CHAPTER XXI
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 archæological 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.