserve much
more attention than I am able to give to them. Any-
how these early efforts were recorded thoughtfully and
quite thoroughly in a work by Mr. Hugh Orchard,
published in 1923, and entitled Fifty Years of Chau-
tauqua.
No later managers ever conceived and held to higher
ideals than the ones expressed by those pioneers. How-
ever, in operations and policies I can find but little
similarity in theirs and of those who came later.
When I think of the large number of men who became
Chautauqua managers, I falter in the task before me.
I think I knew them all, most of them quite intimately.
They who are alive, and the memory of those who no
longer live, have a large place in my affections. Those
men were great and good people. They met together
often and discussed their policies, sometimes their
finances, but always they spoke mostly of their ideals.
I affirm that their chief interest was to serve the people
they entertained. I falter in my task because I cannot
ascribe to them individually the high praise that is
their due.
They were good clean citizens and master salesmen,
but with all their ability they could not have operated
so vast a project if the way had not been provided by
uncounted thousands of local efforts for self-improve-
ment and public enlightenment.
30 STRIKE THE TENTS
I have been informed by the president and the director
of libraries of the Iowa State University that their fine
institution is making a collection of Chautauqua papers,
and I know no one better fitted to the task, for Iowa was
of the very center of the far-flung range of the Chau-
tauqua tents. What I write now shall be drawn from
my own experience and knowledge and observation.
In due time, no doubt, under the ministrations of the
University at Iowa City, a true and comprehensive
history will be written. As for me, while I am reckoned
as a pioneer in the dramatic growth of the Chautauqua,
my viewpoint is like that of the multitudes who thronged
the hot big tops, for I am of the same people as the
millions who sat on the hard benches in the too often
blistering summer heat.
My background was cast in happy, hopeful struggle,
in hardship and bad weather. I would be a poor speci-
men of an American if I had not had in my soul some
instinct of the pioneer, since three generations of us
had spanned a portion of three centuries and most
of the years that made the sum were lived on the
frontiers. Before I began Chautauqua work, the forces
that moved me along had been shouting that a man
should walk on his own feet, that he should pay his
debts; that the Government and the Constitution were
high and noble, and worthy of his complete loyalty and
obedience. That the Church and School were dominant
factors in life, and that the Community was his Amer-
ica, in form and substance, and it was his duty to find
an honorable part in it. That is a fair statement
of ideals as they were revealed to me and, I think,
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT 31
they were quite commonly shared by the people I know
so well throughout the Midwest.
To engage in politics was regarded as an inherited
right and it was one freely exercised by the men of my
day. They would shout "turn the rascals out" loud
enough during political campaigns, but a thought, if
it ever came to any one, that the form of government
should be changed, or even modified, or be colored
by any custom or belief not rooted in "the great
American people," was as abhorrent as the devil himself.
There can, in truth, be found much to criticize in the
community pride in those Midwestern towns and cities.
It was a pride not free from vanity, of course, nor from
some intolerance. Nevertheless it was a pride in which
both local and personal ambition were surely joined.
There was a constant desire for more and better
schools. Education was ardently longed for and some
form of self-expression a freed instinct. These accounted
for all of the literary societies, and the fine reception
given to lecturers from afar. I do not think I detract
from the worth of the cultural aspirations in that era
when I admit that they were too often vague in concept.
How frequently, fifty years ago, and since^ these words
were spoken with a firm jaw, albeit from the depths
of frustration and mental starvation : "I want to work
hard and give my children a good education so they
will not need to work as hard as I do." However
sincere were the legions of ambitious parents who
uttered the words, they were sowing sad seeds from
which have been reaped much unhappiness and dis-
content. Could they but have known that the attain-
32 STRIKE THE TENTS
ment of knowledge is its own justification and need
not necessarily be reflected in ease and better bank ac-
counts, and that fruitful honest labor is the source of
man's greatest happiness! They come, as men always
will come, to realize that as they moved into the length-
ening shadows of their lives, they cherish best of all
the pleasant memories of the days when they toiled
hardest.
We had a Lyceum course in Lexington, Nebraska,
each winter of the last few years that I lived there.
Because of the nature of my activities and my ardent
interest in it I was a member, and, part of the time,
manager of the sponsoring committee. This committee
was composed of the men who assumed the financial
responsibility, did the advertising, sold the tickets, and
if they did not sell enough they would need to make
up the deficit from their own pockets, although I cannot
remember that we ever had a loss. We would sign a
contract with the Redpath Lyceum Bureau for the
appearance of the attractions we selected. It was called
4he Lyceum, but everyone spoke of it as a lecture course.
We would have at intervals through the winter, per-
haps three lecturers, a musical company and an enter-
tainer, maybe a cartoonist or chalk talker, or a humorist.
They were very popular and interesting, and I have
no doubt most people would enjoy them even in these
sophisticated days.
No narrative of the Lyceum and Chautauqua could
be written without reference to the Redpath Lyceum
Bureau. It was the first one to be established and
it was founded in Boston in 1868, by James Redpath.
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT 33
Redpath was born on the Scottish side of Berwick-on-
tweed in 1833, and emigrated with his family to
America in 1850. He became a printer and then a
newspaperman and joined the staff of Horace Greeley
on the Tribune when he was nineteen. He served inter-
mittently on that paper for nearly thirty years. Red-
path was an ardent abolitionist and a crusader of all
sorts. He went to Kansas, got acquainted with John
Brown and wrote a life of the Osawatomie leader within
thirty days after the latter was hanged for treason at
Harpers Ferry. He published a paper in Kansas, re-
ported the Civil War for various newspapers, and after
the Confederate surrender, was for a time superintend-
ent of schools in Charleston, South Carolina.
It was at this place that he initiated the custom of
decorating the graves of Union soldiers, which later
became Decoration Day. Redpath wrote a number of
books and assisted Mark Twain in writing his auto-
biography, and the former Confederate President, Jef-
ferson Davis, in preparing his memoirs.
The Lyceum, in the sense of employing outside or
professional speakers, was, of course, the outgrowth
of the literary societies of New England. Such societies
were altogether local affairs, without any thought or
plan of confederation with other communities. Many
men and women of fame and fine repute were traveling
about to deliver their lectures for pay, but there was
no type of organized management, and fees were vari-
able and often very low. Indeed, it is said that the
great Ralph Waldo Emerson, at first, would make an
address for as little as five dollars and three quarts of
34 STRIKE THE TENTS
oats for his horse. Emerson, Wendell Phillips, Horace
Greeley, Charles Sumner and many other notable
speakers were looking to the platform for a hearing,
but it was the tour of Charles Dickens, the English
novelist, that gave Redpath his incentive to organize
his Bureau. Dickens had found that lecture arrange-
ments were most difficult to make, and he and his
friend Dolby had a "Dickens" of a job completing the
plans. So Redpath founded the Boston Bureau, and
later the name was changed to the Redpath Bureau.
The founder enjoyed great success because he had
the confidence of the eminent platform people of those
expansive days, and his organization was very con-
venient for the lecture committees which were springing
up all over the country. He sold his interests in 1875
to George Hathaway and Major J. B. Pond, and
the Bureau continued through days that were both better
and worse under various kinds of management until
1902, when it was acquired by Crawford Peffer, Keith
Vawter and George Hathaway. By that time, however,
many other Bureaus had come into existence and com-
petition was very keen. Some Bureaus had but a brief
existence, but a number of others managed by brilliant
men grew to be powerful and useful. Perhaps few,
if any, and not even Redpath, were based on a very
sound economic policy, but they paid their debts, and
practically all, if they finally closed their books, left no
list of disappointed creditors.
The Chautauqua was no doubt the fruit of the
Lyceum, but it was more expansive in idea, and surely
more nearly religious and educational in concept. It
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT 35
was named, of course, for Lake Chautauqua, a peaceful,
beautiful body of water in the State of New York.
The first Chautauqua, or what would really be called
the Chautauqua, was founded on the shore of the lake
in 1874 by the enlightened Bishop John H. Vincent,
and Lewis Miller of the Methodist Church. It was,
and is named, Chautauqua Institution, for it has main-
tained its fine service and healthful sessions for
eighty years. Visitors went there from all parts of the
United States, to enjoy the speakers, the music, the
reading courses and religious services, as well as a
pleasant vacation in camp. Some of them brought
back glowing praise of the fine assembly, to their own
communities. Here and there an ambitious local group,
inspired by the good Bishop's example, a pretty lake or
a grove of trees, and their own surging desire for
culture and enlightenment, would organize their mem-
bers to provide a summer assembly or Chautauqua of
their own. They expected to draw heavily from a
wide area, and were not disappointed. On their "big"
days, notably on Sundays, the railroads would some-
times run special trains on which the visitors could
ride for a low fare, and on almost any day there were
hardly enough livery stables and hitching posts to ac-
commodate the horses of the out-of-town guests.
A part of the Chautauqua grounds was turned into
a camp, which they called their "tent city." Small
tents were rented for those who wished to live in the
camp. These were twelve by fourteen or fourteen by
sixteen feet in size, and for a dollar or so extra a wooden
floor would be installed. Many of the campers would
36 STRIKE THE TENTS
cook their meals on oil stoves, and for others there
was a public "dining hall/' often in a big tent.
There wasn't much in the way of sports and games,
except where there was a lake, and in such cases
boats were to be had. To use the expression nearly
everyone used at the time, "It was a feast of reason
and flow of soul." The meetings were held in a large
wooden auditorium, or if none had been erected, a
huge tent was rented from a tent and awning company.
But wood or canvas, the place was spoken of as The
Tabernacle, after the style of the many religious Camp
Meetings which everyone knew about. Classes for
reading courses, Bible, cooking, and current events
were held in the forenoons and late afternoons. The
big events were the afternoon and evening programs
which were designed to be popular, but always inspira-
tional.
For each program there was a concert which was
called a prelude, and then a lecture by some man widely
advertised, although if the concert company was par-
ticularly large and expensive, sometimes it would give
a whole program. Practically all of these companies
and lecturers were booked from Bureaus, and were
paid fees for their services. For the sake of economy
these paid attractions were retained for two or more
days, and some of them were put to it to provide suf-
ficient repertoire for the whole engagement and there
were many "by request" numbers sung or played. The
concert companies were of various types. There would
be, perhaps, Jubilee Singers, with seven or eight colored
men and women, an instrumental ensemble nearly al-
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT 37
ways classed as an orchestra, occasionally the local
band, or a mixed aggregation of men and women,
singing, playing instruments and doing all sorts of
things, and inevitably a male quartette. In fact some
of the critics in later days, when the Chautauqua had
spread itself all over the country, complained that the
male quartette was the only thing indigenous to the
Chautauqua. They were mistaken, as I may be able
to show before I am through. In any event, some of
the male quartettes became so well known that they
achieved a fine reputation that was almost national.
The Kentucky Colonels, the Wesleyan Quartette, the
Dunbar Singers and Bell Ringers, the Hesperians,
and the Chicago Quartette were some of them.
Besides the musicians and the lecturers each Chau-
tauqua made it a point to provide one or more single
attractions classed as entertainers. Entertainer was
a word that might be hard to understand today as it
was thought of forty years ago. He might be a magi-
cian like the Great Laurant, or Germaine who some-
times covered the vaudeville circuit and made the Big
Time. Such a man would have quite a company of
assistants in uniform, and a wealth of settings and
properties that filled the stage. Or he may have been
a humorist like Ralph Bingham or Jess Pugh, or a
reader of plays like Adrian Newens, Leland Powers,
Elias Day who did about everything with the spoken
word, Isabelle Garhill Beecher, or Katharine Ridgway.
The art of the people in this class reached a high point.
Many people on the benches listened to a play quite
well portrayed by a single actor, who somehow managed
38 STRIKE THE TENTS
to make the drama very real and moving. Other
entertainers were like Sidney Landon, and were called
make-up artists. They would apply grease paint and
wigs and don costumes of a sort, while speaking their
lines, and in the end would appear as Mark Twain
or Longfellow or Tennyson. It was all exceedingly
clever, and their work brought forth many gasps from
the audience. I doubt if there really are any such
artists today who have reached so far towards perfec-
tion. I do not think their kind will be seen again be-
cause electric lights, amplifiers, sound effects and stage
settings now furnish a large share of a compelling illu-
sion which those of other days had to provide with
their own forms and faces and personalities.
But the basic idea of the Chautauqua was to give
the speaker his hour. The men who pioneered the
great adventures in glimpses into the outside world,
saw to that. No whistling nor clapping of hands nor
sighs at the reluctant but final bows of the entertainers
and male quartette could serve to delay the lecturer,
or to lessen his importance. He provided the force
that made sponsors labor without stint, neglect their
own affairs and face the peril of paying deficits. So
long as he could furnish the supreme motive for effort
the Chautauqua grew to astounding size, and when, a
quarter of a century later, he was shunted about in the
impact of shows and lighter entertainment, the Chau-
tauqua waned and finally disappeared. There were, to
be sure, other causes for languor in the tents, some of
which I will finally try to reveal.
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT 39
The entrepreneur of the Chautauqua was wont to pro-
claim that he was furnishing all varieties of lecturers.
That was scarcely true, although in subject and in
chosen fields his list was variable enough. There were
clergymen, simple reverends and bishops; scientists,
explorers; college presidents and professors; judges,
lawyers and politicians ; writers and women. There is
a variety of a kind in any group of men, but there
was one pattern every Chautauqua lecturer had to fit if
he secured many return dates, no matter how much
fame or success he had achieved in his own vocation.
He might be erudite, or without a university degree.
He might be a wise and famous judge from the bench,
a traveler who spoke many tongues, a senator or gov-
ernor, a candidate for the presidency of the United
States, or the author of many books, but with all he
had to be inspirational, and most of them were, in vary-
ing degrees. I flinch, even yet, as I write that word.
It was a hackneyed word, glibly spoken, and para-
phrased as "Mother, home and heaven/' I have puzzled
myself to define it according to the concept expressed,
or merely felt, by the Chautauqua audience. As nearly
as I can interpret it, it was the quality in the speaker's
life and demeanour and words that made men and
women want to freshen their ambitions, to aspire a little
higher, to become better neighbors and friends, to clean
up the town a bit, to kiss the children when they re-
turned to their homes, and perhaps to pray a little more.
That is the definition I constructed from the words
spoken to me by thousands of people, first and last,
40 STRIKE THE TENTS
and from the shining eyes of the crowds that swarmed
from the Chautauqua tent. Emotionalism? I won't
deny it. What great leader can you find in all time
who would not make an emotional appeal ?
The local Chautauquas were growing in number,
particularly during the first half-dozen years of this
century. The estimates that have been made of their
numbers were inaccurate. It was thought that there
were many hundreds, although it would have been a
simple matter to make a correct count. I had occasion
to know of most of them, if in no other way than from
the correspondence of William Jennings Bryan, to
whose letters I eventually had access. I have kept no
records, but I believe there were about one hundred and
fifty well-established assemblies in the country in 1906.
These were distributed well, chiefly in the Middle West
from Ohio to Nebraska, and from Minnesota to Ken-
tucky, although there were some without those rough
limits. The duration of a Chautauqua ranged from ten
days, which was almost the rule, to several weeks as in
the case of the Mother Chautauqua.
The most important Chautauqua in Nebraska was
the Epworth Assembly in Lincoln, which some of us in
Lexington would attend. We were so much impressed
by the Lincoln programs, the large attendance there,
and by the success of our own lecture course, that we
organized for ourselves. We had our first session in
1904, under a share expenses plan with the Redpath
Lyceum Bureau, which, apparently, had overbought
in its list of talent. Although I was a member of the
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT 41
committee, I did not give much time to it that year,
because that was the summer of my marriage. During
the next two years, however, I was secretary and gave
a great deal of attention to the enterprise. We had no
lake, nor even a good-sized pond. But we had a city
park, a well-wooded area, to which no one had given
much attention, and it was fenced but well undergrown.
When we cleared away the undergrowth and installed
water hydrants here and there, most people were sur-
prised to find what a pleasant place it was. We had a
splendid attendance in 1905 and 1906 and quit each
session with money in the bank. I was impressed by
the worth of our "talent," but felt very sorry for some
of them, their travel had been so hard. One of our
headliners, 1906, was Captain Richmond Pearson Hob-
son, the hero of the Merrimac in the Cuban Bay. We
were near enough to the Spanish American War to have
great admiration for the brave naval officer. Hobson
captivated our people completely. He was a handsome
and graceful figure and a facile speaker. He quite won
Lexington's heart, when after a few sentences that
hot afternoon, he paused and then said, "By the way,
do you mind if I take off my coat? I can make a
speech if I wear it, but I think I will make a better one
if I remove it." There were plenty of coatless men in
the audience, but I am quite sure no one was so im-
maculate in his limited attire as our speaker. I had
a visit with Hobson afterwards, and was anxious to
learn all he could tell me about the Chautauquas. His
traveling experience was similar to others. His last
42 STRIKE THE TENTS
engagement had been in Wisconsin, and from Lexing-
ton he was to proceed to Kentucky for the next.
It was then and there I acquired a very keen desire to
help in some way to avoid so much waste in time and
travel. From what I knew and believed of other com-
munities, there was a good market for the offerings of
the platform. My plans to move to Lincoln were
made. I was nearly finished in the job of selling my
business and property, and I had rented a house in
Lincoln. While in this state, I wrote to the Redpath
Lyceum Bureau, at Chicago, and expressed some of
my thoughts regarding the desirability of organizing
to eliminate some of the waste. I received a reply at
once from Keith Vawter, asking me to meet him in
Omaha to talk the matter over. I went to a confer-
ence which resulted in a complete change of my plans,
and an entirely new direction in my life. I was quite
enthused with the idea of organizing a number of
Chautauquas within a fairly limited territory, making
use of the same attractions for all, and under single
direction. I found that Vawter was far ahead of me
in thought and, indeed, in his plans. He had, as I
related, in effect, already made an experiment or two,
motivated in part by the necessity of disposing of unsold
dates of talent he held under guaranteed contract. He
was preparing to move his headquarters from Chicago
to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and establish a circuit with
the latter city as a center. He was quite well along in
his arrangements and had engaged some men for the
promotion work. Of course I favored the idea, but
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT 43
I felt that the guarantee he wanted from the individual
city was too heavy in the number of season tickets that
had to be sold. He expected to prevail upon local
citizens to agree to sell or pay for one thousand tickets
at a dollar and fifty cents, and he would furnish a pro-
gram for six days, the necessary equipment and all the
advertising, in short a ready-made Chautauqua. His
proposed program was rather light, I thought, but
he said he would be prepared to add to it if occasion
required. I objected to so short a session because I
believed that no community would want to do without
a Sunday, always a big day, and a thousand season
tickets were too many. I favored a smaller number at
a higher price. He had given much thought to the
matter and was quite determined to proceed according
to plan. Nevertheless, as I was so enthusiastic about
the idea, he appeared to be quite anxious to have me
associated with him although my whole experience
had been found in Lexington; apparently he thought
I had some money to back up my own ideas, although
that factor never made much difference with him. In
the end, he offered me a fair salary with some options
for commissions, and had been so sure of himself and
of my interest that he had a contract already prepared.
I finally signed the paper. Out of my life flew all my
plans for the law, and, anyhow, the great Dean Pound
had responded to a call for wider fields. I had no
regrets, nor have I yet. All the time I had spent
reading law was well invested, I am sure, and what
I had learned has enriched my life.
44 STRIKE THE TENTS
I worked less than two months under that contract,
and did not draw a dollar of the salary provided for,
although Vawter once offered to pay in full. After
I had established my wife and baby in Lincoln, I
traveled industriously, booking Redpath attractions
at the local Chautauquas, which, after the advent of
the circuits, came to be called independent or old-line
assemblies. Although the booking season was well
spent, I was quite successful in that field, and besides
secured a number of Lyceum contracts, so that on
the whole my commissions amounted to as much as
I would have made in salary. The simple fact is that
I wanted to establish a circuit of my own, and Vawter
was extremely sympathetic and co-operative. I was
courting some good cities as I went about, and finally
secured local Chautauqua organizations in ten of them.
At first we planned to add these to Vawter's circuit,
which was progressing pretty well, but as our plans
were different and I had promised each a session of
nine days, we decided to make my places into a circuit,
although a short one. Vawter was helpful all the
time. He had access to platform people, which would
have required a long time for me to obtain.
I think it would be wise to digress for a moment
to take a little turn in nomenclature. From that
Omaha meeting Keith Vawter and I were sending forth
the first ripples of a tide that swept the whole nation,
extended well into Canada and spread to far-off Aus-
tralia and New Zealand. Names and titles came with-
out bid and fixed themselves upon the groups that
became the components of the Chautauqua.
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT 45
Those who performed lecturer, musician, enter-
tainer or actor were the Talent. No other title was
ever found for them, no matter how hard some tried to
find a more graceful and definitive name. The owners
were the Managers, which was near enough to the truth.
The hard-muscled lads who did the physical work of
erecting the tents, building the seats and stage, man the
box office and take the tickets at the entrance, were
the Crew, and a chapter should be written concerning
them. The bright-eyed young women, teachers for
the most part, to whose care was entrusted the vexing
management of flocks of juveniles, were the Junior
Girls. Those who pushed forward into countless towns,
to sell the idea, and get signatures on the dotted line,
long before the coming of the Talent, were the Agents,
The local citizens, who from motives of city pride,
community betterment, or even under the persuasion
of a good salesman, signed the contracts, well knowing
they were hazarding both hard work and their dollars,
were the Committees. There was another class. It
was composed of bright energetic men, young men
mostly, and they were the Platform Managers. Some
of us tried to call them Superintendents. One circuit
named them Directors, but the days of the local Chau-
tauqua had fastened the name of Platform Managers
upon them, and that title stuck to the end.
The men who followed in the wake of the Agent,
who helped to organize the Committees, and sell the
tickets and distribute the advertising, were of course
the Advance Men.
46 STRIKE THE TENTS
Leaving people for a moment, the adjunctive tents
in which the Crew lived, stored the properties and
sometimes prepared them as dressing rooms for the
Talent, were the Pup Tents. Later, as progress was
made, the stage end of the big tent was made large
enough to provide sleeping and dressing room space
under the Big Top. Even though the Chautauqua
became ambitious enough to present plays that had the
mark of "Broadway success," and operas and musical
comedies, our rostrum was never a stage but the Plat-
form.
Of all the groups, four of them were the ones that
were always in attendance at round tables, conventions
and the annual meetings of the International Lyceum
and Chautauqua Association. The four were Talent,
Managers, Committees and Agents.
My circuit, that first year, the summer of 1907,
opened at Blair, Nebraska, and all of its members were
confined to Nebraska. Mr. Vawter's first, the same
summer, extended pretty well through Iowa and Mis-
souri. He remained steadfast to his plan of six-day
sessions with his basic talent alike throughout, al-
though he augmented his lists considerably with added
headliners. My programs were drawn more from the
open dates of time blocks of talent, part of whose time
I had sold here and there. In the very beginning we
both inaugurated a policy, which when successfully
effected, proved to be the sustaining factor which, to
a great degree, insured the continuance of the Chau-
tauqua for more than twenty years. Without it the
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT 47
movement would have had a shorter, and certainly a
more hazardous, existence. The most difficult and
expensive process in perfecting arrangements for a large
chain of towns was the securing of the contract, which
involved much labor and uncertainty. So at the first
we trained our platform managers to renew the agree-
ment during the current session.
Our first year's efforts were rewarded with some
success in this respect, and with huge acclaim so far
as popular approval was concerned. We both were
the losers in money. Mr. Vawter had had to curtail
his ancient booking operations because of the time his
circuit required. A brilliant young man, Harry P.
Harrison, from Iowa, was sold an interest in the Red-
path Bureau, had taken charge of the office in Chicago,
and was showing great managerial promise. As for
me, I had to draw upon my commissions for living
and used some of my cash reserve in the initial operation
of the circuit. But I think we both felt confident, and
believed that our experiments proved, that with a finer
organization we could achieve a financial as well as a
popular success.
There was one thing that both Vawter and I were
sure about : we were going ahead. We had not found
the answer to our financial problems, and clearly had
not demonstrated that the Chautauqua circuit could
pay out, let alone yield a profit. But we knew what
had to be accomplished before we could avoid loss and
perhaps make something for ourselves. Losses in
our first year, 1907, and again in 1908, could be traced
48 STRIKE THE TENTS
to definite causes. In order to secure enough towns
to fill out a determined season we were forced to accept
a few faulty contracts, where local responsibility had
not been fully assumed, and likewise some partial
guarantees. That would not do for long, whether we
had profit or loss. It was a matter of ethics to treat
all cities alike, and we knew that confidence could not
be retained indefinitely with a majority of communities
yielding its full quota in advance season-ticket sales,
while a few were allowed to participate for a lesser
amount.
We needed to be more closely in touch with our
towns, not only for a week or two, but, to a degree,
during the whole year. We had to perfect local or-
ganizations, and we must find a way to reduce ex-
penses without loss of quality in our program. Besides
there were eight or nine months, from September until
June, during which we must invest in the salaries
and expenses of agents and all the other things for
which we knew cash would be needed before we could
reap any harvest. Vawter had a good going business
in his Lyceum and independent Chautauqua bookings,
but he was sure the proceeds would not be enough to
finance him through the long period before he would
again put his tents into the field. I was even worse
provided for, although I still had some cash I had
earned in Lexington.
I was anxious to apply the circuit idea to the Lyceum
and arranged for the exclusive use of that part of
Nebraska that lies north of the Platte River. Gen-
erally I offered a course at a fixed price, which was
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT 49
extremely low, expecting to book my attractions so
closely that travel and selling costs could be reduced
by two-thirds. The venture was successful. I had
more lecture courses in that area, by five times over,
than had ever before been booked in any year within
the whole state. It was another proof of the economic
promise in the circuit plan.
Mr. Vawter formed a corporation, separate from
the Redpath Bureau, for the operation of his circuit.
It was named the Redpath, and later the Redpath-
Vawter Chautauqua System. We incorporated my
share of the business under the name of the Western
Redpath Chautauqua System. I engaged a few good
agents and through the winter and spring of 1907-08
managed to secure nearly seventy city members for
my circuit in Nebraska and Kansas, Vawter clung
to the idea of a six-day session, although he had com-
plaints from some places that had no Sunday program.
A basic factor in our plan was to schedule our talent
throughout the season with no open dates. We con-
tracted with the talent on the basis of an agreed salary
per week, and knew we would have to pay them in full
whether they performed or not. In his plan he needed
three units of talent, that is three musical companies,
and three groups each of entertainers and lecturers, and
each attraction was scheduled for two days in each city.
Interspersed with these he added his headliners, and
since each of these was booked for a single lecture, he
and I could share their time,
As for me, I compromised with eight-day sessions,
and therefore had four units and the added famous
SO STRIKE THE TENTS
people. I can give no better idea of one of my programs
that year than to write an outline of the talent that
appeared on our platform in Fort Scott, Kansas, in the
eight-day session beginning on July 7, 1908, omitting
all the printed glowing words of praise with which
they were heralded in advance.
The Hesperian Male Quartette, four men who had
formed themselves into a singing group in Chicago
University twelve years before. Two of their mem-
bers were professional lecturers, and three were or
had been preachers.
The Kirksmiths, four charming girls, three of whom
were sisters. This bright group had graced my plat-
forms two or three years, and as other sisters in the
family became old enough they were added one at a
time until there were six. These young people went
into vaudeville and enjoyed rich success for a long time.
The Sterling Jubilee Singers with four men and
three women, all colored, of course, and singing the
old camp meeting and Jubilee songs which I think I
would like to hear again.
The Royal Hungarian Orchestra. It is strange how
many "Royals" and "Imperials/' a democratic people
like to attach to the names of their entertainers and
merchandise. There were eight men in the group
and undoubtedly they made pleasing melody.
In entertainers, there were two, one at least, of whom
became famous and his name almost a household word
all over the country. He is Adrian Newens, and even
then he was a veteran. Currently he was the head
of the Department of Speech in Iowa State College, a
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT 51
fine Agricultural Institution at Ames. He was present-
ing two plays, "A Singular Life" and "A Message
from Mars," from which he achieved just fame, and I
think he graced the platform for nearly a half of a
century, and is good yet.
The other was Gilbert Eldredge, an impersonator
and make-up performer who called forth much hilarity
and the kind of laughs any man likes to hear and
join in.
Interpolated for three evenings, we had moving pic-
tures. That doesn't sound important today, but was
fairly sensational in 1908. The pictures were pre-
sented by an operator from the American Vitagraph
Company. Probably but a small percentage of the
audience had ever before seen a motion picture. The
films were as droll and old fashioned as you can imag-
ine, and specialized in huge crowds chasing themselves
or something else down the street, falling and tumbling
around, and their antics evoked such screams of merri-
ment the customers could scarcely sit on their benches.
The people needed some of such ridiculous comedy if
they were to digest all the lectures provided.
Twelve lecturers were on the program, and some of
them gave two lectures each. I must name them, if
for no other reason than to indicate the capacity of the
people to absorb eloquence.
J. Mohammed AH, born a Mohammedan in Punjab,
India, educated at a university in the Far East, con-
verted to Christianity, who revealed many facts con-
cerning his land and people.
52 STRIKE THE TENTS
William Rainey Bennet, who, like Newens, became
a star platform attraction, and was constantly in high
demand as long as the Chautauquas lived.
Hugh A. Orchard, a Christian minister, a poet and
writer of some note, and quite a philosopher.
Judge Lee S, Estelle, from the district bench of
Omaha, a former high official in the National G. A. R.,
and a deep student of crime and juvenile delinquency.
Poor little devils, we were working on them even then,
George McNutt, known far and wide as "The Full
Dinner Pail" man, a quaint and earnest philosopher,
who knew all the trials and triumphs of unskilled
laborers, and was wholesome for any one. With
McNutt was a bright little boy, his son, Pat, who never
got enough of visiting with the crew, and swinging on
the tent ropes. Pat became a well-known and success-
ful author and playwright, as many of you know.
Doctor Monroe Markley, a gifted and handsome
Congregational minister, and an adept in heart to heart
talks.
Carl D. Thompson, who had a strong leaning to-
wards Socialism, which very few knew anything about
in that period, although he did not talk about that. He,
too, was a preacher.
Colonel Robert S. Seeds, a farmer's man, who had
made much scientific study of soils, and was rated as a
humorous lecturer.
Dr. Peter MacQueen, explorer and world traveler,
who had been with Stanley in Darkest Africa, was a
Fellow in various scientific societies, an old friend of
Theodore Roosevelt. It was said that he and Richard
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT S3
Harding Davis were the only honorary members of "The
Rough Riders." His lecture was illustrated by many
stereopticon pictures, a kind of diversion very popular
in those days. However, MacQueen was in Africa
when we engaged him, suffered from fever, and a fin-
ger bitten by a wild beast, and if my recollection is accu-
rate, he did not return in time for his tour, and a sub-
stitute had to be found. Meanwhile the stories of his
adventures grew and grew until some people were led
to believe a whole arm had been devoured, but when
he finally appeared a year later only a part of one finger
was missing.
The substitution was a fortunate one. I was able
to secure Henry George, Jr., son of the Great Single
Tax exponent. He was used to being a substitute, be-
cause he had been nominated to be mayor of New York,
to take the place of his great father on the ticket, when
the latter died in the midst of the campaign. The
younger George was elected to Congress, and was more
or less a radical in his economic views, but I have no
doubt that the same opinions would be deemed quite
conservative today, Henry was one of the most likable
and charming men I have ever known. He was most
meticulous in all things. He would not appear with-
out evening dress, and he observed all the social nice-
ties. He told me that since he held economic ideas con-
trary to those of most other people, he was particular to
conform to all recognized social customs.
Then came the lecturers whose names were printed
in big type, and there were three of them. They were,
I should say, the headliners.
54 STRIKE THE TENTS
George L. Sheldon, the Republican Governor of
Nebraska. He was a sturdy individual, and had been
educated in Nebraska University and in Harvard. He
was tall and fine-looking, and was making a good exec-
utive for his state.
Judge Ben B. Lindsey of the Juvenile Court of Den-
ver, already famous, with a great heart and boundless
sympathy for mankind. I have sat in his court, and in
chambers, where he really heard most of his cases, and
I have never had a finer or more wholesome and spirit-
ually healthful experience elsewhere.
The last one of the stars was the Honorable
Warren G. Harding, Lieutenant Governor of Ohio. I
think I must presently say more of him, but from the
beginning we expected him to make quite a name for
himself and it is significant that in the announcements
we made, after recounting some of the honors he had
gained, it was stated that "other honors await his beck
and call."
Besides the above, the booklet of the Chautauqua
promised a course of educational lectures, one daily, by
Professor D. M. Bowen.
That was the mental, concordant, and risible bill of
fare we offered to the people of Fort Scott, and anyone
of them could have it all, if he bought a season ticket for
$2.00, and he could buy one for a child for a dollar.
He who came only occasionally need pay twenty-five to
fifty cents for each visit.
With such an aggregation, we moved through the
summer and ended in McCook, Nebraska, August thir-
tieth. I remember the date, because on that day the
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT 55
tent blew down and I received word of the birth of my
second daughter, Eleanor.
We got our tents and properties headed for storage,
dismissed the weary crews, and after I had visited my
little family for a day or so, I met Keith Vawter at St.
Joseph, but not until I had had a balance sheet of the
season's operations. The first question I asked him
was "How did you come out?" He said he had lost
something between seventy-five hundred and ten thou-
sand dollars, and I said that made me feel better for
that represented about what I believed our own deficit
to be. The grim fact was that I was getting painfully
low in cash, and much pondering of future plans was
indicated. In the meantime I had arranged to buy
Vawter's interest in the Western Redpath System,
which was re-incorporated as Redpath-Horner Chau-
tauquas, and had the purchase sum as an additional ob-
ligation, which, somehow, I contrived to pay not too
long afterwards.
We were to be partners no longer in business opera-
tions, but we were joined in spirit and counsel and
deep friendship for many years.
Keith Vawter was an odd man in the sense that he
would never try to be, nor think, nor act like any one
else. His temperament was usefully complementary to
mine. He was coldly reasoning, masterful in planning,
and when he had made a plan nothing could cause him
to deviate from it He wore none of his virtues on his
sleeve and, if for no other reason than stubbornness, he
submerged the evidence of his finest traits. He was
unaffected and realistic. In his choice of friends he
56 STRIKE THE TENTS
could not brook mental snobbery nor habits of exagger-
ation, but frankly made use of men who possessed such
traits if they had other values useful for his purpose.
His words of praise were scant for any one, and some
thought they were complimented if they escaped his
sarcasm. There was poor hunting for talent seeking
commendation from him.
There was one lecturer whose highest ambition
seemed to be achieved when he was engaged for one of
Vawter's circuits. The chap was sincere enough but
he had a high self-esteem and made but little effort to
conceal his own good opinion of himself. He was given
to indulge in poetic flights of eloquence even if at the
cost of facts.
Next to the attainment of his opportunity to lecture
for the great Vawter, the man desired most the pres-
ence of the astute manager in his audience and made
all efforts to secure it. He wrote many letters and
transmitted verbal messages to Vawter saying how
much honored he would be if his manager would come
to hear him speak. The long trail was well shortened
before Vawter appeared. Characteristically, but pa-
tiently enough, Keith sat in the shade of a tree outside
the tent and whittled a stick without once looking at the
speaker. When the rhetorical tide had subsided and
there was no response from his chief, the speaker,
unable to compose his eagerness, found Vawter and
used all his wiles to draw out a voluntary expression.
When none was offered, he finally asked point blank,
"Well, Mr. Vawter, how did you like my lecture?"
Vawter looked him over and finally said, "Your lee-
THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT 57
ture? It reminded me of a Ford car." That was in
the days of the revolutionary Model T, more noted for
its efficiency than for physical ease for the passenger.
The poor lad sought to find solace in the opinion
although he would have been happier if he had let well
enough alone. "A Ford cat*," he puzzled. "Why is it
like that?" "It made me tired in the same place," said
Vawter. The man with his sarcasm could puncture
fancies and deflate self-blown affectation more effectively
than any one else I have ever known.
He would establish no rules of conduct for his men.
He said they knew what the Chautauqua stood for and
that it tried to conform to all the recognized conven-
tions of his great family of communities, and if any
man of his got himself clouded with a breath of scandal,
he, Vawter, might feel badly if the man were guiltless,
but off the payroll he went. All through his career he
was sternly and consistently honest. A few of us who
saw him often and knew him best, were conscious of
fine attributes hidden from many. He gave from his
inherent kindness and from his money freely, and as
silently, as he was quiet in all his ways.
Vawter was the son of a well-known Christian min-
ister. He was a graduate of Drake University, and
sometime chairman of the board of his Alma Mater.
He had strange political acumen, a fine talent for or-
ganization, and possessed self-created ideals which he
never, or rarely, expressed in words. When he retired
from his Chautauqua work, he amused himself on his
Iowa farm and in his village bank, until the end of his
58 STRIKE THE TENTS
life. He is very poorly credited as the man who ini-
tiated the circuit plan for the Chautauqua.
As for me I was fortunate at last to find the formula
for operation and design which, I think, was adopted
and used by all of the numerous systems for twenty
years, or until the big tents were struck for the last
time.
SYSTEMATIZING THE SYSTEM
The general plan for the operation of my circuit was
good, but the experience of the first two years indicated
faults which must be corrected. I knew well enough
that our programs must not be reduced in quality but
must become more pleasing, rather than less, if we held
the interest of the committees, upon the co-operation
of whom our life depended. Besides the merit of the
individual attractions, the co-ordination of the various
units with each other must be improved. No one at
the table likes to eat soup or salad with his ice cream.
I wanted to find a plan by which the units might be
mutually complementary and each have the place, in
the order of appearance, best suited to its worth.
Unless we could be satisfied to serve merely as a
purveyor of entertainment and good cheer, we had to
establish some symphonic order based upon a flexible
but good intellectual idea. The movements of the parts
in the program did not allow such arrangements. All
the cities of the circuit had to be divided into a series
of groups, each group comprising four places, and each
of the four had to be within easy travel distance to each
of the other three. This gave little or no latitude in
assigned dates. If a certain city found a particular
week undesirable because of local conditions, neverthe-
less it was almost necessary to accept that week. As
for us, we could not take advantage of a main line of
(59)
60 STRIKE THE TENTS
a railroad where train service was excellent, but moving
in a restricted circle we must depend upon branches
where sometime there were only one or two trains a
day. But, most grievous, we had a disorderly schedule
of appearance. One attraction might be best suited to
open a session, but not nearly climactic enough for the
close. In the tried plan, however, each had to take its
turn in each of the four quarters of the eight-day ses-
sion. The problem was to find a way to operate in a
straight line instead of in a series of circles. If a given
attraction could open every Chautauqua, we could make
sure that that attraction was particularly suited for the
first day. The same argument held for each succeeding
day, and besides we could build for climaxes, for one
thing, and co-ordinate, to quite a degree, the intellectual
content of our lectures. Besides all of that, I knew that
nearly all attractions had a "best" in music, story or
speech, and two days appearance required some of the
second best.
I wanted one day stands. If I could effect the de-
sired plan, what a benefaction would accrue to our
artistic aspirations, and what a blessing conferred to
our transportation problems ! The automobile was not
yet practicable, and if we had no trains we must console
ourselves with horses and vehicles to move our people,
and, worst of all, their baggage, with all the instru-
ments, costumes, scenery and props. The obstacle in
the new plan was the apparent increased cost of employ-
ing and moving a considerably larger number of people,
when I had, in fact, been spending too much for that
purpose. I was so fearful that I was reluctant, at first,
SYSTEMATIZING THE SYSTEM 61
to take pencil and paper and figure it all out. When I
finally did so, I was surprised to discover that my costs
would be less rather than more. Even though I had
once been invited to teach mathematics in an academy,
I think I must have had but little instinct for calcula-
tion that I did not grasp the reason without a pencil.
So far as that is concerned no one else had conceived
it because all others were doubtful without visual proof.
The reason is easily apparent. Some talent cost much
more than others, although salary amount did not neces-
sarily indicate program value. If the salary of a "big
day" attraction were say $1,750.00 a week, and it
were scheduled for two days, the total program ex-
pense for a city must include five hundred dollars of
that sum, while if it were making a one-day stop, the
expense sum would only be two hundred and
fifty dollars. On the other hand, the talent for another
day might be paid as little as four hundred and fifty dol-
lars a week, and the per diem cost for the town would
be sixty-five dollars. Briefly, saving in a one-day stand
for the higher-bracket people would permit of the em-
ployment of more people, a better variety, and all the
other advantages I have mentioned. I figured that
travel cost would be no more, and in practice
it proved to be less; and while our platform
people had to move every day down the long
trail, they traveled in greater ease. Thus while in the
old plan city number one on the circuit must be no
farther than fifty or seventy-five miles from number
four, in the new way number four might safely be two
hundred and fifty miles or more from number one.
62 STRIKE THE TENTS
With the platform manager, his crew and tents, how-
ever, the case was different. They had to make a long
jump, past all the other outfits, and might move five
hundred miles or more, but since the circuit often
turned to another main line and moved backward,
sometimes the jump was short indeed. Anyhow, crew
and equipment moves were less important than the
travel for talent who had to move every day.
Then there was another point. The long list of lec-
tures produced a rather heavy oratorical fare, too much,
perhaps, for proper assimilation. Therefore, I decided
to cut to seven days, with a daily change in program.
With the prospect of more, and presumably better tal-
ent, our committees welcomed the change, and in a
seven-day session each could still have a Sunday in-
cluded. That fact lost some of its value years later, as
I will try to show.
I made all of that computation on the train while I
was on the way to a conference with Vawter, who, it
will be remembered, like me, had suffered a financial
loss in 1908. I asked him how he would like to change
his program daily, with all the advantages of co-ordina-
tion and climaxes. He said it would be an answer to
prayer, as he was as sick of second bests as I was. But,
he added, it would break us up. When I showed him
my figures he was as much surprised as I had been, and
he adopted the plan at once. So henceforth, his session
was to be increased from six days to seven.
That plan was, I think, my best contribution to the
Chautauqua movement. It was the pattern that was
closely followed by all the systems that appeared as the
SYSTEMATIZING THE SYSTEM 63
years went on, and was followed without change even
when the number of Chautauquas had moved far into
the thousands.
Notwithstanding my enthusiasm for the new plan, I
was in straits. I had no partners nor fellow stock-
holders. The circuit had to be lengthened to effect
economy. I needed some more tents and they had to be
manufactured and paid for. New agents had to be
found and employed, but, more important, they had to
be trained. We had been living in an apartment and,
with my second baby, I wanted a home. I found a
pleasant place, well located, in Lincoln and bought it
at once. I had been corresponding with Mr. John
Redmond, the great Irish leader, and, as he was coming
to America, I went to Boston to see him. With all my
Irish blood I wanted him to make a lecture tour in the
United States. I saw him in Boston, and some years
later met him again. He told me that he would lecture
for me when Ireland got its freedom. He did not live
to realize that, and I thought of him with sorrow when
I was in Dublin at the time of the first meeting of the
Bail of the new State.
But long trips and the purchase of a new home did
not lessen my financial burdens. It could not be said
that at that stage the Chautauqua was recognized as
a sound business, and I had no credit at the banks, but
I did have a good name in some of the towns on the
circuit in which I borrowed some cash. In the emer-
gency I turned momentarily to real estate. I bought
another house and sold it at a profit. I found an attrac-
tive area near my new home and built a few cottages
64 STRIKE THE TENTS
which, fortunately, I gainfully sold readily enough.
Besides my profit, it was evident that the venture added
to the confidence of my agents and they went out with
renewed vigor. I covered a larger area in Lyceum book-
ings, and could expect greater gain from that source.
One way and another we got along pretty well, and
reached out into Oklahoma and Colorado to lengthen
the circuit.
I tried something else, which in pattern turned out
to furnish quite an addition to Chautauqua operations.
In my territory, for every city financially able to meet
the requirements of my circuit, there were several
smaller towns, just as good in intelligence and
community pride, but with a population too small to
undertake the necessary guarantees. So I decided to
prepare a Chautauqua of five days, built on smaller
scale and yet good and attractive. I selected my old
stamping grounds, the part of Nebraska north of the
Platte, for a trial. We made contracts with about
twenty towns, and as the summer of 1909 brought good
weather into September, I was able to operate these
with the same tents, by striking out one section to re-
duce the size. We required an advance sale of only
four hundred tickets at a dollar and a half, and the
effort was really crowned with success. That is how
the five-day Chautauqua appeared, and afterwards all
Chautauquas seemed to run for either seven days or
five. It was very interesting but too inviting to many
other managers, and in time the point of saturation was
reached and the decline began. However, this first five-
SYSTEMATIZING THE SYSTEM 65
day circuit grew to the length of a season the follow-
ing year, and it lived for nineteen years.
I named the first circuit the Premier. I thought that
in history and plan and quality it had the right to the
title. Some who came into the field later might have
contested the claim, and certainly their products were
as good and maybe even better than mine. But the
Premier stood as a standard of a sort for the twenty-
two years of its existence. We called the first five-day
circuit the Pioneer, and it soon reached from Nebraska
into South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and northern
Kansas.
A year or two after the birth of the Pioneer, we or-
ganized the third, or Sterling Circuit. This was cast
in a little wider scope than the Pioneer, required an
advance sale of seven hundred dollars in season tickets,
and covered the States of Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas,
Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico. At last we pro-
duced the fourth, the Star Circuit. It lapped up some
of the towns missed by the other three, and others that
were fatigued in campaign but did not want to give up.
It was a little thinner in talent and I don't think any
of us were very proud of it, but it found its place in the
general scheme of things.
The Premier grew in dimensions and popularity. By
1917 it reached into twelve states, extended into Cali-
fornia, enjoyed a season of twenty continuous weeks
and included a hundred and forty cities. It furnished a
pleasant road to travel and the glorious scenery and
cooler climate of the mountain states provided an agree-
able break in the long, hot summer.
66 STRIKE THE TENTS
Meanwhile we had again incorporated our business
into the Redpath-Horner Chautauquas. A few of our
best men became stockholders and we had as fine an
organization as ever existed. In 1910 I took over a
large territory in Lyceum activities and became a direc-
tor of the Redpath Lyceum Bureau which, under the
forceful enterprise of Harry P. Harrison, had bought
out its largest competitor, the Slayton Bureau. There
were five directors, each with his own territory and at
liberty to have as many branch offices as he chose.
Each man operated his own business quite independent
of the others, made his profits or sustained his losses
without affecting directly the others.
Crawford Peffer, the veteran, was in New York and
presided over the New England, East Central, and one
or two of the South Coast states. W. V. Harrison, a
brother of Harry, had his headquarters in Columbus,
Ohio, and operated chiefly in Ohio and West Virginia.
Harry Harrison was in Chicago with a very large and
populous area. Keith Vawter, from Cedar Rapids, con-
tented himself with Minnesota, Iowa and South Da-
kota. With the development in our operations, I moved
to Kansas City, Missouri, and busied myself with
Lyceum affairs in Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma,
Texas, Nebraska, Kansas and Louisiana. I purchased
the Central Bureau, my chief Lyceum competitor, and
a few years later Keith Vawter and I bought out the
Midland Bureau.
Among the five of us, branch offices were maintained,
not always continuously, in Boston, Rochester, New
York, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Atlanta, Dallas, Lincoln,
SYSTEMATIZING THE SYSTEM 67
Denver, Seattle and Los Angeles. These were for Ly-
ceum purposes, for when Peffer and the Harrisons en-
tered the Chautauqua field each of the five of us main-
tained a tight supervision over his caravans from his
own base city. There was no direct financial advan-
tage to any of us in the organization, for each man had
to make all of his own profits and pay all of his losses.
However, there was a fine mutuality in counsel and
our buying power was large. Even the talent that had
commanded good fees heretofore had not enjoyed de-
cent security in income and length of season, and there
was always the dreaded spectre of open or unemployed
time. By pooling our needs and responsibilities we
could be very brave in making long-time contracts at
guaranteed rates. We found that a desirable attraction,
working as many weeks in each year as was proper in
Lyceum and Chautauqua, would require fourteen years
to appear but once in each of our courses, although no
one ever tried to do so.
THE ORGANIZATION
Since I have spent forty years in organizational
work, City, National and Government, I feel that I can
appraise objectively the merits of the Redpath-Horner
structure with all its affiliated and subsidiary groups
that came into existence. I have never found elsewhere
an organization more efficient, competent, alert and
devoted as to its component parts. There was no
profit-sharing plan, excepting for the interests of a very
small number of minority stockholders, and only occa-
sionally any offer of bonuses. There was but little
room for profit motive. In proportion to our very
large risks, financial gain at the very best never
amounted to much. Of all the managers who were
active in the field I can think of none who gained a
fortune, and only three or four who could retire with a
reasonable competence from what he had made. I am
sure we should have been more concerned about profit.
We talked little of it, and planned more to avoid loss
than to gain wealth. That feeling was inherent in the
business because if we had not shared in the application
of the ideals we were trying to impart and awaken, we
would not have made much progress in gaining and re-
taining public approval. If we had clearly netted 6 per
cent of our gross receipts, most of us would have had
more money than we ever possessed. Yet all of the
systems were formed on a profit basis, excepting one
(68)
THE ORGANIZATION 69
which was underwritten as a .nonprofit institution.
Oddly enough, that one was the first and, I think, the
only that ended in receivership.
Quite clearly the men and women of the organiza-
tion, young people for the most part, were in the
business for salaries of course, but very positively for
the pleasant and inspiring work and excellent training
it afforded. It was hard, grueling work, too, the kind
that confers happiest memories in days to come. The
larger number of our employed attained marked suc-
cess in their lives and indicates our good fortune in
selecting them.
Each circuit had its separate manager with its own
list of talent, and its several tents and crews, junior
girls, agents and advance men. Over all was a sales
manager, the outstanding one being H. H. Kennedy,
who became very prominent in the business world.
Serving all was an advertising division, routing experts,
auditors, talent scouts and coaches and trainers for
young talent. Each unit in operation was an outfit, and
that would include platform manager, crew, junior girl,
the big top and other tents with their heavy load of
poles, stakes and ropes, a high and long canvas wall
which surrounded the big top, leaving plenty of space
for movement and circulating air. Also the outfit must
have lighting equipment, tools, extra canvas, advertis-
ing, a ticket office, platform decorations, costumes for
children's pageants, and many other things. On the
Premier Circuit seven outfits were in use each day, but
two extra had to be provided, because each must have
two days to tear down, jump ahead and set up again.
70 STRIKE THE TENTS
On that circuit, therefore, there were nine outfits, and
seven each for the Sterling, Pioneer and Star circuits.
In addition we had reserve tents and sections of them
for emergency use in case a tent was damaged by the
wind, beyond the repairs the crew could make.
A heavy freight load were the main masts, the quar-
ter poles and side poles for the big top, and those that
supported the canvas enclosure. Shipping costs of this
weighty property were so high that we found a way to
make up quarter, side and wall poles from timbers we
could secure in each city and we bought carloads of
main poles and stakes and kept a complete set stored in
each town on the circuit. In the long run that was less
expensive than to ship from place to place. Perhaps
some of this property is lying around even yet, unless
it has been expropriated for local use. Expert canvas-
men were retained, and they were always on the alert
to rush into a town to help repair damage or to furnish
new tents if necessary. I often wished for an airplane
to move about quickly, and was negotiating for one
when we got into the big war, and plane sales were
stopped.
The plains states enjoy a fine proportion of good
weather, but that area is subject to sudden thunder-
storms accompanied by high winds. With thirty big
tents in the air, I always felt great concern for the pub-
lic and my people. We trained our tent boys carefully
and rehearsed them again and again. If any guy rope
showed signs of wear and weakness it was replaced at
once. All main ropes were double staked and tightened
frequently. We found there was something of an art
THE ORGANIZATION 71
in spreading canvas properly and setting poles and
moorings in the spots determined mathematically.
Moreover we would secure a weather committee in each
city. The men of it were old-timers accustomed to
scanning the skies, and they were on hand to warn us if
the weather was too threatening. As a result of our
care, we had only a very few accidents in all the years,
and scarcely any injuries. We were prepared for any
threat of fire, too. We knew that the tents were inflam-
mable because of a treatment administered to the canvas
to render it rainproof, and it was the custom to have
people on the alert to watch for sparks although we
never had a fire. The world shuddered at the fearful
conflagration in the big circus in Connecticut. That
was something that I, for one, had feared for many
years* Actually there was but little danger to life in
our case. The sides of our tents were rolled to the top
all the time when people were present, unless during
rainy weather when there was no danger from fire any-
way. With open sides our audience could emerge in a
minute or two.
At the peak of our operations, with the need to have
available nearly forty big tops, eight miles of enclosing
canvas wall and all the accessories, together with stor-
age and repairing facilities, we established a tent factory
of our own in Olathe, Kansas. This not only reduced
our costs substantially but we could engage in the mak-
ing of tents and awnings for the trade, and accept some
contracts from other Chautauqua systems. Its super-
intendent was a top-notch canvasman and the enter-
72 STRIKE THE TENTS
prise insured the availability of expert assistance in any
emergency.
Having suffered for years an unsatisfied yearning for
printer's ink, early in 1921 I bought the controlling
stock in The Olathe Register, a very good little Kansas
newspaper. I served as its editor, which provided me
one of my many happy experiences in life. Olathe is
the seat of Johnson County, which includes a consid-
erable area of Greater Kansas City. It was only
eighteen miles from my home in Mission Hills, an ad-
mirable suburb of Kansas City, and near enough for
frequent visits. I acquired some interest in an Olathe
bank, and altogether was again in a position to enjoy
some of the rare community fellowship of a small city.
Olathe became a very important naval training base
during World War II, and is a most interesting and
progressive little City.
Ownership of the newspaper brought an important
asset to the Redpath-Horner organization. We had a
good printing office and sufficient equipment to care for
our trade and still assume the heavy load of printing
for all of our enterprises. Somehow I could never keep
my fingers out of new and untried business ventures.
One reason was that on the circuits a number of very
capable young men of fine character and ability were
developing rapidly and I craved for an opportunity to
advance my associations with them. Such a lad was
C. R. Churchill, an advance man and agent of sterling
worth. He assumed the management of The Olathe
Register and had special skill among the printing
THE ORGANIZATION 73
presses. When I was called to Washington at the be-
ginning of the New Deal, he accompanied me as execu-
tive assistant and made an enviable reputation for him-
self. He is now a prominent businessman in Kansas
City.
Another and earlier noteworthy chap was J. R.
Beach, an Iowa boy attending the University of
Nebraska. As a student he worked as a crewman on
the circuit and soon showed so much enterprise that he
filled many useful places. In 1912, as he was beginning
his senior year, I suggested that he prepare himself in
office work, in which case I would engage him as my
secretary when he received his diploma. Accordingly
he applied himself so diligently during the following
year that he emerged as a well-trained man, and won
his Phi Beta Kappa key at the same time.
Beach had an excellent flair for accounting and ad-
ministration and an ear for the lure of counting houses.
So we bought a few small banks in Kansas and Colo-
rado, one of which he managed and the others he super-
vised.
There were several other links in our little chain
of activities, and with them all there was a large amount
of printing to be done. Posters, bills, window cards,
catalogues and supplies required numerous millions of
pieces of printing, and our shop rolled them all from
its presses.
A few pages back I referred to a complaint of some
critics of the Chautauqua that the male quartette was
the only thing indigenous to it. As a matter of fact I
doubt if even that grudging admission is true. The col-
74 STRIKE THE TENTS
lege glee club and the barber shop might dispute such
a claim if it were made. I do not know that the Chau-
tauqua actually created anything. However, I believe
it conceived some important ideas and proceeded far
in the development of certain policies, some of which
have been successfully applied in other fields, and all
could be used with profit in the business and social
structure of the country. Also it developed a cohesive
group technique which I believe to be unsurpassed.
Now, I must mention the platform managers. They
were an extraordinary lot, young men mostly, but occa-
sionally included a veteran from the local Assembly
days. Some were teachers, professors and preachers on
leave of absence. Others were lawyers fresh from Law
School, and seeking a place to hang their shingles.
Also we had a scientist or two, youthful engineers not
set in practice, Y. M. C. A. secretaries, athletic coaches,
or half-blown authors of books or plays. All had been
college men and sought summer pay, adventure and ex-
perience. The pay was not enriching, perhaps, from
fifty to seventy-five dollars a week. But in adventure
and experience they must have achieved their fondest
desires. We put them through a rigorous if a short
training school, but that would have been of insufficient
value if they had not the fine qualities for a most exact-
ing job.
Some of those men were so versatile in talent it is not
quite fair to classify them as platform manager alone,
although I know of no higher class in the Chautauqua
personnel. Take George Aydelott for example. He
was an ordained minister. In season he was one of the
THE ORGANIZATION 75
best booking agents in the field. He was a first-rate
manager and sometimes directed the affairs of a circuit.
He was a good lecturer and not only could substitute on
occasion, but also he could and did fill a season of
speaking engagements with credit to himself and his
organization. Such a description fits others. Robert
Finch was one, Roy Bendell was another. "Army"
Ambrose, first a good engineer then a school superin-
tendent, was another. That man served well as a scien-
tific lecturer and later achieved a wide and high reputa-
tion in a great industrial concern. Still another, a
younger man, was L. E. Moyer, Jr., who joined the
movement later in its course. He was a good specimen
of a peaceful fighting man. His mettle was sorely tried
because the circuits were waning but he did much to re-
vive interest. Later, with Bryan Horner, he succeeded
to the management of our Lyceum division and was to
achieve an enviable record in Community Chest work.
All of them were capable and some were quite bril-
liant. They had to be on hand, well groomed and smil-
ing, for every session, however hard they had toiled
during the forenoons or far into the night. They were
on the platform when the curtain rose, always ready
with a bit of chaffing, a funny story, an encomium for
the talent to come and a fit introduction for those at
hand. It was not safe for the platform manager or any
of the talent they extolled to appropriate a bon mot or a
story from any of their colleagues. Discipline pre-
vented, and the audience would have resented the
plagiary. Instead he must be a watchdog of a sort to
see that sparkling yarn and repartee were not borrowed
76 STRIKE THE TENTS
inadvertently from the jewels that fell from the lips of
the rightful owner. He learned the town in his short
stay, and as he spoke to his audience he would call
people by name. He had to be good because he had the
guarantee to collect, and, in the most compelling hour,
persuade the good citizens to sign the contract for next
year. Whatever wit and good humor he expressed
were easy and natural. He had no staff to put a new
dress on stories oft told before, nor research expert, nor
gag writer. If the Chautauqua produced a type for
skillful words and bright friendly personality, call it the
platform manager. He has descended in kind to the
radio, and the master of ceremonies of the stage show
and night club from which old-timers listen again to
most of the same jokes and stories that rippled in the
Chautauqua tents, although his modern version can
brazenly use quips and stories of a color the platform
manager could not have had the brass to express.
Secondly, I should say, the Chautauqua as an organ-
ization developed a concordant spirit, and reciprocal
confidence and mutuality of interests and efforts be-
tween it and the cities it served. Its personnel had to
possess decency and other ample honest values since its
very foundations rested on public trust. Sometimes
the good citizens had to dig into their pockets to make
deficits. It was no easy task to sell all the tickets, and
many could ill afford to sacrifice all the time the job
required. If they had a deficit it was supplied from
their pockets. If, as often, their hard work yielded a
profit balance, the amount was saved for another Chau-
tauqua or used in some other worthy community
THE ORGANIZATION 77
project. In profit or loss, they signed a contract for
the next year and signed cheerfully for many years.
In a way they were buying a pig in a poke for the man-
ager could not announce his program a year in advance.
The committee trusted the manager, who realized that
the trust must not be betrayed.
The people would work in zeal for the coming Chau-
tauqua. Often they would unite to cut the weeds, mow
the grass, trim the trees, decorate the windows and
even paint some buildings so that the town would be
neat and handsome for the inspection of visitors. Many
businessmen would organize booster trips to visit the
countryside and neighbor towns to advertise the coming
event, and to promise a welcome to prospective guests
from far and near. Preachers would often make the
Chautauqua a subject for their sermons in advance, and
Sunday evening services and midweek prayer meetings
were usually cancelled or held at an early hour so that
their congregations could feel free to go to the tent.
Strange to relate, many stores and other business
houses would lock their doors during the afternoon and
evening program hours. The mothers would bake and
cook in advance, and freely welcome to their homes the
itinerant Chautauquans. The long hot trail blossomed
with a never-ending series of good cheer plentifully
embellished with fried chicken.
The platform manager, crew and junior girl were
adopted and feasted for the week. The generous ladies
of the town would bring flowers in abundance to the
tent, and flags, rugs, lamps and other decorations for
the platform. Farmers would stop to leave fruit and
78 STRIKE THE TENTS
watermelons, and so many picnics were arranged that I
often wondered how the hard-pressed crewmen could
perform all their tasks. If inspiration and good will
flowed from the platform, they swelled to a flood in the
spirit of harmony that prevailed during the week.
Once, at least, during the year, a spirit of harmony
ruled the town and often did we hear these words
spoken by the Committee: "If only we could all work
together throughout the year as we do for the Chautau-
qua, what a city this would be."
There is ample evidence that this aggressive good
feeling bore tangible fruit. For example, the fervent
junior girl, as she herded her flocks of children to some
sheltered spot for play, story hour or pageant practice,
might discover a desirable incipient parklet or tree-
grown vacant block. Or perhaps a park, which, like
the old-fashioned parlor, had been retained for pride
rather than use, or, sadly, she might find nothing of the
kind. In any event the need of a playground was often
dramatized. The junior girl, being a trained play
supervisor, and bold to express her opinions, missed no
opportunity to urge community leaders to provide space
and equipment for the permanent use of her flock.
Moreover, in co-operation with the American Recrea-
tion Association, we often borrowed from the staff of
that worthy institution, and added an expert in super-
vised play and community self-entertainment. He
would deliver his lecture from the platform, and after-
wards confer with forward-looking men and women,
and as a result of it all many parks and fields for games
would blossom along the Chautauqua trail.
THE ORGANIZATION 79
Our contract with a committee was identical with the
ones made with all the others. The terms were simply
and plainly written and confined to a few printed lines.
The committee agreed to sell and pay for a certain num-
ber of season tickets, furnish the ground, and the lum-
ber for seats and platform. All the other fine service
the men rendered was voluntary. They shared in the
receipts of season tickets over the initial guarantee, and
got a share of the money from single admissions. Our
costs were considerably more in amount than the pro-
ceeds of the guarantee, and we had to look to oversales
and single admissions for the balance of the expense,
and for profit. Contracts used by other systems were
the same in form and nearly identical in terms, although
the amount of guarantee was variable. They were
noble men and women, those people of the committee,
and I doubt if the nation has ever seen a truer example
of community unity and unselfishness.
The newspapers furnished strength to both commit-
tee and managers. They made news of the Chautauqua
and were generous with space. They would make up
whole pages in advertising with the Chautauqua for a
theme. We took all the advertising space we could af-
ford. Advertising copy was mailed to the newsmen
from our central office and we always attached a check
to each piece of copy, and never bothered to check the
printing because we knew we always received more
room in the columns than we could possibly pay for.
As a matter of fact every expense was paid promptly in
cash, and when we could, we paid in advance.
80 STRIKE THE TENTS
The stage has an admirable and courageous tradition
that "the show must go on." Scarcely less than death
itself could prevent a bruised or stricken actor from
marching through his lines. Our talent had a similar
ideal. Not alone must they give their performance,
but hungry, sleepy and fatigued, come high water or
delayed trains, they somehow must get to the next
town. Many a time must the brave people go on to
the platform with smiling faces, although they had not
been in bed for twenty-four hours, or longer. No doubt
the summer-long journey with its work in the open air
was healthful, but if there was sickness it must not
interfere with the date. However, a lecturer would
double back for extra duty to relieve a sick brother and
then ride all night to get back to his place.
One night in the early summer of 1913 the talent
went to bed for a good rest in Commerce, Texas, since
they could take a late forenoon train to Greenville, only
a few miles away. A terrific rainstorm flooded the city,
and the alert platform manager, long after midnight,
found that the rails were covered and no trains could
run. He had to awaken his talent before daylight, and
as soon as it was light enough to see, he loaded them
into buggies for the journey. Fortunately, it was a
small group of six people, and I happened to be along.
There was, happily, only one lady in the group. The
roads were inundated and rain fell unceasingly. That
was before the era of good highways. One road after
another was closed because bridges were gone. When
we finally came to water too deep for our vehicles, we
constructed rafts of a sort, or maybe found a boat. The
THE ORGANIZATION 81
men of the company could always carry their prima
donna from cart to buggy to lumber wagon and manage
to keep her out of the flood. When we had to abandon
one means of transportation and cross a stream, we
would find a farmer with wagon and mules and proceed
until stopped again. The distance we traveled was
three times what it would have been if we had gone
direct. At the last we came to a railroad which was
aboye water and found hand cars which the Greenville
people had sent out. So we pumped triumphantly the
last six miles and arrived at the tent after dark to find an
audience waiting.
We had been fifteen hours on the way, and all of
us but the favored one were wet and muddy to our
waists. There was time for neither food nor change
of garments, but our talent went on and gave both the
afternoon and evening programs in one, and no one
seemed to be regretful or the worse for the adventure.
Mr. Frank J. Cannon, who had been the first United
States Senator from Utah when that state was admitted
to the Union, was the moving spirit of the damp jour-
ney. He would prod the others to action when their
spirits flagged. He would belabour the mules that
momentarily were pulling us while the other men would
tug at the wheels. He would shout encouragement
when younger men would strip to their underclothes to
swim and convey a raft of sorts. "We can always go
another inch," he would say when we paused for rest;
"and when we have made that we will be good for an-
other one." Yet, his clothing covered with mud, when
82 STRIKE THE TENTS
he finally began his lecture, he was as calm as if he had
walked only from his hotel.
That is only one of many tales of heroism that might
be told of the talent, and I happened to be a witness to
that. To be sure the travel was not always difficult,
and often it was easy indeed, but it had to be undertaken
each day, and each man or woman had to sleep in a new
bed each night, if indeed he slept at all.
Finally, in considering a type of originality in the
organization, I can do no better than to write about the
crews. To man as many as thirty outfits required, first
and last, a tidy number of young men. They were re-
cruited from the colleges and universities and thousands
were available from whom we could choose the ones we
wanted. Written applications with necessary informa-
tion were required, and studied when received. We
tried to spread our selections in as many institutions as
possible. On a scheduled day it was likely that a good
personnel man could proceed to a convenient place and
interview fifty or a hundred lads. A good man, who
had been tried, could be depended upon for accurate in-
formation of a brother collegian, and that simplified the
task of choice. While we drew from the large uni-
versities, I am of the opinion that some of the small
denominational colleges supplied a disproportionate
share of the men selected. I do not mean to say that
men selected from the small school were better than the
ones recruited from the university, but considering the
total number of applicants, on an average, those from
the denominational college graded higher for our pur-
poses.
THE ORGANIZATION 83
By far, a majority of the men were self-dependent,
working to pay the expenses of their education. The
larger percentage of them did not smoke, and I doubt
if ten per cent of them had tasted alcohol, although ab-
stinence in these things was not stated as a necessary
qualification. Their homes were in the villages and
cities of our area and of course the boys knew well the
kind of people who were our public. They had to be
educated, intelligent and physically fit for there was
much labor for muscles.
When selections were made, the men were given a
manual of instructions which they must learn. There
were but few rules, if any, of personal conduct, and few
of any kind other than those necessary in the care of
equipment and protection of the public. They were
carefully drilled in the routine of erecting and anchoring
the tent, and prizes were awarded to the crews that
maintained the best "set-ups" for the season. Even
now, after twenty or thirty years, some of the men,
grown middle-aged and prosperous, will display a good
set-up medal with great pride. The labor was as tough
as that of the woodman felling trees in the forest. It
was hard on them in the first city. However sturdy
their arms and legs, they had aching backs and blistered
and bleeding hands to show at first until they became
hard and calloused for the long season. They had no
eight-hour day, nor regularity in hours of service, because
no one could foretell when an emergency might arise.
Their home was the Chautauqua tent and they found
their meals in the house of some neighboring housewife
who usually feasted them well. They had two days be-
84 STRIKE THE TENTS
tween set-ups, but however short or long the interven-
ing distance they knew they had a full night of labor to
get their tent into the air and everything in shipshape
for the first audience. They had another all-night
job to strike the tent, pack up and be on their way at
the end of the session. We had no machine to sink the
stakes into the sullen earth, and that had to be done by
force of sledge hammer and strong arms. If the rain
fell and the winds pulled the stakes and billowed the
canvas, they had even more to do. Dusty, muddy or
wet, they somehow managed to be at their posts, bathed,
shaven and freshly dressed, when the people came to the
gates.
Warren G. Harding perceived the value in the boys
perhaps before other observers did. He wrote to me
in 1908 from Sabetha, Kansas, where his lot was cast
for a day, "These crewmen strike one as a worth-while
lot," he said. He told me that they were our chief
asset, and that was a fact.
In many ways there was more glamour in the
crew boys than in the beauties of concert companies,
the moving lecturer, or even in the platform manager.
The people of the town took them into their hearts
because they were the same kind of lads as the best
they had at home, and many a wayward and lazy local
youth was inspired to polish up his own dormant am-
bition and take a turn at college himself.
The boys had time and opportunity for pleasure
along the way, for often in lazy forenoons and calm
nights they could go for a swim or a post program
party.
THE ORGANIZATION 85
They were studious and industrious in their spare
time. Instead of cards and dice, there were likely to
be found textbooks and manuscripts in their kit bags
and trunks. Many had college work to make up be-
cause of examinations missed when farsighted deans had
permitted them to leave the academic halls before the
term was ended. Some were writing papers and
theses, and occasionally one would add a page or two
to a dissertation he was preparing for his doctorate.
Most people marvel at the efficiency and organiza-
tional skill of a great American circus, which with
its hundreds of people and trainloads of properties and
animals move about all over the nation and give a
performance every afternoon and night. I share in a
common admiration for such a truly American Institu-
tion. However, the Chautauqua organization was not
unworthy of praise. Except for the advance men and
a few others, the high command of a circus has all
of its people and numerous component parts all to-
gether, and constantly under its eye. The units of the
Redpath-Horner Chautauquas were scattered over
many states, and the extreme points were fifteen hundred
miles from base. Twenty-two distinct groups of talent
must move and perform on schedule. Each advance
man and agent had to be in his town at the appointed
time. A single outfit of tents, crew and platform man-
ager, was very small compared to the giant circus,
but there were thirty of them and each must serve and
move in precision. There could be no complete means
for supervision or accounting. Redpath-Horner, and
the other systems were far-flung organizations but they
86 STRIKE THE TENTS
could not have functioned, if their men had not been
intelligent, loyal and dependable. The crews were
of the essence of the machine and the platform managers
the spark plugs.
Oddly enough, the most heartening, if not sublime,
story that I can tell of the crews is based on the mis-
demeanors of a few of them. The boys were inherently
honest. Most of them were poor in pocket and a good
stream of cash would flow from the box office through
their hands. I thought deeply of the fallacious belief of
some high-minded theorists, that young people should
be shielded from temptation, that they should be safe-
guarded from any opportunity to be dishonest. That,
of course, is a misconception of character. We decided
very early that a basic policy of operations had to
be a complete trust in our men. The idea of using
spotters or spies was repugnant and wholly contrary
to such a policy. If the boys wanted to slip some of
our cash into their own pockets, they could do so, and
no practiced system of auditing could have prevented
it, even if we could have employed it. We even told
the lads how they could steal if they would, although
they were quite able to see for themselves. When a
stream of people were crowding through the gates and
there was a line before the ticket office fifty feet or
more away, the gatekeeper need only palm some of
the tickets, hide them away and find some way to re-
turn them to the ticket seller to sell again at once. Then
the two could split the "take/' It meant that two boys,
or possibly a boy and girl, for occasionally the junior
THE ORGANIZATION 87
girl would sell the tickets, must work in collusion, and
each must share the troubled conscience of the other.
It was a frightful thing to contemplate, not because of
loss of cash, but it would gnaw at the cornerstone of
the foundation of what we had built. Nevertheless
we tried to leave no doubts in their minds that we
reposed complete trust in their integrity. We knew
that there was petty embezzlement but I was troubled
less than others because I had stolen twenty-five cents
from my father's purse when I was a small boy and
suffered enough agony to overbalance what joy one
could find in possessing a fortune.
It was during the war and the impact of the laxity
of morals of the early days following that we knew
the little defalcations might become a matter of serious
concern. One of our vice-presidents at the time was
Charles Mayne, a noble soul who had gained a good
reputation as a leading General Secretary in the
Y. M. C. A. Mayne took the matter very much to
heart and had an unerring instinct to sense little lapses
in behavior. His wise counsel and friendly sympathy
and understanding did more to alleviate the trouble
than any mode of punishment anyone could devise.
In due time evidence came to me that was quite suf-
ficient to send a few lads to jail, and some of our
advisers felt that some of them should be brought to
book as a wholesome example of others. But nothing
of the kind was ever done.
If that were the end of the story it would be a sordid
tale. I am still convinced that we acted wisely and
in our own interest as well as that of the boys. I, of
88 STRIKE THE TENTS
course, had no means of knowing how much of our
cash found an unlawful place in the pockets of the
crews. I am certain that it was not much; a few
hundreds, perhaps, maybe a few thousands over a period
of twenty years, and I suspect most of it came back to
me in the end, in a way that proved a good man's
conscience is his best judge and jury. We were dealing
with good men.
Letters began to come to me. Contrite letters from
shame-hearted boys and girls. One day, years later,
I was having lunch in Washington with a gentleman
who was a high executive in a great industry, national
in character, with branches in many cities. For years
he had extended favors to me that no man could rea-
sonably expect from another. I told him I was a little
embarrassed because of his unusual kindness and that
I could never expect to repay him in kind.
He told me that he was only paying a debt that
was thirty years old, and that the last installment must
be a confession. He had been a crew boy, many years
ago. He was working his way through college and
needed money so much he had taken forty dollars, in
small amounts at a time, through a summer period. He
had been trying to pay in kindness the interest on the
debt, he said, and now that he had finally owned up,
he felt better and invited me to take what reprisal I
would.
He was not the only one who told me a similar
story face to face, but most of the confessions were in
letters. Many of them were not delayed so long, and
some were written soon after the errors. The last
THE ORGANIZATION 89
I received only a short time ago. It was written
by a man who stood high in his chosen profession
and had become as wealthy as he was successful. He
had his little shortages figured out to a penny, added
interest to the amount and sent me a check for the
sum. He said he did not ask me to hold the matter
in confidence, and that he would cheerfully accept any
damage to his reputation that could come from publicity.
One other letter, with a remittance, also late to arrive,
was written by a missionary in South Africa. A few
wrote to me from the battlefields in Europe during the
war, and the most touching of all was from a lad
whose words expressed so much true nobility of man-
hood, I wish I might read it again. He said he had
arranged to have some one in America repay the
amount he had taken. The check came to me not long
afterwards, but I never saw the lad again because he
was one of those who had been buried under the
little white crosses in France.
Altogether I received perhaps fifty such letters, which
I feel must have accounted for nearly all of the precious
culprits. Not one of them asked for secrecy, all pleaded
for forgiveness and the letters were manly and forth-
right in tone. While they differed, as men will differ,
in words of atonement, there was one statement com-
mon, I think, to them all. They said that what im-
pressed them most in our service was the fact that
we had trusted them and because of that confidence
they must make the restitution, and that after thus
clearing their troubled minds they believed they would
never again be unworthy of trust. I reread all of the
90 STRIKE THE TENTS
letters some ten years ago when I took them from an
iron box to which no one had access but myself. So
far as I know, no other eyes than mine ever saw the
letters after they were received, and none will because
I destroyed them all. I think a reawakened sense of
honor in the boys was of greater value to them, to me,
and to the world, than a prison sentence.
Those crew boys had the stuff and sinews of good
Americans, I think I could say great Americans. As
I have visited many cities all over the nation throughout
the years gone by, if my presence was known, some
one or more of them would come to see me, and it was
seldom, indeed, that I did not discover that they were
high and strong in the affairs of the city and successful
in their business or profession. I would like to call
a roll of those fellows today, and to know how and
where they stand in the movement of life. Those I
know most about have lived a strong life. Perhaps
some of the others failed, but I don't know of any such.
If I see some of them again, and wherever they may
be, I would expect them to be stalwart citizens, leading
in community affairs, for Chautauqua people are not
likely to forget that their own community is their part
of America, and that the whole nation is a great family
of neighborhoods.
THE SYSTEMS MULTIPLY
Meanwhile the grand old independent Chautauquas
were having their troubles. They had been the source
for inspiration for the early managers. We respected,
and almost held them in reverence. But no longer did
they have a goodly part of a whole state to themselves.
When the automobile succeeded the horse and buggy,
local travelers did not care so much for week-end ex-
cursions on the trains. The single city could not
possibly operate so economically as the system and
moreover the tried and true talent preferred the security
and better net pay offered by the circuit. But the cur-
rents that flowed from their tent cities surely traced
the way for a great movement. Some of us never
forgot our debt of gratitude, and we tried to assist, by
doubling in for them some of our speakers, when we
could. Gradually many of them came to circuits and
others ceased to be.
Keith Vawter and I did not have the field to our-
selves very long. Within two or three years other
Lyceum managers began to make Chautaqua plans
for themselves, and within ten years other numerous
astute managers cast in their lines. I am parading no
magnanimity of spirit nor self-abnegation when I say
we welcomed them and gave what assistance we could
in counsel, when it was sought. I have no doubt we
were sure of ourselves, and perhaps vain, and felt
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92 STRIKE THE TENTS
that no others could adumbrate or even approach our
own growing enterprise. We invited them to visit
our circuits, examine our plans and learn all they
could. I must confess there was a more or less tacit
hope that the new men would find other fields than
in the states we had staked out, and at first that was
what happened. Three other Redpath managers
began to build tents and hire crews. They, of course,
were in our own managerial family and there was
ample room for us all.
Harry P. Harrison, as could have been expected,
entered the arena with ardor and sweeping plans that
almost at once placed him in the front ranks. He
enjoyed a substantial advantage in getting into Florida
and other southern states before any one else. With
the warm climate there he could open his great circuit
in March and thus build for the longest season of all
From Florida he could move northward through the
central states to Wisconsin and Illinois. Vernon Harri-
son confined himself to a smaller but more densely
populated area and operated two circuits in Ohio,
West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Crawford Peffer
spread his canvas in New York and New England.
Coit and Alber, two excellent Lyceum Bureau man-
agers, organized a circuit from Cleveland, Ohio. Sam
Holliday headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, and a
boyhood friend of mine from Lexington, Nebraska,
moved to Lincoln and established the Standard Chau-
tauquas. White and Meyers, later White and Brown,
blossomed out from my own center of operations,
THE SYSTEMS MULTIPLY 93
Kansas City, Missouri. Benjamin Franklin settled him-
self in Topeka, Kansas. Two brilliant brothers pro-
duced the Community System in Indiana, and the
Mutual Lyceum Bureau, of Chicago, with Frank Mor-
gan at the head, added a circuit to their activities.
Out in the Northwest, J. R. Ellison, an old Redpath
man, joined with C. H, White and cut a great dash
in that area, which they had pretty much to themselves
as they kept an eye on their chains of tents from Port-
land and Boise City. They were very daring and
perhaps more adventurous than any of us because they
sailed with their personnel and equipment to far off
Australia and New Zealand and introduced our type
of thought and entertainment to the people in the
Antipodes. In Canada an American lad named J. M.
Erickson, who has been around the tents a great deal,
covered quite all of the south part of the Dominion
from Toronto to Vancouver.
An old schoolman, Mr. W. S. Rupe, was one of
the last to exercise managerial hands. Certainly he
was one of the last to strike his tents for the last time.
His bravery approached audacity. He would buy a
circuit here and a part of one there until he was likely
to be found in almost any part of the country. Two
other men, Jones of Iowa and Radcliff from Washing-
ton, D. C., contented themselves with three-day pro-
grams, both covering a wide expanse of territory.
Paul Pearson, a professor in Swarthmore College
in Philadelphia, and a lecturer of high standing, chose
his time of entry carefully, and made all possible
94 STRIKE THE TENTS
thoughtful preparation before he bought his tents. He
was wise enough to avoid some mistakes of the early
days, and he was well organized as the Swarthmore
Chautauquas from the beginning. Dr. Pearson was a
conspicuous figure in the movement. He brought back
a positive educational flavor, which, I fear, some systems
had not heeded so much.
In the years 1919, 1920 and 1921 I served as
director of a bureau for statistical research for the
International Lyceum and Chautauqua Association. I
was ably assisted by Dr. Paul Pearson and Mr. George
Whitehead. Personally I spent much time and effort
in acquiring and compiling information concerning the
Lyceum and Chautauqua. My report was completed
and published in September 1921. So far as I know,
that report contains the only definite and accurate
information concerning the numerical scope of the
movement.
It was a pleasant task although I spent an aggregate
of several months on the job. Most of the managers
were as frank and honest in revealing their figures
as though I had belonged to their organizations instead
of a competing one. Their co-operation was charac-
teristic of the mutual faith we all felt in each other.
I found that in 1920 there were twenty-one com-
panies operating Chautauquas and forty-one that were
booking Lyceum courses.
Following is a list of both. There are, of course
duplicates in the lists; that is, some companies belong
to both categories:
THE SYSTEMS MULTIPLY 95
CHAUTAUQUA
Acme Chautauquas, Des Moines, Iowa
Chautauqua Association of Pennsylvania, Swarth-
more, Pennsylvania
Community Chautauquas, Greencastle, Indiana
Community Chautauquas, New Haven, Connecticut
Coit & Alber Chautauquas, Cleveland, Ohio
Cadmean Chautauquas, Topeka, Kansas
Ellison-White and Dominion Chautauquas, Port-
land, Oregon
Jones Chautauqua System, Perry, Iowa
Midland Chautauquas, Des Moines, Iowa
Mutual Chautauquas, Chicago, Illinois
Redpath Chautauquas, White Plains, New York
Redpath Chautauquas, Columbus, Ohio
Redpath- Vawter Chautauquas, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Redpath Chautauquas, Chicago, Illinois
Redpath-Horner Chautauquas, Kansas City,
Missouri
Radcliff Chautauqua System, Washington, D. C.
Independent-Cooperative Chautauqua, Bloomington,
Illinois
Standard Chautauqua System, Lincoln, Nebraska
Travers-Newton, Des Moines, Iowa
White & Myers Chautauquas, Kansas City, Missouri
International Chautauquas, Bloomington, Illinois
LYCEUM
Alkhahest Lyceum System, Atlanta, Georgia
Antrim Lyceum Bureau, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
96 STRIKE THE TENTS
Brown Lyceum Bureau, St. Louis, Missouri
Coit-Alber Dominion Lyceum Bureau, Toronto,
Ontario
Columbia Lyceum Bureau, Salina, Kansas
Community Lyceum Bureau, Aurora, Missouri
Ellison- White Lyceum Bureau, Portland, Oregon
United Lyceum Bureau, Columbia, Ohio
Dennis Lyceum Bureau, Wabash, Indiana
Kansas Lyceum Bureau, Lyndon, Kansas
Inter-State Lyceum Bureau, Chicago, Illinois
Midland Lyceum Bureau, Des Moines, Iowa
Mutual Lyceum Bureau, Chicago, Illinois
National Alliance, Cincinnati, Ohio
Redpath Lyceum Bureau, White Plains, New York
Redpath Lyceum Bureau, Columbus, Ohio
Redpath Lyceum Bureau, Chicago, Illinois
Redpath- Vawter, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Redpath-Horner Lyceum Bureau, Kansas City,
Missouri
Redpath Lyceum Bureau, Dallas, Texas
Redpath Lyceum Bureau, Birmingham, Alabama
Redpath Lyceum Bureau, Denver, Colorado
Redpath Lyceum Bureau, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Royal Lyceum Bureau, Syracuse, New York
Standard Lyceum Bureau, Lincoln, Nebraska
White Entertainment Bureau, Boston, Massachusetts
White & Myers, Kansas City, Missouri
Dominion Lyceum Bureau, Calgary, Canada
Allen Lyceum Bureau, Lima, Ohio
Century Lyceum Bureau, Chicago, Illinois
Coit-Alber Lyceum Bureau, Boston, Massachusetts
THE SYSTEMS MULTIPLY 97
Coit-Neilsen Lyceum Bureau, Pittsburgh, Penn-
sylvania
Continental Lyceum Bureau, Louisburg, Kentucky
Cooperative Lyceum Bureau, Sullivan, Illinois
Dixie Lyceum Bureau, Dallas, Texas
Edwards Lyceum Bureau, Grand Cane, Louisiana
Piedmont Lyceum Bureau, Asheville, North Carolina
Emerson Lyceum Bureau, Chicago, Illinois
Chicago Circuit Lyceum Bureau, Chicago, Illinois
Western Lyceum Bureau, Waterloo, Iowa
In 1920 the Chautauqua Companies operated ninety-
three circuits in the United States and Canada. These
circuits included eight thousand five hundred eighty
towns and cities. The gross attendance aggregated
35,449,750 people. Some of the circuits were quite
small and some operated as few as three days in a town.
Our studies continued quite late in the season of
1921, and while the figures obtained for that year were
not entirely accurate I can say, conservatively, that the
total number of Chautauquas increased to nine thousand
five hundred and ninety-seven operated in nearly a
hundred circuits. If the proportionate attendance pre-
vailed, about forty million people passed through the
Chautauqua gates. It is possible, however, that attend-
ance per town was a little less than in 1920, because
business conditions were not so good in 1921.
Our figures for the Lyceum are not quite so nearly
accurate because we had no direct communication with
all the towns. Yet they are substantially correct. In
the season of 1920-21 (winter season), there were
98 STRIKE THE TENTS
eight thousand seven hundred ninety-five Lyceum or
lecture courses which attracted an aggregate attendance
of 16,262,649 people, making a gross attendance for
both institutions of 56,173,591.
The interrelations of the systems were agreeable. We
had a Lyceum and Chautauqua Manager's Association,
in which nearly all managers held membership. Fre-
quent meetings were held and all discussed their plans
and problems with freedom. There were no trade agree-
ments, but instead a well-recognized code of ethics.
We visited the tents of each other and were willing to
lend our canvas if that of one of the other blew away.
Each spoke well of the others and no one would solicit a
future contract in a town currently being served by
another. Personally nearly all of us were devoted
friends and in our relations and meetings and thoughts
were a sense of comradeship not excelled in any other
group I have known.
The First World War gave new impetus to the
Chautauqua, and during that and the four following
years the movement reached its peak. Our people were
unprepared in spirit for the war and were perplexed and
troubled in mind. All this called out an even more avid
interest in public affairs. Many of our good men went
into service, and I, for one, had but an occasional
fleeting glance or two at my tents in 1917 and 1918.
I spent most of the time during the war in Washington
where I was a member of the three-man committee
for the Liberty Loans, and I directed the speaking
activities of the campaign for W. G. McAdoo, Secretary
of the Treasury. But, if the war brought new problems
THE SYSTEMS MULTIPLY 99
to us, it also furnished our best opportunity for service.
To the everlasting credit of the Lyceum and Chautauqua
it can be clearly shown that all of us were organized
and willing to do our part.
My wife and I were enjoying a vacation in Cuba
in January, 1917, when the German Kaiser threw off
all restraint and announced his policy of unrestricted
submarine war. Because of the part I had played in
the two Presidential Campaigns for Woodrow Wilson,
and from frequent contacts with numerous officials of
his administration, there was no doubt in my mind that
our days of peace were numbered. We hurried home
for there was much to do, and of course I wanted to
be ready should I have an opportunity to serve. We
were in the midst of a very large Lyceum-selling cam-
paign, the Horner Institute of Fine Arts needed new
members in its faculty, and I had undertaken certain
local civic obligations. Fortunately, we were well
staffed and the circuits were in good order. The
Premier was scheduled to open in California early in
April, but we were ready for that. We had engaged
a special train on the Rock Island and Southern Pacific
and all of our people were on board at the appointed
time. It was a good train with its lounge and club cars,
dining cars, pullmans, enough for everyone, and five
baggage cars. It was a pleasant journey and each one
had an opportunity to become acquainted with all the
others although we knew that such sumptuous travel
comforts would end with the raising of the first cur-
tain. Everyone was happy, and as the railroad officials
were kind, and enjoying themselves as much as anyone,
100 STRIKE THE TENTS
we stopped one afternoon at a siding on the sand wastes
of New Mexico. We all landed and our people gave
a grand concert with no audience but ourselves and
some stray Mexicans, who must have been surprised.
When we arrived at El Paso, I received several tele-
grams, most of them urging me to go to Washington
at once. I was asked to appear before the Senate
Finance Committee to give some testimony in the
pending Revenue Bill. Some messages were from col-
leagues who wanted me to be there and others from
friends in the Capital, suggesting service I might
render.
I had reason to be grateful for the courtesy of the
railroad men. Some of the telegrams should have a
reply at once, and I was not ready to leave my flock
at a moment's notice. The good people held our train
for forty-five minutes or so while I could get through
some telephone calls. In the end, I finished the journey
on to the Golden State, remained there two days, then
went to Washington. I was met there by Harry P.
Harrison, Keith Vawter, Louis Alber, and perhaps
other managers.
During the summer, Chautauqua lecturers were to
speak to millions of people. We knew the temper and
patriotism of talent and managers and that they could
be depended upon for any service that would be valu-
able to the government. For one thing Mr. Harrison
had already accepted the chairmanship of a Speaker's
Bureau for the Red Cross and he invited me, with
others of our colleagues, to form the committee.
THE SYSTEMS MULTIPLY 101
My appearance before the Senate Finance Committee
was interesting enough, although I was grilled a bit
by Senator Boies Penrose, whose virile ability im-
pressed me, and Senator Stone of Missouri, whose
sarcasm bit rather deeply. Chairman Simmons was
a gentle but just and forceful statesman, John Sharp
Williams, as brilliant a man as ever sat in the Senate,
was very kind, and Senators Gore of Oklahoma and
the elder Lafollette of Wisconsin, both of whom had
traveled our circuits, furnished all the solace I needed
to ease the skin the others had chafed. Incidently,
Lyceum and Chautauqua tickets were finally ruled to
be exempt from tax because of the educational character
of the programs.
We made some plans at once, and I agreed to keep
an eye on things. I spent much of the summer in
Washington and was able to offer the services of the
combined Chautauquas to the Treasury when it was
ready to float the first Liberty Loan. President Wilson
appreciated the wide and direct channels for information
which the platform commanded, and he declared that
the Lyceum and Chautauqua were an integral part of
the National Defense. I was president of the National
Lyceum and Chautauqua Manager's Association at that
time and am competent to testify that all managers
forgot lines of competition, began at once to adapt their
programs to the needs of the war and expended their
time and money freely for the purpose.
The talent came forward in a surge. As soon as
information lines could be clearly laid, Mr. Montraville
Flowers, a great Shakespearian scholar and lecturer,
102 STRIKE THE TENTS
who was the president of the International Lyceum
and Chautauqua Association, arranged a conference of
platform speakers in Washington which was attended
by hundreds from all parts of the country. Mr. Hoover
told them of the work of the Food Administration,
the Treasury, the War and Navy Departments, and
other divisions sent high officials to explain their work
and reveal what manner of public co-operation was
desired. All who attended the conference paid their
own expenses, or they were paid by the managers, and
a great tide of information and exhortation was carried
to the ears of millions. So far as I know, none of it
cost the Government a penny. Through bulletins and
word of mouth the two Associations kept the whole
Chautauqua and Lyceum vocal army well informed
while the war continued, and the Government needs
formed a major share in the discussions of all circuit
meetings. Early in 1918, a well selected group of
lecturers were brought to Washington. They were
men whose words carried weight among their fellows.
They were sent to the battlefields of Europe under the
direction of the Red Cross, and when they returned,
almost with the scent of powder in their clothes, they
were distributed among the various systems to tell
their story to their colleagues and to the public.
I cannot tell of all the individual efforts made by
managers, and I seek to write only of things that
passed before my eyes. I advertised a contest among
the boys and girls of Redpath-Horner Circuits, and
offered many cash prizes, ranging from a dollar to
seventy-five dollars, for essays on the subject, "What
THE SYSTEMS MULTIPLY 103
I can do to help win the war." Schoolteachers or
committees were asked to select the best and send them
to us for judgment. There must have been a large
number written because some five thousand of the best
ones that were selected came to us. Awards were
made according to the opinion of some nationally known
judges, and all of us were amazed with the understand-
ing and patriotism of the youngsters. After reading
many of these literary contributions, the wise Governor
Hoch of Kansas wrote me that one need never try to
tell him that the young generation is a decadent lot.
One other incident indicates the good repute of the
platform and the patriotic spirit of the people. I
found three lecturers who were both eloquent and full
of knowledge concerning the war. They agreed to
make a tour of ten weeks at a modest salary with their
expenses paid by us. I asked H. H. Kennedy, our
forthright sales manager to book these men, one of
whom was a veteran from the American or British
Army, in sixty towns for a price which would cover
only the cost. The project was so popular that instead
of sixty towns, he booked the course in several hundred
places and I had to find several groups to keep the en-
gagements. The thing went so well and the selling
expense was so low, that Kennedy found considerable
profit in spite of our patriotic and unselfish plans, al-
though we found a good use for the cash in war work.
I do not think, of course, that the Chautauqua people
deserve higher praise than should be accorded to other
civilian groups. From my post in the Treasury in
Washington, I could mark the tide of unity and will to
104 STRIKE THE TENTS
serve that swept the country. All men were accepting
war's restrictions without complaint. I think there was
a more positive feeling of individual and community
responsibility than existed in the second war because
so large a share of the people's solicitude in public
matters had not yet been yielded to the Government.
Certainly Americans of the second great war were as
patriotic and sternminded and determined as they were
in 1917 and 1918. And they carried a heavier load in
production and military service, but otherwise more of
the duties on the home front were assigned to govern-
mental employees.
I wish only to show that the Chautauqua and Lyceum
were a powerful and moving force, possibly the greatest
in civilian ranks. They were well organized and ready
without delay to mobilize public opinion and they had
a large and ardent public to listen to and heed what they
had to say. I cannot escape the feeling that the custom
and temper of the times, the habit of community co-
operation and responsibility in 1917 and 1918, served
well to augment Government Agencies which were
microscopic in personnel compared to those in the 1940s.
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
From the time when I was a twelve-year-old ranch
boy, with an eye eager to catch a glimpse of the world
beyond the pastures, I admired and revered Mr. Bryan.
He was a real and glowing figure in the turbination of
my boyish dreams. When he was elected to Congress
from the first Nebraska district, when he made his
unsuccessful campaign for the Senate against John M.
Thurston, I read all the newspaper stories of his
speeches that I could find. His "Cross of Gold" address
that swept the Chicago convention in 1896 and placed
him in full view of the eyes of the world, fastened itself
less securely in my thoughts than my own mental pic-
ture of a handsome and fearless knight from the West
who strode into the turbulent arena of political con-
flict, depending solely upon his own strength. His
sword was shining words and his shield an invincible
faith that he was right.
While I was living in Lincoln, Nebraska, and had
made headway with my Chautauqua Circuits, I tele-
phoned Mr. Bryan one day to ask for an appointment.
He answered the phone himself. I told him I would
like to see him. He didn't inquire why but said to
come any time, at once if I cared to. It was not long
after his third presidential race, when he was defeated
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106 STRIKE THE TENTS
by William Howard Taft. I found an electric suburban
car at once and rode to Fairview, which was the name
of his home. He had erected a commodious brick
house on a high spot on his farm. He often enjoyed
himself among his cattle and hogs. He liked to watch
the latter as they grunted along their plodding way.
They were peaceful creatures, he said, and never made
trouble or noise so long as they were well fed.
Since I can never abstain from speaking of cattle, I
might as well relate a little amusing story of his. When
there were differences in honest opinion between men,
Bryan always advocated that matters be approached in
the spirit of compromise, although one who yielded too
much might not win in the process. He said that when
he bought his farm and decided to have some cattle, he
and Mrs. Bryan did not favor the same breed. But
they had decided to confine themselves to one kind. He
wanted Shorthorns, while Mrs. Bryan held out for
Jerseys. As they couldn't agree, he proposed that they
compromise in the choice. So that is what they did and
stocked the farm with Jerseys.
Mr. Bryan answered my ring of the doorbell and led
me into his library, which was lined with books and
stacks of newspapers and magazines and many articles
he had collected in his wide travels over the world.
From that day, for many years, I had the privilege occa-
sionally to visit the Bryan home in Lincoln, Washing-
ton or Florida. I have never found a more restful and
gracious place. The rooms would please the eye of a
good housekeeper and a home lover of taste. They
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 107
were well furnished, in good order and every object in
them seemed to be there for comfort and pleasure.
Mrs. Bryan was a lady of charm and wit. She was
highly educated and when her distinguished husband
chose the law as his profession, she acquired a legal ed-
ucation for herself and was admitted to the bar. She
possessed an easy, graceful skill as a hostess, and her
house never failed to reflect the peace and refinement of
their lives.
Mr. Bryan treated me with the same kindly courtesy
he accorded to everyone. In this, my first visit, he
talked with a candor as clear as anyone could employ
after years of secure acquaintance with his listeners. I
told him that while I had not been a manager many
years, I thought my places were well organized and I
would like to have him address some of them. More-
over my associate, Keith Vawter, had many interesting
cities under management and I spoke for him as well.
He thought the matter might be arranged. He told me
that he enjoyed the Chautauquas because they furnished
the kind of audience he liked. He had two motives.
He desired to express his ideas outside of politics and,
as there was ample opportunity for political talks else-
where, he could leave that field when he accepted plat-
form engagements. His other motive was to make a
living and the lecture platform could supply the oppor-
tunity. He explained that he would not speak for pay
in his home state of Nebraska, and that was a policy he
held to so long as he resided there. He believed that
Nebraska people saw quite enough of him during the
108 STRIKE THE TENTS
state political campaigns, although when he had moved
to Florida to live and the embargo was lifted from
Nebraska, I found that he was received quite as well
there as in any other part of the nation.
He telephoned to his brother, Charles W. Bryan, told
him about me and my desire, and asked him to favor
me if he could. When I was ready to go he went to the
door with me but I had not gone far until he recalled
me to give me a bundle of letters to post in the city.
This time he walked along to point out some of the
interesting spots about the neighborhood. He parted
with me with a handclasp that I always thought held
more warmth than that of any one else, but first he said
a complimentary word or two which sent me away in
a glow. It was an important day in my life for it
marked the beginning of a friendship that entwined it-
self through the fibre of my spirit and became deeply
rooted in my life.
I went to see Charles Bryan the next day. He re-
ceived me as cordially as I had been greeted by his
famous brother. He was the publisher and manager of
The Commoner, a magazine founded and edited by
W. J. It had a very large circulation at the time, and
with its heavy mail, the tens of thousands of letters to
W, J. that streamed into the office made up a deluge
of paper. I have seen many offices that bore evidence
of heavy work, but never like that. Documents were
stacked high on the desk and chairs and on every other
available resting place. There were even piles of them
on the old horsehair sofa on which W. J. had snatched
an occasional nap when he was practicing law. When
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 109
Charles asked me to be seated, I chose the chair that
had the lowest stack. The amazing thing was that he
seemed to know where to put his hand to find anything
he wanted, and he was never confused. We hit it off
well together from the first. He put all of his cards on
the table, or, more accurately, might have done so if
there had been a vacant place where he could lay them.
Besides the exacting duties in publication he attended
to most of W. J.'s correspondence and personal
business.
He showed me letters containing invitations to speak
and I was surprised at the number. W. J. could
scarcely accept all of them in a lifetime and he was to
devote less than sixty days to the next Chautauqua
season. Some of the letters plaintively stated that the
writers had been on the waiting list for years. It was
easy to see that here was one lecturer who needed no
manager to drum up dates.
I learned of a policy which W. J. had followed for
years. With his first bid for presidency he decided that
he could not consistently continue in the practice of law
for a living because the most lucrative fees stemmed
from corporations or from those who had some con-
troversy or business with state or federal government
and he barred himself from all such. Anyone would
know that he might command whatever price he would
name in that kind of practice, and obviously there was
nothing either illegal or unprofessional in it, but he
charted a course leading to reform in government and
he wished no strings, nor substance for suspicion, to be
attached to his public work.
110 STRIKE THE TENTS
Charles Wayland Bryan was forty-two years old at
that time. He had been the editor and proprietor of a
farm paper, The American Homestead, for five years.
He had a decided flair for agriculture and was a farmer
along with his other activities, for a large share of his
life. For one thing he liked to raise mules. Besides,
he had been a wholesale dealer in coal and his knowl-
edge of that commodity was valuable when later, as
Mayor of Lincoln, he established municipal coalyards
when it appeared that the people were not getting a
square deal with their fuel. The same conditions, when
he was Governor of Nebraska, led him to establish state
gasoline filling stations and a state coal company, both
of which were operated on a non-profit basis. In 1897
he had become political secretary and business agent for
W. J. and continued in that capacity until the Great
Commoner died in 1925.
While there was a certain family resemblance in the
brothers they did not look at all alike. Charles was tall,
erect and rather slender, and wore a mustache. He
was quite bald and the direct glare of light was so pain-
ful to his eyes that he wore his hat indoors and out,
except on more formal occasions when he covered
his crown with a black skull cap. In one way the two
men were exactly alike, and that was in their inherent
honesty. Neither would shun by the breadth of a hair
a promise made or implied. But both were so direct
and clean-cut in their word that there was little chance
for implication. The other most apparent resemblance
was in their deep flashing eyes. Brother Charlie's
words were rapid and staccato and he used no rounded
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 111
sentences or figurative phrases. He was companionable
and liked nothing more than congenial friends at the
table or a turn at Kelley pool with two or three cronies
at the Commercial Club.
I could see that the arrangement of a lecture tour
was no easy task and proffered my assistance. He
turned the files over to me and I had found a new job,
arduous enough, but most fascinating, and it was one
that I enjoyed for years. He outlined the policy he
wished to observe. The tour should be arranged so
that it would demand as little hard travel as possible,
but it must be distributed well as to territory. First
consideration should be given to the cities that had been
crying for W. J. the longest, and no political considera-
tion should be observed. I could assign a portion of the
available dates to the circuits and he charged me to keep
what I wanted for myself. It required some little of my
time for a few weeks to perfect the arrangements, but
Charles was pleased with the results. I am glad I can
say that as new managers came into the circuit field, I
tried to be unselfish in the allocation of dates even
though some of them went to my chief competitors, and
the only time Charles ever chided me was when I gave
to others some time which he thought I should keep
for myself.
A contract for a lecture by Mr. Bryan was like money
in the bank. For the Chautauqua that was fortunate
enough to secure it, it was priceless. The general inter-
est in the session was highly stimulated and the season-
ticket sale was enhanced. In those things he did not
participate at all except for the pleasure he felt when
112 STRIKE THE TENTS
others were benefited. No man or association could
ever suffer financial loss by engaging him. That he
would not agree to at all. If he couldn't draw the
money into the box office he would have none of it.
First and last, arrangements for thousands of other
speakers passed through my hands. Some of them
were people of fame and wide repute. I can think of no
one of them who would have earned a very modest
fee, and many could not have had reimbursement for
expenses alone, under a contract like Bryan's. The
sponsors of even the headliners must advertise widely
and usually sell a large number of season tickets to net
enough to pay reasonably high fees. The season tickets
were held by the people who represent the cream and
bulk of attendance, and in addition to that income, it
was rare that any speaker would draw as much as a
hundred dollars in single admissions. Bryan's lecture
contracts were the same for one city as for all others.
I made many of them and have no need for conjecture.
The contract provided some interesting things. For
compensation Mr. Bryan would receive the sum of
single admissions until two hundred fifty dollars were
accounted for. After that his sponsor would receive
the same income until his share was also two hundred
fifty dollars. All that came from sales in excess of five
hundred dollars was divided equally between the two.
No sponsor could ask more for a ticket than was
charged for at least three other attractions in the course,
and in no case could the admission price be more than
fifty cents. Printed in the contract was a recommenda-
tion that no more than twenty-five cents be charged.
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 113
Bryan paid his own expenses and had no part of season-
ticket income. For winter lecture courses there was
some modification in the arrangements, particularly
where reserved seats were involved and seating capacity
was limited, but these changes were not important, and
anyhow I am dealing with the Chautauqua.
Bryan could deliver a hundred lectures in the space
of two months and still have a few days' open time to
permit him to speak without pay to religious conven-
tions and Bible Schools, because, unlike most men he
could visit two cities, and occasionally three, in one day
and deliver a lecture in each.
The puny criticism of the propriety of his Chau-
tauqua lecturing, flowing from poisonous pens and
strident voices, never disturbed me any more than it
rankled him. The critics must have been misinformed
or took no trouble to learn the truth. The lecture plat-
form was practically Mr. Bryan's sole source for in-
come, although there was some from his writing. He
and his family lived well but in simple taste, but no one
can in truth say that a Bryan was ever niggardly. His
expenses for his public work were heavy indeed. His
gifts to church, charity, Y. M. C. A. and education
drew heavily from his purse. Each year he would de-
cide how much he must earn for all purposes and then
assign a sufficient number of weeks in the calendar to
be devoted to the platform. When he had made his de-
cision there was little use for anyone to try to effect a
change.
Sharp users of unkind words reached to a climactic
revelry when Bryan was Secretary of State, and, while
114 STRIKE THE TENTS
on vacation, made a few Chautauqua speeches for pay.
Other high Government officials could retain private
sources of income in business or profession, and with-
out such I don't see how anyone could serve decently
in the President's cabinet. But when Bryan used a few
days from a vacation period, that is granted to most
men, to engage momentarily in the vocation that pro-
vided his livelihood that was a grave offense. The
simple fact is that he needed some money to pay his
bills and he collected a little of it in his share from that
received from people who paid a quarter or a half dol-
lar to listen to him speak.
I had no share in the arrangements of Mr. Bryan's
early Chautauqua lectures, and have no firsthand
knowledge of the extent of his activities then, or of the
amount of his earnings in that period. Nevertheless,
during my long and I think intimate acquaintance
with him, he often alluded to his earlier experiences, and
I believe the results of his efforts were no different from
those that ensued when I had a part in his plans. Sub-
stantially his policy at first was quite similar to the
one I knew. From 1909 until he passed from earthly
scenes I had a considerable part in his lecture plans,
and since I made countless engagements for him I am
sure of the truth of what I write.
I have read some very unkind biographies of Bryan
and, during his lifetime, columns of untruthful criti-
cism. In this discussion there is no need for me to con-
cern myself with the sharp complaints of his political
and economic views. If these complaints were based
on the same kind of inaccurate information that is re-
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 115
vealed in the words written by his Chautauqua critics,
I cannot escape the thought that those people, or any of
them who are still alive, should revise their stock of
information for the good of their immortal souls.
In my experience, Mr. Bryan's Chautauqua lectures,
and substantially all of his lectures on lecture courses,
were made on the basis of the agreement of the terms
of which I have stated. Occasionally, but very seldom,
he might speak for a stipulated fee which, of course, was
less than his critics thought. His policy was set in the
determination that no one should be out of pocket for
engaging him. I knew of some instances when it was
found that the committee might suffer a loss. If, for
instance, the receipts amounted to three hundred fifty
dollars, Bryan's share was two hundred fifty dollars,
leaving one hundred dollars for the committee. If he
discovered that their expense had amounted to more
than one hundred dollars, he would insist upon reim-
bursing them to the amount of the difference, which
made me a little impatient because with a greater effort
they might easily have made as much as he could. On
the other hand if the meeting were rained out and the
receipts were only thirty-five dollars, that was all he
would receive, if indeed he took anything at all.
Stories of the amount of his income per lecture were
nearly all exaggerated. I have always been surprised
and amused with the strange fallacy cherished by people
all over America when they estimate the size of an audi-
ence. If a thousand people gather on the public square,
men like to think there are five thousand. I know of
many instances when a crowd in an auditorium was
116 STRIKE THE TENTS
estimated at twenty thousand when I knew there were
only ten thousand because I had counted the seats.
Those who really know the truth like to permit people
to enjoy their little illusions, and somehow the fact of a
great concourse of people indicates a kind of grandeur
from which people derive pride. In the same way
Americans have pleasure in overestimating the popula-
tion of their cities. Ask the average person how many
people live in the town and he will say, "Well, the last
census shows a hundred thousand but they missed many
people and besides the city has grown a lot since the
count was made and we really have about a hundred
and thirty thousand people." He is not at all troubled
when the next census shows only a hundred and three
thousand. This little fallacy, while quite common, is
harmless enough. Americans are proud of themselves
and their institutions and assembling capacity of their
people, and fascinating exaggeration is really only a re-
flection of their own aspirations. Like many of the
other things I know about people that I learned from
cattle, I first discovered how to appraise the size of the
audience because I had learned how to estimate the
number of animals in a herd. Therefore I always could
make a pretty good guess of the number of people in an
audience, and I could always check my estimates at the
box office.
One of the first lectures which Bryan delivered on
my circuit was at Blue Rapids, Kansas. Since that was
forty-five years ago, I am sure my friends in
that lovely little city will not mind my saying the
population was then about fifteen hundred people. Of
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 117
these a thousand, young and old, had season tickets.
The tent could not contain even half of the Bryan audi-
ence, which did not matter at all because thousands
could sit or recline on the grass under the trees, and
all hear very well. I think we charged twenty-five cents
for admission, and as I remember, the cash receipts
were about a thousand dollars. Therefore we had sold
four thousand single admission tickets which, with the
season ticket holders, if they were all present, made an
audience of five thousand people. Naturally the good
citizens thought there were as many as ten thousand
people on hand, and those who have told such tall tales
of Bryan's income might have thought the same if they
had been present.
By no means did all of Bryan's lectures yield so much
cash, even when we charged fifty cents. The gross re-
ceipts were more likely to amount to from three hun-
dred fifty dollars to seven hundred dollars. Sometimes,
especially in 1912, when Bryan's spectacular perform*
ance at the Baltimore Convention which nominated
Woodrow Wilson raised him to a peak in box office
popularity, as much as fifteen hundred dollars might be
received, but the average was much less. One season
he told me that he was going to set aside all the money
he might earn in excess of the basic two hundred fifty
dollars for each lecture and hoped the total for the whole
summer might amount to enough to buy a motorboat.
We added up the boat money from time to time, but
alas I fear that in the end he had to add to the sum or
else content himself with an outboard-motor craft.
118 STRIKE THE TENTS
On the whole Bryan could make the amount of
money he had decided was necessary for the year in a
comparatively short period of lecturing, and, as I have
said, all of his other speeches were made without pay.
On the other hand he might easily have made a fortune.
As a somewhat experienced manager, I am sure I could
have completed a sufficient number of engagements to
net him a quarter of a million dollars in any year and
still leave a considerable portion of his time open for
other purposes. Such a program would yield a sizable
amount, if not as much, for his sponsors, and all of that
would have been effected in the terms of a reasonable
contract. Had he been exploited as other famous
speakers, or stars in other fields, then or now, have been
or are exploited, the sum would have been very much
larger. He was content to earn merely enough to sus-
tain a splendid if simple home, to provide a decent liv-
ing for himself and his family, and to accomplish his
varied purposes in politics, religion and education.
I do not pretend to know exactly how much income
Mr. Bryan received through the years or in any year.
Nor do I know how much he gave to people or institu-
tions or to any cause in which he was interested. How-
ever, I was intimately acquainted with him and with
Charles, and I should say that Mr. Bryan was but mod-
erately well to do until the last few years of his life,
and that the larger share of the fortune he left was made
from profits in real estate during the last five years that
he lived, although none of that has any bearing on his
mighty power as a speaker.
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 119
With his help I sometimes endeavored to determine
the proportion of his paid lectures to the number of
speeches he made without fees. I think the former com-
prised about 20 per cent of the total, and I do not in-
clude the countless little talks at luncheons, receptions
and wayside stops in his travels. It is evident, there-
fore, that I can place no credence in the wails of those
who charge that Bryan was mercenary or was tempted
to resolve into financial gain the great fame which he
had achieved.
I frequently accompanied W. J. on his Chautauqua
tours, and when that was not possible some one else
would go along to ease the burden of travel as much as
possible. He was not difficult to manage, no matter
how hard was the way. I might show him a memo-
randum of all details for a week ahead. This would
indicate cities he was to visit, the time of arrival and
departure, and change in connections for each day. He
would read it and so far as I know would not refer to
it again, but he never forgot where he was to go, when
he must start, or would arrive. Often the travel was
difficult. Often it would mean a night train, or maybe
two or three. Frequently we must drive with a team
and buggy, or in an automobile. At first the latter was
not dependable and roads were bad. I could not depend
upon one automobile in those days but would provide
two or three, so that if one expired we could change to
another. When the machines were perfected and roads
were improved, our problems were much abated.
He would insist upon paying for all travel expense,
and he was very generous in tips for porters, bellboys,
120 STRIKE THE TENTS
waiters and all who served him. Sometimes he would
draw a little cash for pocket money, and while I never
saw him refer to a memorandum, on settlement days he
always knew how much I had advanced. In the begin-
ning I was careful to prepare a carefully checked report
of receipts, verified by what I considered to be a com-
petent audit of the figures. He soon stopped that prac-
tice. "J ust l et me know the amount of my share," he
would say, and that was the way we followed. In ac-
counting, travel and business transactions he would re-
duce all operations to the minimum. I have often seen
him write a check, drawn on his bank, on a plain slip
of paper or even on the half of an envelope slit in two
pieces. Nevertheless, Charles told me that W. J. never
was mistaken in his knowledge of his balance.
He systematized his mental and physical processes
in clear cut and fine economy. He could effect that be-
cause of the matchless retentivity of his mind. I have
never seen him speak from a manuscript. If there was
some sudden and unusual call for a speech a church
dedication, a cornerstone laying or something of the
kind he might prepare a speech for the occasion on
an hour's notice. Three or four lines on a slip of paper
to indicate the points he would make, and the physical
job was done. His facility in words and abundance in
memory supplied all the rest.
In the conservation of his mental and physical energy
Bryan's skill rests without parallel in my memory. As
he moved along no moment in the day was wasted and
each was employed purposefully. When I would raid
the newsstand and bring him all the papers I could find,
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 121
he would devour the contents page by page, tear out a
column here and an item there, stuff the tatters in his
pocket to read again, and shove the rest aside. In a
few minutes he had absorbed the news of the day.
While his route of travel was not published, there would
be telegrams at every stop and a bundle of letters
awaited him in each town in which he was scheduled
to speak. When he could have a few minutes for him-
self on a train, he would extract a crushed pad of paper
from the ample pocket of his coat, and even if there was
no more than a suitcase for a desk he would take a pen
or pencil and write many letters and telegrams, or an
editorial for The Commoner. In any event he would
manage to dispose of all of his correspondence, and
when it was finished for the time it was completed for
good.
Seldom indeed could he enjoy a few minutes of
quiet without interruption. Word of his presence
would spread through the train and there was an almost
constant stream of curious but friendly people up and
down the aisle, and most of them must shake hands
with him. The greetings from the men who filed past
scarcely varied: "Mr. Bryan, I voted for you three
times and I just want to shake your hand." I often
wondered how he could have failed in the elections since
all the people we saw had supported him.
Somehow, probably by rural telephone or word of
mouth, news of his journey had been spread about and
at every train stop we would hear the shouts of the
crowd assembled at the station. Regardless of the im-
port of letter, telegram, or editorial, he would go to the
122 STRIKE THE TENTS
platform to greet his admirers. There was no good for
me to protest. He said the people perhaps had made
trouble for themselves to come and he would not disap-
point them. That was true, I know, because some of
them had left their fields or shops and maybe traveled
miles to have a fleeting glimpse of the Great Commoner,
and possibly grasp his hand for an instant and say they
had voted for him three times. Too often the train
would begin to move along before all could get within
reach.
When we reached a temporary destination there was
really acclaim. As the train slowed to a stop we could
see flags and banners, and the music of a band would
reach our ears. When Mr. Bryan appeared, shouts,
steam whistles and automobile horns rent the air. The
mayor and committee were on hand and behind them
were troops of boy scouts, flocks of flower girls and
badge-bedecked school children were herded together by
their monitors. Beyond all was the throng of people
who crowded the station platform. There is some-
thing quite disconcerting and even a bit frighten-
ing in the effort of an ordinary person to force a
path through a crowd of human beings facing him.
Conveying Bryan through a little sea of friendly faces
lit by shining eyes was like the passage of the hosts of
Israel as they walked between the walls of parted water
of the Red Sea. I have thought often of such an ex-
perience, repeated for me perhaps hundreds of times.
One caught in the grip of a multitude of fellow beings,
say in Times Square or Madison Square Garden, or
even in a great political campaign, can scarcely escape a
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 123
sense of the spirit of the mob, and fear the crush in the
movement sweeping from the composite mind of an un-
ordered multitude.
I could feel, but even now I cannot describe the dif-
ference in the concourse that welcomed Bryan day by
day. Surely they did not come because of curiosity.
Most of the citizens of our section had seen him before,
perhaps often. Many, maybe nearly all, had heard his
voice. There was no play of the emotions generated in
the heat of a political campaign. No radios were blar-
ing his name or words. The great newspapers of the
nation were not presently printing black headlines in
praise or fault. True, Bryan was known by more and
had been seen by more people than any other human
being in the world. Here he came, a simple private
citizen engaged in the labor of earning his daily bread.
Even though his welcome by multitudes was ever
genuine and kind, I was often puzzled with the quality
of it. There was shouting and applause, but neither
was tumultuous or vociferant. I could detect no evi-
dence of pent-up feelings or surge of passion such as
characterize a political campaign. No lurid advertising
had evoked curiosity or sown seeds of unwarranted ex-
pectation. But there they were, the unnumbered multi-
tudes from the farms and villages, the cities and rail-
road yards. I could have wished that they might all
have been crowded into the Chautauqua grounds be-
cause Mr. Bryan was met by more people without than
within. But why were they there, everywhere he went?
He was then enacting no crusader's role and bore no
promise of political reform. He was merely going from
124 STRIKE THE TENTS
place to place to stand under hot canvas and talk to
people about 'The Prince of Peace," or 'The Value of
an Ideal."
Later, at exactly the appointed moment, we would
escort him quietly into the tent from the rear so that
only a few people could see him enter. All the hard
seats were filled, and around the edge of the open can-
vas cover people would stand, ten, twenty or thirty per-
sons deep. When Mr. Bryan was introduced the audi-
ence would clap their hands, some of them would shout,
and down in Texas there would issue a wave of rebel
yells. Once again, I was puzzled with the subdued
gentleness even in the warmest applause. I have been
in embassy gatherings and meetings in affairs of state
and have been told that the modest hand clapping was
an evidence of the good taste of those present. No
doubt that is true, but if that was an expression of taste
and breeding, so was this. Or was this something that
came from a deeper recess in human hearts? Bryan
would stand with a smile on his face, with a fan in his
hand, doing nothing, acting nothing, to prolong the
expression of welcome. In a moment or two he would
raise his arm, the palm of his hand turned to the people
and a quiet would come like the fall of a rose leaf on the
grass.
In July, 1925, I rode, as an honorary pallbearer, in
the sad cortege that followed W. J. Bryan's catafalque
from the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in
Washington to Arlington Cemetery. With me were
two former members of President Wilson's Cabinet, a
well-known United States Senator, a Congressman and
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 125
another former official in the Wilson administration.
They were talking, of course, of our departed friend.
One spoke of that gesture, hand raised high with the
palm turned towards the people. A gesture that had
brought an expectant calm to a multitude a thousand
times and more. It was, they agreed, nothing less than
majestic. I had seen that raised arm, ah, hundreds of
times. It was, at once, a command and a benediction,
and it seemed to transmit a feeling of peace.
Again and again I placed myself so that I could look
into the faces of the people as he spoke. I could sense
and see the evidence of their emotions but no sound
from it would reach my ears. For an hour and a half
I thought they were enjoying a deep feeling of peace
and even happiness. Most of them, I suppose, usually
carried in their hearts the same kind of worries and
fears that perplex men in all places and stations. Here,
for a little while, these would slip away from their con-
sciousness and they could reach towards the stars.
Was all of this caused by the stirring power of great
oratory? Not exactly. Those people were silent, ex-
cept that now and then a wave of applause would sweep
across the tent, or a smile would expand into a ripple
of laughter, but both would fall into silence as abruptly
as the sound of them had burst. They were almost
motionless, too. I saw no nudging of elbows nor a
glance aside into a neighbor's eyes, or even a shift of
weight from one tired foot to another among those who
stood. Certainly they did not appear to be chained to
the spot, but all of them, with strong bodies or weak
ones, clothed in good raiment or covered by the gar-
126 STRIKE THE TENTS
ments of labor and the farm, seemed almost literally
to float on a placid plane. I think what I am trying to
say is that physical sensations seemed to be suspended
for a time. Perhaps the poise and calm of the speaker
had something to do with it. Whatever motion there
was in him was like the rhythm of a mountain stream
flowing through the rocks. He scarcely moved on his
feet. One hand held a palm leaf fan which was never
still. The other rested alternately on a block of ice in
a basin on the table, and then on top of his head upon
which the heat beat down pitilessly. Even his frequent
gestures seemed to be extensions of those motions.
Water would stream down his face for he had the hot-
test place in an acre of discomfort, but he, too, seemed
unaware of fatigue or heat.
I do not know to what extent those people had en-
shrined Bryan as an ideal in their thoughts, if at all. I
have tried to discover for myself the reason or reasons
for the phenomenon I witnessed so many times, and I
think I found three. They may be only theories but
they are the only explanations I can find to add to the
undoubted perfection of the greatest orator I have ever
heard. First, those people may have sensed in Bryan
a greatness of spirit that perhaps escaped those who
were never present on a like occasion. Second, they
heard the voice of a man they esteemed expressing in
clear words the best fruit of their own meditations and
the very peak of their aspirations even though these
were usually hidden within themselves. Finally, if we
can accept at all the proposition that the affection which
one man bears for another is reciprocated by the latter,
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 127
that proposition may furnish part of the explanation.
Bryan loved people and had a faith in them that was
sublime. He believed that if they could and would act
and think according to their best instincts, that alto-
gether they possessed a power that could move and
save the world. Perhaps, after all, the enraptured state
of mind of the Chautauqua audience reflected the stir-
ring of power within its composite heart. Perhaps a
similar awakening may explain why a mighty unity of
the force of hand and will could win a global war in
1945. I think there is but one word that can correctly
define the feeling of the Chautauqua audience for Mr.
Bryan. There was respect, of course, admiration and
even affection. But over all there was one quality
which seemed never to be absent, and that was
reverence,
I do not see how anyone who did not hear Bryan
speak could have a concept of the force of his words.
One biographer who was sometimes at fault in his facts,
and more often unfair in his analysis, wrote an apt dis-
tinction between his spoken and written words. He
said the words of a speech were orchestrated for his own
remarkable voice. The quality of the sound that
flowed from his lips enhanced the value of the words.
He would emphasize by letting his voice fall a little as
though there was a period following the accented word,
or he would effect the same result by raising the tone.
His sentences were clear-cut and never confused in ar-
rangement. They were accurately keyed and there was
little or no transposition from the key when he reached
a climax. The tonal quality of his voice surpassed that
128 STRIKE THE TENTS
of any other speaker or speakers I have ever heard.
Every syllable was uttered so distinctly that no one need
cup a hand behind his ear to hear its full import. He
had read some in Latin and Greek and in poetry and
philosophy, and with his retentive mind had garnered
a very extensive vocabulary. Nevertheless it was
noteworthy that he chose the words that most
people could understand without effort. If his
audience numbered a thousand people or ten thousand,
there could be no one in it who could not hear distinctly.
Once or twice, on a quiet summer evening I have stood
at a distance of a block away and even then I could hear
what he said. His tones would never swell to a shout
nor break into a roar. When the volume expanded in a
climactic phrase, there was no loss in the fullness and
music of the tone. Along with the melody of his voice
and grace of his gestures, the flash of his eyes would
seem to reach even to those who sat far away.
There was method in all of this as there was design
in what he said. He told me that he always tried to
speak in a way that would require of the people the least
possible mental and physical exertion to understand
what he said and thus they could use their minds with-
out interference to understand what he meant. That is
the reason he did not perplex them with unfamiliar
words. Many would say that his voice would "carry"
farther than that of anyone else. That was foolish, he
thought. In a given volume of sound one voice would
carry as far as any other. The reason he could be heard
at a great distance was because he enunciated every syl-
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 129
lable clearly and distinctly and would not permit the
sound of one word to crowd into the tone of another.
As I offer this characterization of Bryan's Chautau-
qua speeches I would not say at all that it could apply
to his political speeches. Indeed, Chautauqua lectures
and political speeches are so entirely different it would
be difficult to make comparisons. In a political cam-
paign applause, for instance, is as likely to be male-
volent as it is commendatory.
I was well inured to travel but when I kept up with
Bryan for a couple of weeks I was exhausted, and I
didn't need to make the speeches. On some particularly
difficult days he was tired, but with a few hours, and
sometimes a few moments of sleep, traces of fatigue
would disappear. He would drop into slumber in a
moment, in a train coach, or with his head resting on
the back of a seat in an automobile. When he finished
an address thousands of people would press forward to
shake hands. He would sit on the edge of the platform
and grasp the hands of all comers, using his left hand
as well as his right. When he had been surrounded
by throngs at the stations or in the hotels, and I would
suggest that we should find, somehow, a few minutes
for relaxation, and delay his appearance a bit, he would
say that he could relax better when he was speaking.
He is the only person I ever knew who could rest physi-
cally while he was making a speech and that was be-
cause his mental and body functions were so well co-
ordinated.
Much has been written about his capacity for food,
and most of it was of the same kind of legend as other
130 STRIKE THE TENTS
inaccurate stories of him. My managerial associations
began while he was still under fifty years of age. He
was large and strong and had the appetite of a healthy
man. His physical endurance surpassed that of most
other men and, measured by a requirement of the body
of a hard worker, he needed plenty of food and enjoyed
it too. No kind of viands would disagree with him,
and I often wished I had as good a digestion as he had.
The tales of his ravenous eating were terribly exagger-
ated. On occasion, he made a score or more of speeches
in a day the majority of them unscheduled. That
requires much fuel in food. I have seen many hearty
men who ate more than he did. Stories of the unseem-
ing quantity of food he consumed were nearly as un-
truthful as a statement that he got drunk on alcohol,
which he never tasted.
The tale of his fondness for grape juice was as amus-
ing and fallacious as any. As a matter of fact, he did
not care for the beverage at all, although there were
many times when he had to sip the refreshing drink,
because people were always bringing it around, just as
they were wont to flood Vice-President Fairbanks with
buttermilk, which he didn't care much about. Some-
times a manufacturer would send a case of some new
fruit drink to Bryan and when it reached us en route, it
had to be distributed among those who cared for it and
then the legend would grow some more. When Mr.
Bryan was Secretary of State, and more for decorative
purposes than for any other reason, Mrs. Bryan served
grape juice, the story of the Commoner's fondness for
the drink got out of bounds. One time a brewer sent
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 131
us a case of what came to be called "near beer/' and
asked for Bryan's opinion of it. Mr. Bryan replied
that he had never tasted beer, and was incompetent to
judge, but he complimented the man for turning his at-
tention to non-alcoholic beverages.
I have written in space of Mr. Bryan because I think
he was the greatest speaker in the Chautauqua, and be-
cause I think he did more to enliven and extend the
movement than anyone else. His passing from the
platform marked the beginning but not the cause of
the decline of the force radiating from the tents. I
wanted very much to write a biography of him, while
my rich experience was new in my mind. I had planned
to begin the effort after the close of the 1925 season.
My last letter from him was written from Dayton, Ten-
nessee, a few days before his death. He spoke of the
project and told me he could give me some time for the
purpose that autumn. He also reproached me a little
because I had not arranged to spend part of my time in
Florida, which he loved so much. He had always urged
me to buy a lot and build a little home there so that I
could be near him at least for a few months in the year.
In that letter he told me that if I would accept it, he
would buy a lot for me. I went to Miami in September
and bought the lot, but alas, I had followed in the sad
procession which left his mortal remains in Arlington in
AS THEY ROLLED ALONG
I hope I have given no impression that Chautauqua
people were glum, sober, vain and sanctimonious. The
opposite of such adjectives could better describe them.
By the time the talent had swept past the first nine
towns on the circuit, and thus had come to know all the
crews, platform managers and junior girls, everybody
was acquainted and a guild of happy friendships had
been established. The talent regarded their work seri-
ously enough but had a great deal of fun in doing it.
A few of the townspeople could always be included in
the friendly circle. The junior girls and the crews
could be depended upon to plan a party after the show.
When platform togs had been changed and the tent was
lashed for the night, the folks would be found back of
the platform ready for a short hour of fun. They ate
melons and ice cream, or perhaps from a huge box of
fried chicken donated by one of the good women of
the town. These little gatherings were much like the
jam sessions of latter-day dance bands. The performers
performed little new original stunts and indulged in
many quips at each other, and, I suppose, even more
at the expense of the managers. The girls would col-
lect the soiled linen of the performers and have it fresh
and clean at a later stand.
The tastes of individual lecturers were always re-
membered, and so there was a tub filled with ice and
(132)
As THEY ROLLED ALONG 133
watermelons ready when Opie Read came to town.
The parties did not last long because lights had to be
out at a certain hour. Sometimes the performers must
repair to the depot and perhaps wait a long time for a
late train. When finally automobiles were adopted for
transportation of everybody, often enough the talent
might drive well into the night to shorten the time of
travel next day.
On their part, the rftanagers had their moments of
sport when they discussed the talent. One lecturer may
have been spoken of as an encyclopedia man, not be-
cause he was particularly erudite, but because he had
fashioned his oratorical offering from books rather than
from life. Little beginning concert companies were
called tingalings, and the most brilliant of all the talent
were good merchandise.
There was a fine bond of friendship existing among
the people of all the component parts, and no thought of
class. Even the actors from Broadway, after a few
days of bewilderment, fitted into the happy combination,
and we learned again that people from one section or
station were about the same as those of all the others.
There was never any reference to rubes or hicks or
yokels or the sticks, perhaps because most of us were
pretty close to rural scenes and habits.
I rarely saw even the mightiest orator reprove his
listeners. In fact I remember of but one instance, and
that was humorous enough to fall short of offense. On
a hot afternoon the audience of a certain worthwhile
speaker was sweltering in the tent. Nearly every one
on the benches was wielding a fan because there were
134 STRIKE THE TENTS
always local advertisers who took care that fans were
in every seat. The flutter of fans disturbed the speaker
to the point of exasperation. Finally he paused and
glared at the poor people. "I know it is hot," he said,
"Fm hot, too. If you must fan please fan in unison,
like this." And he moved his hands back and forth.
"Now, altogether, right, left, right, left." And so he
drilled them, then he went on with his address which
was so interesting that people soon forgot to fan.
The courtesy extended to the speaker by the audi-
ence was usually reciprocated in kind. Very early we
found that little children, most welcome for the enter-
tainment part of the program, were restless and mis-
chievous when the lecturer appeared. The junior girl
soon had the youngsters in hand and she would march
them off to a shady spot for an hour of storytelling.
But babies were something else. The wail of an infant
is hard on a speaker. Yet that old quip about "crying
babies being like good resolutions and should be carried
out" was rarely spoken. One speaker became pretty
nervous when the mother of a poor little crying child
cuddled and rocked the infant in her arms. Finally he
said, "Madam, I give it as my considered opinion that
what that baby needs is not lodging but food."
One afternoon the great Senator Dolliver was ad-
dressing a Chautauqua audience at Pawnee City,
Nebraska. As his matchless eloquence thundered from
the platform, a baby began to scream. The poor
mother made haste to leave when the Senator stopped
her. "Don't go, madam. The natural function of an
infant is to cry. Anyone who doesn't know that hasn't
As THEY ROLLED ALONG 135
sense enough to understand my speech. I like babies
and they don't bother me at all. They don't bother
other mothers in the tent, and as for you frowning sons-
of-guns of men, it's none of your confounded business
what the baby does."
Speaking of babies, I think the following incident is
unusual. The Chautauqua was going well in Pawhuska,
Oklahoma. That was a long time ago. There were
many blanket Indians in the vicinity and a good share
of the population in the city had some Indian blood.
Those Indians were handsome people and seemed to
enjoy the Chautauqua very much. I visited the tent
one hot afternoon. Quite in front and on one side
were seated some twenty or so bucks, wearing their
blankets over bare torsos. On the opposite side was a
similar group of Indian women, and they, too, wore
Indian garb. Many of them were wealthy, or at least
had money as oil had begun to flow down there. At
the rear end of the tent I found a row of Indian babies.
The beautiful little creatures were decked out in color-
ful raiment. Though flies pestered their sticky little
faces and hands, there was no whimper from any of
them. Each infant was fastened to the board upon
which the mother carries her child on her back, and
each board was laid across a very expensive baby cab.
One hot summer evening Judge George D. Alden
of Boston was addressing his audience in an Iowa
town. Alden, a lineal descendant of John and Priscilla,
was a most charming and effective speaker. As usual,
he was garbed in evening dress and his rhetoric was
choice. The tent was pitched at the edge of a cow
136 STRIKE THE TENTS
pasture from which, it was supposed, the cattle had
been removed. One lonely animal, however, had, some-
how returned to her habitat. She bellowed a lonely
moo from some distance away and no one paid much
attention to it. Evidently she decided to investigate
the big tent with its bright lights. She came closer
and closer, mooing all the way. Finally she stuck
her head under the very edge of the tent and uttered
a particularly loud and mournful cry. The audience
was convulsed. Adrian Newens who shared platform
time with the judge was in a front seat enjoying him-
self hugely. The grin on Adrian's face was more
exasperating to the speaker than the interruption by
bossie, and he yelled, "Adrian Newens, can't you do
something to stop that cow?" Newens rose and said,
"Judge Alden, that lecture we are forced to listen to
lacks some of the dramatic elements of the interpola-
tions of yonder bovine. I suggest that you accept her
valuable assistance and proceed with your speech."
Those Chautauqua speakers were quick in retort and
clever in turning an unfortunate incident to their own
advantage. Everyone knew that W. J. Bryan was a
devout exponent of prohibition and a bitter enemy of
strong drink. One evening his daughter, Ruth Bryan,
graced the platform in Fort Collins, Colorado. There
was a drizzle of rain outside and a pool of water col-
lected in a sag in the tent, almost over the speaker's
head. The foreman of the crew knew that he should
interrupt the proceedings and take a pole and push
the tent upwards so the water could drain off the roof.
He waited, hoping that the canvas would hold, but his
As THEY ROLLED ALONG 137
hope was in vain. The cloth broke and a bucketful of
water splashed to the floor. Ruth Bryan smiled at
her audience and said, "My friends, you are present on
an historic occasion. This is the first time a Bryan
ever spoke on a wet platform."
Strickland Gilliland, of dry but hilarious humor, was
like that. He is the Hoosier poet who has enriched
the language. Nearly every person in the country
knows his famous railroad rhyme of "Off agin, on agin,
gone agin, Finnegan." He wrote a poem on fleas
which he said was the shortest in the world. It was,
"Adam had 'em." Gilliland would not appear until
after the platform manager had finished the introduc-
tion. Then he would stroll on, with a stick or the stem
of a weed he had picked up, and he broke the thing
into bits while he solemnly looked his audience over.
One time after he had begun his speech he called to a
waiting crewman in the wings, for some water. It
was almost as unusual for a Chautauqua speaker to sip
water when he was performing as it was for him to
use notes. The boy was perplexed. He wondered if
Gilliland had some demonstration in mind and whether
he wanted a pail or a pan or a glass of the liquid. So
he said, "Do you want it to drink?" "No, lad," was
the answer, "I always make a high dive in the last act."
On one occasion Strick was introduced by a local
celebrity. Usually introductions must be said in a dozen
words or so. This time the introducer made the most
of his opportunity to exhibit his oratorical talent. He
went on and on while the people became restless and
squirmed in their seats. Meanwhile Gilliland was wait-
138 STRIKE THE TENTS
ing in the wings. When the talkative but kind man
had finished with his eloquence, Gilliland stuck his
head through the curtains, held up a hand, and said,
"Just a minute, folks, before you go."
J. Adam Bede, for years Congressman from Minne-
sota, had a sense of humor that was sublime. It was
as spontaneous as it was real. He was well named
"The Humorist of the House." I think he more nearly
resembled Bill Nye than any other speaker I have in
mind. He was good for a return trip over any circuit
as often as he could be secured. One day he went
into Harry Harrison's office in Chicago. Harry, a
six-footer and a fine executive, is boyish in his en-
thusiasm and idealism, and as ingenuous as a child.
He likes to express his code in a very few words. On
this occasion he had a card fastened to the wall. The
words on it were, "When in doubt tell the truth."
Bede read it quizzically and said, "That's a good idea,
Harry, but the trouble with you is that you are never
in doubt."
Young people today, and even old ones who did not
travel a great deal forty years ago, can have no concept
of the difficulties attending the necessity of a group of
people reaching a certain point each day, regardless of
transportation and weather conditions. If the trains
did not run, or if a trip was too long to make by horses,
the difficulties were increased. The trains on branch
lines, as a rule did not run on Sunday. One Sunday
we had planned to convey our talent from Grand Island
to Ord, Nebraska, by automobile. That was all right
in dry weather, but it was not dry in Grand Island.
As THEY ROLLED ALONG 139
Rain fell in torrents. It was in 1910, and the road
was but little more than a trail. An automobile could
not get through at all. I happened to be in Grand
Island, a division point of the Union Pacific Railroad,
and I managed to secure a special train. There were
only about six people to carry but we had a full com-
plement of equipment. Those six people climbed into
a long coach and spread their baggage over as many
seats as possible and then unpacked some of their
clothes, that were wet from previous rains, and hung
them all over the car. It was pretty expensive but they
made the date, the first, last and prime objective of all
the talent.
One day in that same year I had Mr. Bryan scheduled
to speak in Garnett, Kansas, in the afternoon, and at
Paola in the evening. There was no train available.
The manager at Garnett secured what he said was the
finest auto in the country to carry us. He also had a
skilled mechanic to accompany the driver and I had to
pay sixty dollars for the trip. After Paola it was
necessary to drive on to Kansas City in time to take
a train at eleven thirty for Iowa. Because of the fame
of mechanic and car, I did not take the usual precaution
of securing an extra vehicle. We got 'to Paola although
the fine auto balked some along the way. We spoke
Bryan early, at six thirty, to allow plenty of time to
reach Kansas City. Now Paola is perhaps forty miles
from Kansas City, and on the fine highway today most
motorists would scorn to make the trip in more than
three-quarters of an hour. It wasn't like that that
evening in 1910. We must have traveled a much
140 STRIKE THE TENTS
greater distance and were frequently lost as the gas
lights on the car expired soon after dark. The men
tried hard enough. The mechanic had the floor boards
of the car removed and was tinkering with some of the
machinery all the time. The thing would run a while
and then stop. After more coaxing it would snort
along for a time, but always stopped again. Once,
one of the men aroused some people in a darkened farm-
house and came back with a bar of soap from which he
cut shavings and fed them into the machine. We
were four hours and a half on the way and missed the
train.
That, I can say in truth, was one of the very few
occasions in my whole Chautauqua experience when
we failed to "make the date," but the difficulties we
encountered were in the common experience of all
the travelers.
With a journey ended for a day, the talent could
not always be at ease. In many places hotels were none
too good, and even at that many of them had no dining
room. Often refuge was found in the home of some
kindhearted citizen and the crew boys had always
spotted the best place for food.
Alton Packard, one of the brightest of star enter-
tainers, classified hotels in little towns as one-towel,
two-towel and three-towel establishments. In the latter
the waitress would come to the guest and announce,
"Beefsteak, pork chops or cold meats." In the second
she would say, "Beefsteak or ham and eggs." In the
third she asked only, "How do you want your eggs."
As THEY ROLLED ALONG 141
By present-day standards transportation facilities
weren't good. Judge Estelle, a Chautauqua lecturer,
needed to change from one railroad to another at
Wichita, Kansas. He dismounted from his train, gave
his baggage to a driver of a horse-drawn hack, and said,
"Take me to the other depot." The driver whipped
up his team, made a turn in the street and stopped at
the curb just across the street. The Judge had had a
ride of about seventy-five feet. The driver unloaded
the baggage, grinned, and said, "That will be two bits,
Cap. I hated to do it but I sure need the money."
Estelle was game. He handed the chap a dollar and
said, "Keep the change."
Many villages were quite arbitrary and positive in
their idea of a proper speed for automobiles. It was
not unusual to see signs "Speed limit ten miles per
hour" or even eight and sometimes twelve. A Chau-
tauqua man had an experience in such a place. He
missed his train connection one night and had a very
long jump to be made somehow. He hired a car and
driver and set out. Early in the morning the two
came to a village with a speed sign. The lecturer,
having been up all night, had asked the driver to slow
down a bit so he could have a little nap. The driver
said he was not exceeding the twelve miles per hour
that was lawful in the village through which they were
passing. A man on a bicycle, who had been hiding
at the side of the road, whistled the travelers to a stop,
exhibited a badge of a town marshal and took the
autoist off for trial. The office of the judge was in
a barber shop. The marshal told his prisoners not
142 STRIKE THE TENTS
to go away, and left the building. In a little while
he returned with the Justice of the Peace, who explained
that it took him a while to "git" there because he was
plowing corn and was at " 'tother end." Then he
lapsed into silence. No one said anything. Finally
the lecturer, thinking of the miles yet to be traveled,
took matters into his own hands. He asked what he
was charged with. The marshal said fast driving.
"How fast," asked the prisoner, "do you say we were
riding ?" "I don't know," was the verdict of the officer,
"but I measured things and you were goin' better'n
twelve miles,"
Again there was silence finally broken by the lec-
turer. "Well, what are you going to do about it?"
The Justice came to life. "They most generally pay
thirteen dollars," he said.
"That's a pretty high price, isn't it?"
"Wall, that's what they generally pay."
"Do you mean then," said the prisoner, "that you
want me to pay you thirteen dollars?"
"That's what they been apayin'."
There was nothing to do but produce the money as
the lecturer thought of the journey ahead. He asked
for a receipt. The Justice said his hands were pretty
stiff and told the culprit to write out a receipt for him
to sign. That was when the lecturer got a little satis-
faction. He composed a receipt which the law officer
signed without reading as he said he didn't have his
specs with him. Following, as I remember, is what
was written:
As THEY ROLLED ALONG 143
Received the sum of thirteen bucks
From a tourist bold, by heck,
Who traveled fast through our town
And durned near broke his neck.
Now let that be a lesson
When again this way you come,
For ridin' fast through our town
Comes pretty high, by gum.
After all, who would not wish to find again a peaceful
little village where the accompaniment of daily action
is not in constant allegro.
One evening just at the opening of the Chautauqua
in Wellington, Kansas, a terrific storm struck that
charming city. It was during that same series of
floods to which I have alluded elsewhere. Inches of
rain fell and continued well into the night. What
was ordinarily the bed of a dry stream became a
raging torrent. Much property and the lives of people
were in danger. The foreman of the crew, a fine
handsome lad, was Donald Plumb. He had been
doubling in ticket sales. He was quite a hero during
the big storm. He plunged into the raging waters
again and again and assisted helpless people to escape.
When I saw him afterwards he was trying to find his
way into the pockets of his trousers which had been
soaked for hours. He was carrying a considerable share
of the season ticket receipts in checks and cash. One
can imagine the state of the checks. All were stuck
together and the words of many were impossible to
decipher.
144 STRIKE THE TENTS
He tried to be good humored about it, just as was a
very efficient foreman of a crew in Northwestern
Nebraska, whose care and setting of his tent was ever
a model A wind storm struck his carefully stretched
big top and tore it loose and finally lifted and carried
it away. As the canvas broke loose from its guy stakes,
the foreman dashed after it with a shipping tag on
which he had written RETURN TO REDPATH-HORNER
CHAUTAUQUAS, KANSAS CITY, Mo., and tied the bit
of paper to a rope of the vanishing tent.
There was one Chautauqua group which appeared to
be somewhat mysterious in identity and purpose al-
though its members had no reason or desire to hide
their identity. Yet many people wondered what and
who were the DCs. The question is asked occasionally
even now. Ten managers, several of them in sharp
competition in operation, often gathered for mutual
counsel. The ten were Crawford Peffer, Keith Vawter,
Harry and Vernon Harrison, Arthur Coit, Louis Alber,
Paul Pearson, J. R. Ellison, C. H. White and this
author. They met two or three times a year, usually
at Atlantic City. The time of such meetings was spent
in some horseplay, but also in much discussion designed
to be of mutual interest and help. Some of the men
smoked, and Paul Pearson would produce a box of
his favorite brand of cigars which happened to be
Chancellor. The men got to calling themselves the
Chancellors. They exchanged bulletins often and usually
headed them, instead of "Dear Chancellors," merely
DCs. So there is a simple answer to what was once a
mystery.
SPELL THEM IN CAPS
Any writer who may propose to make a list of all
of the Chautauqua speakers, must set himself to a job
of research far greater than I am able to undertake.
If he wishes to make a comparative analysis of their
merits, measured by any standard he may select, he
had better secure a large staff for a long quest. I
would think that a proper standard would be a sort of
yardstick that would measure three things : the drawing
power of the speaker, the content of his address, and
the degree of permanence in the impression made. Many
would rate high in the last two qualities, and could fail
in the first. After an experience of twenty-five years
as a lecturer manager, I cannot testify that, as a class,
the men who were rated as headliners contributed
more to the education and enjoyment of the
people than the larger number of speakers whose
names were not printed in capital letters. The
offerings of the latter endowed richly the sub-
stance of the movement and many of them became
quite famous within that field, although their names
were not widely known outside. As to them, my feel-
ings are the same as towards the crew boys. But
there were so many of them, that, regardless of their
fine contribution to a truly great American movement,
the mere listing of their names would require much
space, and an appraisal of their worth would stretch,
perhaps, into volumes.
(145)
146 STRIKE THE TENTS
I cannot, either, write a complete list of those whom
managers liked to advertise as headliners, nor can I
define the word, except to say that they were,
roughly, those who were supposed to possess ability
as public speakers, and had achieved a more or less
national reputation in their own fields, chiefly in gov-
ernment and politics. Certainly in many cases a man-
ager would have a hard time to prove they were top
notchers, if he accepted his box office figures as the
only test. Those whom I name or discuss are really
selected rather to convey an idea of the trend and type
of public opinion than for any other purpose, and I
confine myself to the ones I had sufficient opportunity
to observe.
It is often said, with much truth, that the Chautauqua
was an important factor in the awakening and develop-
ment of the so-called Progressive political movement in
the first dozen years of this century. Besides those
speakers I have named elsewhere, others, such as Ida
Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens and Dr. Harvey W. Wiley,
challenged the attention of forward-looking people who
flocked to their platforms, I believe that is true,
but it is scarcely accurate to say it was so planned.
Managers were astute enough to seek speakers who
were forthright and could talk about the things the
people were thinking about. Men of that type were
quite aggressive in advancing their views and were
quickly attracted to the platform where they could find
a thoughtful audience that would listen and not in-
terrupt. If the Chautauqua nurtured Progressive
thought it used no partisan cradle. I hope I may be
SPELL THEM IN CAPS 147
accepted as truthful when I say partisan politics were
not discussed on the platform and speakers carried no
political or church label. It is quite true that many of
my good Republican friends charged me with providing
too many Democratic speakers, especially after I had
served as chief of a national speaker's bureau in a
couple of presidential campaigns. The records do not
prove the charge, nor can that kind of blame be at-
tached to any other manager I knew.
I have selected the names of thirty-three men in the
political field, men whom I respected highly and who
were broad-minded and constructive speakers in the
Chautauqua.
I have chosen nine governors of states. Hadley and
Folk of Missouri, Hoch of Kansas, Sheldon of Ne-
braska, Pinchot of Pennsylvania, Patterson of Ten-
nessee, Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska, Brough of
Arkansas, and Glenn of North Carolina. Of the nine,
four were Republicans and five were Democrats.
While we presented many members of the House of
Representatives, nine of them stand out most clearly
in my mind. They were George of New York, Bede
of Minnesota, Murdock of Kansas, Rainey of Illinois
(later speaker of the house), McKinley of California,
Scott of Kansas, Champ Clark (who became a truly
great Speaker of the House), Aswell of Louisiana, and
Hobson of Alabama. Of the nine, there were five
Democrats and four Republicans. Likewise ten men
who were (or in one case had been) United States
Senators, will live longest in my memory, of those in
that group. They were LaFollette of Wisconsin, Taylor
148 STRIKE THE TENTS
of Tennessee, Dolliver and Cummings of Iowa, Norris
Brown of Nebraska, Gore of Oklahoma, Cannon of
Utah, Pat Harrison of Mississippi, Allen of Kansas,
and the sainted Norris of Nebraska. Four of the ten
were Democrats and six were Republicans.
Then I take five more who need not be thought of as
officeholders, but were prominent in politics. The five
were Francis J. Heney, Warren G. Harding, Judge
Ben Lindsey, William Howard Taft, and W. J. Bryan.
Mr. Taft's Chautauqua tour was short indeed. The
Kansas heat was intense, and an illness overtook him
so that he was compelled to cancel many of his engage-
ments. Of the five there were three Democrats and
two Republicans. So it will be seen that in the thirty-
three, we had seventeen Democrats and sixteen Repub-
licans, and I don't see how political affiliations could
be divided with a finer line, although no attempt was
made to apportion them in that manner, but that was
the way it happened.
On the whole I think that of those mentioned above,
with the exception of W. J. Bryan, the Republicans
among them contributed more to the progressive
political thought than the Democrats, and some of
them lived long enough to ally themselves to what we
now call the New Deal. The Republicans found them-
selves spoken of either as Standpatters or Progressives,
or maybe Bull Moosers.
Very few men in public life served longer than Sen-
ator Norris of Nebraska, and certainly none enjoyed
more fully the genuine respect and affection of the
American people. He spent the summer of 1910 on
SPELL THEM IN CAPS 149
the Premier Circuit, and that was on the eve of his
successful fight against "Cannonism" in the House of
Representatives. The drums were never beaten loudly
for him and he was neither an emotional nor a
dramatic speaker. His manner was quiet and he spoke
in a conversational tone, but he made friendships along
the way that seemed to ripen into affection with the
years.
Gifford Pinchot came along in 1913. He was very
much in the public eye as a stalwart friend of Theodore
Roosevelt. In my opinion he was the best-informed
man in, and the strongest advocate of, the conservation
of our natural resources of that period. He was a
thoroughly affable, gentlemanly figure on the platform,
and his traveling companions responded to his per-
sonality almost with the vim of a rooting section at a
college football game.
He was one of the only two men, of all the speakers,
with whom I had an argument that moved into some
very sharp words. We had signed a contract together
some months before and shortly before the beginning of
the season he wrote me that he wished to cancel it.
I fear my reply, which he resented, was altogether too
harsh and provocative, and we had it out the first
time I met him at the railroad station in McPherson,
Kansas. That was one of the letters I have always
wished I had written differently. He filled all of his
dates without further complaint, and when I mentioned
the matter of our little controversy in my office in
Washington twenty years later, he seemed to have
forgotten the incident. I held him in high esteem, an
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esteem which I shared for Mrs. Pinchot, with whom
I was associated in a National War Relief campaign
in Washington in 1942. If the people of the Middle-
west did not derive great value from his lectures they
were shortsighted, for there are few places where the
gospel of soil conservation is needed more.
As I try to retrace the road of things that made up
the golden memory of the days of the early Circuits, and
endeavor to fit again the personalities of certain great
men into their ancient places of my most vivid recol-
lections, I must ascribe one of the highest spots to
Champ Clark. The great Missouri Congressman gave
me a portion of his time during three seasons and was
of my first headliners. He was exceedingly scrupu-
lous in his observance of details in appearance and
words. In 1907, after business arrangements had been
completed, he wrote me inquiring carefully the hour
of each appearance so that he could provide proper
apparel for either afternoon or evening. He had a like
fidelity in the preparation of his address. It would be
written carefully and then committed to memory.
There was a chastity in his words as well as a poetic
glow. His humor had a quaint quality but there was
nothing whimsical in his speech. I should say that as
a speaker he displayed as fine an example of good taste
as I have ever seen. In appearance he was a heroic
figure that evoked visions of the dignity and grace of
ancient statesmen. I heard him speak at a dinner
celebrating W. J. Bryan's birthday, in 1911. There
were many visiting statesmen and many speeches, but
SPELL THEM IN CAPS 151
for sheer beauty and glowing color in words, the ad-
dress of Clark was one of the finest I ever had heard.
It was with Mr. Clark that I had my other little
quarrel. That was early in 1908, and southern Kansas
was being punished with fearsome floods. Roads and
rail tracks were washed away. Travel was uncertain
and even hazardous, and mail was delayed. All of our
connections were in confusion. Several speakers were
stranded in one town and there was a void in another.
I came to one of the former and was told that Clark
was looking for me and appeared to be disturbed. I
searched for him at once and must confess that I was
in a bad state of mind and sorely perplexed. Needed
remittances had not arrived and I was put to it to
keep things moving at all. Warren G. Harding, always
genial and calm, joined me as I looked for Mr. Clark.
When I found him I was in a temper, quite unjustified
because the Congressman was surely not responsible for
my woes.
The simple fact is that no checks at all had reached
him and he was very properly disturbed. He lost no
time when we met, in complaining to me about it. He
had been informed that he should collect a certain
amount in each of the few preceding towns, and de-
layed mails had not brought the funds to the men in
charge, so they could not pay. I afterwards knew well
enough that the chief cause for his complaint arose
from the fine care he always employed in keeping his
part of a bargain. I am ashamed of the temper I dis-
played. I told him not to worry about it, that I would
have all the money ready for him and that in the future,
152 STRIKE THE TENTS
if he desired, I would see that his fee was counted into
his hand on the platform before he need begin his
speech. That was an insipience, but Warren Harding
laughed a lot about it and always rallied me whenever
I saw him in the future. I am glad that Clark forgave
me. I went to see him soon after he had been elected
to the speakership of the House. The waiting room
was filled with people and one or two of them told me
they had been waiting for days to see him. Mr. Clark
saw me from his private office, and beckoned me in.
His room was filled with books and he began to talk
about all sorts of things, chiefly, I think, about poetry.
He had just been reading some of Walt Mason's rhymes
and was in a genial mood. I was nervous because I
could not forget all the people outside. When I rose
to go, he made me sit down and continued to talk.
Finally I said, "Really, Mr. Speaker, I am embar-
rassed to take so much of your time when so many
others are waiting." "Sit down/' he said, "I want to
talk to you. It does me so much good to see a man
who doesn't want a government job that I want you
to stay as long as you can." So I remained until he
looked at the clock and observed that it was time for the
House to convene, and I went along my way very
happy that he was too fine to recall the impertinence
of a young manager, still in his twenties. In any
event, after our flooded-city episode we sometimes made
a little ritual of the pay ceremonies. I would hand him
his check with a show of formality, and on one occa-
sion he in turn passed it on to a splendid young stripling
SPELL THEM IN CAPS 153
whom he introduced as his son, Bennet Clark, who
later became the very able senior Senator from Missouri.
The case of W. J. Bryan and Champ Clark when,
at the Baltimore Convention, the former threw his
mighty influence to Woodrow Wilson, thus effecting
his nomination, was by no means the only instance in
which my affections were in paradoxical confusion. Mr.
Bryan mentioned the matter often to me. I am sure
he had a great liking for the Missourian who but for
Bryan would have been nominated, and he regretted
the necessity which compelled the action. To Speaker
Clark, the war became a solemn and grim affair. He
gave solid and emphatic support to the war effort. In
one conversation I had with him in 1918, I learned
again of his centered affection on the young officer,
his son, who made a good record for himself in the
conflict. Champ Clark's love for his family and his
neighbors at Bowling Green, Missouri, was, I think,
symbolic of his patriotism. Had political fortune not
deserted him at Baltimore, I am one who believes the
nation would still have been well served.
Both Conservative and Progressive political thinking
were in flux during the first dozen years of this century,
to as great a degree as in any other period in American
history. One who was in touch with the spokesmen
for either could sense and almost see the surge of
forces moving the public mind. These forces were at
work in the minds of the speakers themselves. Senator
Jonathan Dolliver, of Iowa, surely of a positive and
forceful type and a true Republican, thundered a ringing
challenge to forward-looking and independent citizens.
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Perhaps no one did more to crush old political struc-
ture barriers to a new freedom of thought than Senator
Robert M. LaFollette the elder. He was the only
speaker I knew who could unwind the mazy, dusty
warp of tariff and knit it into an understandable and
lovely pattern. By his magical touch even Schedule
"K" of the Taft Tariff Bill was spread in vivid array,
and vested itself in the clarity and drama of a scene
from Shakespeare. He was the most dramatic, and I
should add, the most nearly vocally unrestrained, of
all the headliners. To permit decent space of time
for musical preludes and other program features, the
usual Chautauqua lecture was limited to an hour in
length. Headliners might go on for an hour and a
half, but the brilliant Wisconsin Senator might speak
for three hours or even longer.
A scene in Seward, Nebraska, on a hot Sunday
afternoon is etched deeply in my memory. The lovely
little park on the Blue River was alive with
people, and unending circles of wagons and bug-
gies, their horses fighting flies, ringed the enclos-
ure. Even the slanting rays of the sinking sun
found the people panting under the sweltering can-
vas, or reclining under the more welcome shade of
trees outside. The fiery little Senator held their at-
tention during the long afternoon. His pompadour
would bristle with each fresh attack, and his hands and
arms flash in their orbit with the grace of an oriole.
The engines of a couple of special trains idled away
at the station, as the trainmen loafed about with no
idea when the all aboard could be called. It was not
SPELL THEM IN CAPS 155
wit nor entertainment those people were seeking as
they submitted an open mind to the little giant for
blow or caress. Small wonder, indeed, that the voters
were beginning to feel for political reins when they
would listen to a speech for so long.
If one did not know the name of the party flag fol-
lowed by the politically Progressive lecturers of the
early nineteen hundreds, it would have been difficult
to read the design of the emblem in their platform
words. It seemed to me that they spoke in the same
tongue, and from well nigh equal conviction. Take
Joseph W. Folk, first Attorney General and then
Governor of Missouri. He was among the first to
sound the call to a new era. Or his successor in the
Governor's mansion, the able and scholarly Herbert
Hadley. Either he or the brilliant and whimsical
Henry J. Allen might easily have been nominated as
Vice President to run with Warren G. Harding in 1920,
and then, in the turn of destiny, one of them would have
found himself in the White House.
In nineteen hundred seven and eight, if one would
base his political prophecy on an appraisal of the man
and the words of his Chautauqua lecture, he would
have surely selected Warren G. Harding as a man of
the people and a champion of the rights of the greatest
number of them. But such prophesying would not
need to envision the White House ahead, to number
the prophet among the friends and admirers of the man
from Ohio. Harding was not famous then, but he was
pretty well known as a newspaperman who had been
Lieutenant Governor of his state. He was a dignified
156 STRIKE THE TENTS
and handsome man and a brilliant orator. He did not
speak in a key greatly different from that employed by
other progressive speakers, and the subject of his lec-
ture was "The Big Stick/' words of almost sacred
memory. He had a virile and almost boyish enthu-
siasm for the organization of the circuit and for the
people of the small cities. He was companionable and
likeable. He liked to visit the local newspaper office,
mount a stool and set a stick of type. The businessmen
loved him and the crew boys almost worshipped him.
My feeling of gratitude toward Warren G. Harding
was so deep that no political gossip nor scandal could
ever erase it. On the Chautauqua trail he was a gentle-
man of sound sense and good taste. The encourage-
ment he gave me was a sustaining strength that I
needed, and I believe my colleagues of the day shared
my high regard for him.
While our public were pretty broad-minded, I do
not think a discussion of partisan politics would have
been welcome and there was rather a firm but tacit
rule against it. If it was a rule it was suspended com-
pletely, however, on two lengthy occasions. Mr.
Bryan's generalship and audacity at the Baltimore
Convention in 1912 projected him onto the highest
planes of Chautauqua favor he had ever before occupied.
The convention had continued several day longer
than anyone had expected. The sessions of some of his
towns were over, but we held the tents in the air until
he finally arrived, and doubled up his already heavy
schedule of engagements until he could catch up. We
could scarcely accommodate the crowds, and the flow
SPELL THEM IN CAPS 157
of dollars into our box office was greater than ever
before or since. He had attended the Republican con-
vention as a newspaper reporter, and people had read
so much of the excitement at Baltimore that they had
little else in mind. They all wanted to hear of the
conventions. While the matter was always put to a
vote, no one wanted "The Prince of Peace" that sum-
mer but shouted for the "Tale of Two Conventions,"
and that is what they usually got.
After the election that fall, I had some correspond-
ence with Congressman Charles Scott of Kansas, who
chided me a bit for permitting too much discussion
from Democratic speakers and giving a lesser oppor-
tunity to the Republicans. I pointed in vain to some
of the Republicans I have named above. He thought
that was not enough and that I was inclined to choose
Democrats who were more prominent in their party
than our Republicans were in theirs. I asked him to
name some candidates from the G. O. P. whom I
might secure. I fe said he had never heard of Theodore
Roosevelt, for instance, or Elihu Root being engaged
on the Chautauqua. I replied that either of those two
gentlemen could name his own terms if he would con-
sent to speak. lie thought it was not unlikely that he
himself might be a good addition to the program, and
even proposed a debate that suited me fine.
We finally agreed to arrange a series of joint debates
by him and Henry J. Allen of Kansas. The debates
were brilliant and exciting, and I think the two men
grew in the estimation of each other day by day. Allen
had the greater reputation as an orator, but Scott held
158 STRIKE THE TENTS
his own and the public derived about as much pleasure
as they have ever enjoyed. So far as political comment
on the outside was concerned, however, I had let my-
self open for plenty of criticism. The Democrats
thought the Chautauqua was going Republican, and
the Republicans were really mad because, since Allen
was a Bull Mooser, I was accused of keeping open the
breach between the two factions of the G. O. P., and
apparently no politician was satisfied. The Republican
Chairman of one of the states gave out a statement
that the Wilson Administration was seeking to control
free speech from the platform and that Horner was
brought into Washington for his orders. I met up
with that chairman two or three years later and told
him he surely knew that his statement was far away
from the facts, and he admitted the truth but thought
it was pretty effective political publicity so far as he was
concerned.
When I remember incidents like that and recall the
honorable career of Victor Murdock and think, in
retrospect, of the numerous platform celebrities who
strayed a bit from the solid rock of partisanship, either
heeding the call of the Bull Moose or, later, the lure
of the New Deal, I am forced to think that some of
them were never quite orthodox or that their adven-
tures in the tents may have modified their views.
Since I first became old enough to take note of
public matters, the people have evolved their little
sarcasms and enjoyed hugely oft-repeated jokes at the
expense of United States Senators. They like to
think of them as a cloistered group, invested with self-
SPELL THEM IN CAPS 159
created dignity, frequenting what has been termed a
rich man's club. No matter though the Senator, who
is fairly secure in support from his own state, is the
most powerful officer in the Government, next to the
President. Perhaps it is of an innate sense of equality
among Americans, which generates a strange desire to
raise a favorite public man to the utmost peak of public
approval and then hurl a massed force to knock out all
the supports while the people watch the mighty one
topple to the earth. There are exceptions, of course,
but it seems almost certain that if a public man can
rise high enough he will often be crashed by public
opinion, and about the only way he can escape is to
die before the fall can overtake him. Politicians who
achieve a very high place can scarcely be sure of a calm
and peaceful old age, replete with the gratitude of
their fellow citizens.
However, many who regarded Senators as an en-
crusted, aloof group, lacking human understanding and
unfamiliar with the mental reactions of ordinary people,
might have had some of their illusions erased, and
enjoyed a jolly good time as well, if they had listened
to some of my Senators of the Chautauqua Circuit.
I doubt if there was ever a more popular and gen-
erally satisfactory speaker than the Blind Statesman,
from Oklahoma, Thomas Gore. Considering his af-
fliction, no one could ever quite comprehend the deft-
ness of his physical movements, the depths of his learn-
ing, and the adroitness of his words. As an orator, I
must give him a high mark. As a silver-voiced diplomat,
readying the minds of his audience for the solid blows
160 STRIKE THE TENTS
he could strike, he had a Mark Anthonian skill. His
good humor rippled like the play of water under sun-
light. Though he could not see with his eyes, he had
a facile talent to spread out a vista for his listeners to
see. Notwithstanding the position he was said to oc-
cupy when we were facing the dread of war in 1915, 1
think he was more effective in advocating a strengthened
American Navy even than Hobson, although the latter
preceded him by several years, when the people thought
even less of danger from abroad.
Another high ranker was Senator Robert Taylor,
Fiddling Bob, of Tennessee. It had been said that he
fiddled his way into the affections of his people although
he carried no instrument on the circuit* His journey
down the hot trail was lighted by the smiles of thou-
sands. Every speech was in the white beauty of Dog-
wood blossoms perfumed by honeysuckles and tinkled
with the songs of mockingbirds. His kindly nature
beamed with the flow of fine gold. How we all loved
him ! May his kind live again. I joined him one day
in August, 1910, at Aurora, Nebraska. The circuit
was not yet very solid in finances, and no doubt there
had been little rumors that things were not going too
well. He asked me to take a little walk with him, as he
wanted to buy some shirts, for otherwise, he said,
someone would be putting him in the pest house. When
he pulled out his wallet to pay for his purchase he
extracted a number of familiar checks. There were
some six or seven of them, each good for nine hundred
dollars and they bore my signature. "I have an idea,"
he said, "that things are a little tough for you this
SPELL THEM IN CAPS 161
summer. I have had a lot of fun, and you have been
good to me. I don't need this money, and I want
you to take it." I am quite sure he was very much
in earnest and would have given me those thousands of
dollars without regret. Needless to say, I could not
accept the offered gift and I tell the story to show what
kind of man he was. I have attempted to describe his
lecture as a thing of rare beauty, but there was nothing
tumid in it; for while it was as airy as the flight of a
butterfly, it was as sound as solid metal.
When I was directing speakers for Woodrow Wilson
in Chicago in 1912, I met a young man from Missis-
sippi, then serving his first term in Congress. His name
was Pat Harrison. Happily for our cause, he had
already been renominated in his state and need give no
thought to any campaign for election. We were the
gainer because he was one of the most reliable, in-
dustrious and effective speakers on the list. I became
very much attached to him and was glad to have a
little part in his successful efforts to gain a seat in the
Senate in 1918. His record thereafter need not be
mentioned as he became one of our most sincere and
constructive statesmen until he died. The brilliant
Senator traveled the Premier Circuit in 1923. Oddly
enough, while he was a well-defined partisan in politics,
I think he was even more popular in our Republican than
Democratic states. He enjoyed the tour, delivered an
eloquent and persuasive lecture, and had a cordial recep-
tion, although the waters were very quiet along the
political shore. The covenant of the League of Nations
had been rejected by America, but we agreed that it
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would be well for him to make an appeal for considera-
tion of the World Court. It was a vain effort; the
people had no interest in the matter and his words fell
among the rocks.
Even if the Chautauqua had engaged in the busi-
ness of partisan political discussion, and could also have
retained valuable factors, community accord, inspira-
tional discourse by broad churchmen and a pretty good
grade of entertainment, I think it could have produced
a good model for political campaign oratory. American
quadrennial campaign battles are not quite effective in
furnishing a sound base for reason, logic and tolerant
thought. A campaign speech is charged with passion
and exaggeration and star-high pledges that must evoke
misgivings even in the heart of the orator himself.
Considered in relation to the utterances of the speaker's
colleagues, it is as discrete as a vaudeville olio of yore,
and often strays far from the straight line of truth.
When the political headliner faced a Chautauqua audi-
ence he was conscious of certain platform traditions that
had fostered an honest appraisal of all opinions, his
own equally with those of men who did not agree with
him. Therefore, Stand Pat or Progressive, Democratic
or Republican, the lectures of a group of speakers using
a common platform seemed to achieve an agglutinative
quality that, yet, did not resist a free expression of
whatever ideas these men wished to convey.
After all, it was not the political giants alone who
found their names in capital letters in the Chautauqua
programs. In a less news-provocative way the famous
clergymen of the age were truly headliners. There
SPELL THEM IN CAPS 163
were a handful of great pulpit orators who could hold
their own in drawing power with the most brilliant
of the statesmen. Henry Ward Beecher, one of the
first of the luminaries of Redpath's list, might have
looked back to the earth and beheld his mantle most
creditably worn by Newell Dwight Hillis, S. Parkes
Cadman and Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus. There were
three men who reached and held the heights. With
all of its crudities, and there were some, the Chautauqua
amply justified its march when it could enlist in service
men of that heroic mold. Hillis, perhaps, moved closer
to the people on the benches, and, with a lyrical qual-
ity, radiated high spirituality that struck deeply. Cad-
man was profound in intellectuality but quite human
in his reach.
I knew Gunsaulus more intimately than the others,
and I think his "Savanarola" ranks with the greatest
inspirational lectures of his or any age. He was the
president of the Armour Institute of Technology, and
pastor of a very large People's Church. His thoughts
were cast in poetry and his life moved in music. He
was a master in his knowledge and appreciation of art,
and his learning was as wide as the world.
I spent twelve hours with him one summer day in
Estes Park in Colorado, and listened to a discourse
that was twelve hours long. When we drove along
the mountain stream he compared the sound of the
rushing water to a symphony whose movements he
analyzed. As we paused at the foot of a snow-clad
peak his mind turned to geology, and he knew the
scientific name of all the formations of rocks. As we
164 STRIKE THE TENTS
returned in the early evening the wonders of astronomy
found a voice in his words. The whole day was the
unfolding of a heroic epode which, while it bewildered
my mind, imported a strange calmness to the soul.
One Saturday at noon I telephoned his number in
Chicago. His voice came back impatient and harsh.
"I'm busy/' it said, "I haven't time to talk; what do
you want; who is it?" "This is Charles Horner," I
said. "I merely called to pay my respects." "Oh,"
he said, "wait a minute." Then I could hear him call-
ing to some one "Come here"; and to me, "You stay
right there are you there?" Soon came the voices
of a group of singers, and I listened to quite a concert
from the study of the man who did not have time to
talk. When the music was finished he asked me what
I was doing. I told him I had completed my business
and wanted to look at a collection of oriental rugs
I had read about. He told me to wait on a certain
corner. Soon he appeared, and we spent the whole
afternoon looking at the specimens while I received as
much of an education in history, color and design in
weaving as I could absorb. I purchased a number of
the beautiful things under his competent direction, and
in the end he sent someone to exchange my pullman
berth for a room on the train, and had the whole
bundle of rugs tied together and deposited it on the
train, because as the next day was to be Easter Sundaj,
he wanted my wife to have them without delay.
The name of Russell Conwell was known in nearly
every house that possessed a Bible as well as a fireside.
It is believed that his "Acres of Diamonds" was heard
SPELL THEM IN CAPS 165
by more people than ever listened to any other lecture.
For nearly fifty years that inspiring American classic
rolled in eloquence from the pastor of Temple Church
into the ears of hundreds of thousands. His tour of
the Premier Circuit in 1917 was the parade of a simple,
sublime and uncrowned Prince of Religion. Age and
his failing health brought a mist into our eyes, but
failed to dim the radiance of his words.
It would be a sorry omission to fail to record the
name of Dr. George E. Vincent, the son of the great
bishop who was the father of the Chautauqua.
George was president of Chautauqua Institution for
several years. He was an outstanding educator, some-
time President of the University of Minnesota. In
the literary style and brilliance of his speaking I should
classify him as among the few best of the platform.
Currently, the manner and style of Adlai Steveneson,
1952 presidential candidate, most nearly resemble those
of Vincent. However, the latter did not use a manu-
script on the platform. Indeed, as I search my memory
I cannot remember that any Chautauqua speaker I
ever saw had recourse to a written address.
The men I have mentioned were not the only giants
of the pulpit whose names were printed in boldface type.
I cannot name them all, or indeed very many more,
but I should write the names of George R. Stuart of the
Southern Methodist Church, Msgr. J. Henry Tihen,
onetime dean of his cathedral and later Bishop of the
Catholic Church, and Dean Sumner, later Bishop of
Oregon in the Episcopal Church. All in all, if political
166 STRIKE THE TENTS
speakers had their innings, the men of the Church had
their days.
Any writer who paused here and there in the Chau-
tauqua tents over a period of more than two decades,
could not close a chapter like this without a feeling
of sadness. The names in Caps, the forerunner of the
bright lights, may have indicated the scope but by no
means measured the substance of the Chautauqua.
There were other names, names that became household
words. They were borne by people who were as
eloquent, and, with a more rehearsed technique, became
the seasoned and more comfortable heroes of the season-
ticket owners. Many of them had made or have since
made a good record in business or profession, apart
from, but rather closely related to the platform, in law,
literature, the classroom, the church, or science, or per-
haps on the stage. I have already said they were too
numerous to record. As I list the names of some of
them, no one could know better than I the utter inade-
quacy of the roll, or be more conscious of the many
worthy ones omitted.
I must begin with Ralph Parlette because he was
the veritable shepherd of the whole Chautauqua flock.
His "University of Hard Knocks/' or much of it, has
become a part of the language. These names are given
in no order of worth or station, and are drawn from
memory alone.
George D. Alden Phil Baird
Col. George W. Bain Bertha Kunz Baker
Elwood T. Bailey William Sterling Battis
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167
Lou Beauchamp
J. Adam Bede
Isabel Garhill Beecher
William Rainey Bennett
Arthur E. Bestor
Ralph Bingham
Ng, Poon Chew
William A. College
Ross Crane
D. Thomas Curtin
Smith Damron
Elias Day
John B. DeMotte
Ralph Dennis
Frank Dixon
Brooks Fletcher
Montaville Flowers
Daniel F. Fox
Glen Frank
Strickland Gillilan
Theodore Graham
Joseph Hanley
Frank Johnson
Hilton I. Jones
Sam Jones
Marcus Kavanagh
Sidney Landon
Eugene Laurant
Sylvester A. Long
Lincoln McConnell
Father McCorry
John T. McCutcheon
Bishop McDowell
Robert Mclntire
Charles S. Medbury
DeWitt Miller
Adrian Newens
Edward Amherst Ott
Alton Packard
Harold Peat
Charles Plattenburg
Jess Pugh
Bishop Quayle
John B. Ratto
Opie Read
Edward Reno
Phidelah Rice
Katharine Ridgway
Frank R. Roberson
Lew Sarrett
Roy Smith
Edward A. Steiner
Z. T. Sweeney
Lorado Taft
Charles Taggart
Albert Wiggam
Herbert L. Wiliett
"Sunshine" Willits
Montraveille Wood
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The names of most of them could be written properly
with high scholastic degrees, but no collegiate honor
can measure their worth. Many of them have left
earthly scenes. I doubt if any of them was wealthy with
much money in the bank, but they all contributed vastly
to a general concept of good life and to a high realization
that there is better riches than gold in the Brotherhood
of Man.
It should not be thought that all of the great speakers
of the Chautauqua were men. The lady platformists
were quite few in number, and some of them were
brilliantly successful. However, I do not think there
have been a very large percentage of feminine oratorical
masters, if I may borrow from the gender of the word
and ascribe it to the ladies. In Chautauqua days not
many women had really achieved the art of the orator.
Nor do I think they have gone far yet in grasping it.
Men have been working at the job for centuries and
after all, women are comparatively new in public speak-
ing. Women have always held a rank as high or even
higher than their masculine contemporaries on the
stage and in opera, or any sort of dramatic readings.
I am duly appreciative of the talents and perfection
of many modern Portias, of gentle savants and scholars
and writers, and they are quite the equal of men in
the art of expression.
I think there is one reason, and one only, why women
have not advanced as far as they deserve in public
speaking. Any one who has listened to radio broadcast-
ing of political conventions will understand what I
mean. The woman should not and need not adopt
SPELL THEM IN CAPS 169
the style and manner of her brother. Her voice has a
quality quite different from and often superior to that
of a man. Her hands have a grace of movement and
her face and body a charm which no man can possess.
She sacrifices quality, grace and charm as she adopts
the style of the male. In speaking, a man's tone range
is wider than hers. A man may raise his pitch and
amplify his tone volume for climactic emphasis. To
accomplish the same purpose she would better lower
the first but can safely add all the volume the lower
pitch can carry. Otherwise her high pitch is likely to
sound shrill. If she will use only her own physical,
mental and spiritual assets, she can easily create a fem-
inine art in public speaking which no man can penetrate.
If I may be both bold and objective, I should say that
Ex-Congresswoman Claire Booth Luce of these new
days, furnishes a good example of a nice perfection in
speech.
However, women have achieved an equality with
men of skill in almost everything. They can even wear
trousers with distinction, and perhaps they can emulate
male oratorical methods with equal success, but I will
still insist that they had better keep their tone range
far within the confines of one octave and have some
notes to spare. In any event the mechanical amplifier
has confused, and is perhaps destroying, the art of
the spoken word as it was known in the Chautauqua.
Perhaps it is evolving a new and higher perfection, but
I think it has yet much to accomplish.
If I am hesitant to attempt a comparison of the
individual rhetorical merits of the men of the platform,
170 STRIKE THE TENTS
I have a positive terror of a similar effort in the case
of the ladies. I am well content to offer a few examples
of feminine success. High on any list must appear
the name of Ruth Bryan Rhode, the daughter of the
Great Commoner. She has much of the style and
some of the manners in inflection and enunciation of
her father. She is tall and striking in appearance and
has a voice of depth and easy modulation. Her humor
is sudden in essay and her words fit well in ears. She
has a drawing power quite above the average and
she was usually conversational in tone and companion-
able in style. She would delve rather deeply in a
somewhat massive subject, which, however, she could
keep on the line of narrative, although many of her
sentences were metaphorically adorned, and were quite
alive with eloquence.
Maude Ballington Booth, the Little Mother of
Prisons, should always be rated as one of the most
valued and useful figures of the platform. Her lecture
earnings were earmarked for the service of the men
who emerged from behind the bars. One can scarcely
mention that great soul without a desire to write a book
of a life of devotion cast on the plane of the spirit
and expressed in an eloquence as sublime as her own
ideals.
LaSalle Corbel Picket, wife of the Confederate
General who led the brilliant charge up Cemetery Hill
at Gettysburg, was a living and shining example of
the grace and dignity of American womanhood. She
was a beautiful creature, with white hair and flashing
eyes. The people of her audience could easily imagine
SPELL THEM IN CAPS 171
that they were transported into a mansion of rare beauty
and taste. She possessed a regality of bearing but with
a grace that was quite demure as she responded to ap-
plause with a deep curtsy that might have graced a
place in the days of the Cavaliers. The grace of her
presence was no less than the charm of her words, as,
without bitterness or regret, she retold her stories of
the Civil War.
It was from women like these and unnumbered sis-
ters of theirs, children of music and drama, that the
Chautauqua found beauty even though the setting was
on a stage built of rough boards under a cloth cover
that radiated heat and sometimes leaked rain. All were
enriched with women of the character and type of Belle
Kearney, sometime associate of Frances Willard, and
Mrs. A. C. Zehner, the states lady from Texas*
Headliners or run of the mill, all Chautauqua lectur-
ers had to have one common quality if they survived.
They had to draw their lectures from their own knowl-
edge and experience. Any excursion abroad was
quickly discerned and fell flat. I once toyed with the
idea of assigning a specific subject for discourse to stu-
dious and trained speakers. In laying out a program
for a year or several years with the hope of embracing
some educational phases, it was sometimes difficult to
find the speaker to fit. Newspaper and magazine editors
who wish to secure a story on a specific subject may
safely commission a good writer, honest in his sense
of facts, to undertake the research and produce the
story. I wanted to try a similar plan for speakers. I
talked to Mr. Bryan about it and he said that while
172 STRIKE THE TENTS
he would be interested in the experiment he didn't
think it would work,
I found that he was right. A writer may have his
thousands of readers and if a majority of them or
even some of them approve what he writes, he may
be successful. His readers are not gathered together
in one audience, and even his admirers have no oppor-
tunity to transmit their own sanction to fellow readers.
Besides his creation may be evaluated by his written
words alone. Those who listen to a lecturer may not
agree with the speaker's opinions but he must win
the respect of most of them if they are to say he is good.
Besides they have the evidence of his appearance, his
personality, and their own estimate of his veracity and
sincerity to weigh with the words they hear. There is
but little relation in the separate arts of the speaker
and the writer, and certainly a narrower base for com-
parison. In short, I learned that the successful lec-
turer need not and should not stray far from his
store of direct knowledge, nor from his own experience.
We could find young people with sparkling talent in
music and for the stage. We could teach them, coach
them and dress them and they would be acceptable or
perhaps brilliant performers, but no one could develop
a good lecturer by books or polish. With necessary
talent and education, good looks and fine dress, he still
had to read from the pages of the book of his own life.
FROM PEAK TO PIT
The circuit Chautauqua flourished in the spirit of
unity and in the patriotic surge of the World War.
It withstood the first impact of postwar boom days,
and the mental and moral relaxation that attended the
early twenties. The movement reached its peak in 1922
and was carried by its own momentum for more than
a half dozen years longer. Some managers tried,
earnestly enough, to broaden its educational base, and
others were quite content to ride on the tide of popular
approval. But the wisest and most devoted managers
could not find much new seed to sow, nor discover a
fresh fertilizer to invigorate a soil that was becoming
fatigued.
It is a superficial assumption to claim that the Chau-
tauqua was strictly an educational institution. It had
good entertainment and could serve well as a sounding
board for public opinion. Certainly and above all, it
inspired and nourished habits of individual thinking.
Not the least of its attributes was its peculiar talent to
foster Community unity and action, and these in
turn were its chief benefactors. The rather large num-
ber of its advocates who acclaimed the Chautauqua as
a vast educational movement were reading from their
own visions and not from facts. It was a good stimulus
for educational processes, particularly in awakening de-
sires to read and go to school. Some of its most en-
(173)
174 STRIKE THE TENTS
thusiastic friends exaggerated its educational virtues
to such an extent that in the end the movement suffered
from too much praise. As a matter of fact, its chief
educational benefit was conferred upon its own person-
nel. We all learned more than we taught. President
Harding said in 1922 that the movement had found its
greatest intellectual beneficiaries among those who ad-
dressed varied audiences in differing and wide scattered
communities. It offered healthful mental refreshment
to the audience for a week while it furnished a graduate
training school, of a kind, for its talent, crewmen,
managers and agents, for a season. Aside from the
benefits to its own people the Lyceum and Chautauqua
had three purposes : to provide information on as many
subjects as it could handle, to furnish good entertain-
ment, and to foster the will and spirit for community
unity. That it could and did use the latter to its own
advantage does not reduce the value of it. Paul M.
Pearson, one of its greatest leaders, said that the pur-
pose and method of the Lyceum and Chautauqua were
not to announce what people should think but to give
them accurate information that would help them to
think.
Many millions of people, according to our govern-
ment figures, were assembling in the Chautauqua tents,
and a very large number gathered in Lyceum enter-
tainment and Lecture Halls. Managers were put to
it to recruit enough of the grade of talent they must
have. We could train actors, musicians and enter-
tainers; we would produce plays and concerts and
operas; but no man in good sense could produce a
FROM PEAK TO PIT 175
worth-while lecturer. Scouts had an open ear in college
classrooms, listened to more sermons than they were
accustomed to, penetrated Judge's Chambers and court-
rooms and found front seats in conventions of all sorts.
Some of them had good judgment, but others forgot that
any rooster will fight better in his own barnyard.
The larger circuits with more money for talent pay
suffered less than those of narrow budgets. There were
not enough lecturers of weight to fill the posts. Some
of us kept the best evening spots for the speakers al-
though we knew well enough that a play or light opera
or even a musician would attract more silver. This was
not all because of idealism, but we were wise enough
to know that we might thus retain the sponsorship and
backing of the businessmen who signed our contracts.
One of the first causes of the decline of the Chau-
tauqua was managerial inability to provide enough pow-
erful speakers, and a lessening skill to promote them.
Meanwhile the entertainment features of programs
were blooming and expanding. The old-time tried
platform concert companies were still the most reliable,
but were far too few to supply the demand. I estab-
lished a producing organization and a few other man-
agers took the same course. Coaches and instructors in
music, platform technique and deportment were en-
gaged. Composers and arrangers of scores were added
to the staff, and skillful costumers were not forgotten,
for we dressed our performers well. Bright, fresh and
young singers and musicians were recruited from all
over the land. There was no dearth of applications.
If we needed a hundred new singers, for instance, per-
176 STRIKE THE TENTS
haps as many as a thousand applicants were heard.
After they were found, the difficult work remained.
Many of them were untrained, or, worse, badly trained.
They had to be chiseled from awkward amateurishness
into some degree of professional worth. Programs of
sketches, operettas and all sorts of musical vehicles had
to be written. I wrote some dozens of them myself.
Composers like Thurlow Lieurance or, for a time, Dr.
Howard Hansen, wrote musical scores and others
would make orchestrations. When we were successful
in producing a company of unusual excellence there was
a good market for it on other circuits, and the royalties
received assisted a great deal in sustaining the organiza-
tion which we called the Premier Productions. With
my nose pretty close to the hearthstone, I wrote one
sketch entitled "The Old Home Singers/' and Thurlow
Lieurance wrote the music. It was pretty much of a
"Mother, home and heaven" entertainment, but the mel-
odies were delightful. The young people in the cast
were handsome, with lovely voices, and the costumes
were quite elegant, in contrast to the brown canvas of
the tent. It went so well that in the next few years we
produced it in nearly twenty-five companies which were
booked all over the United States and Canada. Scores
of similar units were created ; most of them were pretty
good, although some fell flat and had to be taken out or
reconstructed.
Wherever we went we had an eye and ear open for
new and brilliant candidates for the platform, and we
found them in all sorts of places. My wife and I were
at dinner in our hotel in Florence, Italy, one evening,
FROM PEAK TO PIT 177
and we heard some exquisite music coming from a dis-
tant salon. It was so pleasant that I looked for the
source and discovered four young people playing
stringed instruments. They had a nice skill and gave
the effects of a much larger organization. I found that
three of them were sisters, natives of Hungary. They
spoke several European languages, and we got along so
well that before the evening had passed we had made
contracts for the American Chautauqua Circuits. They
were well received and remained in this country several
years.
By way of contrast in location, I was once invited to
a modest little home in Roswell, New Mexico, and was
asked to listen to the music of the family father,
daughter, two sons and the daughter's husband. They
turned out to be superbly simple and attractive people
with evidence of native talent that no practiced ear and
eye could fail to discern. I brought them to Kansas
City, had them trained and coached for a few weeks,
and they got along so well that they became famous
in radio and stage shows. They are known as Louise
Masscy and her Westerners. I think no one ever knew
more lovable and gentle people than they are.
Many of the young musicians of tent days went on
the Broadway stage, to national broadcasting and to
glittering heights in Hollywood. I would like to men-
tion some of them, but they might be embarrassed to
have anyone read of their humble start.
There wa v s one, however, whom I can mention with-
out fear of giving offense. lie is Howard Hanson, who
joined one of our little Concert Companies when he was
178 STRIKE THE TENTS
fifteen years old. He played on the piano and cello,
and, even at that age, showed that he had unusual tal-
ent. The money he earned assisted him in pursuing
his studies, and perhaps his experience contributed to
the nice democracy of his art. When he was several
years older he toured the Premier with Glen Frank and
Opie Read, the lecturers for his day. That was a com-
pany of simple and congenial greatness. Frank was a
young man of brilliance and mental power. He became
editor of Century Magazine, then president of the Wis-
consin University, and later chairman of the Educa-
tional or Policy Committee of the Republican party.
He was running for the Governorship of Wisconsin
when he was fatally injured in an automobile accident.
Opie Read, the creator of Tennessee Judge, Starbucks,
and dozens of other novels, gave us a veritable garden
of flowers in words, and had captured the symphonic
beauty of the universe which he set in a rhythm of color
and loveliness for our ears. He had an imagination
like the sweep of a meteor, and some time in the future
our grandchildren will rediscover the charm of a great
poet who wrote in prose.
Hanson won a first American Scholarship of the
Academy in Rome, and after he had written some sym-
phonies that he conducted in the capitals of Europe, be-
came the director of the Eastman School of Music and
is held to be one of the greatest of American composers.
Our family was very fond of him and we are happy that
he wrote some of his best music in our home in Mission
Hills.
FROM PEAK TO PIT 179
Although I had ever been aware of the mastering im-
pulse in young people to express themselves publicly in
song and words, my years of work with them gave me
an extended knowledge of the depth and fervor of that
impulse. I was saddened by the fact that while the
majority of candidates had labored diligently, and at
great cost, to perfect themselves in the technique of per-
formance, they had little or no training in the technique
of projecting their talent. I had great respect and ad-
miration for instructors in music and vocal arts in
schools and private studios. There are no more diligent
and conscientious people in any field of education than
they were and are, but I felt that their work should be
supplemented by training their students to make an ac-
ceptable public appearance.
In 1914, after a long period of planning, I established
a school of music and allied activities in Kansas City,
which was named the Horner Institute of Fine Arts.
The policy in instruction was no different than that of
other good schools. The teachers in studios and class-
rooms were not charged with any responsibility for the
supplementary training I have indicated. That was a
job for competent directors and coaches, and I cannot
remember that any student or young artist was ever re-
quired to pay for it. The Institute became one that was
quite unique among institutions of the kind. It earned
its way to a considerable extent, or any deficit was made
up with funds from our allied activities and no public
appeal was ever made for money to support it. There
was a surge of ambitious young people and the whole
atmosphere sparkled with hope. The director of the
180 STRIKE THE TENTS
school was a musician of note, whose unusual talent,
familiarity with the aspirations of young people and
broad training and experience in America and Europe,
fitted him for the task to a degree better than any other
man I know. He was Dr. Earl Rosenberg, and we
were boyhood friends in Lexington, Nebraska.
The success and growth of the Institute were very
gratifying. The student enrollment expanded to some
three thousand people a year and the faculty members
increased proportionately in number. We were put to
it to expand our buildings and physical equipment to
care for the student growth, but managed in some man-
ner to do so. At the height of the success of the
Institute, I yielded to the urging of many good friends,
who were devoted to civic affairs, and gave the school,
free of debt, to a group of public-spirited men. Later,
when I was called to Washington for what seemed to
be important duties, I resigned from the presidency of
it. I must confess that the day I finally transferred the
Institute was the saddest one of my life.
The use of the coaching facilities of the Institute were
not restricted to our students. Perhaps not more than
S or 10 per cent of the personnel of Chautauqua and
Lyceum musical and dramatic companies were recruited
from our student body. Our scouts held auditions in
many places, but whether our performers came from the
big or the rural places, most of them were brought to
the Institute for coaching before they were committed
to the circuits. Other managers seemed to like our
companies because many of them commissioned us to
produce some for their own circuits.
FROM PEAK TO PIT 181
Redpath-Horner was not alone in this activity, by
any means. Harry P. Harrison maintained a large and
competent staff of professional directors. Ellison and
White established a Conservatory of Music. Crawford
Peffer and Paul Pearson were in the forefront of man-
agers who gave great care to the preparation of their
traveling companies.
I blush as I write so profusely of the activities of
Redpath-Horner. My only justification is that I was
more intimate with them. What I did, or sought to do,
others were doing as well, or better. My consolation
is that ours were typical of all the rest, and, together,
combined to create a great movement which, I submit,
was unique in the history of social action.
I do not state nor imply that Chautauqua people held
an edge in human virtues. They were good sincere
and decent folks. In standards of behavior they aver-
aged well with the average people of the community
which they served, and that was pretty good. Life was
not so free and easy in those days as now. A large
number of people regarded certain habits like smoking
and drinking as very sinful. A majority in the Chau-
tauqua personnel did not indulge in either, and almost
universally smoking was prohibited on the Chautauqua
"Ground/* at least so far as our own people were con-
cerned It was an easy prohibition to enforce.
Some attempts to adapt programs with prevailing
sentiment were funny. For instance, if the script of a
play provided a dinner scene and when the lines of the
hostess read "J ames > (the butler) serve the cocktails,"
no one was deceived when she said "Jzmes, serve the
182 STRIKE THE TENTS
grapejuice." The good manager acquired enough wis-
dom to scan the lines in his offerings closely enough to
eliminate situations or words that might provoke ridi-
cule. Many quips were made about Chautauqua
"Morality," and young performers had much sport in
giggling that "We must be refined." I am positive the
Chautauqua people were careful in their behavior, but in
their environment it would have been difficult to be
otherwise. Wrongdoing needs secret places for its per-
formance, and there were not many such spots on this
long trail.
Within a season or two the youngsters in music and
entertainment learned much from old-time troupers and
from the citizens of the towns with whom they asso-
ciated very freely. Many a Chautauqua Concert Com-
pany grew in stature and acquired a personality as pos-
itive as that of an individual star performer.
Very often, these companies were made up of young
ladies. As Vawter would have said, girls were good
merchandise then, as now. Yet Vawter would have
been the first to reprimand or remove a youngster who
stepped out of line. Generally they were sweet, lovable
and nearly always beautiful damsels. The Chautauqua
trail was a golden road, and the ambition of those
young performers was heart warming. The Killarney
Girls, the American Girls, the Althea Players (in
numerous editions), the College Singing Girls, and
many, many others, brightened programs that were
often heavy in content, and made joy in the tents. Yet
a girl in slacks, or with bare legs or a plunging neckline
or even too much make-up, might have created an
FROM PEAK TO PIT 183
undesirable situation. Perhaps all that was hypocrisy
in moral concept, although the Chautauqua didn't think
so at the time, and, anyhow, it was good business policy.
The fathers and mothers in the audience took the young
ladies into their homes and their hearts and most of
them longed to see their own daughters admitted into
the charmed circle of talent.
It is certain that the preachers and the church people
were the most ardent supporters of the Chautauqua.
As I have written, Sunday, for years, was the big day
in the week of entertainment. A town that had no Sun-
day program would have felt hurt and cheated. For
years many churches dismissed Sunday evening services
so that all could attend the Chautauqua. The introduc-
tion of plays gradually produced a change of feeling.
Not that the church people did not want to see the
plays many thousands of them witnessed their first on
the Chautauqua platform. Yet a dramatic performance
was unseemly on a Sunday evening and not many man-
agers dared, or desired, to offer it. The alternative was
do two shows one day in a week, and the odd town had
to take its theatre on an afternoon. That aroused re-
sentment in that particular place and some of the less
religious people there took their spite out on the church
people. That was the first split in the solid com-
munity favor. Other people, possibly as a sort of retal-
iation, began to find fault with Sunday admission
charges. The Sunday that had been the great friend
of old Chautauqua, became a bone of contention.
Finally, many of us came to eliminate Sunday programs
184 STRIKE THE TENTS
altogether, but the lost day in the week came near to
being the weight that our finances could not stand.
Our musical offerings expanded in scope and, I think,
in merit. We found we could produce an acceptable
Gilbert and Sullivan or other light opera though we
were limited in height and depth of stage. The singing
quartette grew into rather large companies as our pro-
ducers gained skill with lights, and settings. We
couldn't depend upon straight singing but adorned our
performances with some beautiful costumes and set the
whole in a good scheme of color and light with fairly
successful dramatizations of programs.
The success of the dramatic and character reader en-
couraged us to try our hand in the production of plays.
Some, like Harry Harrison and Crawford Fetter, went
in for Shakespeare at first, and they engaged Ben Greet
to put together some really fine productions. My first
attempt was with The Melting Pot, and I secured the
aid of William Keighley as actor and director and he
showed at once, his genius for production. He was well
acquainted with the Broadway stage, and was so likable
that he could secure many of the players from original
casts of New York successes, who, I think, had their
eyes opened to the possibilities for theatrical profit far
away from the white lights of New York. One summer
Keighley captured the principal stars in a Broadway
production of Pinafore and from Little Women as
well, and we had both opera and play on one program.
The experiment was so successful that after the first
attempt in play producing, almost every Chautauqua
FROM PEAK TO PIT 185
program included a drama of some sort and often more
than one. For my part I confined our selections to
proved Broadway successes, and, as the Chautauqua
was regarded by New York theatre men as quite a rural
affair, we could secure some of their best plays at a
modest royalty, particularly as we paid for their use in
a lump sum.
Keith Vawter and I secured the Chautauqua rights
of It Pays to Advertise, and assembled a fairly complete
cast of some twelve players. It was an out and out
favorite, and after we were through with it it went the
rounds of many other circuits, little and big, but with
a diminishing cast, until at last I heard of it being
played with only two or three actors.
Plays were so popular and drew so well, that when
we had begun to offer them there was no way to stop.
Redpath-Iiorner set up its own producing staff. We
employed our players under "Actor's Equity" contracts,
to which both management and players conformed, and
we found the arrangement very satisfactory. I never
had any trouble with the "Equity/' nor with the
"Musicians Union." Both treated me honestly and
sympathetically, and were fair in fixing summer pay
scales.
Kcighley's manifest talent brought him into a field
much more lucrative than the Chautauqua, and he be-
came one of the foremost directors on Broadway, and,
I am told, he has attained well-deserved renown in Jiol-
lywood.
Our productions, however, were modest compared to
those of Crawford A. Peffcr, manager of the Redpath
186 STRIKE THE TENTS
Circuits in New York and New England. It was he
who introduced the drama to the Lyceum with a com-
pany of Ben Greet players in The Comedy of Errors in
191 1. First and last, he sent a number of Greet groups
trouping, offering various Shakespeare plays, including,
The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew,
and Macbeth. Among the many plays Peffer produced
a notable example was Abraham Lincoln. For that
production Peffer went to London to arrange directly
with the author, John Drinkwater. Many of Peffer's
plays toured some of the more important Redpath Cir-
cuits.
Something must be written about Ben Greet. No
finer, nor more sincere portrayer of Shakespearean
drama ever lived. He made various trips to this coun-
try and yearned to bring Shakespeare to small cities,
or any place where he could find or make a stage. He
returned to England in 1914 to become the director of
Old Vic theatre in London. I should speak of him as
Sir Phillip Ben Greet, because he was knighted for his
gallant work with the writings of the Bard of Avon.
I sat backstage one evening and watched Sir Phillip
at work in a very large auditorium that was not filled
at all. He was doing everything, directing, working
props, turning the crank of the wind machine. Cos-
tumes were at hand and sometimes he could hastily don
one and reinforce the players on the stage. Even with-
out his title he was every inch a knight. I don't think
he would be offended, if he were here today, when I say
he was the greatest trouper I ever saw.
FROM PEAK TO PIT 187
Bringing the theatre to the platform had a great
influence upon the Chautauqua. It was not an alto-
gether unmixed asset. Expenses in operation were in-
creasing, and additional receipts must be found. The
play attracted many people who were strangers in the
tents. On the other hand, it was plain that the ardor
of sponsoring committees was diminishing. The play
gave a tint of commercialism, without a doubt, and yet
many thousands of customers had their first opportunity
to enjoy such a thing. I think the project was not kept
within reasonable bounds. It would bring the cash to
the box office, but the good citizens would not strive so
hard to sell season tickets. Some managers were em-
ploying directors whose experience had been limited to
amateur attempts, and with tents raised in the breeze of
almost every village, the quality of the drama became
thin, indeed, in many places.
One of the principal causes for the decline of the
movement was the vast increase in the number of Chau-
tauquas. The businessmen of the old successful city
had little heart to run booster trips throughout the
county when the advertising pennants of small Chau-
tauquas were appearing in nearly all of the villages of
what they had thought was their territory. Of course
the village had just as much right to have a Chautauqua
as they had, and those that couldn't afford an expensive
program were entitled to secure whatever they had
money and population to support.
Another cause for decline was a general relaxation
in concern over the discussion of public questions. The
188 STRIKE THE TENTS
twenties brought relatively calm and placid days. Good
roads were ribboning the country, and people were buy-
ing automobiles without number. Unlawful alcohol
was trickling even into the dry towns whose young
people had never seen a saloon. It was pleasant to dash
off to a big city or to the multiplying golf courses. We
had won the war and people generally were irritated to
think we had had to fight it. They wanted to hear
nothing of war or of our former allies whom they didn't
seem to care more for than for the Germans. I imagine
that if, somehow, a way could have been found for our
debtor nations to pay back the money they had bor-
rowed from us, resentment might have eased and
the whole story of the days between the two wars would
have been quite different.
The country suddenly found itself within the tight
confines of a nationalism the like of which had not
been seen before. Pulpits and platforms were resound-
ing with complaints against Bolshevism and Socialism.
People were suspicious of foreign influences, and the
eyes of all were turned to their own affairs. Prohibi-
tion and the economic plight of the farmer were about
the only live issues among the people of the Midwest.
A speech for the farmer would draw good applause,
although too many people might adjourn to a spot be-
hind back doors and pass around the bottle some one
was always sure to produce. So far as the farmer was
concerned, no one had any solace for his anxiety, balm
for his wounds, nor remedy for his pocketbook, among
those in or out of the Government.
FROM PEAK TO PIT 189
The platform orators were like candidates without a
platform. Few, if any, could fathom the future or logi-
cally predict any danger ahead. We had had our war
and no one wanted to hear any more about it. We had
had enough of reform for the present with the Federal
Reserve System, Women's Votes, Direct Election of
Senators, and Prohibition. Perhaps it would have been
just as well to listen comfortably to New York com-
edies, a good band and * 'Mother, home and heaven"
speeches, while the people groped their way out of their
confused calm and indifference toward the League of
Nations. The Chautauqua managers, or some of us,
tried hard enough to bring some light upon that prob-
lem, as I wish to show directly, but I don't think the
people were ready to regard the matter as a problem, let
alone to have any light upon it. They were not at all
hostile, since I never observed either heckling or hostil-
ity in any audience, but clearly the folks were apathetic.
The final and most direct blow to the Chautauqua
came from the radio and talking movies. The radio
was something new. Its very novelty dramatized it.
Movies were of little consequence, so far as our Chau-
tauqua life moved, until the perfection of the talkie and
the comfortable embellishment of the picture theatre.
Then they really cut into our crowds. As a national
organization, the picture industry did not seek to injure
us, but local operators in many instances were active
in fermenting discord among our sponsors. They did
not like to see their crowds diminish during Chautauqua
week and they resented the guarantee the citizens gave
us.
190 STRIKE THE TENTS
First of all, the plush-covered seats and the play of
light and childlike simplicity of movie plot and story
offered greater physical and mental ease than the
Chautauqua. Not even the theatre could withstand the
impact of the films. I have many good friends in the
movie industry, and some of them have complimented
me on the efficiency of the Chautauqua organization.
Their executives are more astute than we were and per-
mitted no obstruction in the channel leading from the
box office to their ears, That is wisdom, and good both
for their pocketbooks and their appraisal of popular
taste, and I commend it to the sponsors of Symphony
Orchestras and Grand Opera. The industry made its
greatest crash in the big cities, from whence all public-
ity flows* Our little story of fame stemmed from the
towns and small cities, and if a rural event gets into the
headlines it is only for a day.
My opportunities to sense public opinion, as well as
to learn something of the thoughts of political leaders,
were a little better than those enjoyed by the average
private citizen. My familiarity in the first gave me a
certain access to the offices of the politicians. In
Harding's administration, two men, and I think, only
two, emerged quickly above the heads of the others.
They were Charles Evans Hughes and Herbert
Hoover. Even the stupidity of the Republican cam-
paign of 1916 did not cloud the extraordinary ability
of Hughes.
The calm but dramatic efficiency of Hoover as Food
Administrator and as director of relief for the hungry
FROM PEAK TO PIT 191
hordes of Europe, following the war, earned warm
praise from those who were informed, but he was not
at all well known in America. He had never projected
the story of a capable man into the news, or from public
rostrums, and he would not compete with political ora-
tors who had the habit of speaking in loud tones. His
friends and admirers, numerous enough, but still only
a handful among millions, were strangely quiet in any
song of praise. It is unfortunate for America and the
world that greater use was not made of his broad
knowledge of the economic and social state in a de-
spondent Europe, but, generally, forceful leaders were
scarce. To sum up, America had a sad lack of leader-
ship, and the people were tired of being led.
For forty years the pendulum of political change had
moved without rhythm and had traced its motion with
scismographic significance, but there were not many
eyes bright enough to read the tracings. It wrote in
staccato record of movement from Cleveland to Harri-
son and back to Cleveland; from the placid McKinley
through the vivid color of Theodore Roosevelt into the
calmness of William Howard Taft. All streams, vio-
lent and unrippled, seemed to converge for a pause in
the harbor of Woodrow Wilson. But the water was
deep, and the dikes not strong enough to hold the tide,
and the direction of the streams were confused or lost.
Wilson xvas a man in whom the hopes of the country
merged. The sweep of his mind was wide and his
understanding of humanity was warm and deep. Men
had learned to build storm shelters against cyclones, to
192 STRIKE THE TENTS
found clinics and hospitals to stay the scourge of
disease, and to erect schoolhouses to cast a light into
the dreary darkness of ignorance. However, they had
no refuge from the earthquake of war, so that any vision
remained in vision and had no substance in the public
mind. War and religious impulses were the common-
est occurrences in history, and only the same old tools,
faith and hope, were used, rather blindly to check the
one, as they advanced the other. War was thought of in
terror, and men avoided thinking about it at all when-
ever they could. All men knew that the phenomenon
of war had been inevitable thus far, but its causes were
hidden behind a thick wall and it was easier to pass
around than to penetrate it.
Woodrow Wilson found himself in the very front
rank in leadership in a war, which, however well fought
and backed with a strong will by a very patriotic people,
was a conflict which our people did not want, did not
understand, and resented in burning passion as soon as
the flames were smothered. His Government had to
stand on its war record, which was good enough, and
on its plans for world peace, although there was no nice
concert in the thoughts of Democratic spokesmen, some
of whom were leaders who would not speak at all. We
had earned a peace, and by golly we would never get
into another war, so what was the use of talking about
something that could not happen again. A confused
and dull calm settled upon human minds, disturbed
chiefly by the eddies of intolerance for anything without
an American label. In such a state of public mind t
FROM PEAK TO PIT 193
Harding was inevitable, and no other era could have
produced Calvin Coolidge, whose homely wisdom and
restrained speech were music in the ears.
It was not the end of war, alone, that spread the dan-
gerous calm even while unseen and unknown economic
forces were arming themselves for new conflict. If
their armour had been perceived, they still were forces
as little understood as the causes of war itself. The
Chautauqua was important chiefly because it spoke in
a coherent voice into millions of ears, and reflected
more clearly than other forces the ebb and flow of pub-
lic opinion. It is not strange that it lost direction since
its master, public opinion, was asleep. At the height of
its popularity in 1922, it made its last, and what proved
to be its most futile, united effort.
There had been two great national Chautauqua and
Lyceum Lecturers' Conferences, one during and one
just following the war, and both had achieved success
in promoting a unity in platform motive. In 1922 Paul
Pearson, the president of the International Lyceum and
Chautauqua Asvsociation threw himself with ardour into
the job of providing a third meeting, which in attend-
ance and range of thought was the greatest of all. He
sent out a ringing call to all platform people to convene
in Washington in December. It was a conference on
Public Opinion and World Peace. Pearson was patient
and compelling in his invitation and a large number of
platform giants flocked to Washington. Their number
was greatly increased by many advanced thinkers from
colleges, universities and the press. Besides the unpro-
194 STRIKE THE TENTS
grammed discussions, common in such affairs, thirty-
eight formal addresses were made, with spokesmen for
some eighteen nations who added their weight with
greater or less authority.
During that decade I made frequent trips to Europe
as I had become interested in International Economics
and Politics. Whatever value I gained had been aided
by my enthusiasm for a new field, and particularly by a
warm letter of introduction to American Diplomatic
and Consular offices, written by the Secretary of State
at the instance of the President. Therefore, the manag-
ing board of the Conference asked me to go to Europe
in its behalf. Georges Clemenceau, the Tiger of France,
War Premier, readily accepted our invitation and I was
to enlist the interest of others abroad. I carried letters
from Colonel E. M. House, written to various men of
distinction, and I found that they were more effective
in securing courteous attention to my mission than any
words of commendation that anyone else could write.
I wanted most of all to persuade Lord Robert Cecil
to come to the meeting. He was one of the framers of
the Covenant of the League of Nations. When I called
at his office in London I was informed by his secretary
that his Lordship had just returned from a meeting of
the League in Geneva, was quite exhausted and had re-
tired to his home in the country, leaving word that he
was not to be disturbed. I expressed my great regret
and left the letter of Colonel House with the man. The
next day I received a telegram from the secretary, stat-
ing that he had forwarded the letter to Lord Robert,
FROM PEAK TO PIT 195
who in turn had directed him to say that because of the
importance of my introduction he would return to Lon-
don and receive me the next day but one.
Lord Robert, afterwards Viscount Cecil, had pre-
sided, if my memory is accurate, at the recent Geneva
meeting. His careworn appearance troubled my con-
science, but he was most courteous and told me that I
could stay as long as I liked and might tell him all I
wanted to say. He lounged back in his leather chair,
after the fashion of tall thin men, and listened without
interruption. I told him of our high hopes for the
Washington meeting, and of the notable speakers
already secured. I said that while we had no desire to
force, or even mobilize public opinion, we wanted him
to present his views on the problems of world peace to
our lecturers, and through them to a large section of the
American population. He was warm in his praise for
the project and said he would like very much to accept
my invitation, but that there were certain reasons that
would prevent him from doing so.
I could not escape the thought that I could surmise
the chief reason why he would not come, although he
did not state it definitely. His position as perhaps the
foremost English advocate of the Covenant, and the
views of President Harding, whose opposition was well
known, might not create a pleasant situation in such a
gathering. There was nothing in diplomatic niceties
that should interfere, but the President, an enemy of
the League, was scheduled to speak, and after all he was
the Chief Executive of the nation where the meeting
196 STRIKE THE TENTS
was to be assembled, and Lord Roberts' participation
might not be a perfect example of good taste.
Clemenceau had no such scruples, if scruples they
were. He made one of the most forcible speeches, I
suppose, of his long career. Notwithstanding my fail-
ure in the case of Lord Robert, I had a good time on
that tour. I met some of the statesmen of Europe, in-
cluding some who were, at the moment, quite prominent
in Germany. In fact the letters of Colonel House
opened all the doors I wanted to enter. No doubt my
easy American manners were a little out of form with
the more stately procedure in conversations in Europe,
and I blush a little, even yet, at one piece of informality.
I called to see Premier Venizelos of Greece. He was
not in and I was asked to leave a memorandum of the
object of my visit. I proceeded to do so with a pencil
on an ordinary writing pad, and it was casual in con-
tent as any message I might write to a close American
friend. The reply I received was couched in all the
graceful words of a state paper.
Measured by attendance figures, scope of thought,
and authoritativeness of utterances, the Conference on
Public Opinion and World Peace was as substantial
in effect as any meeting could be then. After all, Pres-
ident Harding did not appear but received all the dele-
gates at the White House and drew me, Paul Pearson
and Ralph Parlette, who had been his partner in a band
instrument factory, from the line to stand by his side
while the others passed to shake hands with him. I had
the privilege to preside at the first session, to make the
introductory address, and to read the message which
FROM PEAK TO PIT 197
Mr. Harding had written. I think I should quote the
letter, if for no other reason than to indicate the kind of
a reputation the Chautauqua had.
The White House
Washington
December 6, 1922.
Several months ago when you first called my
attention to the Lecturers' Conference of the Inter-
national Lyceum and Chautauqua Association, I
accepted promptly and with pleasure your invita-
tion to attend the opening session and extend a
welcome to the gathering. Since that time condi-
tions have supervened which, involving both public
duties and personal concerns, compel me to deny
myself the satisfaction of appearing in person.
Wherefore T am addressing you this word of regret
on my own account, and of felicitation to the
Association on its notable and unique effort to ex-
pand the sphere and increase the usefulness of
Chautauqua.
It has been to me a personal satisfaction, as well
as an intellectual and spiritual opportunity, to be
numbered among the lecturers who have carried
the message of Chautauqua throughout the coun-
try. Indeed one may with much confidence say
that this splendid educational movement has
found its greatest intellectual beneficiaries among
those who, addressing varied audiences in differ-
ing and wide-scattered communities, have known
the eagerness with which the people, to the number
of many millions annually, seek illumination of
198 STRIKE THE TENTS
public questions and the broadening of community
vision. The time has long since passed when there
could be any doubt of Chautauqua's service to the
country; we are far past the era of misunderstand-
ing when this great work could be waved aside
with the light word and the gesture of tolerant
superiority. Its wide appeal and high place in the
public confidence have imposed upon Chautauqua
an onerous responsibility, and in bringing together
such a notable gathering of authorities from many
lands and on many issues, to conduct here a sort
of Chautauqua post-graduate course for the benefit
of its lecturers, it is meeting that responsibility
in a manner worthy of all approval. Chautauqua
has served to reveal the individual American com-
munity to itself at its best. It has been a voluntary
inspirational service in which men and women have
given the best they have in them for the sake of the
social interest. The conference of intellect and
authority which you have brought together here
suggests a certain parallel to the intellectual move-
ments in which the universities of Europe were
founded and the renaissance of learning and
humanism had its beginning. It justifies, indeed,
expression of the wish that this beginning might
point the way toward a new advance into the light
of understanding by which alone we may safely
lay our course in such times as those in which we
live.
Most sincerely yours,
Warren G. Harding,
FROM PEAK TO PIT 199
I have reread, recently, some of the addresses made
at that Conference, which Dr. Pearson published fully
in a book. I wish everyone could read them now. I
was impressed with the similarity of the views ex-
pressed then, to those we read and hear today, after the
close of our greatest war. The speakers had explored
the causes of political unrest and economic insecurity
among the people of the world, as intelligently, and
almost as thoroughly as do the thinkers now. They
foresaw and feared many of the dangers that since be-
came real and horrible. They could not find a perfect
solution to the problems, or if they could, there were no
means to effect it. The Chautauqua lecturers left with
bulging notebooks, and a new vision of service to the
world. They were at the very top of their power and
affluence in engagements to speak. They had a full load
of precious seed but they found barren soil*
There were no burning issues to challenge the public
to expand their thought. Except for the recurring
financial difficulty in agriculture, there was not much of
vast national import to talk about, since all ears were
closed to any sound of danger of another war. The
folks had all the governmental reform they wanted, and
as a matter of fact they had had too much of Government
itself. No speakers T knew had enough power to rip
through the dead calm and, speaking chiefly for myself,
the managers had neither the imagination nor the means
to plough into fresh fields.
The Chautauqua had so mych momentum that it rode
well for a few years longer, but I for one was losing-
interest in it. If it had to be content with good or bad
200 STRIKE THE TENTS
music and entertainment as its best fruit, I had no
stomach or special talent in the narrower field. More-
over, I was ready to try new things and apply whatever
skill I had gained in national organization. My inter-
est in what had been a truly real and hardy movement
was waning fast. In 1926 I began to sell my circuits
in pieces, and in 1928 I struck my tents for the last time.
I sold the Premier in the same degree of sadness I had
felt when I parted with my favorite horses in Nebraska.
At the end of 1928 Mr. Rupe purchased what was left
of the Premier Circuit, and I could then enjoy on sum-
mer nights the first calm sleep I had had in twenty-
three years.
Other managers possessed more courage than I had,
or perhaps they were not so weary. Some persisted
for years. The depression of the early thirties blighted
the hopes of the persistent ones. Rupe and the beloved
veteran, Crawford Peffer, both continued into 1932.
Rupe ceased operations in August. The last Circuit
Chautauqua in the United States was the last one on
the Peffer Circuit, and it closed a few days later than
that at Alliance, Ohio, which was Rupe's final stand.
Erickson continued his Canadian circuit as late as the
summer of 1934, but finally all the big tops were sent
to storage.
I am often asked if the Chautauqua will come again.
I do not think so, not in the scope and character that
we knew. To be sure the good Mother Chautauqua is
ageless, and I think as nearly deathless as the human
mind can foresee. Here and there fine assemblies of
some sort are held, and will continue to function. As a
FROM PEAK TO PIT 201
national movement, effected by a confederation of many
towns and cities, the Chautauqua will exist only in the
memory of those who once devoted their hearts and tal-
ents to it.
I could ascribe various reasons as the basis of my
opinion. The expense and difficulty of providing equip-
ment, modern in comfort, and yet with the lure of the
big tops, for instance, is one. The vast chains of com-
mercialized entertainment is another. How can a
simple home assembly compete with the charm of a
magnificent spectacle on the screen with millions of dol-
lars available for the production of it ? The tremendous
publicity commanded by the radio, the movies, and or-
ganized sports, could not be touched by the weak hand
of country towns.
Then again, mechanical contrivances have perhaps
abolished, probably modified and certainly reduced, the
power of the art of public speaking. Some, maybe all,
of those obstacles might be overcome. But there is an-
other hurdle that stands like a stone wall and cannot
be surmounted or penetrated unless social thinking and
social philosophy are changed. In thought, practice,
and quite largely in ambition, American people are
urban when before they were rural. The Chautauqua
was founded upon the thoughtful desire of the people
of the community to improve their intellectual status.
The desire was so compelling that they proceeded to
effect improvement by their own joint efforts. Com-
munity life and spirit as we once knew them are reced-
ing before the white glare of centralized power and
authority. That power is penetrating some sacred
202 STRIKE THE TENTS
recesses of community ideals. It controls, very largely,
our economic life, our business and our labors.
Already its influence, through the mighty force of its
dollars has affected our local and state governments.
Surely, we must see that the outposts of the educational
system which we cherished and made sacrifices for are
beginning to crumple. How can we be sure that our
churches, and unhappily, our freedom of thought may
remain immune ? There is irony for old-timers in the
thought that our Government that we loudly supported
and silently revered, while it is very generous, and in
most respects quite sincere, is something we have come
to fear. How long can fear and love go forward, hand
in hand?
Thanks to a merciful God, the community still exists
in some form of entity. It finds its best expression in
our civic service clubs, in our local welfare organiza-
tions and in our community chests. Higher and better
than all is the congregation of an American Church.
That, I think, is the finest expression in American life.
We should cherish those things, and encourage them to
go forward hand in hand with others of their kind. It
is not them, nor average Americans, nor, indeed, our
government that we need fear. We should be most
concerned with the apparent trend of thought that
would take responsibility from our own shoulders and
place it in the hands of a centralized authority, that,
while conferring many blessings, is presently endanger-
ing our most priceless heritage, self-reliance.
Before dismissing the question "Will the Chautauqua
come again ?" with the imperfect reply I have made, one
FROM PEAK TO PIT 203
important fact should be recalled. People like to con-
gregate on a summer evening. They like to listen to
and view out-of-doors entertainment. The fine success
of music festivals, like those in Hollywood, Philadelphia
and in the Berkshires, illustrates the statement. The
surge of summer light opera, with hundreds of thou-
sands of listeners, in many cities offers further proof.
I hope the time may come when public-spirited citi-
zens, in many cities, may, in the manner of the
Chautauqua, combine music, the theatre, popular enter-
tainment, with educational, scientific, religious, and
other forms of discussion, into one great program of
summer delight. Then the Chautauqua, as we knew
it, would live again.
There is no more reason in blaming a Government
for our woes than there is in placing dependence in it
for our livelihood. We, the people, can control or
change our authority by peaceful means, whenever we
desire. I have known seven Presidents fairly well, and
I have deep affection and high respect for all of them.
I have known, perhaps, hundreds of our Representatives
and Senators. Most of them were and are good,
capable and honest men. If sometimes they erred in
their acts, it is because we told them how to act or
failed to tell them. Unhappily and usually, when we
wrote to them it was to ask for something for ourselves,
our Chamber of Commerce or for otir city. Seldom
have we written to them to commend them for a good
deed. Now, it is for the people to decide whether we
want a Government to give us things or one that will
encourage its to rely more upon ourselves. We live in
204 STRIKE THE TENTS
a wonderful and glorious land. Thousands of the
products of skill and science and art are at hand for our
enjoyment and to contribute to our ease and comfort.
Only he who has labored through cold and hunger can
best evaluate our material blessings. However, we
cannot find happiness in those things. Real happiness
can be found in our reliance upon God, in a life of
rectitude, and in the fruits of the labor of our hands
and head and heart. I do not think that it is an assump-
tion to state that such was the chief truth that
Chautauqua people tried to learn and to teach.
Chautauqua talent, managers, crewmen, teachers and
all, have scattered to the four corners of the earth.
Most of them are living or have lived happy and useful
lives. Wherever the living ones are, I know that the
comradeship of the long hot trail is a happy memory.
I know that they long to clasp the hand of a fellow
worker and say, "You gave a swell show."
THE END
