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.