THE PAGEANT OF THE PAST
(1909-1912)
THE thirty-sixth session of Chautauqua was epoch making in the
development of material resources. The blackened ruins of the burned
Colonnade Building were replaced by a new structure, the official
headquarters of the Institution, the business center, and on its upper
floor a rooming place for many employees in the offices. On the southern
front of the Plaza arose the new Post Office Building, with the village
public library, the presses and office of the _Chautauqua Press_. The
first section of the projected Arts and Crafts quadrangle was built, to
the great joy of Mr. Bailey, who had labored and almost fought for its
construction. The Hall of Pedagogy arose at one end of the grounds and
the Athletic Club House at the other. The Hall of the Christ was
completed after many years of slow growth, and the Commons, a
boarding-place for students, was opened through all the year for
employees residing during the winter. As a venture, with some
questioning, the New York Symphony Orchestra was engaged for a week of
concerts, its leader being Walter Damrosch. Who would have dreamed in
1909 that in 1920 the same orchestra would sound its harmonies through
six full weeks!
The keynote of the year, and indeed of Chautauqua through all its
history, was expressed in President George E. Vincent's utterance in his
annual report--that Chautauqua must "be kept in close and sympathetic
connection with the great currents of national life. It must be a center
from which the larger and more significant movements may gain strength
and intelligent support." The season this year opened on Friday, July
2d, with a lecture by President Vincent on "Vocation and Culture."
To even name the speakers of the year and their subjects would
necessitate the enlargement of our book, and to omit any of them may
bring the author into peril of his life if he should meet any of those
left out; but he must face the prospect of a martyr's end, by naming
only a few. President Edwin Earle Sparks, of the Pennsylvania State
College, gave a series of lectures on American history; Prof. Archer B.
Hulbert on "The Military Conquest of the Alleghanies"; Prof. Stockton
Axson on "Literary Leaders"; Dr. Andrew Sloan Draper, Superintendent of
Education for New York State, spoke, also Prof. George Albert Coe, Prof.
Clyde W. Votaw, and Dr. Richard M. Hodge--these four on subjects
relating to education; Mr. Earl Barnes gave a course of lectures,
besides teaching in the schools; Booker T. Washington, President Frank
R. Sanders, Dr. P. S. Henson, Prof. Henry F. Cope, Mr. Ernest Hamlin
Abbott, of _The Outlook_, and many more were with us in July, 1908.
In August we heard Prof. Richard Burton in a course of literary
lectures; Dr. George Adam Smith, Richard G. Moulton, and J. M. Thoburn,
Jr., a nephew of Bishop Thoburn, also Bishop Samuel Fallows of the
Reformed Episcopal Church, and the Rev. Samuel A. Eliot, a son of the
Harvard President. Mr. S. S. McClure gave an offhand conversational
address on "The Making of a Magazine," the story of his own experience.
The Devotional Hour was by this year firmly fixed in the Chautauqua
system. The Chaplain preached on Sunday morning, at the great
Amphitheater service, and at ten o'clock for five days following gave an
address on some religious topic. Among our chaplains during the season
of 1908 were Dr. Charles E. Jefferson of New York, Prof. Herbert L.
Willett of the University of Chicago, President Herbert Welch, and Dr.
R. H. Conwell. The Recognition address to the graduating class of the C.
L. S. C. was by President Faunce of Brown University on "Ideals of
Modern Education."
This year a course in Esperanto, the proposed world-language, was
conducted, and the second Esperanto Congress of America was held at
Chautauqua. Not having studied the language and being too busy to attend
the convention, the writer is unable to state whether the lectures were
given in that tongue or in English, the inferior language which
Esperanto is expected to displace. Probably two or three hundred years
hence Shakespeare's plays, Milton's poems, and Mark Twain's stories will
be known only in that language, English being a quarry for archaeological
research with about as many students as Greek or Sanscrit has to-day.
An event of 1901 which attracted crowds from all Chautauqua County and
its surroundings was the historical pageant of scenes in the history of
Chautauqua Lake. It included scenes from the Indian Wars before the
Revolution, the French explorers, the British and American soldiers of
the Revolutionary period, and the settlement of the shores. This was
followed by the rendition of a play, _The Little Father of the
Wilderness_, by Francis Wilson and his company. The concerts of the
preceding year by the New York Symphony Orchestra, under Walter
Damrosch, had been so successful that the management brought them for a
second visit in 1910.
One distinguished visitor in 1910 was the Right Honorable James Bryce,
Ambassador of Great Britain to our country. His lecture was on "History
and Politics." Dr. S. M. Crothers gave four lectures in his own
inimitable manner on "The One Hundred Worst Books." He proposed as an
interesting question, "Suppose that twenty centuries hence, when the
English language may be as dead as Latin and Greek are now, what authors
in English literature will be remembered?" Director Bestor found time in
the midst of his labors to give us a fine lecture on "Gladstone." Paul
Vincent Harper, son of President Harper, spoke on "Life in Palestine"
after a visit to that land. Dr. Griggs gave a course on "Social
Progress." Distinguished visitors from the old country were Sir William
Ramsay, the highest authority in the English-speaking world on the
church in the New Testament age, and Lady Ramsay. Both lectured, Lady
Ramsay on "The Women of Turkey." Mrs. Philip Snowden gave another
course of lectures, maintaining fully her popularity. She was strongly
in favor of the suffrage for women but as strongly opposed to the
methods of the militant suffragettes. Another speaker who attracted
attention, although his views were not accepted by the majority at
Chautauqua, was the Secretary of the American Federation of Labor, Mr.
John B. Lennon. On the questions pertaining to trade unions and
collective bargaining, however, one who talked with the Chautauqua
constituency was surprised to find so large a number of progressive
thinkers taking the side of labor against capital.
The Chautauqua Devotional Hour was represented in the season of 1910 by
Dr. Hugh Black, Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman, Dr. G. A. Johnston Ross, and
Charles D. Williams, who was now Bishop of Michigan.
It has been found that many are eager to enjoy the advantages of the
Summer Schools at Chautauqua who are unable to meet the expense. To aid
these, various gifts have been made from time to time. On old First
Night in 1910 a system of fifty annual scholarships was established by
setting apart the offering of that evening for this purpose, and the
fund has since been increased from year to year.
In 1911, the Miller Bell Tower at the Point beside the Pier was
dedicated. For years the chime of Meneely bells had stood in the belfry
of the old building on the Pier. But the piles beneath it were becoming
decayed and the bells by their weight and their movement racked the old
edifice. Their removal was necessary and the Tower was built adjoining
the wharf. A fine clock presented by the Seth Thomas Clock Company, and
the chimes, were placed in the summit of the Tower which received the
name "Lewis Miller Bell Tower." These bells ring five minutes before the
lecture hours, and at certain times, morning, noon, and night, the
chimes play familiar music. After the night bell, which may be either at
10 or 10.30, silence is supposed to reign throughout the grounds. One of
the original peal of four bells, afterward enlarged to form the chime of
ten bells, is named the Bryant bell, and is rung precisely at twelve
o'clock noon on the first day of October as a signal for beginning the
readings of the Chautauqua Circle. The name is in honor of William
Cullen Bryant, in recognition of his interest in the C. L. S. C.
During the season of 1911 a number of illustrated lectures were given by
Prof. R. W. Moore on "The Rhine"; by C. L. Harrington on "Aerial
Navigation,"--a lecture fully up to date at that time, surprising to
many who heard it and looked at the pictures. But that was before the
great war, and the same lecture would be hopelessly behind the times in
1921. Mr. Henry Turner Bailey showed us "A Dozen Masterpieces of
Painting," and Mr. Jacob A. Riis, "The Making of an American," Dr. Henry
R. Rose exhibited "The Oberammergau Passion Play," and Dr. H. H. Powers,
"Venice." Both President George E. Vincent and Director Arthur E. Bestor
gave lectures; also Edmund Vance Cooke and Mr. Earl Barnes, Mr. Leland
Powers impersonated stories and plays as nobody else could. Mr. Frank A.
Vanderlip gave three lectures on "Banking," which proved far more
interesting than most of us had anticipated. Dr. H. H. Powers told in a
series of lectures the stories of five great cities, Athens, Rome,
Florence, Paris, and London. Dr. Gunsaulus gave a series of lectures on
"Some of the Great Plays of Shakespeare"; Prof. S. C. Schmucker, a
series mingling science with history on "American Students of
Nature,--Audubon, Agassiz, Gray and Thoreau." Dean George Hodges in the
Department of Religion lectured in a course on "Christian Social
Betterment."
Among the chaplains of 1911 are the names of Bishop E. E. Hoss of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Dr. John T. Stone of Chicago, Dr.
Shailer Mathews, also of Chicago, Dr. C. F. Aked, then a pastor in San
Francisco, and Rev. Silvester Horne of England. The baccalaureate sermon
before the C. L. S. C. was this year given by the Chancellor, Bishop
Vincent.
For twenty-two years William H. Sherwood was head of the piano
department in the schools and untiring in his labors. He died in 1910,
and in 1912 the Sherwood Memorial Studio on College Hill was opened and
dedicated to his memory. A hospital, long needed, was this year
established, named "The Lodge." The Department of Religious Work was
reorganized, made more prominent, and placed under the charge of Dean
Shailer Mathews as "Director of Religious Work." The headquarters of
this department were established in the Hall of Christ.
The Independence Day address was given by Director Bestor on "The Old
World and the New," the social, political, municipal, religious
conception on the two sides of the Atlantic. Two stories from his
lectures are worthy of being repeated. One was Theodore Roosevelt's
retort when accused of wanting to become a king. "A king! what is a
king? Why, a kind of perpetual Vice-President." The other was a
conversation that Mr. Bestor had with an Englishman whom he met in
Berlin. He asked "What would you do in England if the royal line should
develop a William II. or a Roosevelt?" The Englishman answered,
"Impossible! A man with any real political initiative is not to be
thought of in the English kingship!"
For the first time, partisan political addresses were given on the
Chautauqua platform. This was the year, it will be remembered, when Mr.
Taft had been renominated by the regular Republican Convention, Mr.
Roosevelt by the bolting Progressives, and Woodrow Wilson by the
Democrats. It was decided to allow each of the parties to be
represented. Attorney-General Wickersham spoke in behalf of the
Republicans. Mr. Eugene W. Chafin, the candidate of the Prohibition
Party, addressed a crowded Amphitheater, and seemed to give everybody
great enjoyment from the constant laughter and applause. He said after
the election that if everybody who applauded and cheered his speeches
had voted for him, he would have been President!
But the great audience assembled, packing the Amphitheater to its utmost
corner, with a great ring of people standing around it, to hear William
Jennings Bryan. On account of an afternoon lecture in Ohio, he sent word
that he could not arrive until 8.45 in the evening, and it was nine
when at last he stood on the platform. But he held the crowd in rapt
attention to the end of his plea in behalf of the Democratic Party and
its candidate, who was indebted to Mr. Bryan more than to any other
worker for his nomination and, as the result showed, for his election. I
am not certain who spoke in behalf of Mr. Roosevelt, but think that it
was Mr. William H. Prendergast, Comptroller of New York City.
Among the lecturers of 1912 we heard the Baroness Von Suttner, who had
taken the Nobel Peace Prize by her book _Lay Down Your Arms_. She gave a
strong plea for arbitration between nations, to take the place of war.
There was also a lecture by David Starr Jordan, President of Leland
Stanford University, on "The Case Against War," showing conclusively
that the day of wars was past and that the financial interrelations of
nations would make a great war impossible. How little we dreamed of the
war-cloud within two years to drench the whole world in blood! There
was, indeed, one warning voice at this Assembly, that of Mr. H. H.
Powers, in his clear-sighted lecture on "International Problems in
Europe." He did not predict war, but he showed from what causes a great
war might arise. There was a debate on Woman Suffrage. Mrs. Ida Husted
Harper gave several lectures in its behalf, and Miss Alice Hill
Chittenden on "The Case Against Suffrage." Professor Scott Nearing gave
a course of lectures on social questions, showing powerfully the evils
of the time, and setting forth his view of the remedy,--a socialistic
reorganization of the State and of society in general. Some conservative
people who heard Scott Nearing lecture, regarded him as a firebrand, in
danger of burning up the national temple, but those who met him in
social life were compelled to yield to the charm of his personal
attractiveness. Dr. Leon H. Vincent gave a course of lectures on
"Contemporary English Novelists." He began in the Hall of Philosophy,
but was compelled to move into the Amphitheater. Mr. Charles D. Coburn
of the Coburn Players gave a careful, critical address, summing up
fairly the good and evil, on "The Drama and the Present Day Theater."
The Daily Devotional Service in the Amphitheater, and the addresses on
"The Awakened Church," in the Hall of Christ, one at nine o'clock, the
other at ten, drew large congregations. It could not be said that
Chautauqua was losing interest in religion, Canon H. J. Cody of Toronto
gave a series of talks on "Bible Portraits of Persons we Know: 1, The
Average Man; 2, The Man in the Street; 3, The Man who Misapplies the
Past; 4, The Man who is Dying of Things"; Prof. Francis S. Peabody of
Harvard a series on "Christian Life in the Modern World." Bishop
McDowell (Methodist) conducted the Hour for a week to the great
spiritual uplift of the large audience. Dr. Shailer Mathews gave an
interesting series on "The Conversations of Jesus," Dr. James A. Francis
a course on "Evangelism."
Realizing how many worthy names I have omitted, I close regretfully the
record of Chautauqua in 1912.