Speechmaking at the Chautauqua Assembly, 1874-1900

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NAME AND ADDRESS

DATE

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

SPEECHMAKING AT THE CHAUTAUQUA ASSEMBLY, 1874-1900

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Field of Speech

By James Harvey MeBath

Evanston, August,

Illinois 1950

ProQ uest N um ber: 10101715

All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The q u a lity o f this re p ro d u c tio n is d e p e n d e n t u p o n th e q u a lity o f th e c o p y su bm itte d . In th e unlikely e v e n t th a t th e a u th o r d id n o t send a c o m p le te m a n uscript a n d th e re a re missing p ag e s, the se will b e n o te d . Also, if m a te ria l h a d to b e re m o v e d , a n o te will in d ic a te th e d e le tio n .

uest. ProQ uest 10101715 Published b y ProQ uest LLC (2016). C o p y rig h t o f th e Dissertation is h e ld by th e A uthor. All rights reserved. This w o rk is p ro te c te d a g a in st u n a u th o rize d c o p y in g u n d e r Title 17, U nited States C o d e M icrofo rm Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQ uest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 - 1346

ACKNOWLEDGMENT I wish to acknowledge my Indebtedness and express my deep appreciation to Ernest J. Wrage, the director of this study, for his invaluable guidance* His sound advice and generous intellectual contribu­ tions made the development of this dissertation a profitable and gratifying experience.

TABLE OP CONTENTS Chapter

Page Part One THE CHAUTAUQUA ASSEMBLY AND ITS PLATFORM

I.

INTRODUCTION ...................................

1

The P r o b l e m ..................................... 1 Scope of the S t u d y ............................... 5 Sources and Methodology ...................... 7 Plan of R e p o r t i n g ..............................16 II.

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHAUTAUQUA A S S E M B L Y .........................................18 The Beginnings of C h a u t a u q u a ................... 18 The Flowering of C h a u t a u q u a ................... 25 The Summer A s s e m b l i e s ......................... 31

III.

PLATFORMS AND AUDIENCES OF CHAUTAUQUA

. . . .

37

The Platforms of C h a u t a u q u a ................. . 3 7 ............. 43 Popular Audiences at Chautauqua The National Audience of Chautauqua .......... 50 IV.

SURVEY OF SPEAKING AT CHAUTAUQUA, 1874-1900

. 54

Speakers and T h e m e s ........................... 56 Types of Speaking A c t i v i t i e s ................... 68 Appraisal of Speaking at Chautauqua ......... 74 Part Two ANALYSIS OF SPEECHES ON MAJOR ISSUES AND IDEAS OF THE V.

AGE

RELIGIOUS THOUGHT AND D O C T R I N E ..................88 The Evolutionary Hypothesis ................. 89 The Higher C r i t i c i s m .......................... 113 The Socialization of Christianity . . . . . .121

GOO

Chapter VI.

Page

SOCIAL R E F O R M .................................... 137 Temperance R e f o r m ............................... 138 Women's Rights • • • ......... ... .............152 Problems of tne N e g r o ...........................177

VII.

POLITICS AND FOREIGN P O L I C Y .....................188 Reconciliation of North and South ........... 189 ..................197 Civil Service Reform • . . . I m p e r i a l i s m ..................................... 207

VIII.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC ISSUES OF THE P E R I O D ............. 223 Big Business, Monopoly, and the Gospel of Wealth ....................... 224 The Protest of Labor .................... 257 Social Reform Through the SingleTax . . . . . 276 The Agrarian R e v o l t .............................284

IX.

SUMMARY AND C O N C L U S I O N S ......................... 303 Summary ....................................... 304 General Conclusions . . . . ................ 306

BIBLIOGRAPHY

.........................................

314

Part One THE CHAUTAUQUA ASSEMBLY AND ITS PLATFORM

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The Problem This is a study of a selected aspect of the Chau­ tauqua Institution at Chautauqua, New York*

Chautauqua

itself has found Its way Into many social histories, has been featured in the literature of adult education, and has provided a subject for a host of popular articles and books*

Speechmaking at Chautauqua has, however, provoked

scant attention both in the literature on Chautauqua and in writings on American public address*

This writer pro­

poses, therefore, to report upon the speaking activities of the Assembly at Chautauqua, New York, from 1874 to 1900, and to place in historical perspective the major addresses given there before the turn of the twentieth century. Chautauqua was founded in 1874 as a summer institute for the advanced training of Sunday sehool teachers*

Within

two years Its aims and programs had been expanded to include a wide range of secular interests.

Soon virtually the whole

province of political, social, economic, and educational subjects currently interesting to Americans were discussed from the Chautauqua platform.

Indeed, most of the great

2 controversial questions that commanded national interest of the day were argued and expounded from this platform. Arthur E. Bestor, Jr., a social historian possessing close personal acquaintanceship with Chautauqua, highlights the emergence of this Institution:

"It rapidly developed from

a two weeks’ training school for Sunday school teachers into a summer assembly that reflected--and led--a repre­ sentative section of American opinion. Chautauqua, born in an age of great social and in­ tellectual ferment, became an educational center for thou­ sands.

"There,” wrote Ida M. Tarbell, "one heard the great

speakers of the day on all sorts of subjects." Ely was no less impressed with Chautauqua.

o

Richard T.

"No one," he

declared, "can understand the history of this country and the forces which have been shaping it for the last half century without some comprehension of the important work of that splendid institution that was, and is, Chautauqua."

3

To John S. Noffsinger Chautauqua "has been a marked influence in the evolution of American culture."4 Other leading social historians suggest the place of Chautauqua in American society and the importance which

Chautauqua Publications, p. 1. !A11 in the Day»s Work, p. 65. 'Ground Under Our Feet, p. 79. Correspondence Schools, Lyceums, Chautauquas, p. 10

3 attaches to it.

Arthur M. Sehlesinger, for example, in

The Rise of the City, regards Chautauqua as an active and important force in the post-Civil War educational revival .■** He mentions specifically, however, only two of the many public speeches delivered from its platform: the address P of James A. Garfield in 1880, and the Henry Drummond 3 lectures on evolution in 1893. In their commentary on The Rise of American Civilization, Charles and Mary Beard suggest Chautauqua’s place in the field of popular adult education.

Although acknowledging its primary appeal to

"respectable middle class" America, they conclude: Nevertheless, it was this respectable middle class that in the main sustained the churches, filled the colleges with sons and daughters, sup­ ported the "clean" press, kept alive foreign and domestic missions, supplied the sinews for the anti-saloon movement, backed the W o m e n ’s Christian Temperance Union, and, according to Matthew Arnold, carried the burden of American civilization in the gilded age. 1 Of the leading social historians, Merle Curti ap­ pears, to this writer, to possess the keenest insight into the nature and role of Chautauqua in our national life.

His

grasp of Chautauqua’s vital statistics is firm; his analysis of its place in the broad sweep of America's social and

Xpp. 172-173. 2p. 287. 3p. 323. 4p. 401.

4 intellectual history seems sound*

He explains that "the

beginnings of the famous adult education movement at Chau­ tauqua Lake in western Hew Y ork..*reflect the religiousdemocratic faith in the popularization of knowledge Concerning the impact of the Assembly, it is his opinion that "Chautauqua set in motion minds that had been dull and lifeless, that it gave hundreds of thousands a glimpse of the intellectual world beyond their petty personal and domestic affairs.” Some sources, however, which logically might dis­ cuss Chautauqua as a national forum at length, dismiss the subject or treat it briefly.

Allan Nevins, for example,

dismisses the Chautauqua movement as simply ”a partial sub­ stitute for the old-style lyceum of instructive aims."^ Hance, Hendrickson, and Schoenberger in their essay, ”The Later National Period:

1860-1930," for The History and

Criticism of American Public Address do not mention the Chautauqua Institution or Assembly, although they do con­ sider public lecturing, the lyceum, tauqua.

and the circuit Chau­

Roy B. Tozier, in his doctoral dissertation, "The

American Chautauqua:

A Study of a Social Institution,"^

^■The Growth of American Thought, p. 595. 2Ibid., pp. 602-603. 5The Emergence of Modern America, p. 240. U npublished Ph.D. dissertation, Dept, of Sociology, State University of Iowa, 1932.

5

attempts to describe the Chautauqua Institution, the sev­ eral scattered Chautauqua assemblies, the lyceum movement, and the circuit Chautauqua.

This ambitious undertaking,

however, provides somewhat less than an adequate appraisal of each movement*

Tozier offers only meager and passing

comment about speechmaking at the Chautauqua Assembly. , Many pertinent questions were suggested, but not answered by the literature treating of Chautauqua.

Who were

the speakers that crossed the Chautauqua platform from 1874 to 1900, and what did they talk about?

What great Issues of

the age were actively discussed on this platform?

What

views did the speakers hold on Important religious, social, economic, and political Issues?

To what extent, If any,

did the speakers, both in the subjects they chose and their development of the subjects, reflect thought and attitudes of the times?

What segments or sections of the American

population comprised the audiences of the Chautauqua speak­ ers?

What pertinent information of Chautauqua*s history

and organization, and of its platform policies can be brought to light?

And, ultimately, what place may we as­

sign to the speechmaking at Chautauqua in a history of American public address? Scope of the Study The limits of the study were dictated by factors of place, time, and subject matter.

The locale is Chautauqua,

New York, and more particularly, the platform of the

6 Chautauqua Institution or Assembly at Chautauqua, New York. Each summer distinguished speakers were invited to discuss a variety of subjects of general public interest.

This was

an integral part of the program and assumed the status of a national forum.

The study will not be concerned with the

later circuit or tent chautauquas that took the name of the original institution, but with which there was no organic connection. The period 1874 to 1900 recommends itself on a number of counts.

The date 1874 was selected simply because

it was the date of the founding of the first Assembly at Chautauqua.

The year 1900 was chosen as the terminal date

for two major reasons.

First, it often is employed as a

convenient date signifying the end of a period or an era in American social and intellectual history.

Second, and

more important, is the fact that only until the approximate date of 1900 were speeches reported fully by the Assembly>s daily newspaper.

After 1900 fewer addresses were reported

verbatim and were reported only In essence or with sections omitted.

This probably is explained by the fact that

shortly after the turn of the century, the physical size of the newspaper page was reduced with no corresponding increase In the number of pages. The final limit applies to subject matter or themes oi1 the speeches#

Of the dozens of addresses delivered at

each session of the Assembly, many would be of scant interest

7 to the student of public address*

One body of lectures

dealt with such mundane topics as cooking, personal hygiene, and tips for homemakers*

A second category included aca­

demic discourses on such subjects as geography, art, lit­ erature, and psychology*

These lectures were a public

feature of Chautauqua’s formal educational program*

It

was a third category of speeches dealing with the great controversial issues of the age which provided the public address data for this study* The history of public address becomes most inform­ ative when it is pursued in connection with important public issues.

We are sensitized to these issues only through con­

sulting the divergent ideas and arguments which spokesmen for segments of opinion are quick to offer in a democratic society*

Prom an examination of these opposing views we

gain an historical knowledge and perspective on public thought*

Wot only is this true, but public address achieves

its greatest distinction on vital problems growing out of the social, economic, political, and religious life of the people.

For these reasons, a comparative study of speeches

dealing with the major controversial issues of the period would seem to represent a more substantial contribution to the field of American public address* Sources and Methodology The history and literature of speaking inform us not only in the art and practice of speechmaking, but serve

8

admirably to throw light on aspects of the general culture of which they are expressions*

It is in the service of the

latter that a study of the Chautauqua Institution best ful­ fills itself*

Here was an organization which became a

national forum for ideas, which gathered to itself men and women who grappled with vital issues of the age*

To know

the history of the Institution—-of the men and women who came to talk and listen, of ideas developed and tested in the caldron of controversy— is to know intimately something of the currents moving in the stream of American thought and feeling* This study, then, involves three major steps in development*

In the first place, there is the setting,

made up of the physical area, the policy makers and their policies, the audiences who came summer after summer— all that went into the making of Chautauqua a national institu­ tion and forum.

There are, in the second place, the

hundreds of speakers who crossed the platform and spoke on a great diversity of subjects:

speeches on ordinary matters

of everyday existence; many of the speeches comprising events of larger importance as speaker and audience grappled with the great unsettled questions growing out of their common experiences.

And finally, there is the meaning to

be derived both from the Institution and from the speeches which it produced when seen in the perspective of the larger

9 canvas— the social, economic, and political history of the age.

If knowledge of general history throws light upon the

speaking and speeches, the converse is equally true, for the story of Chautauqua affords us firsthand Insight and detail of the heat of the moment.

It documents aspects

of our social and intellectual life, but it also helps piece out the fabric of our cultural history. The initial step was to acquire information from which could be constructed the history of the Chautauqua Assembly, and, more particularly, the platform Itself.

The

most important repository of this information is the Smith Memorial Library, located at Chautauqua, New York, and erected to house the Institution *s library and to preserve the records of its history.

This library contains, among

many items bearing upon Chautauqua's history, collections of documents, manuscripts, and annual reports, files of pamphlets and circulars, scrapbooks of clippings, leaflets, programs, and other ephemeral printed matter.

Here were

found complete bound files of Chautauqua's serial publica­ tions, its newspapers and magazines.

The holdings of the

Smith Memorial Library represent the most complete collec­ tion of Chautauqua materials in existence. The development of Chautauqua and its platform, and Its policies regarding speakers and themes, probably is best revealed in the writings of men intimately acquainted with

10 the early Assembly.

The Chautauqua Movement by John H.

Vincent proved an invaluable account of the birth, aims, and development of Chautauqua by one of its founders.

Two

additional works, biographies of Chautauquafs founders, were useful in understanding the Assembly’s early years and the flowering of its platform, Lewis Miller by Ellwood Hendrick and John Heyl Vincent by Leon H. Vincent.

These materials,

too, provided insights into the management’s policy toward speakers and themes for Chautauqua’s platform.

Official

publications of the Institution such as, for example, the Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, the Chautauqua Assembly Herald, the Chautauquan, the Chautauqua Year-Book for 1895, and the History, Legislation, By-Laws, Rules and Regulations of the Chautauqua Assembly were indispensable primary mate­ rials in constructing the biography of the Institution. An abundance of firsthand

information of the nature

and composition of Chautauqua*s audiences was gleaned from the files of the Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald and the Chautauqua Assembly Herald.

These newspapers provide a

day-by-day account of activities, happenings, and audiences at the Assembly.

Jesse L. Hurlbut in his Story of Chau­

tauqua often spoke of the audiences in the Auditorium, the Hall of Philosophy, and the Amphitheater.

Of the national

population of which the immediate Chautauqua audiences offered a cross section, the several social and intellectual

11 histories of the period throw light on the mind and motives of the age• Chautauqua's newspaper often commented on speakers, speaking activities, and the quality of speaking at the Assembly*

Other newspapers in nearby towns sometimes re­

ported their impressions of Chautauqua lecturers*

Jesse

L. Iiurlbut, who seldom missed an Assembly address, occa­ sionally recorded his impressions in The Story of Chau­ tauqua*

Also useful for its appraisal of speaking activ­

ities at the Assembly was Herbert B. Adams' informative survey entitled “Chautauqua: Study.

A Social and Educational

Other records of opinion and impression such as

autobiographies and memoirs of the period were helpful in supplying supplementary information* The second step in the development of the disserta­ tion consisted in locating, selecting, classifying, reading, and analyzing the speeches themselves.

Locating the

speeches proved to be a simple matter.

The primary

source for the speech texts is the Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, later the Chautauqua Assembly Herald, the official daily newspaper published by the Chautauqua Assembly since 1876*^

These newspapers featured, and

3-U.S. Commissioner of Education, Report for 189495, I. ^In 1906 the name of Chautauqua's newspaper was changed to the Chautauquan Daily, and has been published continuously to date#

12 prided themselves on their reliable verbatim reports of virtually all addresses delivered from the Chautauqua platform beginning with the season of 1876, and continu­ ing through the terminal date of this study.

The writer

found complete bound volumes of these newspapers in the Smith Memorial Library at Chautauqua.

They comprise an

anthology of public address at the Chautauqua Assembly. The addresses for the summer sessions of 1874 and 1875, when Chautauqua was known as t!The Sunday-School Teachers* Assembly,” were primarily of an exegetical or of an instructional nature.

They are printed mainly in

two sources available at the Smith Library, though not verbatim reports.

The proceedings of the two-week session

of 1874 are presented in the Official Report of the SundaySchool Teachers* Assembly prepared by the Reverend G. L. Westgate.

The major speeches of the two-week 1875 Assembly

are reported, in essence, in the first published issue of the Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, dated June 15, 1876. Selecting the speeches for special study was more complex than was the mere act of locating them, for it involved discrimination and judgment.

Formulated precisely,

the problem was one of nominating those addresses dealing with the vital issues of the age.

The season of 1887, for

instance, produced addresses such as the following:

Richard

T. Ely on “American Labor Organizations” ; Charles J. Little*s

13 lecture on "Walter Scott"; the Reverence J. T. Duryea»s discussion of "Fundamental Truths in Morals” ; William Graham Sumner»s address on "Protection and Commerce"; Bruce Wallace's explanation of the uses of "Ready Wit"; and Joseph D. W e e k s r speech on the labor problem, "Let My People Go." Here were speeches on matters of trivial interest and speeches which came to grips with issues of consequence transcending the petty affairs of the moment. separate these?

How to

It was at this point that considerable

help and guidance was obtained from many of the leading social and intellectual histories of the period.

This

writer found Allan Nevin's The Emergence of Modern America and Arthur M. Schlesinger1s The Rise of the City indis­ pensable.

Merle Curti's coverage of a broader historical

sweep in The Growth of American Thought, aided the viewing of trends and relationships in social ideas and forces. Vernon L. Parrington's Main Currents in American Thought provided insights into both the social and the literary history of America.

For their usefulness in understanding

the intellectual history of the age and the forces that shaped that history, Ralph Gabriel's The Course of American Democratic Thought and Henry S. Commager's The American Mlnd were highly valuable.

For understanding the economic

issues of the period, Ida M. Tarbell's The Nationalizing

14 of Business was especially helpful#

This reading was, of

course, supplemented generously by commentaries of the times and many other special studies. Once the speeches on important issues of the age had been identified, the next operation was that of classifying them.

Although some of the speeches dealt with more than a

single public issue, in the main they were pointed directly at one problem.

It was no insuperable task to develop ap­

propriate categories by which the addresses might be clas­ sified, such as the socialization of Christianity, temperance reform, w o m e n !s rights, imperialism, the protest of labor, and others.

Each category served not only to relate the

speeches for purposes of discussion, but within each category it was possible to make an accurate tabulation of the number of times a subject served for a speech, intervals when it proved most popular, and the diversity of positions on the theme. The reading and analysis of the speeches were simul­ taneous operations, followed by, however, a comparative analysis of the speeches.

The ideas of each speaker were

compressed into a prbcis, and the address was outlined so as to preserve his thought structure.

From each speech,

enough of the speaker!s remarks was recorded as would illustrate his language, composition, and individuality. The speeches thus recorded and classified could be read

15 and analyzed as related components of a substantive whole. Comparative judgments then were made of the speakers and their ideas. The third and final step in the development of the study was that of interpreting the speeches individually and collectively against the larger sweeps of social, political, and economic history of the age.

This interpretative step

involves an intimate understanding of the social milieu, the historical context of which these addresses were a part. The grasp of what Max Lerner calls "the age and its bio­ graphy," served the purpose of relating and linking the arguments and ideas of the speeches to the history, the issues, and the public opinion of the times.

To understand

in as firsthand manner as possible the social and intel­ lectual events and currents of the day, numerous contempo­ rary newspapers, magazines, and periodicals were examined. Of the several newspapers consulted, the New York Tribune, indexed for the period, was most valuable.

Periodicals

and .magazines also supplied insights into the current climate of opinion.

Extensive use was made of sources

such as the Nation, Harper*s Weekly, the North American Review, Harper*s New Monthly Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, the Forum, and Scribner*s Monthly. The data gathered and analyzed in the three steps described furnished a serviceable foundation for the

16 projected study*

Prom this information it was possible to

compile a descriptive and interpretative account of the speechmaking at Chautauqua from 1874 to 1900* Plan of Reporting When the materials had been recorded, sifted, and analyzed, the final problem was that of developing a suit­ able way of reporting the findings in a unified, balanced, and meaningful manner.

It was decided to divide the study

into two parts, the history of the Institution and the speeches themselves, with chapter divisions as follows: Part One THE CHAUTAUQUA ASSEMBLY AND ITS PLATFORM Chapter II-~0rigin and Development of the Chautauqua Assembly* This chapter describes the founding, development, and objectives of Chautauqua*

It explains the

scope of Chautauqua activities and the nature of the summer program* Chapter III--Platforms and Audiences of Chautauqua* This chapter provides an explanation of the platform as an integral feature of the Chautauqua Assemblies, and supplies a description of the several platforms at Chautauqua.

It describes

the popular audiences who listened to the speeches

17

or read them In the Assembly Herald or in other newspapers• Chapter IV— Survey of Speaking at Chautauqua, 18741900. This chapter provides a cross sectional view of platform speaking at Chautauqua during the period* It identifies the speakers, surveys the great variety of subjects on which they talked, and provides an appraisal of speaking and speech activities at Chautauqua* Part Two ANALYSIS OP SPEECHES ON MAJOR ISSUES AND IDEAS OF THE AGE The second part of the dissertation reports the principal controversial Issues discussed on the Chautauqua platform, drawing upon the speeches themselves.

The consideration of

significant themes and ideas of the addresses is made within the historical context of which they were a part, and will be presented in the following chapters: Chapter V --Religious Thought and Doctrine* Chapter V I --Social Reform* Chapter VII— -Politics and Foreign Policy. Chapter VIII— Socio-Economic Issues of the Period* Chapter IX--Summary and Conclusions.

CHAPTER IT ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OP THE CHAUTAUQUA ASSEMBLY The Beginnings of Chautauqua Chautauqua was founded in 1874 by Lewis Miller, an Akron, Ohio manufacturer and Sunday school worker, and John Heyl Vincent, editor of the Sunday School Journal and later a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Both men were

particularly interested in the advanced training of Sunday school teachers, and this they decided to attempt through a short, outdoor summer assembly.

In his memoirs Vincent

recounted the inception of this idea. For many years while in the pastorate and in my special efforts to create a general interest in the training of Sunday School teachers and officers I held in all parts of the country institutes and normal classes after the general plan of the secular educa­ tors. In this work I had the sympathy and cooperation of Mr. Lewis Miller of Akron, 0., an energetic and ag­ gressive Sunday School worker,... and it was at his sug­ gestion that I consented to take one of my Sunday School institutes to Chautauqua. I gave it the name of "assembly" to distinguish it from the ordinary Sunday School conventions and institutes....The camp meeting management at Fairpoint on the shores of Lake Chau­ tauqua. ••allowed us to use their ground for two weeks in August, 1874. 1

■^-John Heyl Vincent, "The Autobiography of Bishop Vincent," Northwestern Christian Advocate, LVIII (July 6, 1910), 8471

18

19 The daily newspaper of nearby Jamestown, New York provided a record of Dr* V i n c e n t s first visit to the Methodist Camp Meeting at Pair Point, on Lake Chautauqua, in 1873*

t!Some time during the summer of next year,” it

reported, a National Sunday School Convention is to be held, and Dr. Vincent hearing of Pair Point and the Camp Meeting came here to ascertain if it was a suitable place for such a meeting. He was delighted with the grounds, and yesterday, at a meeting of the Executive Committee, presented a proposition to call the National S. S. Association for 1874 at Fair Point. 1 Two days later the same source reported the outcome of the request:

“The proposition of Dr. Vincent...was

accepted, and an invitation sent from the Association tender­ ing the Convention the use of the grounds for a meeting in August next*”^ Although the first National Sunday School Assembly was convened in 1874 on the grounds of the Methodist Camp Meeting, it should be emphasized that the latter had no organic connection with the Assembly.

Moreover, the orig­

inal Sunday School Assembly, later the Chautauqua Assembly, cannot be regarded as an outgrowth of the camp meeting movement.

This rather widely-held notion is erroneous.

The camp meeting, in generally accepted historical usage,

1Jamestown Daily Journal, August 13, 1873, p. 4. 2Ibid., August 15, 1873, p. 4.

20

was primarily a revivalistic meeting conducted in an atmosphere of intense emotionalism and excitement*

On

the other hand, Chautauqua, from its inception, was dom­ inated by an underlying educational purpose.

Public meet­

ings were carefully controlled to prevent any outcropping of revivalistic tendencies such as those usually associated with religious camp meetings*

The camp meeting property

was utilized because it was suitable and available, and when the Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly was incorporated in 1876, the land was deeded to it by the Camp Meeting Association.

i

At no time did the earlier organization exercise any authority over the Assembly program.

Twelve years after

Chautauqua»s founding, Dr. Vincent stated categorically that "the Assembly was totally unlike the camp-meeting. We did our best to make it so#"^

One might speculate as

to the disturbed reaction of Vincent, Miller, and colleagues if they read the following comment in the Jamestown Daily Journal;

"The National Sunday School Teachers' gathering...

will prove a most interesting affair*

The gathering will

partake of a picnic and camp meeting character.11^

That

Chautauqua did adhere to its educational intentions should

^History, Legislation, By-Laws, Rules and Regula­ tions of the Chautauqua Assembly, 1889, pp. 5-4* ^John H. Vincent, The Chautauqua Movement, p. 17. ^July 20, 1875, p. 1.

21 b© clear when the nature and scope of Chautauquafs activ­ ities are discussed later in this chapter* The Assembly held its initial session from August 4 to 18, 1874, with Mr. Miller as chairman, and Dr. Vincent as head of the Department of Instruction.

The type and

extent of the work attempted by this first Sunday School Assembly is suggested in the following capsule description of its program: At the first Assembly there were twenty-two lec­ tures on the theory and practice of Sunday-School work; seven upon the authority of the Bible; nine sectional primary meetings; six intermediate; six seniors1, superintendents1 and pastors* meetings; eight conductors* conferences; twenty-five meetings of normal sections; two teachers meetings; two model Sunday-schools; four Bible readings; three praise services; two immense children*s meetings; six sermons, and other meetings of minor note; also prayer meetings, vesper services and temperance addresses* 1 The program for the Second Sunday School Assembly, August 3 to 17, 1875, substantially resembled that of the First Assembly*

It, too, was concerned chiefly with the

teaching of the theory and practice of Sunday school work. This second year program also was designed to serve an instructional function for Sunday school workers, clergy and laymen* The opening stages in the metamorphosis of Chau-

•^Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, May 10, 1877, p. 2.

22

tauqua from a training school for Sunday school teachers into a popular educational institution perhaps is most clearly seen at this point#

In 1876 the session was ex­

tended to three weeks and* in addition to the regular Sunday school work* included the following new features: a Scientific Congress* a Temperance Conference* and a Church C o n g r e s s J o h n H# Vincent welcomed this gradual broadening of C hautau q u a ^ program* The original plan of the Sunday School Assembly at Pair Point has developed into something much larger and more complete as an educational agency than was at first contemplated# It was a Sunday-school Institute at first. It is now putting on the form and employing the methods of a much more comprehensive institution* It is a summer school in the interest of Religion, Temperance and Science as well as of Biblical instruc­ tion# It aims in its new development to serve the cause of Social and of Religious Reform. It has an educational* a reformatory and an ecclesiastical pur­ pose* 2 To ascertain reasons for the shifting emphasis and subsequent burgeoning of Chautauqua it is necessary to re­ late its expansion to the social, economic, and intellectual currents of post-Civil War America.

The emergence of Chau­

tauqua as a force In American life cannot be explained with­ out reference to the national environment of the day. pot was boiling briskly in America," writes Parrington*

^-Vincent, The Chautauqua Movement* pp. 272-276. 2 "Who Are Welcome to Chautauqua," Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald* June 15* 1876, p. 2.

"The

23 in the tumultuous post-war years. The country had definitely entered upon its freedom and was settl­ ing its disordered household to suit its democratic taste. Everywhere new ways were feverishly at work transforming the countryside. In the South another order was rising uncertainly on the ruins of the plantation system; in the East an expanding factory life; in the Middle Border a recrudescent agriculture was arising from the application of the machine to the rich prairie soil. All over the land a spider web of iron rails was being spun that was to draw the remot­ est outposts into the common whole and bind the nation together with steel bands. 1 Two significant socio-economic forces which con­ tributed heavily to national development after 1865 were industrialization and urbanization.

This was the period

of ’’the nationalizing of business" and "the rise of the city."

Commager vividly describes the complex, turbulent

era in which Chautauqua matured. These years witnessed the passing of the old West, the disappearance of the frontier line and of good, cheap farm land, the decline of the cattle kingdom, the completion of the transcontinentals, the admis­ sion of the Omnibus States, and the final territorial organization of the trans-Mississippi area. They revealed a dangerous acceleration of the exploitation of natural resources; the seizure of the best forest, mineral, range, and farm land by corporations....They were marked by a profound and prolonged agricultural malaise and the transfer of the center of economic and political gravity from country to city. They saw the advent of the New South; an unprecedented concentration of control of the processes of manufacture, transportation, com­ munication, and banking in trusts and monopolies.... 2

^-Vernon L. Parrington, The Beginnings of Critical Realism in America, p. 7. ^Henry S. Commager, The American Mind, pp. 44-45.

24 These social, economic, and political changes created problems that disturbed American thinking.

There

were also unsettling intellectual activities stirring the nation’s mind.

”Not since the 18 4 0 fs,tf observes Commager,

"had there been such a ferment in the intellectual world; not since then had established institutions been subjected to so critical a scrutiny, or traditional philosophy to so sharp a challenge•

The challenge of Darwinism and Science

the rise of liberal Christianity, the growth of imperialist thought, the development of movements for reform in politics business, and society— all served to arouse the American people. It was in this fluid and tempestuous environment that Chautauqua emerged.

Countless Americans, hungry for

education or groping for explanations to pressing social dilemmas, turned to Chautauqua for enlightenment and answers.

Perhaps others, eager for recreation, journeyed

to Chautauqua to escape the oppressive boredom of factory or farm.

In a society that esteemed work and industry,

they might accept such a vacation with untroubled con­ sciences if it occurred within a setting of education and religious activity and influence.

But as if in response

to the stimuli of a demanding age, Chautauqua’s purposes and programs underwent enlargement and broadening.

1Ibid., p. 47

One

25 finds increasing attention focused upon secular subjects at Chautauqua; soon virtually the whole panorama of polit­ ical, social, economic, and cultural ideas were discussed both in the classrooms and on the platform.

And ”going to

Chautauqua” became the summer password and habit of thou­ sands o The Flowering of Chautauqua The general educational objects of the maturing Chautauqua prepared it to play an important role in the post-Civil War educational revival.

Despite steady growth

of educational facilities during this period,

"the compar­

ative newness of the system in many parts of the country left vast numbers of adults with a pitifully inadequate share of systematic instruction.”^ It was in this educa­ tional void that Chautauqua first obtained a hold on public interest.

"If the schools were primarily concerned with

the instruction of children,” writes Schlesinger, their elders had a special opportunity of their own in the contagious spread of the Chautauqua move­ ment. This novel institution gave countless middleclass folk a chance to make up for the deficiencies of their youthful education.2

^Arthur M. Sehlesinger, The Rise of the City, p. 171 2Ibid., p. 172.

26 Chautauqua!s contributions to adult education were distinctive.

Appreciation of these contributions

involves understanding the nature,

scope, and develop­

ment of the broad educational program of Chautauqua. The formal educational work of Chautauqua was comprised of the following activities:

courses offered

in summer school classes at Chautauqua, home reading and correspondence study, and university extension lectures. In addition to this formal, credit-bearing work, the multifarious educational aspects of the summer assembly itself merit separate and detailed consideration. Before 1874 little had been done anywhere in America to utilize the summer season for educational purposes.

Probably the first systematic effort to insti­

tute summer courses was begun by Harvard University in 1869.

In that year Harvard inaugurated a program of field

work in geology and zoology, and in 1874 added botany and chemistry to its summer field program.

In the meantime,

in 1870, the University of Virginia had Instituted a summer course in law.'*'

Little else had been accomplished

in the area of formal summer education until Chautauqua begin its work in 1874.

Language teaching (instruction

in Hebrew) began at Chautauqua in the summer of 1875, and

3-Cyclopedia of E d u c a t i o n , V, 450-452.

27 four years later saw the establishment of a School of Languages*

By 1895 the Chautauqua School of Arts and

Sciences included departments of English, German, French, Latin, and Greek.

The curriculum at Chautauqua showed

parallel growth in other fields of instruction.

By 1900

Chautauqua boasted of the following summer schools:

School

of Pedagogy, School of Physical Education, School of Music, School of Expression, School of Arts and Sciences, School of Sacred Literature, and a School' of Practical Arts***" While summer classes at Chautauqua were multiplying, another phase of Chautauqua*s educational program— home reading and correspondence study— also was experiencing rapid development.

Prior to Chautauqua*s first efforts

in systematic and directed home study, there had been few ventures in this field in America.

In 1873 the Society to

Encourage Studies at Home was organized in Boston, but had suspended operations by 1900.

Also in 1873 Illinois

Wesleyan University began to offer nonresident instruction.

2

After the entry of Chautauqua into the field of home in­ struction, only two more efforts by other agencies are noted.

In 1883 a short-lived Correspondence University

was founded at Ithaca, New York.

Conspicuous success,

•^Chautauqua Year-Book for 1895, pp. 8-12, 68-76. ^W. S. Bittner and H. F. Mallory, University Teach­ ing by Mail, pp. 13-16.

28 however, was not attained outside Chautauqua until the formation of the International Correspondence Schools at Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1891.^ Chautauqua’s original enterprise in directed home study was the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, organized on August 10, 1878.

In an address delivered at

the organizational meeting, Dr. John H. Vincent outlined the principles and methods of the C. L. S. C.: It aims to give the college student’s outlook upon the world of thought, by the studies of primers of literature and science, by the reading of books, by the preparation of syllabi of books read, by written reports of progress, and by correspondence with professors of the several departments.... 2 As the C. L. S. C. program actually developed, it became basically a four years * course of directed home read­ ing, leading to a diploma and graduation.

Up to 1899 two

hundred and sixty-four thousand persons had enrolled for these home reading courses of the Circle. sand of this enrollment had graduated.3

Forty-one thou­ According to

statistics compiled by John S. Noffsinger, 10,000 local circles were formed in the first twenty years of the C. L. S.

C.; and ”25$ of these were in villages of less

than 500population and 50$ in

communities of between 500

John S. Noffsinger, Correspondence Schools, Lyceums, Chautauquas, pp. 5-13. ” ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 12, 1878, p. 1. 3J. M. Buckley, tfAnniversary Address,” Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 4, 1899, p. 7.

29 and 3,500 population*t!^

These were communities with few,

if any, cultural or educational agencies for adults*

"The

Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle was their library, o forum and lyceum." Another phase of Chautauqua»s pioneer activity in the field of formal education was initiated in 1889*

In

that year the newly-formed Chautauqua University issued a Prospectus of Chautauqua University Extension*

University

extension lectures originated in England about 1867, largely through the work of Professor James Stewart of Cambridge*

It was not until September, 1887, however,

that the first specific proposal for university extension in America was advanced by a faculty member of Johns 3 Hopkins University* The next year, Chautauqua became actively interested in the idea: A delegation of graduate students from Oxford and Cambridge, Edinburgh and Glasgow, visited Chau­ tauqua in July, 1888*.*.One of the delegation had been actively engaged in the promotion of Cambridge Local Lectures, and communicated the results of his experience and observation to the friends of University-Extension at Chautauqua* 4 Following this conference, Chautauqua made a formal announcement outlining its plans for university extension

lNoffsinger, op* cit*, p* 109* ^Ibid *, p* 110* ^Alfred L* Hall-Quest, The University Afield, pp* 7-14* 4Pr ospectus of Chautauqua University Extension, p* 9*

30 lectures in a Prospectus of Chautauqua University Exten­ sion* The university extension program of Chautauqua reached its peak about 1892, when the extension lecturers under its auspices numbered 168.^*

In that same year Chau­

tauqua sought to adapt the university extension lecture method to the local work of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle*

A course of six lectures on Greek

social life was prepared by Professor Owen Seaman, after lectures he had delivered at the summer assembly in 1892* These lectures were to be read before audiences assembled by the local C. L. S. C. groups.

It was reported that nearly

seventy courses of these lectures were given in the Fall and Winter seasons of 1892-1893*

The same report lauded

the advantage of this program* By this arrangement as many as possible of the essential features of the university extension idea were carried out--namely, the lectures and syllabus prepared by a university extension lecturer, and op­ portunities for a quiz and an examination. The only essential feature that was lacking was that of the personal presence of the lecturer himself, and It was the elimination of this feature which made it possible for many small communities to reap the ad­ vantages of the university extension idea in other respects. 2 By 1900, then, the formal educational program of Chautauqua embraced the following activities:

summer

***Chautauqua System of Education, Department of University Extension, Bulletin of Lecturers Mo. 2* ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 24, 1893, p* 3.

31 classes, home reading and correspondence study, and uni­ versity extension. The Summer Assemblies tfThis place is simply marvellous,” exclaimed Edward Everett Hale when he first visited the Chautauqua Assembly in 1880#^

The opinion was shared by thousands

who annually made the trek to the Assembly on the shores of Lake Chautauqua in western New York State.

Within two

years after the founding of the first Assembly, represent­ atives from twenty-seven of the United States, and England o and Canada, were present for the summer activities• And before the end of the century, people came from every state •z

in the Union.

Railroads offered excursion rates to persons

wishing to attend Chautauqua*s summer assembly; in 1881, for example, more than forty of the nation’s rail lines adver­ tised the sale of excursion tickets to Chautauqua*^7 As the numbers visiting Chautauqua from all parts of the country grew, the Assembly prided itself in being f,the most national place in the United States*”^

^•Edward E. Hale, Jr., The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale, p. 322* ^Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, August 7, 1876, p. 1. ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 24, 1897, p. 1. ^Ibid., July 30, 1881, p. 8. ^Ibid., July 24, 1897, p. 1.

32 The great summer assemblies comprising a central feature of the Chautauqua movement, always were held at the site of the first National Sunday School Teachers* Assembly on Lake Chautauqua.

It was this wooded land,

originally used for a Methodist Camp Meeting, that im­ pressed Lewis Miller and John Vincent as an excellent location for their projected National Sunday School Teachers* Assembly.

At the first meeting in 1874 the

visitors lived in tents, and participated in classes and meetings held out-of-doors.

The general lectures

and sermons were presented in the "Auditorium” which was nothing more than rows of boards arrayed in front of a small platform.

John H. Vincent, who conducted the open­

ing meeting at night, was deeply impressed and gratified. The stars were out, and looked down through trembling leaves upon a goodly, well-wrapped company who sat in the grove, filled with wonder and hope. No electric light brought platform and people face to face that night. The old-fashioned pine fires on rude four-legged stands, like tall tables covered with earth, burned with unsteady, flickering flame...* The white tents were very beautiful in that evening light. 1 Prom these rustic beginnings, Chautauqua was devel­ oped until, by 1900, it was a small city with public parks, a water and power system, hotels and boardinghouses,

^Vincent, The Chautauqua Movement, pp. 257-258.

33 municipal buildings, and the many halls needed to house its cultural and educational activities*

Whereas lectures

were delivered out-of-doors in 1874, by 1900 they were being delivered in several permanent structures, the larg­ est of which could seat almost eight thousand.

Such a

physical plant was necessary as Chautauqua played host to thousands during its summer assemblies*

By the time Chau­

tauqua celebrated its tenth annivarsary, it was estimated that 11during the six weeks there are from sixty to one hundred thousand different people in attendance*11 With tens of thousands attending the summer assem­ blies, one well might inquire, what program did Chautauqua offer to attract such great numbers of summer visitors? One editorial writer for the Chautauqua Assembly Herald asked the same question, and decided, perhaps with an advertising purpose in mind, that nowhere else in the world could one get so much education and entertainment for such a small cost* ...the program for this season shows 130 important lectures and addresses, of which 30 are illustrated, 10 musical recitals, 20 concerts and entertainments by musicians and readers, 2 superb tableaux, 4 eve­ nings of fireworks, illuminations and illuminated fleets, 2 prize matches, besides baseball matches, bicycle and athletic exhibitions, and other minor entertainments without number* And this list of lectures does not include those by Dr* Harper and

^■Chautauqua Assembly Herald, June, 1885, p. 1*

34 other* members of the College Faculty, any of the Mis­ sionary or Women*s Club lectures and addresses, any of the Round Tables, Girls* Club or Boy*s Congress meetings; nor are the band concerts or services of songs included....The list, in fact, includes only the more noteworthy lectures and entertainments, and to all of them no admission fee is charged except the regular gate fee* 1 Little wonder that annual programs such as these led a nearby newspaper to speak of ”the regular treadmill work and courses of study” and of **lectures and concerts in distracting numbers *!l^

The gate fees, the Assembly»s

major source of revenue, were nominal* Every visitor who enters the gates for one day in July is charged 25 cents. For this small fee he can hear all the public lectures, concerts, and entertain­ ments that are advertised for that day. He can stay a week for $1; a month for $2.50. During the month of August the tax is higher, the attractions are greater, and so is the crowd. The daily tariff now becomes 40 cents, the weekly tariff is $2, and the monthly $3. But one can buy a ticket for the entire season for $5. 3 Testimonials lauding Chautauqua and its summer work were abundant, but because he was a sophisticated person, a notable leader in American philosophical thought, and a trained observer, the testimony of William James has a

3-Ibid. , August 5, 1892, p. 1. ^The Democrat

(Olean, N.Y.), August 18, 1881, p. 1*

^Adams, flChautauqua: A Social and Educational Study,” U. S. Commissioner of Education, Report for 1894-95, I, 992. Hot a profit-making institution, Chautauqua*s expenditures often exceeded receipts. For discussion of Chautauqua*s finances see, Ibid., p. 994f*

35 special qualitative value while remaining representative in its enthusiasm*

In the early 1890*s Professor James

spent a week at Chautauqua, and exclaimed rhapsodically: Here you have a town of many thousands of inhab­ itants, beautifully laid out in the forest..**You have a first-class college in full blast* You have magnif­ icent music--a chorus of seven hundred voices, with possibly the most perfect open-air auditorium in the world. You have every sort of athletic exercise••*• You have kindergartens and model secondary schools* You have general religious services and special club­ houses for the several sects. You have perpetually running soda-water fountains, and daily lectures by distinguished men....You have...the best fruits of what mankind has fought and bled and striven for under the name of civilization for centuries* 1 James* first reaction upon leaving Chautauqua is equally instructive, though surprising for a man usually appreciative of cultural and intellectual activity: what a relief

I

"Ouf 2

How for something primordial and savage,

even though it were as bad as an Armenian massacre, to set the balance straight a g a i n . J a m e s

thought that Chautauqua

lacked the "element of precipitousness," the excitement and fury of the powers of good and evil clashing in mortal combat.

But at Chautauqua "the ideal was so completely

victorious that no sign of any previous battle remained."^ Although James later decided that the whole social order was tending toward the Chautauqua ideals, his immediately

■^William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology, pp. 269-270* ^Ibid*, p. 270* 3Ibid., p. 272.

36

recorded Impressions are fully as revealing as his measured judgment of the Chautauqua Assembly. Although it began as a summer institute for instruc­ tion of Sunday school teachers, by the end of its first decade Chautauqua had achieved approximately the type of program that it was to carry on through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century*

The mature summer program in­

cluded the following organized activities:

summer classes

and public lectures; musical concerts and entertainments; social and athletic events; conferences on matters of education, science, religion, politics, and reform.

After

observing this Chautauqua program In action, Henry Drummond, the great English preacher, concluded:

”1 hold that no

m a n fs education is complete until he has spent at least a week at Chautauqua.

Chautauqua is absolutely unique.”1

There is ample reason to believe that his opinion was shared by thousands*

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 22, 1893, p. 2*

CHAPTER III PLATFORMS AND AUDIENCES OF CHAUTAUQUA The FIatforma of Chautauqua From the very beginning the platform was an inte­ gral feature of the Chautauqua summer assemblies*

If

hundreds came to attend the summer classes, thousands attended to hear prominent speakers discuss a multitude of themes from the Chautauqua platform.

Ida M. Tarbell,

herself a participant in the Chautauqua movement, was deeply impressed:

"The most spectacular feature..*was

the Chautauqua platform, making as it did stirring, chal­ lenging contacts with current intellectual life.

There

one heard the great speakers of the day on all sorts of subjects•”1 Within a single season the visitor might hear evolutionists and fundamentalists, protectionists and free traders, bimetallists and gold standard advocates, defenders of social Darwinism and exponents of socialism* During the same season the Amphitheater might resound with the arguments of Russell Conwell and Washington Gladden, John Buckley and Frances Willard, William Graham Sumner

•^All in the D a y fs Work, p* 65*

37

38 and Richard T. Ely*

Often the ideas of the speakers did

not coincide with those of John H* Vincent--the man who selected speakers for the Chautauqua platform.

Early in

Chautauqua*s life history its daily newspaper had urged: •..the people who study Chautauqua should remember that the Chautauqua platform is consecrated to free speech. Last Sunday morning Mr. Joseph Cook advocated Woman Suffrage...before a Chautauqua audience of about eight thousand people. Everybody that had traced Dr. Vincent*s record understands that he is opposed to Woman Suffrage... * Dr. Vincent has introduced the Rev. Dr. Hodge, of Princeton College, and the Rev. Dr. Curry, of New York, to Chautauqua audiences, granting them liberty to advocate their theological views— differing widely as they do from each other and in some respects both of them differ theologically from Dr. Vincent. It may be expected that on such a platform where two hundred persons have spoken during the past six weeks, some peculiar views would be advocated, and indeed it is a fact that on reforms, theology, ques­ tions of science, philosophy, church government, etc.— men and women from North and South, East and West and from different denominations have spoken their convic­ tions with perfect freedom. This Is the glory of Chautauqua. 1 This was, of course, the judgment of Chautauqua*s official newspaper.

But as the army of speakers crossed

the Chautauqua platforms, one is impressed by the apparent willingness of the Institution to invite public hearing of the controversial Issues of the day.

The newspaper of a

nearby town was led to comment editorially that ”it is a catholic spirit that predominates Chautauqua:

p. 1.

every great

^-Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 20, 1880,

39 message to humanity with the stamp of genuineness upon it gets at some time or other a hearing from the big rostrum.11 Although one thinks and speaks of flthe Chautauqua platform,” it should be understood that there were several physical structures or platforms from which the speakers addressed the audiences at Chautauqua.

The original plat­

form at Chautauqua was nothing more than a speakers* stand or rostrum in front of which were arrayed rows of planks to seat the audience.

This out-of-doors arrangement was

adopted from the earlier Methodist Camp Meeting.

Called

the “Auditorium," it could provide seating for about 2,000 persons.

2

With the size of Chautauqua audiences expanding

each year, Dr. Vincent publicly aknowledged the need for a spacious permanent structure to accommodate the growing body of listeners.

At the closing exercises of the 1877

Assembly, he pictured a great amphitheater for his audi­ ence:

"I see tiers of seats rising all around.

I see a

vast dome, brilliantly illuminated with gas at night.... We must have that pavilion.

We will have that pavilion."3

By July of 1879 the Chautauqua Assembly Herald was able to announce proudly that the "structure is rapidly

^Jamestown Evening Journal, August 10, 1898, p. 5. p

Jamestown Daily Journal, August 12, 1873, p. 4.

3

John H. Vincent, remarks in Auditorium, August 20, 1877, Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, August 22, 1877, p.

40 going u p . ”-** use.

In August the new Amphitheater was ready for

On the occasion of its dedication, a reporter as­

signed to cover the event wrote for his newspaper: It Is erected in a ravine back of the Palace Hotel, and while its exterior corresponds to no known prin­ ciples of architecture, its interior is admirably adapted to the purposes for which it is designed* It reminds one of the amphitheatres of the ancients* Seats rise in a semi-circular form from the rostrum, and four thousand people can be easily placed within the hearing of the speaker, each one having an u n ­ obstructed view of the entire building. Its extreme length Is 180 feet, its breadth 140 feet, and as the seats are all built upon the sloping sides of the ravine there is no danger of accidents. The design takes advantage of the natural features of the ground, and there is not, within our knowledge, a public building with so large and comfortable seating ar­ rangements, erected at so slight a cost.

2

The same year, 1879, saw the erection of the Hall of Philosophy.

It was constructed after the style of the

Parthenon at Athens, and was able to seat about 1,000 persons.

The Hall was used mainly for sessions of the

Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle and for other public meetings not requiring seating capacity as great as provided by the Amphitheater*^ In 1893 a new Amphitheater was built at the site of the old structure. accommodated with ease.

Now over 7,000 persons could be Electric arc lights encircled

■*-July, 1879, p. 8* p ^Jamestown Journal, August 8, 1879, p. 1. ^Chautauqua Year-Book for 1895, p. 22*

41 the rim of the entire roof and arched over the expansive platform-

Steel columns bearing bridge trusses, replacing

the many former wood posts, supported the roof of the Amphitheater*

tfLike the pins which are reported to have

saved so many lives by not being swallowed, so the posts are saving much annoyance by not being there. m1 With either the more spacious Amphitheater or the Hall of Philosophy available, it was the practice of the Chautauqua managers to estimate the popular interest in a speaker and his subject before scheduling the place for his appearance.

Virtually all of the major addresses were

delivered in the Amphitheater;

speakers such as Joseph

Cook, Anthony Comstock, Booker T. Washington, Russell Conwell, Susan B. Anthony, Josiah Strong, William Graham Sumner, Theodore Roosevelt--as notable examples--always spoke in the vast Amphitheater.

A few prominent speakers

such as, for example, Washington Gladden, John R. Commons, Henry Drummond, and Richard T. Ely, spoke in the Hall of Philosophy on occasion.

Most of the time, however, they

addressed the larger audiences of the Amphitheater* Occasionally, the Chautauqua management misjudged the level of public interest in a speaker or speech, which necessitated a last-minute shift from the Hall of Philosophy

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 22, 1893, p. 5*

42 to the more capacious Amphitheater,

For example, this

was true when Francis Wilson delivered his lecture on "Eugene Field” during the 1900 summer assembly.

The re­

port of the Chautauqua Assembly Herald on this incident carries some sense of what it took to amuse the editor and his readers. The sight witnessed by an onlooker yesterday when it was announced to that large audience, which not only filled the Hall of Philosophy and the space sur­ rounding it, but all the avenues leading to it for some distance, that Francis Wilson would give his talk in the Amphitheater, was one that beggars des­ cription. ...Seemingly every one tried to get to the Amphitheater first, preachers, teachers, gray-haired men and women, the bachelor maid who was never known before to take anything but the most decorous steps, all joined in the sprinting race and that great crowd was turned into what seemed a drove of wild horses. Over stumps and stones, and through back yards, any way to get there, they went, and when they reached their destination it was a sea of red-faced, perspir­ ing, heavy-breathing people with disheveled hair that confronted Mr. Wilson, and he smiled. 1 The episode itself reveals more than management diffi­ culties in scheduling appearances, more than the person­ ality of the imperturbable Mr. Wilson, or what was con­ sidered amusing.

It speaks emphatically of the eager,

charged enthusiasm of an audience, the kind that helped make of Chautauqua a popular and national success.

^-August 1, 1900, p. 5.

43 Popular Audiences at Chautauqua Occupying a central place in Chautauqua* s summer assemblies, the platforms attracted thousands who comprised the listening audiences.

While the composition of these

popular audiences never was analyzed and catalogued formally, it is possible to discover clues to its identity.

Prom

these clues, we may suggest what constituted a typical, average audience.

The average audience probably contained

heaviest representation from the states of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio*'**

Substantial numbers came from

states in the South and the Middle West, as well as from the New England area.

Representatives of railroads furnish

interesting and pertinent testimony on this point.

For

instance, B. F. Horner, general passenger agent for the Nickel Plate Railroad, remarked:

**...our Chautauqua

tickets have sold as never before at all points along the line.

I do not know how to account for this except

from the fact of Chautauqua*s ever growing influence in o our middle western country....*1 Another general passenger agent, D. B. Martin of the Big Four route, averred that "more people come to Chautauqua over our route than to any other resort in this part of the world.

Many tickets have

•^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 23, 1898, p. 5* 2Ibid*, August 13, 1896, p. 1.

44 been sold to Texans and travelers from other southwestern states#

Chautauqua business rarely fails us, even though

there be a noticeable falling off in travel to other places•,f^

These railroads were among the many that offer­

ed summer excursion rates to persons whose destination was Chautauqu a• The socio-economic status of the average audience at Chautauqua is, of course, difficult to determine* Statistics are available, however, on occupations repre­ sented in the Chautauqua School of Arts and Sciences from 1888 to 1894.

While there was, no doubt, a marked selec­

tive factor operating here, these facts do indicate the level of an important segment of the Chautauqua audiences* The following occupations are listed:

ministers, mi s ­

sionaries, businessmen, physicians, principals and super­ intendents, teachers, students, and, the largest category, miscellaneous*

Perhaps even more revealing is the answer

given by the Chautauqua Assembly Herald to the question of who comes to Chautauqua* Wealthy families of the foremost rank in church and state...come here in numbers from almost every state in the Union, while a sprinkling come from foreign lands. The middle classes, financially speaking, make up the masses and contribute most largely to the enthu­ siasm and success of the Assembly. But there are not

^-IbjLd. ^Chautauqua Year-Book for 1895, p. 115.

45 wanting hundreds of persons from the ranks of honest poverty who come, satisfied that nowhere can a greater amount of healthy recreation be enjoyed, and more instruction be obtained, in the time and for the limited expenditure, than here..*. 1 In attempting to determine the religious preferences of the audiences at Chautauqua, once again one must turn to available evidence; the audiences, themselves, never were polled upon this subject.

From 1888 to 1894 in the School

of Arts and Sciences, persons representing the following four denominations were most numerous:

Presbyterian,

Methodist Episcopal, Baptist, and Protestant Episcopal. The other Protestant denominations and Roman Catholics were represented, though in lesser numbers#^

Bishop

Randolph Foster, when he introduced Governor A. H. Colquitt of Georgia in the Auditorium on August 15, 1878, was moved to remark: The atmosphere of this place is significant. It is cosmopolitan....There Is nothing in it sectional, noth­ ing in it local, nothing sectarian, nothing narrow or restricted. In this Assembly are citizens from all the States, members of all the churches, distinguished min­ isters of all the denominations... * 3 While statistical evidence can reveal something of the composition of the audiences at Chautauqua, it cannot depict the moods, the responsiveness, the impressiveness of

^•Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 8, 1879, p. 1. ^Chautauqua Year-Book for 1895, p. 118. ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 16, 1878, p. 4.

46 this massed humanity.

Such intimate information is best

provided by eyewitness accounts of actual audiences.

The

great Amphitheaters, where the lion's share of major ad­ dresses were delivered, captured the attention of many firsthand observers.

Reflected one reporter:

The audience at the Amphitheater the other evening was certainly worth looking at. First its size. Those who think there are but a few persons on the grounds should have seen it. Then its color. The summer girl and her young man were there, and toilets were varied and variegated. Again, its animated appearance* Everybody had a fan and used it too. It was animated also with a thorough enjoyment of the program, re­ sponsive but not disorderly; eager, delighted, it staid till the end. 1 It was of such an audience that Miss Ida Benfey, a reader, had high praise. ...never in all my experience upon the platform have I seen and felt such an audience. Felt is pre­ cisely the word. I seemed to be lifted up and sus­ tained in my work. They told the story--not I, cer­ tainly, not I alone. To speak before such an audience was like addressing one person. The absorbed attention of the people made it easy to do my work.

2

This experience speaks well of Miss Benfey's ability to hold the Interest and attention of her audience.

Some speakers,

apparently, did not possess similar ability. ...audiences sometimes slowly melt away before the speaker's eyes....This disappearance of an audience during a lecture does not mean disapproval--the man

3-Ibid., August 1, 1892, p. 1. ^Ibid., July 31, 1895, p. 1.

47 has failed to interest, that is all* This is clearly proved by the fact that one speaker may make a failure here, and in a few weeks another speaker, upon exactly the same subject, may make an immediate success. 1 While the premium was upon competent public speaking there were factors within the speech situation itself which could unnerve even the experienced orator.

Although

Governor William McKinley reportedly was equal to the occa­ sion, this is what confronted him before he rose to address the audience on Grand Army Day, August 25, 1895: ...by two o fclock the great auditorium was packed to its utmost capacity by an audience which numbered not less than eight thousand. The Choir was in its place and so was Rogers Band, and in one corner of the choir gallery a veteran fife and drum crops played to the im­ mense satisfaction of the veterans, who applauded every one of their martial melodies. The entire pit of the Amphitheater was given up to the veterans, the great mass of the people occupying the outer seats and standing four deep around the great auditorium.••.The entrance of Governor McKinley was the signal for a mighty outburst of applause, and the Governor bowed many times in response to the cordial greeting from the great audience. Dr. Flood then asked the audience to rise and give three cheers for Governor McKinley. This was done with immense enthusiasm, accompanied by the Chautauqua salute As Governor McKinley arose the applause was deafening and it was some moments before quiet was restored and he was able to proceed. 2

1

If Governor McKinley had the platform poise to with­ stand such a tumultuous sight, others did not.

One unnamed

and unsuspecting professor from an English university was visibly shaken.

^Ibid., August 15, 1896, p. 1* 2Ibid., August 26, 1895, p. 1*

48 It was dusk when he landed at the Pier, and as soon as he had prepared for the evening he went to the Amphitheater* He had supposed there might be a few hundreds to hear him, and when he came up the narrow stairs and out upon the platform he was over­ whelmed with amazement* Confused and dismayed at the sight of the great audience, he felt as if he must escape, disappear, get away somewhere out of the si^ht of so great a company* 1 Nobility, too, was impressed by the reception that the Chautauqua audience could accord.

One of the high

spots of the 1898 session was the visit of Lord Aberdeen, Governor General of Canada, and Lady Aberdeen*

They were

to be welcomed officially in the Amphitheater, after which Lord Aberdeen was to deliver his prepared address* ••♦never did a more magnificent audience greet any speaker or speakers on the Chautauqua platform. Hardly a vantage point remained unappropriated* The band struck up Rule Britannia, then the distinguished visitors appeared, and seemed momentarily overwhelmed by the•••greeting they received* The choir and audi­ ence threw itself into the singing of God Save the Queen. Vice Chancellor Vincent*•.welcomed the visitors with gracious manner and words that were emphasized 10,000 fold by 10,000 handkerchiefs fluttering in the air--the blooming of the lillies--the Chautauqua salute * The governor general got up to speak....it was something like the speech of a man who received a large number of visitors unexpectedly and Is so glad to see them that he keeps telling them so over and over again, and then takes them out on his back porch and tells them stories and reminiscences and things. 2 Several times mention has been made of the Chautauqua salute, the t!blooming of the lillies.”

This interesting and

1Ibid., July 23, 1897, p* 1. 2Jamestown Evening Journal, August 13, 1898, p. 4.

49 distinctive practice consisted of the waving of handker­ chiefs by the members of the audience*

The Chautauqua

salute, considered a signal honor, was given only at the behest of the platform chairman, and was employed sparingly* The picturesque custom originated in the Assembly of 1877 when it was employed as a visible symbol of audience appre­ ciation of a lecture given by a deaf mute.

The first

record of this incident is found in the Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald report the following day* Prof. S. L. Greene, (a deaf mute) from Bellville, Ontario, gave a very interesting lecture yesterday afternoon in the auditorium. Mr. Hughes, of Toronto, explained the lecture to the audience. The Professor*s facial expressions and gestures were life-like and frequently excited the audience to applause. At the close of the lecture Dr. Vincent said that everybody who had a white handkerchief now wave it as applause in appreciation of the lecturer*s efforts, and simul­ taneously several thousand handkerchiefs were waving in the air converting the whole place into a picture as of a field of snow* 1 This striking practice was continued, being used only to greet a distinguished visitor or in tribute to a particularly moving address.

Through such rituals did the

Assembly succeed in institutionalizing itself in the minds and emotions of Chautauquans.

The audiences came to be­

lieve that there was no greater honor they could bestow upon a speaker than to accord him the "Chautauqua salute.”

^•Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, August 15, 1877, p . 1•

50 The National Audience of Chautauqua While the immediate audiences at Chautauqua each summer numbered thousands, additional thousands not at Chautauqua, felt the impact of the A s s e m b l e s platforms* There was, of course, a diffusion of ideas presented on the platforms by those who would journey to their homes after the assembly at Chautauqua*

These ideas were spread in a

more formal manner, however, by Chautauqua1s daily news­ paper which enjoyed national circulation.

The editor of

Harper1s Monthly was greatly impressed with the Chautauqua Assembly Herald.

Noting that the newspaper was the product

of an expert corps of fifteen editors, reports, and steno­ graphers, he declared:

"A specialty of the paper is its

reproduction in extenso of all the lectures and addresses delivered during the meeting* Prom its first issue in 1876, the Chautauqua Assem­ bly Daily Herald avowed that ,!the lectures, sermons, and p speeches will be elaborately reported*” To ensure ac­ curate verbatim reports of the addresses, competent short­ hand reports were employed for the summer* ...in the stenographers* tent can be found the four shorthand men, who take down the speeches--Messrs* W. H. Slocum, George H* Thornton, Ira Briggs and Bert

"Chautauqua,,f Harper*s Monthly, LIX (August, 1879), 557* ^Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, June 15, 1876, p. 1*

51 Briggs— all of Buffalo. The gentlemen are the offi­ cial reporters for the Eighth Judicial District, and they are all first-class workmen. 1 It was the work of this group that John B. Gough described as "the most correct report of his temperance lecture...that he had ever seen made of his lectures in any paper in the country.1,2

The next year Bishop Randolph

Poster, too, complimented their work: so faithfully reported In my life.1*^

MI have never been Such testimonials

were not uncommon. Often publishing verbatim reports of more than one hundred lectures a year,^ including all of the major ad­ dresses, Chautauqua*s newspaper gained a substantial n a ­ tional reading public.

As early as 1879, the newspaper

,fwas mailed to actual subscribers addressed to thirteen hundred different post offices, in thirty-seven different States, five Territories, and eight foreign countries.”5 In 1881 about 50,000 copies were sent through the mails by 1884 this number had more than doubled.^

The circula-

^•Jamestown Daily Journal, August 8, 1877, p. 3. p ^Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, August 10, 1877, p.

TT

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, September, 1878, p. 1* ^Ibid., January, 1879, p. 1. 5Ibid., February, 1879, p. 1# ^Ibid., June, 1881, p. 1. ^Ibid., July, 1884, p. !•

52 tion mounted, but the price of the subscription did not* Even at the end of the period, in 1897, the subscription price for thirty numbers was $1*00; and for groups of five or more, at one post office address, the price was ninety cents per person*-*-

This price represented, in fact, a

reduction from the original rate of eighteen numbers for $ 1 *00*2 There was, in addition to Chautauqua»s own publica­ tion, another medium through which the national audience was kept abreast with happenings at the Assembly*

Prom

the beginning the nation*s press was well represented at the summer assemblies*

As early as 1878 no less than

thirty-eight newspapers had correspondents at Chautauqua; dispatches were sent these newspapers in the following states:

New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois,

Indiana, Missouri, and Louisiana*

3

To the newspapers u n ­

able to maintain regular correspondents at the Assembly, Chautauqua provided daily telegraphic reports*

"Chau­

tauqua has from year to year,” wrote the local editor, been reaching out its long arms and its many fingers into the broad territory of the country, from Canada and Maine, Michigan and Minnesota, to Florida,

•*-Ibid *, August 23, 1897, p* 1. ^Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, June 15, 1876, P. 1. ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 7, 1878, p. 5*

53 Louisiana and California, until it has a hold on the continent••••The extent of the work done by the great mass of those who have, from first and last, been here and gone from us, everywhere, throughout the land.., can hardly be estimated. Not only this, but the press is lending its power••.through telegraphic dispatches which are sent from this Point twice each day to all the leading daily newspapers in America, by means of which the people of Portland, and Boston, and Providence, and New York, and Philadelphia, and Charleston, and New Orleans, and Cincinnati, and Chicago, and St. Louis, and San Francisco, may read each day a condensed record of what has been done here during the last twenty-four hours. And still more than this, many leading papers are...represented on the Ground by editors or correspondents, who send daily letters to them. So when we say that Chautau­ qua utterances and Chautauqua doings have become famil­ iar, not only to hundreds of thousands of people, but actually to millions, we state a literal fact I 1 Although the editor no doubt delighted In puffing the Institution, the ceaseless efforts of Chautauqua to extend its influence beyond the boundaries of the lakeside Assembly is a matter of historical record.

It seems sig­

nificant that, early in its history, Chautauqua had in mind the national, as well as the immediate audience.

Chautau­

q u a ’s efforts to reach this broad national audience rep­ resented a deliberate and conscientious campaign to touch the mainstream of contemporary American thought.

^Ibid., August 14, 1878, p. 1.

CHAPTER IV SURVEY OP SPEAKING AT CHAUTAUQUA, 1874-1900 Chautauqua's daily newspaper,

in 1898, urged that

the reports of public speeches at the Assembly printed in its columns be saved.

Each year, remarked the editor, ver­

batim reports of lectures on a great variety of subjects are published.

They represent "a history of our times as

seen in one phase of American life.1*1

Indeed, the themes

and issues agitating the public mind in the last quarter of the nineteenth century similarly stimulated the Chautauqua audiences of the day. It was revealed in the preceding chapter that the Chautauqua platform was open to discussion of the popular themes of the times.

The subjects discussed ranged from

incidental topics to large social issues.

Leaders of the

major social, economic, and political reform movements of the period were invited to address Chautauqua audiences. Leading spokesmen of the opposition, too, were given op­ portunity for rebuttal.

Some persons resented this im­

partiality, and demanded explanation of why Chautauqua,

^-Chautauqua A ssembly Herald, July 30, 1898, p. 1.

54

55 as an Institution, did not take a position on these important matters* George E. Vincent,^" who succeeded his father as Principal of Instruction in 1898, succinctly expressed Chautauquars policy on reform movements.

In his introduc­

tion of Susan B. Anthony on W o m a n Ts Day, July 14, 1900, he explained to the Amphitheater audience and to the nation: Chautauqua is not primarily an Institution for pushing reforms to the front. It is not an institu­ tion for the official adoption of reforms or radical movements. Some persons have resented this attitude of Chautauqua and have not liked it because Chautau­ qua has not become the special advocate of certain measures. Chautauqua fs mission is to increase the intelligence of the world and to give the people a chance to think for themselves* To that end it is the duty and pleasure of Chau­ tauqua to invite to this place the leaders of all for­ ward movements in order that the people may judge of their merits after the case has been presented. 2 In order to establish adequately the place and sig­ nificance of ChautauquaTs speaking activities in the history of American public address, additional questions must be raised and answered.

Who, for instance, were some

of the speakers crossing the Chautauqua platform, 18741900?

What did these speakers talk about?

What were the

types of speaking activities engaged in at Chautauqua?

1Dr.

Vincent, in 1911, was appointed President of the University of Minnesota. In 1917 he left the Univer­ sity of Minnesota to become the Director of the Rockefeller Foundation, a position he held until his retirement in 1929* ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 14, 1900, p. 1

56

What attributes of public speaking appealed most to these audiences?

What pioneering did Chautauqua, as an educa­

tional institution, do in the field of speech instruction? Speakers and Themes Prom the time of its founding in 1874, Chautauqua showed an active interest in religious

themes.

It will

be remembered that the Assembly was originated as an institute for the advanced training of Sunday school teachers. popular.

Sermons of an exegetical nature always were Many of the great ministers of the day addressed

audiences from the Chautauqua platform.

T. DeWitt Talmage,

for example, was invited to speak at Chautauqua every season.

His debut at the Assembly, however, was not

auspicious• The general feeling concerning the remarks of the Rev. DeWitt Talmage yesterday, seems to be one of disappointment. Nearly every one hoped for a lecture instead of a sermon, and those who pre­ ferred the sermon wished for a much better one, than was given. 1 Other noteworthy ministers who preached at Chau­ tauqua were Phillips Brooks, Lyman Abbott, Edward Everett Hale, S. Parkes Cadman, Russell Conwell, and Washington Gladden.

The prominent Methodist clergyman Bishop I. W.

Wiley, though of lesser note than these men, was a great favorite of Assembly audiences.

^-Jamestown Daily Journal, August 13, 1874, p. 4.

57 The style of this pulpit orator is singularly direct, and devoid of art and artifice. His method shows his contact with humanity in masses; he talks to the capacity of the average listener as too few ministers do. Nine-tenths of the gospel artillery is aimed too high— goes right over the heads of the people; might nearly as well fire blank cartridges. Bishop Wiley goes directly at the intelligences and hearts of the listeners. 1 A salient feature of the broad intellectual advance in post-Civil War America was the impact of science and the evolutionary hypothesis upon the thought of the day.2

Chau­

tauqua was especially mindful of this controversy, and opened its platform to discussion of the implications of scientific and evolutionary thought to religion.

The

conflict between religion and science was discussed and analyzed by such men as John Fiske, T. DeWitt Talmage, Charles H. Fowler, William North Rice, Nathan Sheppard, William Rainey Harper, and Charles Force Deems.

In 1893

Henry Drummond, the Scotch evolutionist, delivered his famous series of lectures on tfThe Ascent of Man” from the Amphitheater platform before capacity audiences. Attacks on Ingersollism occasionally were ineluded In addresses from the Amphitheater platform.. most vigorous attacks were leveled

The

by T. DeWitt Talmage,

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 29, 1882, p. 1. 2Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Modern America, p. 286.

5,8 G* R. Wendling, Anthony Comstock* and the Reverend James G* Townsend*

Talmage held that Ingersoll "misrepresented

the Bible

Wendling called him "the acknowledged

champion of infidelity in America#"2

To Comstock, Inger­

soll was "the great American blasphemer*"3 cried:

Townsend

"He is an orator, but only the orator of an hour#

Not ten years will pass away until his friends will hasten to hide with the veil of tender charity the inconsistencies of his flaming words*"4

The anti-lngersoll remarks in

TownsendTs address seemed especially appealing to the audience# The Rev* J* G* Townsend’s lecture was listened to with close attention by a large audience from the beginning to the end****The beauty of his language and his fascinating mode of delivery went far to please the people*..*The man of rhetoric and blas­ phemy was but a shining target for the polished shafts of the orator# 5 Despite the Reverend Townsend!s views on the ideas of Robert G. Ingersoll, some were impressed with the simi­ larity of their speech composition#

Several years later,

for instance, a reporter from the daily newspaper of Olean,

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 2, 1884, p. 4# 2Ibid.,

August 22, 1879, p. 2.

3Ibid*,

August 10,

1882, p* 4#

4Ibid*,

August 20,

1880, p* 4#

3Ibid»,

August 13,

1880, p. 1#

59

New York commented upon a speech delivered by Dr. Townsend at Chautauqua:

"Many of his expressions reminded me very

much of Ingersoll*"^ This period, 1874 to 1900, witnessed the momentous rise of the city in America*

The swelling urban centers,

teeming with new and heterogeneous populations, were vir­ tual hothouses for social maladies*

What was, inquired

many, the role of the church and religion in the new urban environment?

The relation of religion and society was a

subject of mounting importance in this period*

It was the

theme of Chautauqua addresses by Russell Conwell, Frank

^

Russell, W* S* Rainsford, Richard T. Ely, and Josiah Strong.

These men, and others, spoke vigorously for the

socialization of Christian thought and practices* One of the largest single categories of speakers1 themes at Chautauqua included the wide range of social, political, and economic subjects* that of temperance reform.

One recurring topic was

Chautauqua!s interest in tem­

perance was keen throughout the period.

It was, in fact,

on the Assembly grounds that the W o m a n ’s National Christian Temperance Union was organized* The "Woman’s National Christian Temperance Union,” with its twenty-three auxiliary State Unions, is the largest society ever composed of, and conducted ex­ clusively by women. It is the lineal descendant of

^Olean Herald,

August 6, 1886, p. 4.

60 the great Temperance Crusade of 1873 and *74; was organized at Chautauqua, August 15, of the latter year* and is a union of all Christian Churches for the purpose of educating the young* forming a better public sentiment* reforming the drinking class* trans­ forming by the power of divine grace those who are en­ slaved by alcohol, and removing the dram shop from our streets by law. A committee on organization was appointed at Chau­ tauqua, August 15, 1874, Mrs. Jennie F. Willing, of Chicago, Chairman; Mrs. Emily Huntington Miller, Secretary# 1 The first Assembly at Chautauqua Lake featured an address by the noted temperance advocate, John B. Gough. It was reported that "the largest audience yet seen on the grounds assembled to hear the great temperance lecturer* John B. Gough, on the

’Poes We F i g h t . . I t

which Gough alone can deliver....1*2

was a lecture

Frances E. Willard's

temperance address in 1876 marked the first appearance of a woman speaker on the Chautauqua platform.

"No orator,"

wrote Hurlbut, "drew larger audiences or bound them under a stronger spell by eloquent words than did Frances Elizabeth Willard#1*3 Succeeding Assemblies heard other orators of the temperance movement such as Mary T. Lathrop* George H# Vibbert* Francis Murphy, Eli Johnson, and Mrs. J. Ellen Foster#

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 1880, p. 4. 2

Jamestown Daily Journal, August 8, 1874, p. 4#

'Z

'"’Jesse L. Hurlbut, The Story of Chautauqua, p. 77.

61 The theme of women's rights was often linked with that of temperance.

Women, some speakers argued, should be

granted the franchise and be permitted to engage in public activity so they could fight more effectively for temper­ ance#

Others charged that it was undemocratic or u n ­

ethical to deny women political and economic equality* Leaders of the women's rights movement who addressed Chau­ tauqua audiences were Susan B. Anthony, Anna Howard Shaw, Mary A# L i v e m o r e , Helen Campbell, Zerelda Wallace, Henry B. Blackwell, and Carrie Chapman Catt#

The availability

of the Chautauqua platform to advocates of equal rights for women seems especially significant in that John H* Vincent, who selected the speakers, was an outspoken op­ ponent of the women's rights movement.

This fact did not

go unnoticed by the Chautauqua Assembly Herald* A great many people were on the tiptoe of curios­ ity to hear what he [John H# Vincent] would have to say on f,Woman Suffrage.” The Chancellor did not dis­ appoint them, but in a plain, frank, courageous state­ ment, planted himself squarely against granting the right of suffrage to woman....But men of different views on some questions meet and work in this organiza­ tion harmoniously. The Chancellor claims the privilege for himself that he grants to other men on the Chau­ tauqua platform, viz.: to express their deep and honest convictions on this live question. 1 In addition to the rights of women, the rights of the Negro received periodic attention from Chautauqua

•^August 22, 1884, p. 1*

62

speakers#

Joseph Cook, John Temple Graves, Bishop J. S*

Johnston, and Booker T. Washington explored the problems of the Negro in his attempt to adjust to white American society# The topic of reconciliation between North and South was discussed by a few speakers#

The first to re­

view it was Governor A# H# Colquitt of Georgia at the 1878 Assembly#

Later, in 1883, it was the theme of addresses

by Judge A# W. Tourgee of Mayville, New York, a returned carpetbagger and author of A F o o ^ s Errand, and President A# G. Iiaygood of Emory College in Georgia.

The follow­

ing commentary of the Chautauqua Assembly Herald reveals something of the treatment this subject invariably re­ ceived at Chautauqua: On the platform sat ex-Governor Pierrepont, of West Virginia, Judge A. W. Tourgee, and Dr. Haygood, of Georgia, each of whom was honored with the Chau­ tauqua salute. Addresses were delivered by Judge Tourgee and Dr. Haygood— both in good taste and fine spirit--the former recognizing the honesty of the South in their course of 1861 judging from their standpoint; the latter accepting with thanksgiving the decisions of the war and rejoicing in the u n ­ torn flag. 1 The merits and defects of economic laissez faire received considerable attention upon the platforms at Chautauqua.

Some of the ablest critics and defenders of

America*s economic system were invited to the Assembly to

^August 25, 1883, p# 1.

63

present their cases*

Richard T. Ely and Washington Gladden

submitted strong indictments of laissez faire capitalism, while William Graham Sumner, George Gunton, and James G* Schurman spearheaded the defense.

The rights of labor were

contended pro and con by Joseph Cook, Joseph D. Weeks, Francis G. Peabody, William Graham Sumner, and Richard T* Ely*

Professor Robert E. Thompson, University of Penn­

sylvania economist, defended the policies of protection; William Graham Sumner urged the adoption of free trade* The plight of the farmer aroused mounting atten­ tion from the Chautauqua platform.

By 1889 Chautauqua had

designated one day of its summer season as Grange Day. The Amphitheater on Grange Days was the scene of immense platform meetings at which the socio-economic problems of rural America were aired, and plans for their ameliora­ tion reviewed.

National Grange leaders such as Joseph H*

Brigham and Mortimer Whitehead often appeared at Chautau­ qua.

Others primarily concerned with the plight of the

farmer were Edward W. Bemis and Davis H. Waite, Populist governor of Colorado.

The explosive free silver issue was

iiscussed in addresses by Congressman Michael D. Harter, of Dhio, and John R. Commons. While rural America had its spokesmen, the throbbing social problems of the city were described by others from fhe Chautauqua platform.

Jacob Riis, for instance, spoke

64 on

Battling the Slum,** an address which was **of absorb­

ing interest, and held the close attention of an audience that filled the great amphitheater.*11

Jane Addams told of

the social settlement, Hull House, and its functions among the urban poor.

The work of the Salvation Army was the

theme of lectures by Ballington Booth and, later, by Mrs. Maude Ballington Booth.

Mrs. Booth commanded the riveted

attention of one of the largest audiences of the 1900 season. speaker.

ftMrs. Booth,** wrote an observer, ”is an effective She is modest in manner, but her way of speaking

and especially the expression of her face convinces her audience immediately that her heart is in her words•**^ Anthony Comstock was received with marked enthusiasm when he appeared in the Amphitheater to express alarm over the growth of vice in the city, and to outline his methods for combating it.

**He thinks bad literature the greatest

curse of the day, and he told of numerous experiences and efforts to overcome the evil***^ These lecturers were among those who spoke about the pressing social and economic problems of the day* Chautauqua*s alert newspaper saw special significance in their appearance on the Assembly!s platforms*

1Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 7, 1897, p. 5* 2Jamestown Evening Journal, July 2, 1900, p. 5* 5New York Tribune, August 10, 1894, p. 4*

65 Social and economic questions have for several years occupied a large share of time and attention at Chautauqua, which is only another way of stating that Chautauqua is fully abreast with the thought and is deeply interested in all the more important problems of the day* It is true that every year that we re­ turn to these groves, that social and economic ques­ tions have increased in number and importance* The future man, who looks back upon the closing decade of the nineteenth century will, it would seem be forced to call it the era of social science* 1 After 1890, the crusaders for Imperialism were heard on the Chautauqua platform*

Among those proclaiming

the “mission of America" were Francis N. Thorp, Willard F. Mallalieu, Charles F* Aked, Senator Jonathan P. Dolliver, and Josiah Strong.

Cortenay DeKalb and Warner Miller

urged immediate construction of a Nicaraguan canal in the interests of American naval and commercial supremacy* The theme of personal Improvement and success occasionally was employed by Chautauqua speakers during this period.

Something of the nature of this theme may

be discerned from a glimpse at the titles applied to speeches of the following men: Wolcott Calkins DeWitt Talmage

“The Fast Young Man" by

(1876), “Bright and Happy Homes" by T* (1883), "Backbone" by P. S. Henson (1888),

"Life*s Burdens and the Bearing of Them" by Moses Colt Tyler (1892), "Power of Will" by Merrill E. Gates

(1892),

•^-Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 25, 1893, p. 1* While it is true that speeches on social and economic themes bulked large at Chautauqua, they did not comprise the largest body of speechmaking at the Assembly. Speeches on religious, cultural, and educational topics were somewhat more numerous*

66 "Love, Laughter and Song11 by Robert Taylor (1899).

Russell

H. Conwell, too, lectured on the personal success theme. He preached a gospel or wealth, a message of stewardship for the successful. Of the cultural and educational themes, the follow­ ing were most often heardt

travel experience, history*

literature, philosophy and psychology, science, and educa­ tion.

The inveterate world traveler Joseph Cook, in his

grandiloquent style, often related his experiences abroad. General Lew Wallace, Henry Drummond, William E. Curtis, Dennis Osborne, John P. Newman, and Sheldon Jackson also vividly portrayed foreign places and people to the Chau­ tauqua audiences.

The lecturers on historical subjects

numbered such men as Edward Everett Hale, Albert B. Hart, John Lord, Horace Bemis, James Hughes, Schuyler Colfax, Charles E. Pitch, Frank W. Gunsaulus, John Piske, Andrew D. White, Shailer Mathews, Herbert B. Adams and Theodore Roosevelt.

Rooseveltfs Chautauqua lectures formed the

basis for his later book entitled Winning of the West. Great figures in the world of literature and their works were discussed by Julia Ward Howe, Edward Eggleston, Wallace Bruce, Homer Sprague, Albert S. Cook, Charles J. Little, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Bliss Perry.

Chau­

tauqua was particularly impressed by the latter lecturer. The public opinion of Chautauqua declares that Prof. Bliss Perry is to be ranked among the finest

67 lecturers that have visited Chautauqua, He draws large audiences. He has a remarkably clear insight and felicity of expression. 1 In contrast to the rather extensive parade of lecturers on historical and literary subjects, relatively few spoke on matters of philosophy and psychology.

Per­

haps best known of this small group were William James, Principal A. M. Fairbairn of Mansfield College, Oxford, Borden P. Bowne, W. H. P. Faunce, H. H. Moore, and Julius H. Seelye. Lecturers on scientific subjects added variety to the Assembly program.

This limited group numbered men such

as Alexander Winchell, R. Ogden Doremus, A. S. Lattimore, James Strong, R. F. Weidner, and William C. Richards. Educators occasionally appeared on the platform to discuss contemporary classroom procedures.

Reviewing

pedagogical methods were Edward Howard Griggs, Nicholas Murray Butler, William Rainey Harper, Charles W. Eliot, j

Alice Freeman Palmer, George P. Hays, G. Stanley Hall, and Benjamin Ide Wheeler. Among the many readers crossing the Chautauqua platform the most popular were Robert Cumnock, S. H. Clark, and Ida Benfey.

George W. Cable, Thomas Nelson Page, Will

M. Carleton, and General Lew Wallace gave readings from their own writings.

A large audience packed the Amphi­

J-Jamestown Evening Journal, July 18, 1900, p. 7.

68

theater to hear General Wallace readl the chariot race epi­ sode from his Ben H u r .

”But,” commented Hurlbut," candor

compels us to say that it was not very thrillingly rendered. One who listened said,

fHe never got his horses off the

walk. 1 Recapitulation of speakers and themes at Chautauqua, suggests a few pertinent generalizations.

The themes most

often heard at the Assembly were religious, cultural, and educational.

Lectures on social, economic, and political

topics also ranked high in incidence, and usually evoked the greatest interest.

Of occupational groups, heaviest

representation was from the ministry and the university. Only a handful of foreigners, proportionally speaking, ap­ peared on the Chautauqua platform, the majority of them coming from the British Isles. Types of Speaking Activities The newcomer to Chautauqua in the late nineteenth century probably was Impressed not only with the numerous guest lecturers and the multiplicity of themes discussed, but also with the diversified program of speaking activities at the Assembly.

Undoubtedly the most common type of

speaking activity at Chautauqua was the presentation of

•^The Story of Chautauqua, pp. 230-231.

69 single addresses on different themes.

On successive days,

the Amphitheater visitor might hear lectures about recent discoveries in science, travel and exploration, temperance, the evolutionary hypothesis, personal improvement, the single tax, to mention but a few of the possibilities. There were, in short, numerous individual lectures on a variety of themes. Another type of speaking situation was the presen­ tation of series of addresses, by individual speakers, on a single theme.

Lectures on these related subjects often

were presented over a span of several days.

In 1893, for

example, Henry Drummond delivered his famous Lowell lec­ tures on the “Ascent of Man,11 speaking daily for a period of six days.

Washington Gladden, in 1889, presented the

several lectures on contemporary economic forces.

During

the season of 1893 Richard T. Ely offered a lecture series entitled “The Distribution of Wealth.” The platform meeting was a type of speaking func­ tion that gained considerable popularity at Chautauqua. During these meetings the entire day in the Amphitheater was devoted to speeches on a single important problem. The Chautauqua management often permitted a national organization identified with the idea or issue to sponsor the d a y fs program and to supply speakers to discuss aspects of the common subject.

Typical of this type of speaking

70 function were the annual Grange Days.

A local reporter

recorded one representative occasion: August 2, 1889 was designated as Grange Day at Chautauqua. An audience estimated at five thousand met in the Amphitheater to hear short addresses by the following men: Dr. Vincent; Lieut. Gov. E. F. Jones of New York; Hon. Mortimer Whitehead; and Col. J. H. Brigham. 1 Again in 1890 '‘thousands of Grangers swarmed to Chautau­ qua, as it was given over to the Patrons of Husbandry for a day.”^ The National Humane Soeiety, favoring the aboli­ tion of cruelty to children and to animals, was given its day in the season of 1897. Yesterday was Humanitarian Day and two platform meetings were held, at which the leaders of the National Humane Society delivered addresses. The great work which is being carried forward by this important society in the interests of humanity was fully described in its various branches by those who stand to the fore in its support. 3 Eight speakers, representatives of the Society, appeared before the Amphitheater audiences at the two sessions of this platform meeting. The advocates of political equality for women took advantage of an opportunity to use the Amphitheater for their platform meeting in 1898.

Explained the Jamestown

Evening Journal:

^-Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 3, 1889, p. 2. ^Ibid., August 2, 1890, p. 5. 5Ibid., July 30, 1897, p. 5.

71 Political Equality day at Chautauqua centers around an address by some suffragist speaker of prominence, and a gathering of equalityists from the surrounding country* 1 Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt was the "suffragist speaker of prominence" who delivered the major address of the day at this platform meeting* A final noteworthy type of speaking activity on the Amphitheater platform was the formal debate.

The

first of the Chautauqua debates was held in 1881.

The

vital facts of this historic contest were recorded* The question to be debated on Friday afternoon, between D r s . Lummis and Flood, has been agreed by the disputants to stand as follows: "Resolved, That woman's suffrage is essential to the highest civiliza­ tion." Of this, Mr. Flood takes the affirmative and Dr. Lummis the denial. The rules of debate have also been agreed upon by the "high contracting parties." There will be seven speeches, the affirmative having the opening and close....This promises to be one of the agitated points of the Chautauqua year. Prof* Lummis is a learned rhetorician and able debater, and our editor [Flood] will earn all the laurels he brings away from the contest. 2 The Chautauqua Assembly Herald was encouraged by response to this

newforensic

experiment:

the

"The audience

was among the largest and most attentive, during two hours *z

and ten minutes, we have ever seen at Chautauqua."

XJuly 21, 1898, p. 6* ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 9, 1881, p. 1* 3 Ibid., August 13, 1881, p. 1.

72

The next major debate was held In 1889 when Washington Gladden and George Gunton argued the economic value of trusts#

The crux of their argument was whether

or not the government should regulate the actions of trusts; Gladden favored public control, while Gunton opposed it.^ The season of 1892 produced another debate on the question of suffrage for women*

Mrs* Anna Howard Shaw and

the Reverend James M* Buckley clashed sharply, to the ap­ parent delight of an excited Amphitheater audience. ••.Cbautauquans have enjoyed the presence, listened to the voices, laughed at the wit, applaud­ ed the eloquence and approved or disapproved the arguments•••of two of the foremost disputants in the ranks respectively of the woman suffragists and the antis....the Amphitheater was crowded to hear both the brilliant advocates. The unanimous verdict is that both sides were ably, fairly, and exhaus­ tively presented, and while no wholesale conversion is claimed by either side, both appear to be entirely satisfied with the results* 2 !lMany years ago,” recounted the editor of the Chautauqua Assembly Herald, the plan of having a joint debate on some impor­ tant public question was inaugurated here, the first question selected being Woman Suffrage. Later came the debate on the economic value of trusts•••*Last year the advisability of the general extension of

^Ibid., August 27, 1889, pp. 2-3. held in Amphitheater, August 26, 1889. ^Ibid., August 10, 1892, p. 1.

Report of debate

73 suffrage to women was presented again, ably, clearly and with general satisfaction, by Mrs. Anna Shaw in favor and the Rev. Dr. J. M. Buckley against. This year the question of silver coinage whieh has caused, for the first time in many years, the calling of an extra session of both houses of Congress, has been chosen* Certainly nothing could be more timely. 1 The Assembly eagerly awaited the scheduled debate on the free silver issue.

The question was to be argued by

two able members of the United States Congress, Michael D* Harter, Democratic Representative from Ohio, and William M. Stewart, Republican Senator from Nevada.

Senator

Stewart, however, failed to appear for the debate, and one I. E. Dean of Honeoye Falls, New York, offered to substitute for the absent Senator.

Mr. Dean, a repre­

sentative of the National Encampment of the Farmers* Alliance and Industrial Union, had been the officer re­ sponsible for Senator Stewart*s appearance* When Mr. Harter was informed of the non-arrival of Senator Stewart, and asked if he would carry on the discussion with Mr. Dean, he replied, ,fI have not the honor of Mr. Dean*s acquaintance, but I shall be glad to discuss the question with him, inasmuch as he is Senator Stewart*s representative and substi­ tute.” 2 The debate proceeded, and with unhappy results* Concerning the outcome of the heralded silver debate, Chau­ tauqua’s daily newspaper Icily concluded:

^■July 29, 1893, p. 1* 2

Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 31, 1893, p. 5*

74 It would not be a proper use of the term to call the meeting of Saturday a "debate.11 It was a rout. Mr. Dean is so far from being equipped to debate the question that it is simply astonishing that he should have the assurance to inflict himself upon the audi­ ence which had come to hear a master. It would have been far better had the free coinage been not repre­ sented at all* The argument against free coinage by Mr. Harter was concise and vigorous, fair and courteous, able, thoughtful, eloquent, and comprehensive. He covered every issue raised by his opponent, and many he had not raised at all, and turned against him in an over­ whelming way many of what he evidently thought his strongest points* Mr* Harter1s address alone was well worth any time spent in the Amphitheater Saturday afternoon. 1 As if discouraged by the Harter-Dean fiasco, Chau­ tauqua sponsored no more formal debates until after the beginning of the new century. Appraisal of Speaking at Chautauqua One is impressed that, from its beginning, Chau­ tauqua sought to maintain a high level of speaking per­ formance on its platform.

There was steady insistence

that the speaker not only be well-informed on his sub­ ject, but also that he be skilled in the technique of composition and delivery.

A hint of this insistence is

provided in one of the early issues of the Assembly's daily newspaper*

^-Ibid., p. 1. This observation reflects no mere bias against free coinage. Mr. Dean obviously was illprepared to debate the proposition, and was soundly drub­ bed by Congressman Harter* See, Ibid., p. 5, for text of debate•

75 Hep© lies the secpet of this whole movementj it is first in the programme, and second in the lectures and sermons men and women give on the Chautauqua platform. The moment this standard of ability in the speakers is lowered, then the dangers come* Dr* [John H,j ^Vincent evidently believes in first-class talent, genius, piety without cant, and eloquence, as quali­ fications in the men who address Chautauqua congrega­ tions* 1 One leading newspaper of the day was highly im­ pressed with Chautauqua1s speakers.

It dubbed the plat­

form offerings as "an intellectual bill of fare as sub­ stantial as it is inviting,"2 Although observers at Chautauqua occasionally wrote about the speakers* ideas and arguments, most of their criticism of speaking techniques was based upon casual impressions.

Customarily, they employed no systematized

canons of criticism in their appraisal of speaking per­ formance,

The Reverend Joseph Cook, for instance, des­

cribed the lectures of Prank Gunsaulus as "examples of genuine oratory, and finished eloquence•"

Estimations

revealing little more than Cook*s general comment were common* Although there was a preponderance of superficial evaluation of speakers and speeches, it is possible to

•^Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, August 2, 1876, p. 1* 2New York Tribune, July 25, 1892, p* 6. ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 21, 1888, p* 1*

76

learn something of the speech habits of Chautauqua’s most popular lecturers*

A few speakers were invited to the Chau­

tauqua platform again and again*

One can surmise that

these elite were most esteemed by the Chautauqua audiences# The Reverend Dr* James M* Buckley, New York editor of the Christian Advocate, was one of the perennial favor­ ites*

Speaking in a “plain, familiar way,” he gives the

audience ”a mingling of wit and wisdom, of story, anecdote and pleasantry; of terms, Greek, Latin, technical and scientific; of logic and description, and all enlivened by the lightning of his own genius ."-JThe Chautauqua audiences were impressed by Rever­ end Buckley.

Equally impressed was a reporter from the

daily newspaper at Olean, New York. Buckley is celebrated**.for a memory that retains everything and forgets nothing. In this respect he is an extraordinary man. You can listen to him for hours, and still shout with the congregation, ”go on J ” And I believe Buckley could go on until doom’s day were it necessary. He can tell stories without any inter­ mission, and he can make a point about as clear and sharp as any speaker I ever heard. He is...a most extraordinary man, and a man possessed of a gift of telling in the brightest, keenest, most interesting sort of way all that he has ever read, or heard or thought o f • 2 That the Reverend Buckley truly was an “extraordinary man” is perhaps suggested by the wide range of subjects he

^Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, July 28, 1876, ^Olean Herald, August 12, 1886, p. 5#

77

discussed.

During the period 1874 to 1900 his themes

included the following: science, w o m a n s

religion, personal success,

suffrage, Christian Science, and history.

In the season of 1897 he favored the Amphitheater audience with an hour lecture on "The Psychology, Hygiene and Morality of the Bicycle."^Even at the end of the period, Dr. Buckley was making his annual appearances on the platform.

His pop­

ularity was undiminished. One of the best wearing and most serviceable of the speakers who occupy the Chautauqua platform from year to year, and he has been coming ever since the assembly was inaugurated, is Dr. J. M. Buckley of New York, editor of the Methodist Christian Advocate. He has the wearing qualities, the brilliancy and the finish of a Dutch hand made mahogany cabinet, still with nothing of the wooden about. Few are more looked for than he. 2 Buckley was admired for his fluent delivery, his amazing memory, and his penchant for illustrating lectures with abundant and interesting stories. one chronicler of the Chautauqua

He was, recalled

Institution, "aggressive

in debate, instantaneous In repartee, marvelous in memory of faces and facts, and ready to speak upon the widest range of subjects."^

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 4, 1897, p. 1. ^Jamestown Evening Journal, August 4, 1898, p. 7 o ^Hurlbut, The Story of Chautauqua, p. 110.

78 Several speakers were acclaimed as eloquent* *rom the comments made about such speakers It is possible to glean an idea of what critics regarded as the ingredi­ ents of eloquence.

The Reverend C. P. Burr, of Massa­

chusetts, for example, was considered an eloquent speaker* "His style is ornate and poetic in the highest degree* He speaks...like a man who was not only convinced, but inspired by the truth he utters*”^

The Reverend James G-*

Townsend moved audiences chiefly by "the beauty of his language and his fascinating mode of delivery*”2

John B*

Gough, the great temperance lecturer, spoke "with that true eloquence that moves men's hearts.”

His speeches

were "full of laughable stories, of solid truths, of practical lessons, and with blazing delivery....”3

When

G. R. Wendling, a St. Louis attorney, spoke at Chautau­ qua "he held the platform as a king, and swayed his audi­ ence for two hours by the scepter of^his eloquence.”^ Wendling*s presentation drew rhapsodical comment from the Chautauqua Assembly Herald*

^Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, July 28, 1876, p. 3. 2Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 13, 1880, p. 1 3Jamestown Daily Journal, August 8, 1874, p. 4* ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 21, 1879, p. 1

79

This gentleman has written his name at Chautau­ qua where none can reach to obliterate it. As to the scope of his reading and knowledge he seems to be an encyclopedia in himself. The only department of learning which did not glitter and blaze in his lecture was his professional lore. The jurist was lost sight of in the historian, the philosopher, the polemic and the statesman. His analytical faculty is the acutest, and his logic remorseless. He has just enough of the poetic element to dress his thoughts in attractive and beautiful form, without obscuring a thought, or disturbing his argument. His voice is as pleasant as a lute, and his meekness of spirit could have been obtained only by fellowship with Him who is meek and lowly of heart. 1 To another critic, Wendling was no less brilliant. His address yesterday was a masterly refutation of the atheistic doctrines of Ingersoll, and his position was supported by a wonderfully striking array of facts, while his argument was logical and convincing. He did not make an attack upon Ingersoll, and his manly tribute to the talents and personal character of this distinguished man won him favor­ able opinions from those who did not agree with his conclusions....His manner of speaking is graceful, easy, yet wonderfully impassioned at times. 2 Wendling, it is apparent, sought approval through establish­ ment of his ethos as well as through skill in composing and delivering his address. Joseph Cook, the noted preacher and lecturer, was another favorite of the Chautauqua audiences.

Scarcely

a season passed, from 1874 to 1900, that he did not ap­ pear on the Amphitheater platform.

He was a speaker

"whose eloquence and power it would be difficult to

1Ibid. 2Jamestown Journal, August 22, 1879, p. 5.

80

duplicate in America#”1

Perhaps an excerpt from one of

his most popular addresses would help reveal something of the nature of his oratory# On August 20, 1888 he delivered an address, ”Law and Labor, Property and Poverty,” to a packed Amphitheater# The address, in essence, was an appeal for recognition and protection of the rights of workingmen.

The following is

a typical Cook peroration: But last and chief and most of all, above trade help, above school help, above state help, even above self-help, let me put church help. That is, the de­ fense of the Sabbath, the gathering of the whole pop­ ulation into the bosom of God, the diffusion of conscientiousness, which is the only thing that can bring about the abolition of shiftlessness, the only thing that can bring about the abolition of poverty# In our time under the impulse of Christianity a great continent is rising which was once beneath the sea# All around this existed marshes of depressed condi­ tions. That continent rises, and as it does so, two effects are produced simultaneously: the central portion of dry land increases and themarshes around the border increase at the same time. As more land is lifted you have more marsh, but you also have more dry land. Democracy lifts, Christianity lifts. Now the remedy for these marshes is not to push the continent back; it is rather to lift and continue to lift until the whole continent rises above the sea and becomes firm, sweet land# So shall our voice of sovereign choice Sound the deep bass of duty done# And strike the key of time to be When God and man shall speak as one. (Great Applause)

1Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 21, 1888, p. 1. 2Ibid.,

August 24, 1888, p. 4#

81 This w a s , of course, C o o k !s peroration and not necessarily representative of the entire speech.

But it

was the type of speaking that brought the audience to its feet with cheers, it was the type of speaking that drew the "great applause," and* one suspects, it was representative of the favored eloquence.

The Chautauqua audiences liked,

and the most popular speakers gave them, well-turned phrases, an occasional "purple patch," dramatized ideas, fluent and adroit delivery, some bombast, and good ethos♦ The importance of adequate vocal volume was, of course, emphasized when lecturers spoke in the vast Amphitheater.

One anonymous auditor voiced his dis­

pleasure with speakers who did not talk directly to the audience* Mr. Editor: I wish to protest... against the practice which seems to be becoming quite too general of speakers turning away from the audience and addressing themselves to the persons on the platform. It is difficult to hear many of the speakers at a moderate distance even when they face the audience, but when they turn away it is impossible. This is especially true when the speaker lowers his voice, as he must do at the same moment, and delivers his emphatic statements and important points in a confidential whisper to those on the platform. Please call attention to the above thought­ lessness, which it doubtless is, and oblige yours, C. 1 Whether or not speakers thereafter heeded this suggestion can only be surmised; the writer, however, found no other criticism of the type cited.

•*~Ibid., August 19, 1878, p. 1*

82 With, hundreds or speakers appearing at Chautauqua during the period, it was inevitable that occasional dupli­ cation of speech materials would occur.

Although similar

themes and arguments often were used by speakers, seldom were their elaborate illustrations identical.

But in 1888,

unfortunately, Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage and Mrs. Mary Lathrap spoke in the Amphitheater within four days of each other; on August 4 Talmage delivered his "School of Scandal,” while on August 8 Mrs. Lathrap presented "The Theme To-day." These two distinguished lecturers have highly entertained and instructed the audience on different subjects. A singular coincidence excited considerable comment among their hearers. They each closed a lecture within a week on the same platform with the Battle of Waterloo as a set illustration. Talmage had the advantage because his lecture came first, but before some future audience Mrs. Lathrap may have the first inning. There ought to be some kind of danger signal for lecturers who use this elaborate sort of historical pointer, to prevent their trains of thought from running into each other. It would heighten the effect of both lectures if they could hear each other. As Chautauqua was interested in the platform per­ formance of its speakers, it was equally concerned with the principles of effective platform speaking and reading.

The

Assembly, in this respect, contributed substantially to the adolescent field of speech education.

While discussing the

speaking of the season of 1876, the Chautauqua AssemblyDaily Herald advanced its philosophy of eloquence in speech.

■^-Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 11, 1888, p. 1.

1

83 The eloquence has been of the Ciceronian— not the Demosthenian order— it has been the product of the intellect, and its power has been simply the force of ideas presented in philosophical terms, logical order, and dressed up in the graces of rhetoric* The fields of thought which have been thus ex­ plored are numerous, elevated, and rich in material* Our orators have proven that they were masters of the material which they wrought into their elaborate oratorical structures; but the realm of ideas simply is not vast enough to enlist all the powers of an orator, nor to stir to its depths the whole nature of man. The highest style of eloquence can be the product of nothing less than the concentration of all human powers upon one theme, one occasion, and one time. Intellect is not the highest, nor the deep­ est, nor the strongest of the faculties or powers with which God has endowed humanity. Underlying intellect and mightier in sweep and more unerring in its guidance and deductions, is what metaphysi­ cians call his emotional nature, or what in common parlance is called the heart# The ability to think gives to man much of his greatness and grandeur, but we never see him in the full majesty of his manhood except when mighty feeling lends Its inspiration to thought and action. Real eloquence can never be simulated; It is the product of the sharp and fierce collision of the orator with the occasion— it is the spark from the smitten steel* 1 The next season, 1877, John B. Gough was asked to explore the subject of ,fOrators and Eloquence” from the Auditorium platform. the following:

Gough offered such speech advice as

have something to say, feel what you

speak, avoid affectation and pomposity, do not imitate, etc.

He concluded that ”the true end of eloquence I

^-August 17, 1876, pp. 4-5*

84

believe to consist in thoughts and emotions, communicated from one mind to another."! Two years later the Reverend John W. Crawford, writing in the Chautauqua Assembly Herald, added to the Assembly *s mounting interest in speech when he explained: The low condition of pulpit oratory and elocu­ tion, is largely due to their neglect. This can only be remedied and elevated by that hard work and systematic discipline which has characterized orators of ancient and modern times. 2 Crawford!s proposal to remedy this lag evoked considerable interest on the Assembly grounds. Why not at the forthcoming Chautauqua Assembly... have a school of elocution and oratory? Why not secure the services of some eminent elocutionist and orator to whom shall be assigned the great work, not of giving lectures on these subjects alone, but of teaching how to read and speak efficiently. 3 Chautauqua vjas able to offer its first organized instruction in speech during the season of 1881.

Professor

J. W. Churchill, of Andover, Massachusetts, held classes in elocution which purported "not only to afford instruc­ tion, but is promotive of health, and systematically exercises, strengthens, and develops the organs of speech, expands the lungs and tones up the whole s y s t e m . A t

"I

pp. 2-3.

^Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, August 8, 1877, Lecturedelivered in Auditorium, August 7, 1877. ^July, 1879, p. 5. 3Ibid. 4Chautauqua Assembly Herald, June, 1881, p. 1.

85 the same time Professor Nathan Sheppard, of Chicago, gave f,a course of ten lectures which will illustrate the art of elocution.”-*-

In addition to the work of Churchill and

Sheppard, ”P ro f. S. S. Curry of Boston University gave daily lessons in voice-culture. The year 1885 marked the establishment of Chautau­ q u a ^ School of Elocution and Oratory under the direction of Professor Robert Cumnock of Northwestern University. He

taught students the principles of "reading

ing in easy, agreeable

ways”and "to speak as

and speak­ nature meant

human beings to speak."'-’ Under his direction "hundreds of teachers and clergymen were trained...to use their voices in ways more natural and effective in public."4 Inspired by the success of the new department, the Chau­ tauqua Assembly Herald proudly asserted: The elocutionary work at Chautauqua under the direction of Prof. R. L. Cumnock has been so marked a success that Dr. [John H.] Vincent intends to have more work done in this Department another year. There is no reason why we may not have the largest School of Oratory at Chautauqua that there is in our country. 5

^-Ibid. ^Vincent, The Chautauqua Movement, p. 284. ^Adams, op. cit., I, 1042* 4Ibid., p. 1041. ^August 2, 1884, p. 3.

86

That Professor Cumnock's department aid grow in size and popularity is a fact.

By 1888 it was announced

that "his pupils this year number one-third more than they did last year* and more in excess of all other preceding years; and his pupils are enthusiastic about the practical benefits of his work."-*In the summer of 1894 Professor S. H. Clark, of the University of Chicago, came to supervise speech instruction at Chautauqua. Expression."

The department was renamed the "School of Herbert B. Adams, historian of Johns Hopkins

University, was impressed with Clark's philosophy of speech. Mr. S. H. Clark...represents both at Chicago and at Chautauqua the new elocution, which he regards as the basis of the science of pedagogy. The new teach­ ing starts with psychology rather than with mimicry and mouthing. Perception and feeling must precede natural expression....There must be some thought in the mind, some life and feeling in the soul, before a man or woman can truly express anything. All elo­ cution that depends upon mere externals, whether vocal mechanics or pump-handle gestures, is unnatural and artificial. True oratory is like a spring— spontaneous. 2 The next year, 1895, Mrs. Emily Bishop joined the School to teach principles of the Delsarte System.

Chau­

tauqua’s School of Expression, through the turn of the century, offered courses of instruction similar to the following curriculum:

^Ibid., August 17, 1888, p. 1. 20p. cit., I, 1042.

87 1.

Philosophy and Technique of Vocal Expression. Five hours a week. Mr. S. H. Clark. Philosophy and Technique of the Delsarte System of Expression. Five hours a week. Mrs. Emily Bishop. Literary and Dramatic Interpretation. Five hours a week. Mr. S. H. Clark. Reading and How to Teach it. Five hours a week. Mr. Clark. Two special classes, one and one-half hours daily for three weeks, including voice cul­ ture, analysis, interpretation, and Delsarte.

2. 3. 4. 5.

Chautauqua, as an educational institution, dis­ played commendable interest In the principles of effective public speaking.

Some of the foremost speech educators

of the day were secured to teach at the Assembly’s summer classes.

This interest in the field of speech Is not

surprising.

The Assembly’s efforts to bring the leading

orators of the times to its platform, and Its ventures Into the youthful field of speech education were but a recognition of the importance of the spoken word.

In an

age when platform speaking was the sole efficient medium for mass oral communication, Chautauqua acknowledged that Mthe world Is governed by ideas clothed in words; ’thoughts that breathe’ in ’words that burn.’

Chautauqua

knows this lesson.”^

^Chautauqua Year-Book for 1895, p. 74. ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, June, 1881, p. 1.

Part Two ANALYSIS OF SPEECHES ON MAJOR ISSUES AND IDEAS OF THE AGE

CHAPTER V RELIGIOUS THOUGHT AND DOCTRINE Perhaps at no time in its American development, " wrote Schlesinger, "has the path of Christianity been so sorely beset with pitfalls and perils as in the last quar­ ter of the nineteenth century."1

Indeed, the new pro­

nouncements of science and scholarship were thought by many to impeach the validity of the Bible itself.

The

religious orthodoxy was alarmed at the seeming implica­ tions of Darwinism and the emerging science of Biblical criticism. But this was not all. In an age of rapid, not to say fearful, urban and industrial development, the church was fast losing its appeal for the wage-earn­ ing masses....Was Protestantism to be sequestered in the small towns and rural districts, or could it ad­ just itself to the requirements of the megalopolis? 2 The religious history of the period describes a challenged Christianity that sought to reconcile its teach­ ings and adjust its practices to the social and intellectual pressures of the times.

^Arthur M. Schlesinger, "A Critical Period in American Religion, 1875-1900," Proceedings of the Massachu­ setts Historical Society, LXIV TTune", 1932), 523-524. ^Ibid., p. 524.

88

89

Speakers at Chautauqua, as elsewhere, vigorously discussed these problems that were agitating sacred and secular thought of the day.

This chapter considers the

lectures of Chautauqua speakers who talked about the problems and prospects of contemporary religious thought and doctrine. The Evolutionary Hypothesis The publication of the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in 1859 initiated a controversy that was to rage for decades in the fields of science, philosophy* and religion.

Suggesting that all life developed from

pre-existing life, Darwin concluded that animals and plants were gradually evolved in the course of untold centuries.

Contradicting the Scriptural account of

creation, man was revealed not as the product of Divine purpose but of a process of natural selection. With the publication of an American edition of Darwin's book in January, 1860, "an irrepressible conflict of ideas on science and religion began to parallel the struggle over slavery and s e c e s s i o n . W i t h i n a matter of months,

^-Sidney Ratner, "Evolution and the Rise of the Scientific Spirit in America," Philosophy of Science, II (January, 1936), 106.

90

heated debates took place at the Boston Society of Natural History and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the spring and fall of 1860, mag ­ azines like the American Journal of Science, the North American Review, the Christian Examiner, the Atlantic Monthly, the Methodist Quarterly Review, and the American Theological Review carried long and lively articles attacking or defending this lat­ est of heresies* 1 One of the earliest men of science to embrace the evolutionary theory was the noted botanist, Asa Gray of Harvard University*

If Professor Gray was !,the New World fs

most efficient defender of Darwinism,"^ the foremost antag­ onist of the theory was the famed Swiss-American zoologist rz

Louis Agassiz, also at Harvard.

Even during the Civil

War, when national attention was diverted from the evolu­ tionary controversy, Professor Agassiz continued his as­ sault upon Darwinism.

In the preface to a new volume in

natural history, he forcefully restated his position* ...It is my belief that naturalists are chasing a phantom, In their search after some material grada­ tion among created beings, by which the whole Animal Kingdom may have been derived by successive develop­ ment from a single germ, or from a few germs.... I confess that there seems to me to be a repul­ sive poverty in this material explanation, that is contradicted by the intellectual grandeur of the

1Ibid. 2Woodbridge Riley, American Thought, p. 191. 3por a valuable survey of the reactions of leaders in the American scientific world to Darwin1s hypothesis see, Bert J. Loewenberg, "The Reaction of American Scien­ tists to Darwinism," American Historical Review, XXXVIII (July, 1933), 687-701*

91 universe; the resources of the Deity cannot be so meagre, that, in order to create a human being en­ dowed with reason, he must change a monkey into a man. 1 Acknowledging this to be only a personal opinion, he went on to suggest the sources of scientific refutation to this notion: ...I nevertheless insist, that this theory is op­ posed to the processes of Nature, as far as we have been able to apprehend them; that it is contradicted by the facts of Embryology and Paleontology. 2 With the close of the Civil War, the controversy over evolution gained momentum.

Agassiz, joined by Parke

Godwin and Horace Bushnell, maintained his resolute op­ position to Darwinism.

But the gathering strength of the

evolutionists was not to be denied.

Their ranks now in­

cluded such men as James McCosh, Edward L. Youmans, William B. Rogers, John Fiske, Charles W. Eliot, and James Freeman Clarke--educators, scientists, editors, and ministers.^

Chauncey Wright provided a clear index of

their thinking when, in 1865, he declared: Progress in science is really a progress in re­ ligious truth, not because any new reasons are dis­ covered for the doctrines of religion, but because advancement in knowledge frees us from the errors both of ignorance and of superstition, exposing the

•^-Louis Agassiz, Methods of Study in Natural History, pp. iii-iv* ^Ibid., p. iv* sRatner, op. cit., p. 112.

92

mistakes of a false religious philosophy, as well as those of a false science. If the teachings of natural theology are liable to be refuted or corrected by progress in knowledge, it is legitimate to suppose, not that science is irreligious, but that these teach­ ings are superstitious; and whatever evils result from the discoveries of science are attributable to the rashness of the theologian, and not to the supposed irreligious tendencies of science. 1 The controversy reached its crescendo, however, when, in 1871, Darwin published his Descent of Man.

Now,

the human species was expressly included In the evolu­ tionary chain.

Man, simply the most complex of the

primates, was the climax of the evolutionary process* He had been developing from lower forms ever since the beginning of life.

Such an hypothesis profoundly shocked

religious orthodoxy; few defenders of the faith could re­ main neutral on the question of evolution. The growing influence of evolutionary thought was both confirmed and enhanced by speaking tours in the United States of some of Britain’s most eminent evolutionists* Thomas Huxley, Alfred Russell Wallace, Richard Anthony Proctor, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, and Henry Drummond were British speakers who lectured to American audiences on the Q evolutionary hypothesis during the period*

^"Natural Theology as a Positive Science," North American Review, C (January, 1865), 184. 2Wayne C. Minnick, "British Speakers in America, 1866-1900," Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Dept, of Speech, Northwestern University, 1949, pp. 69-80, passim*

93 It was Into this agitated intellectual environ­ ment that speakers at Chautauqua stepped when they rose to address Assembly audiences on the evolutionary question# It was an issue to command the close attention of Chautauquans throughout the period# More than a dozen lecturers discussed this subject at Chautauqua from 1874 to 1900#

The majority of them

were ministers; several were educators or college professors* Most of the speakers, especially from 1874 to 1880, at­ tempted to reconcile Darwinian doctrines with the Bible* During the first half of the 1880*s, however, several speakers launched a vigorous counteroffensive against science and the evolutionary hypothesis.

There was an

interim between 1887 and 1892 when nothing on the sub­ ject was heard at Chautauqua.

Then, from Henry Drummond^s

lectures in 1893 until the end of the century, speakers once more attempted a thoroughgoing reconciliation between evolution and religion, science and theology# Analysis of the speeches dealing with the evolu­ tionary hypothesis reveals two dominant themes.

One was

designed to disprove or discredit the evolutionary theory by criticizing facets of it per se, or by discussion of the frailties of science.

The other theme was an attempt

to reconcile evolution with the teaching of the Bible, to demonstrate the compatibility of science and religion.

94

The two themes were advanced throughout the period. is understandable*

This

The progress of the evolutionary idea

in the whole of America confirms the fact that its accept­ ance was neither immediate nor unanimous.

Although 11...with

the verdict in its favor in all really well-educated circles,11 "the period--essentially a transition period-closed with evolution still on trial.!l1 Although most of the public lectures at the first National Sunday School Teachers’ Assembly in 1874 were devoted to principles and practices of Sunday school work, one lecturer did grapple briefly with the idea of evolution.

In a lecture, "The Growth of Moral or Reli­

gious Ideas as Traced in the Scriptures,” the Reverend Charles H. Fowler, President of Northwestern University, took issue with one aspect of Charles Darwinfs theory. Darwin, explained Dr. Fowler, has shown that m a n ’s brain, in its embryonic development, takes every shape from that of fish to that of man.

Superficially, this might

seem to favor the Darwinian hypothesis.

But, continued

the speaker, Louis Agassiz has presented telling refuta­ tion to this conclusion. ...Agassiz notes that, while we cannot distinguish in its various stages of development the brain of the

^-Nevins, The Emergence of Modern America, pp. 287288.

95 fish. from that of the animal, which it resembles, the brain of the fish always remains that of a fish. 1 Therefore, concluded Fowler, f,we do not change the genealogy to read 'which was the son of the polywog, which was the son of protoplasm, which was the son of nothing, 1 but we still have 1which was the son of Adam, which was the son of G o d . 1”2 Fowler's argument was much the same as the one used by Henry Adams when, after working under Sir Charles Lyell, he was forced to admit his skepticism about Darwin­ ism.

Adams found ’’he could detect no more evolution in

life since the Pteraspis than he could detect it in architecture.

All he could prove was change.

During the season of 1875 and 1876 two lecturers advanced the thesis that science simply describes the accomplishments of the Creator.

The Reverend E. F. Burr

discussed the "Celestial Magnitudes,11 concluding that the discoveries in astronomy furnish additional proof of the wonders of God.

Defining science as systematized knowledge,

theology is the pivotal science for it explains the first

^Official Report of the national Sunday-School Teachers1 Aaiembly", p. 4b» Delivered in Auditorium, August ll, 1874* 2Ibid. ^The Education of Henry Adams, p. 230.

96

causes of the material things that science seeks to de­ scribe*1

The Reverend E. 0. Haven, Chancellor of Syracuse

University, also urged that science reveals the genius of the Lord# God has built the universe....God is a spirit, and this material universe is but the clothing, but the instruments, but the machinery of his spirit, and we are but re-thinking the thoughts of God when we study science. 2 The Reverend Charles Force Deems, Pastor of the Church of the Stranger in New York, made the first of his nany appearances at Chautauqua in 1877.

Speaking on the

subject of the "Bible and Modern Science," he maintained that modern science disproves neither the Bible nor reli­ gion.

Every scientific hypothesis, including evolution,

said Deems, assumes there was a beginning.

"The very word

evolution assumes a primordial creation."'-’ Since creation presupposes a Creator, science, then, proves the existence of God.^

pp. 1-2.

^-Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, July 28, 1876, Delivered in Auditorium, July 27, 1876.

^Ibid., July 27, 1876, p. 2. Pavilion,~JuTy 26, 1876. 5Ibid., August 21, 1877, p. 2. torium, August 20, 1877*

Delivered in Delivered in Audi­

^Scientific findings not only were employed to Drove the existence of God, they also were used to support the idea of immortality. See, for example, A. J. DuBois, lfScience and Immortality," Century, XLIII (December, 1891), B52-263*

97

To demonstrate the fundamental harmony between science and religion, Dr. Deems pursued a line of argu­ ment that Chautauqua audiences were to hear often before the end of the century.

Since one Creator authored the

Bible, nature, and science, and since He was all-powerful, He must have created these things in harmony and in funda­ mental agreement.

There can be, therefore, insisted

Deems, no basic conflict between the three.

But, con­

tinued the speaker, when differences do appear between science and the Bible, defenders of the Bible need not attempt to reconcile them.

While science is ever-chang­

ing and, therefore, prone to mistakes, the Bible is a constant and unchanging record of life no matter what the status of current scientific theories.

It was Dr.

D e e m s T conclusion that "the Bible...is probably the great­ est example of 1survival of the fittest The Reverend Charles H. Fowler, who had been some­ what skeptical of Darwinfs hypothesis in his first appear­ ance at Chautauqua, spoke at the Assembly again in 1878. Discussing "Science in the Bible,” Fowler held that the Bible anticipates science, is the prophet of science, and so Is, in due time, verified by science.

p. 2.

To support this

^-Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, August 21, 1877, Delivered in Auditorium, August 20, 1877.

98

thesis, Dr* Fowler marshalled a vast amount of evidence* He sought to demonstrate that many of the conclusions of the physical and natural sciences were discussed in the Bible:

races and languages of man, the chemistry of the

air, the revolution of the earth, the Iforder of creation,11 botanical classifications, geology, mineralogy and mining, astronomy, etc*

This fact, continued the speaker, is not

surprising for both Nature and the Bible were authored by God*

The conflict between science and religion, then, is

not in principles, but only in interpretation* It was Fowler?s conclusion that man should recog­ nize the fundamental harmony between science and religion, and should study both carefully*

Why?

Because religion

taken alone engenders fanaticism, while science taken alone engenders skepticism.

"Man," therefore, "needs

both science and religion for complete wisdom."^ Less than two weeks after Dr. Fowler1s apologia, Professor William North Rice of Wesleyan University took issue with the type of detailed comparison between the findings of science and the disclosures of the Bible that Fowler had undertaken*

"A true reconciliation of science

and religion," pointed out Dr. Rice in his lecture on "The Conflict of Science and Religion,"

"must be not In letter

•^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 10, 1878, p. 2* Delivered in Auditorium, August 8, 1878*

'"^verw,

99 and in detail, but in spirit and in general*"^-

‘■“’rsrj'

He insisted

that past at tempt s to reconcile science and religion had been unsuccessful because of the method of reconciliation employed.

This method had been one of temporary, make­

shift, provisional adjustment* Where a discrepancy has been observed between some some scientific theory and some particular Scripture text or texts, after the scientific theory has become so well established in general belief that it is vain to deny it, recourse has been had to some device of exegesis, a new interpretation has been put upon the text in question, and by this new interpretation the particular discrepancy has been removed. 2 But that true reconciliation in principle could be effected, Rice did not doubt.

Since science deals with the

laws of nature in terms of their order and succession, and since religion deals with the origins and causes of the laws, there is no reason why basic harmony can not and should not exist*^

To those in his audience yet disturbed

by the thought of man's simian ancestry, a picture that evolution conjured in the minds of many, Dr. Rice offered a palatable alternative*

^-Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 21, 1878, p. 4. Delivered in Pavilion, August 20, 1878* 2Ibid. ^Rice had long espoused this thesis. For a more ex­ tensive discussion of his views see, William N. Rice, !,The Darwinian Theory of the Origin of the Species," New Englander, XXVI (October, 1867), 603-635*

100 Take this terrible bugbear of evolution, this doctrine that one specific form of life is evolved by natural processes out of some other form; and what is that after all but a recognition of the fact that the reign of law is more comprehensive than we had first perceived? It dethrones not God. It does not snow us that the universe goes on without a Divine plan. It only shows us that G o d 1s plan is vaster and more comprehensive than our poor thoughts had before been able to recognize# 1 It was not reported whether or not the Reverend Charles Force Deems heard Professor Rice»s address.

If he

did, it would appear that the remarks of Dr. Rice had little effect upon him.

It was the next day that the "Supersti­

tions of Science" were exposed by Reverend Deems.

Science,

he pointed out, is based upon and perpetuates more super­ stitions than religion ever has.

As a matter of fact,

most scientific hypotheses are based upon nothing more substantial than guesswork and speculation. Instance, the atomic theory.

Consider, for

"An atom is not only an u n ­

knowable, but an unthinkable thing."2

The so-called

science of chemistry is based upon atoms which are un­ knowable and which have no weight, yet when combined are supposed to have weight.

Or, continued the lecturer,

witness the insubstantial basis for the theories of heat and light:

no one ever has seen heat waves or "aether"

(through which light allegedly travels).

^•Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 21, 1878, p. 4. 2Ibid., October, 1878, p. 2. torium, August 21, 1878.

Delivered in Audi­

101

That there was design in D ee ms » debunking of certain hypotheses of science, the audience was soon to learn.

One suspects it was more than charity that prompted

Dr. Deems to grant that, despite their reliance upon super­ stition, the sciences should not be abandoned just because they are not verifiable.

He then presented the heart of

his elaborate analogy. Simply because whether we can prove them or not, we can not do without them. Without the reception of the unverifiable in logic we cannot reason. With­ out the reception of the unverifiable in the material world,^we can have no physical science....Without the reception of the belief in the unverifiable of the future we could have no practical life in the present. Reject all these supersitions, if you insist on call­ ing them so, and you lie down to die, as starved In intellect as starved in the body. The things veri­ fiable are the useful; the things unverifiable are the indispensable. 1 And, of course, concluded Deems, this same chain of reason­ ing applies to religion.

The Bible and religion, by the

same token, need not be rejected simply because many of their basic concepts are unverifiable.

They, too, con­

tribute to the progress and happiness of man. In 1881, Professor Nathan Sheppard lectured on "Darwin; or Are We Descended from the Monkey."

Discus­

sing the several physiological dissimilarities between man and ape, he concluded that there Is, therefore, much to disprove Darwin»s hypothesis.

After this disappointing

analysis, Professor Sheppard suggested that the specula-

1Ibid., p. 3.

102 tion on evolution need not interfere with any m a n ’s faith for the following reasons:

(1) the concept of evolution

is based upon insubstantial evidence;

(2) Darwin, himself,

presents his conclusion only as an hypothesis; and,

(3)

Darwin has acknowledged that he believes in God and in the immortality of the soul.^ Spokesmen for the religious orthodoxy took their final stand at Chautauqua during the next few years.

With

increasing numbers of the thoughtful public, as well as the majority of scientists, subscribing to the doctrine of derivation, anti-evolutionists launched a vigorous counteroffensive.

This was, remarked Schlesinger, "the

most critical stage" in the "religious controversy over biological e v o l u t i o n . T h e

persuasive writings of men

such as Fiske, Spencer, and Huxley were exerting a pro­ found effect upon popular thought.^ Four speakers led this onslaught against evolu­ tion and science at Chautauqua.

The first of the die-hards

was Professor J. T. Edwards who spoke on the "Relation Between Science and Religion."

Science, Edwards flatly

stated, inadequately explains phenomena of the universe.

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 4, 1881, p. 4. Delivered in Hall of Philosophy, July 27, 1881. 2The Rise of the City, p. 322. 3RIley, American Thought, p. 199ff. Chap. vii pro­ vides an excellent discussion and appraisal of the impact of evolutionism upon the thought of the day.

103

But of more serious consequence, the lecturer continued, It actually has hindered progress.

If the irreconeilables in

the audience had stirred expectantly at this bold pronounce­ ment, they were to be disappointed with Edwardfs proof* Science often hinders progress, he elaborated, by conceal­ ing the truth.

And science conceals the truth with its

almost incomprehensible nomenclature, by "substituting for reality certain expressions like gravity, cohesion, force, energy*"1

Thus did Professor Edwards strike the

first blow against sciencei Later in the same season, the Reverend Willard P. Mallalieu, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in an address entitled "Unity of the Human Race,” urged that ministers and teachers "openly and manfully adopt the ag­ gressive method of defense.”2

For too long, declared

Mallalieu, have we apologized for Christianity and the Bible.

We have accepted the "guesses and hypotheses of

the so-called scientific men as though they were unques­ tioned," and then have attempted to "reconcile the teach­ ings of the Word of God with these guesses

1Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 10, 1883, p. 4. Delivered in Amphitheater, July- 15, 1883* 2Ibid*, August 16, 1883, p. 2. Amphitheater, August 14, 1883* 3Ibid.

Delivered in

104 There is no reason Tor this overweening respect for science, insisted Bishop Mallalieu#

Science often has

erred, and the men of science should recognize this fact# Mallalieu then offered a case in point# •••the science, or department of science, known as geology, which is most depended upon by the enemies of the Bible to furnish weapons for their attacks upon the precious^Old Book, is and has been, one of the most uncertain and blundering of all professed sciences, a nd.•.its record for the last eighty or ninety years ought to make its professors the humblest and meekest of men, instead of being what most of them are, and have been, the proudest and most arrogant and most dogmatic# 1 If Mallalieu chose to discuss geology because he considered it more vulnerable than the biological sciences, upon which D a r w i n !s doctrines were based, one only can surmise.

The Reverend Charles Force Deems, however, speak­

ing in 1885, did not ignore the evolutionary hypothesis# In a lecture entitled "A Scotch Verdict,” Deems claimed that the supporters of evolution have not proved their case.

Although they can point to similarities between

species, they have been unable to demonstrate an evolu­ tionary relationship between them.

Why, then, should reli­

gion attempt to accommodate the Darwinian doctrine when ”its advocates have not, up to this date, established its truth?”2

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 16, 1883, p. 2. Delivered In Amphitheater, August 14, 1883# 2Ibid., August 20, 1885, p. 3. Amphitheat'er, August 17, 1885#

Delivered in

105

The last of the irreconcilables at Chautauqua was the Reverend T. DeWitt Talmage, the noted Presbyterian minister, who lectured on ”The Absurdities of Evolution,” in 1886*

Talmage was a great preacher and lecturer of

the day.

Pond called him ”the greatest one-man attraction

in America.”*^- Gladden remarked that ”his unparalleled acrobatics, physical and rhetorical, were an astonishment to many.”^ Talmage, in his address, first acknowledged that there is no conflict between religion and true science* Most of the great inventors and scientists, he pointed out, have been Christians.

Moreover, the best scientific equip­

ment is found at Christian colleges and universities. There is,- however, a deep irresoluble conflict between religion and evolution.

In fact, cried Talmage, ”all the

leading scientists who believe in evolution, without ex­ ception the world over, are infidel.”^

Strong words

these, but such was the rash tenor of Talmage1s uncompro­ mising attack upon Darwinism.

The evolutionists are

B. Pond, Eccentricities of Genius, p. 110* For an account of Talmage*s stormy British lecture tour in 1879 see, Ibid., pp. 91-111. o

Washington Gladden, Recollections, p. 214*

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 5, 1886, p. 4. Delivered in Amphitheater, July 29, 1886®

106

Infidel, he explained, because they disagree with the Biblical account of Creation, and they degrade man by claiming he descended from beasts* Talmage next launched a rhetorical broadside against the doctrine of natural selection or survival of the fittest* But do the fittest survive? Garfield dead in September, Guiteau survives until the following June. Survival of the fittest? Ah, noJ The Martyrs dying for their principles, their bloody persecutors living to old age. Survival of the fittest? It is the most monstrous doctrine of the centuries. Five hundred thousand brave Northern men march out to meet five hundred thousand brave Southern men, and die on the battlefield for a principle. A hundred thousand of them went down in the trenches* We staid at home in comfortable quarters* Did they die because they were not as fit to live as we who survived* Ah, nol not the survival of the fittest* Johnson and Stonewall Jackson on the Southern side, and all the brave generals on the Northern side, did they fall because they were not worthy to live? No, stiffened with the frosts of the second death be the tongue that dares to utter it* (Prolonged ap­ plause.) It is not survival of the fittest* 1 Making no effort to reconcile the evolutionary hypothesis with religion, the redoubtable Talmage alter­ nately scoffed and ridiculed this ”stenchful and abomin­ able doctrine*tf

It was the last time that the doctrine of

evolution received such unsympathetic treatment from a Chautauqua platform. For the next several years, although public inter­ est in the evolutionary controversy had not languish­

1Ibid*

107

ed,

Chautauqua speakers were silent on the subject of

evolution.

Professor Henry Drummond broke the silence

with his lectures on "The Ascent of Man" in July of 1893# The Nation regarded these lectures at Chautauqua as "the clearest index yet seen of the silent but sweeping change wrought in the religious world by the teaching of science in regard to the origin of man."

This is true because

"those who flock to lectures there...are typical repre­ sentatives of the church people to whom, a generation or less ago, evolution was synonymous with atheism."

When,

therefore, concluded the Nation, ...Chautauqua managers provided lectures in defence of evolution, and Chautauqua audiences gather to hear them with such pious edification and strengthening in their faith, it is a sign of the times which no observer can neglect. 2 Another significant sign of the times was the great interest shown in Professor Drummond’s lectures by the audiences at Chautauqua, an interest apparently not foreseen by the Chautauqua management.

Originally

•1-See, for example, St. George Mivart, "Darwin’s Brilliant Fallacy," Forum, VII (March, 1889), 98-105. Cf. George J. Romanes, "Anti-Darwinian Fallacies," Forum, VII (July, 1889), 513-520. 2 "The Week," Nation, LVII (July 13, 1893), 21. ^Drummond’s evolutionary lectures also had excited enormous interest at Boston's Lowell Institute in April, 1S93• See, Howard A. Bridgman, "Henry Drummond," New England Magazine, VIII (August, 1893), 725f.

108

scheduled for the Hall of Philosophy* it was necessary to change the scene of the lectures to the larger Amphitheater after D r u m m o n d s second appearance*

Remarked a leading

newspaper of the day:. The growing interest in Professor Henry D r u m m o n d s lectures on evolution was shown yesterday in the ad­ journment of an overflowing audience in the Hall of Philosophy to the Amphitheater, and to-day the body of the Amphitheater was closely filled long before the hour announced for the address*• •• 1 In his lectures Drummond essayed the task of carry­ ing moral and spiritual values into the region of physical processes, and “succeeded in showing the ethical at work in regions of life generally supposed to be given over to purely physical laws*11

Drummond considered this idea as

“the missing factor in current theories. There was, thought Drummond, not only an individual struggle for life, but also a struggle for the life of others*

There was, in other words, a general law of

altruism in nature.

Such a concept was in marked contrast

to the notion that life is but a "survival of the fittest," and that man is governed by inexorable, amoral natural laws which are just and good because they are natural* The main theme of the Ascent of Man is a protest against the interpretation of organic nature which is presented to us by the Darwinian conception of the

% e w York Tribune, July 7, 1893, p. 7. 2 George A. Smith, The Life of Henry Drummond, p. 462* 5Ibid*, p. 464.

109

struggle Tor life. Against this essentially Hedon­ istic view the author sets the facts which tend to show that along with the contest for individual suc­ cess there goes as constant and an even stronger en­ deavor to help the life of others, 1 That there is a basic God-given morality in life, a dominant altruism in man, was Drummond *s central thesis when, on successive days, he described the "Evolution of the Animal Body of Man,”2 the “Evolution of the Mind,”5 the "Evolution of Speech,"4 the "Evolution of a Mother,"5 and the "Evolution of the Father,"6

In all of the lec­

tures the tall, spare Drummond insisted with "simplicity and earnestness,"7 first, that evolution is a demonstrable scientific fact, and, second, that the struggle for life has been accompanied by an equally strong struggle for the lives of others.

^"Man and Men in Nature," Atlantic Monthly, LXXIV (October, 1894), 543. ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 22, 1893, p, 9. Delivered in kali of Philosophy, July 3, 1893, 5Ibid*

Delivered in Hall of Philosophy, July 4*

1893. 4Ibid., July 24, 1893, p. 2, theater, July 5, 1893, 5 Ibid.

Delivered In Amphi­

Delivered in Amphitheater, July 6, 1893*

6Ibid., July 25, 1893, p. 2. theater, July 7, 1893*

Delivered in Amphi­

7"Prof. Drummond at Chautauqua," Critic, XXIII (July 15, 1893), 41. '

110 The concluding step in his discussion of m a n !s development was determination of the "Relation between Christianity and Evolution.” Drummond, is simple to answer: without Christianisty.

The question here, said "Evolution is useless

Organic nature can carry animals

up to man, but no further.

There Christianity takes up

the work and carries man up to the Divine....Christianity put the finishing touches to the ascent of man.”^ There were a few at Chautauqua who protested against Drummond*s views on evolution.

The Nation thought that

"the very protest against the management and the innovat­ ing lecturer, drawn up by a handful of those who have not lost their old dread of godless science, only emphasizes the profound nature of the change that has taken place.”

p

Jesse L. Hurlbut, who heard the lectures at Chautauqua, remarked that, on the whole, D ru m m o n d s ideas were very favorably received. There were still some old-fashioned ”kiver to kiver” believers in the verbal inspiration of the Bible who were alarmed to find an eminent Christian leader accept so fully the conclusions of science; but the overwhelming sentiment of Chautauqua was of rejoicing at this harmonizing the most evangelical religion with the most advanced scholarship. 3

^-Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 25, 1893, p. 2. Delivered in Amphitheater, July 8, 1893® ^"The Week," Hatlon, LVII (July 13, 1893), 21. ^The Story of Chautauqua, pp. 262-263#

Ill

When John Fiske* historian* lecturer* and popularizer extraordinary* came to address Chautauquans one evening in August* 1895* they were to hear a man who had "made it his business to reconcile not only religion but the whole of philosophy with evolution*’1 and with spectacular success*^Fiske, however* did not feel compelled to present a thor­ ough-going exposition and defense of the evolutionary hypothesis

He* rather* described the adjustment and

reconciliation that was taking place between science and theology.

’’The so-called period of antagonism between

religion and science is drawing to a c l o s e . T o

Fiske,

such a reconciliation was the essence of progress, and was inevitable.

"Progress," he said* ’’means cessation

of antagonism between the theologians and scientists, religion and evolutionary science.

I believe that the

coming century will see the two forces working in harmony*”4

^Commager, The American Mind* p* 83* ^Fiske* almost twenty years earlier, had felt that ’’the theory of natural selection has already won a complete and overwhelming victory.” See, John Fiske, "The Triumph of Darwinism," North American Review, GXXIV (Januarv, 1877), 90-106. — “ ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald* August 10, 1895, p. 5. Delivered in Hall of Philosophy, August 9, 1895. 4Ibid. For a similar contemporary point of view see, Julia Wedgwood, "Ethics and Science, Contemporary Review, LXXII (August, 1897), 219-233.

1X2 The final addresses of the period dealing with the unity of science and religion were presented by two edu­ cators , President W. H. P. Faunce, of Brown University* and President G. Stanley Hall, of Clark University.

Dr.

Faunce in his lecture, “Contributions of Science to the Christian Faith,11 acknowledged that “science is now clearly intimating a spiritual basis of the u n i v e r s e . H e

re­

garded the advance of physical science as “the crowning glory of our time.” Dr. H a l l ’s address, “The New Relation Between Science and Religion,” provided a fitting climax to a period of agitation over the evolutionary hypothesis and its implications.

Speaking in words that must have re­

echoed the sentiments of millions of Americans, he ap­ plauded the new relation between science and religion. We feel that one of the most hopeful signs of the present day that this long separation between the heart and the head, between religion and science, which has been so bad for both...is beginning to close.... 2 In his concluding words, President Hall prophesied rhapsodically: Before the first decade of this new century shall have finished, before our eyes are turned to behold it, we may not see the sun shining upon a culture

1Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 11, 1899, p. 3. Delivered in Amphitheater, August To, 1899. 2 Ibid., August 7, 1900, p. 3. theater, August 3, 1900.

Delivered in Amphi­

113 decadent, disabled, belligerent, but rather we may see the standards of the true church of religion, full height, advancing, bearing for their motto no such miserable interrogatory as, "What is science worth?11 or those other words of delusion and folly, "Religion first and science afterward"; but rather everywhere, as the ample folds of the Church float over every sea and land on the very wind under the heavens, those other words dear to every soul that is at once devout and intelligent, this motto, "Reli­ gion and science, now and forever, one and insep­ arable." 1 If Dr. Hall *s prophecy of the oneness of religion and science was but an exultant peroration, he did, never theless, suggest the direction in which the contemporary religious pendulum was swinging.

While some stalwarts of

fundamentalism still clung to the dogma of special crea­ tion, the idea of derivation had made substantial Inroads upon the thinking of the religious orthodoxy of the day. The Higher Criticism In the eyes of the mid-century religious orthodoxy not only did the Darwinian hypothesis imperil the founda­ tions of theology, but its companion, the higher criticism represented a challenge to the infallibility of the Bible. Stemming from the application of scientific methods to the study of history, "the higher criticism...subjected the Holy Writ to rigorous historical analysis."2

Imported

1Ibld. 2Schlesinger, The Rise of the City, p. 324.

114 from German university centers, higher criticism was the use of accepted methods of historical investigation to answer certain questions about the Biblical writings: "Who wrote them?

Are the documents, as we have them,

genuine compositions of the authors who are. supposed to have written them? been altered?

Has material been added?

Have they

What were the historic circumstances under

which they were written?

Do the writings show reflec­

tions of those circumstances?"^ Scores of Biblical scholars, the so-called higher critics, discovered that the Bible was not written at one time nor was it infallible.

They concluded that the

Scriptures, the product of many authors, were human docu­ ments containing the errors one might expect in such a monumental literary production.2 That many of the orthodoxy should react strongly against such criticism of the Bible is not surprising; to them, the inerrancy of the Scriptures was unquestioned. In 1881, for instance, the Reverend Samuel Ives Curtis, of the Chicago Theological Seminary, was moved to write a seventy-six page treatise on The Date of Our Gospels.

It

^Dores Robinson Sharpe, Walter Rauschenbusch, p. 6. 2See, Gladden, Recollections, p. 259ff. See, also, Washington Gladden, Who Wrote tlie ~BTb 1 e ?, passim.

115 was an indignant rebuttal to Charles B. Waiters History of the Christian Religion to the Year Two Hundred in which Waite had alleged that, contrary to popular notion, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John had not been written until the last quarter of the second century* Concluded the shocked Reverend Curtis:

"It is certain

that the foundations of our faith, so far as the Gospel record is concerned, have not been shaken, except among the uninformed, and in the imaginations of those who wish to believe a lle."*^ After a decade of bickering, recrimination, and controversy, the Reverend Washington Gladden doubtless echoed the sentiments of a growing body of clergymen in his careful study of Who Wrote the Bible?

He submitted

that "much of this criticism has been thoroughly candid and reverent, even conservative in its temper and purpose."2 Indeed, he continued, "it has not been unwilling to look at the facts; but it has held toward the Bible a devout and sympathetic attitude; it believes it to contain, as no other book in the world contains, the message of God to men; and it has only sought to learn from the Bible it­ self how that message has been conveyed."3

•^The Date of Our Gospels, pp. 75-76. ^Gladden, Who Wrote the Bible?, p. 5. 3Ibid.

1X6 With the publication, in the same year, 1891, of the Reverend Orello Cone's Gospel Criticism and Historical Christianity, a wider understanding of the nature and pur­ pose of higher criticism also was gained.

Such works of

liberal theologians helped convince "even many of the earlier objectors that, If critical analysis stripped the Bible of its vesture of infallibility, it revealed it as a work of literary, spiritual and ethical power, a veri­ table book among books."■*In 1892, the year he became first President of the new University of Chicago, William Rainey Harper lectured on "The Rational and the Rationalistic Higher Criticism," at Chautauqua.

Harper, during his years at Yale University

where he taught Semitic languages and Biblical studies, had gained a "national reputation as teacher, lecturer, organ­ izer, and editor."2 To Harper, rational higher criticism meant con­ structive, scientific, and reverent literary and histor­ ical inquiry into the Old or New Testament.

This he urged.

Dr. Harper deplored the extremes in attitude toward the Bible:

Biblical literalism and materialistic, rational­

istic criticism.

The results of the former, the old

school, he said,

^Schlesinger, The Rise of the City, p. 325. 2The Dictionary of American Biography, VIII, 288.

117

•••must be manifest to every careful investi­ gator* •••This school has placed undue emphasis on the letter; the chief supports of its position have been tradition and a priori argument* The result has been a degradation of the God it was desired to honor* a dictating to him how to act and what to do**..The Old Testament— I assert it and challenge you to deny it--is practically no longer reckoned as a part of the Divine Word* The literalizing spirit has shriv­ elled and almost destroyed it* 1 If Biblical literalism did not dignify God* the other extreme* rationalistic higher criticism did no better* The results of the work of the new school are practically the same, though they seem to take on a different form. The supernatural Is ruled out. God himself is compelled to vacate. What is left? A few harmless stories; a few well-meant, but mistaken warnings; a few dead songs; many unfulfilled predic­ tions; a large amount of fairly good literature. 2 But, thought Harper, there is a valuable compromise position that has much to offer religion--rational higher criticism.

It retains the motivating reverence of Bibli­

cal literalism, and the scientific method of the rational­ istic form.

But, unlike the former, it rejects blind and

unreasoning literalism, and differing

from the latter, it

replaces destructive analysis with constructive criticism* And what will be the result of the rational higher criticism, asked Dr. Harper?

Those who have believed with­

out knowing why will have an intelligent basis for their faith.

Those who have doubted because of the absurdities

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 4, 1892, p. 7* Delivered In Amphitheater, August 2, 1892* 2Ibid*

118

of Biblical literalism will find the grounds for their skepticism removed.

Those who have been indifferent will

have their interest aroused by a work, divinely inspired, yet humanly reasonable *^“Higher Criticism is viewed in a new light,” com­ mented the Chautauqua Assembly Herald, "by all who heard or have read Dr. Harper’s clear and impartial explanation...* If any were inclined to think that Higher Criticism was irreverent, irreligious, iconoclastic or destructive only, they certainly have no further ground for such ideas now*”^ After Harpe r’s comprehensive treatment of the higher criticism, the Chautauqua management seemingly did not feel it necessary to have the issue discussed for several years* Perhaps Chautauqua shared the growing public sentiment that was expressed by a writer for the Century magazine* Neither the literary imperfections, nor the histori­ ographical defects, nor the traditional glosses of Holy Scripture can of themselves, at their worst, impair its scientific integrity or philosophic value*...Such mere errata may yet be corrected or explained, and prove in no sense permanent errors, much less essential un­ truths. They are wholly superficial and transient, not of the abiding essence of the revealed word* 3

**-For a similar viewpoint see, Lyman Abbott, Rem­ iniscences, pp. 260-262* ^August 6, 1892, p* 1* ^Charles W. Shields, “Does the Bible Contain Scientific Errors?" Century, XLV (November, 1892), 128*

119

Another writer of the day indicated his belief that the Bible, written by inspired men, "is a marvel of literature."^-

The Old Testament, he continued, has

demonstrated its "influence in the ethical elevation and moral inspiration” of men and women.2 The higher criticism was next mentioned, in passing reference, by the Reverend Amory H. Bradford, of Montclair, Hew Jersey, in a Sunday sermon entitled ”The Age of Faith." Dr. Bradford opined that this period might be called the age of criticism as well as science.

Criticism, he thought,

simply was the scientific spirit applied to literature.

In­

evitably, the process moves on until it reaches the Bible. "Thus far shalt thou come, but no farther," say those who identify truth with tradition. But the critics reply, "the greater the claims of the sanc­ tity for any book...the more rigorously those claims should be tested." Truth cannot suffer at the hands of Investigators. Critics are like artists who dis­ cover beneath the dirt of a century the work of a Master. "Do not touch that canvas," say those who have regarded it worthy of a place in a famous col­ lege. "Scrape it and you will spoil It," they vociferously affirm. But the process of washing and restoring goes on until out of the accumulated filth of years, there shines the beauty of a Raphael.... Were those who cleansed that canvas the enemies, or the friends of art? Such work is analagous to the task of the critics, who take in their hands the Holy Bible, and unwind one tradition after another until the truth itself shines with a brighter lustre. 3

3-C. A. Briggs, "Works of the Imagination in the Old Testament," North American Review, CLXIV (March, 1897), 356. 8I bld., p. 373. ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 11, 1899, p. 3. Delivered in Amphltheater7 July 9, 1899.

120 That the Bible emerges in beauty and power with the refurbishing of higher criticism also was the theme of Professor Herbert L* Willett, of the University of Chicago, in 1900*

Discussing "The Place of the Bible in Modern

Thought,** Dr* Willett acknowledged the contribution of the higher criticism to our understanding and appreciation of the Scriptures. ^Biblical criticism is here, and destined to stay. It is here just as the rain is here, to come and replenish the earth and then pass away, just as the workman is here to take away the debris which has gathered over the site of some rare and splendid palace of the past, in order that you and I may ex­ plore the real beauties of that palace. Biblical criticism has its function to do this work*...We may believe that then will be revealed the true and latent beauties of the Bible as perhaps never in all history the study of the Holy Scriptures has been able to do. 1 The speakers at Chautauqua who discussed the higher criticism In their lectures were unanimous, then, in their conclusion that judicious scientific criticism of the Bible constituted no threat to the foundations of religion.^

They gave, as did increasing numbers of

thoughtful Christians, an affirmative answer to Washington Gladden*s rhetorical question:

’’Are not the idolaters

^-Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 11, 1900, p. 2. Delivered in Amphitheater, July 7, 1900. 2For an informative, condensed discussion of this point of view see, Max Muller, "Freedom of Religious Dis­ cussion,** Forum, XI (March, 1891), 38-49*

121 who make it treason to disbelieve a single word of the Bible, and the Iconoclasts who treat it as nothing better than any other book, equally far from the truth?

Is It

not the part of wisdom to use the book rationally, but reverently; to refrain from worshipping the letter, but to rejoice in the gifts of the Spirit which it proffers ?ff'1The Socialization of Christianity The unprecedented growth of industrial cities after 1865 presented a real challenge to religion.

From the days

of William Ellery Channing, Protestant social prophets had echoed the theme that while urban life was conducive to material and intellectual progress, it could boast of few corresponding triumphs in the moral field.

On the con­

trary, the city seemed to be a veritable hothouse for social maladies.

These problems were not only widespread, but they

threatened to multiply.

"During the forty-year period,

1860-1900, the number of cities of eight thousand or more Inhabitants increased from 141 to 547, and the proportion of townsfolk from a sixth to nearly a third."^ The extraordinary growth of large cities became one of the marvels of post-Appomattox America.

Crowded with

slowly assimilated aliens and faced with tremendous social

•M/yho Wrote the Bible?, pp. 380-381* ^Aaron Abell, The Urban Impact on American Prot­ estantism, 1865-1900, pi

37

122 problems, these cities were struggling with lawlessness and crime, tenements, crooked politics, delinquency, labor exploitation, inadequate religious resources, and numerous other social complexities

^

Serious religious problems arose in industrialized and congested urban centers.

tfThe challenge which the new

urban, industrial, and corporate order presented to the church,'1 wrote Commager, "was less dramatic, but more im­ mediate and complex, than that with which either Darwinp ism or the Higher Criticism confronted it.” One disturb­ ing fact was that many people, particularly the laboring classes, were indifferent to the ministrations of most Protestant churches.

As churches transferred the bulk of

their activity from the rural to the urban situation there was need for adjustment to the demands of the urban environ­ ment.

It was imperative that the individualistic stress

of rural religion undergo modification to be relevant to city laborers who were exploited through rampant economic laissez faire* A keen analysis of the urban religious dilemma of the day was the study by the Reverend Samuel Lane Loomis, of Brooklyn, entitled Modern Cities and their Religious Problems*

Loomis showed how an undiscriminating immigra-

^Schlesinger, The Rise of the City, chap. p Commager, The American Mind, p* 170*

iv.

123 tion policy had resulted in a heterogeneous population difficult of assimilation; he then demonstrated the con­ comitant failure of Protestantism to win the working classes who regarded the churches as the tools of capital* Of the c h u r c h ^ failure to hold the working classes, he wrote:

1fIt Is quite impossible to make one believe that

you love his soul when you seem indifferent to his body; that you are anxious to have him secure a heavenly home when you give yourself no concern regarding his earthly dwelling*”! Another religious leader and social critic whose admonitions added impetus to the socialization of Chris­ tianity was the Reverend Josiah Strong.

Strong noted the

spread of working class discontent, the growth of social­ ism and labor organizations, and the trends toward central­ ization of population and industrial control.

He charged

that the church had failed to keep abreast of these changes largely because of Its traditional adherence to an u n ­ natural dichotomy between sacred and secular, a division that had divorced doctrine and conduct, alienated the masses, and developed a selfish individualism and an unchristian organization of society.

2

In his introduction to Loomis1

Modern Cities and their Religious Problems, Strong under-

^Samuel Lane Loomis, Modern Cities and their Reli­ gious Problems, pp. 207-208* ^Josiah Strong,

The NewE r a ,

passim*

124

scored the urban challenge to religion* The city...is the great center of influence, both good and bad* It contains that which is the fairest and the foulest in our civilization* It is the mighty heart of the body politic, which sends its streams of life pulsating to the very finger-tips of the whole land; and when the blood becomes poisoned, it poisons every fiber of the whole body* Hence the supreme importance of city evangelization* 1 Another Influential effort on the part of a prom­ inent American to state ,!the social side of the Church's mission” was Professor Richard T. Ely's work, Social Aspects of Christianity, published In 1889*

He believed

that the commonly held other-worldly conception of Chris­ tianity to be an "unfortunate error” which accounts for the church1s failure to appeal to the working classes.

The so-

called "simple gospel of Christ" Ely branded ”a one-sided half-gospel,” the corrective of which would be the whole truth that included ”a social as well as an individual gospel*"

Addressing himself specifically to the pressi

ing question of the alienation of wage-workers from the church, he assigned the following reasons for this aliena­ tion : First,.*•church leaders are so far away from the tolling masses that they fail to understand their desires and the motives for their action..*.Second, the failure to rebuke wickedness in high places.••• Third, the negative attitude of the Church with respect to every proposed reform discourages, dis­ gusts and even angers, workingmen* 2

Ijosiah Strong in Loomis, op. cit*, p. 6. 2Richard T. Ely, Social Aspects of Christianity, pp. 42-44*

125

If Loomis, Strong, and Ely saw the church1s problem clearly, so did Stephen Colwell, Horace Bushnell, Lyman Abbott, Washington Gladden, W. X). P. Bliss, George Herron, and countless others.1

Their action, at first, however,

represented only a minority movement in religious circles. This rebellious idealism, particularly before 1900, was neither a universal surge nor a mass movement.

As a

matter of fact, ”the masses of churches and the over­ whelming majority of pastors were, as usual, characterized by

inertia and devotion to the status quo, even in the

realm of ideas.

pr o gr es s i v e , 1 »liberal* or Social

gospelT Christianity captured only the most creative and p

far-seeing minds of the age.” A number of these liberal Christians appeared on the Chautauqua platform during the 1890*s to urge a socialization of Christian thought and practice. Reverend Josiah Strong was one such lecturer. "was

The

Strong

tall and vigorous— a handsome man, with shining

eyes."^

Speaking on r,The Evangelical Alliance,” in 1891,

^For a thoroughgoing account of the social gospel movement see, Charles H. Hopkins, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism. ^J. Heal Hughley, Trends in Protestant Social Idealism, p. 12. ^The Dictionary of American Biography, XVIII, 151.

126 he supported, the idea that Christian ministers unite in an effort to preach the full gospel of Christ from the pulpit# The church, he said, must "enlarge her conceptions and activities to the wide measure of her mission and op­ portunities,

and 11apply the principles of the gospel

to the entire life of each community#"•*Unless the church takes an active interest in social problems, and broadens its message, Dr* Strong feared that it was doomed to play a minor role in human affairs# If the church is willing to teach by her example that Christianity is divorced from philanthropy and reform and social science and the progress of civil­ ization, she must be content to occupy a little place and never dream of universal conquest#### 2 Strong here expressed a point of view that was gain­ ing increasing acceptance in religious circles. trend that did not go unnoticed#

It was a

"it is a cheering and

wholesome sign,1' commented a leading daily newspaper, when churches recognize the relations of Christian obligation and duty to the work and business of the world. No Church can get hold of the millions, in­ fluence their lives or reach their hearts, which does not expand its teachings to appeal to their daily necessities and lives. 3

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 21, 1891, p# 5# Delivered in Amphitheater, August 20, 1891. Cf. F. D# Huntington on "Social Problems and the Church," Forum, X (October, 1890), 125-141# ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 21, 1891, p. 5. ^New York Tribune, October 18, 1891.

127

In addition to the "appeal to their daily neces­ sities and lives," the church, thought many in the period, must make the underprivileged feel welcome to the Sunday services•

In 1892, the Reverend Frank Russell described

"The Religious Condition of the Community" as deplorable* Churches, maintained Russell, are allowing thousands to go unreached by Christianity.

Many of these are, he said,

•••people who look at their children and say, we cannot afford to dress our children to go to church and Sabbath-school, and who talk about collections, and say: "We have got to dress well and pay well, or else be looked at by the rich men who are making corners in the seats In the kingdom of the Lord, by paying high prices, and we c a n ft go in there, so we stay at home." 1 One way in which churches could gear their pro­ grams to reach the poor and the unchurched was through the development of "institutional" features.

Two churches

that pioneered in institutional activity were St. George*s Episcopal Church in New York and the Baptist Temple in Philadelphia.

They "began in the eighties to provide read

ing rooms, gymnasiums, social clubs, day nurseries, sewing classes, and manual-training courses which, along with re­ ligious instruction, were available throughout the week to all comers

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 9, 1892, p. 3. Delivered in H'alT of Phliosophy,~August 6, 1892. 2Schlesinger, "A Critical Period in American R e ­ ligion, 1875-1900," op. cit., p. 540.

128

It is of especial interest that alert Ghautauqua invited to its platform the ministers of both of these churches*

In 1892* the Reverend W* S. Rainsford, Rector

of St* George *s Episcopal Church, lectured on "City Evan­ gelization.”

The address was, essentially, a plea for the

secularized or Institutionalized church in urban centers* "Before God,” vowed Rainsford, "I would rather see the church building open every night in the week: for concerts than not to be open at all*"3-

Yes, even concerts and

theatrical productions, declared Rainsford, could be tolerated if the alternative were locked church doors during the week. That the Reverend Rainsford*s institutional methods were successful was attested by the phenomenal increase in the membership of his church.

"St. George*s Episcopal

Church, which had but seventy-five communicants in 1882 when it started institutional work, numbered over four thousand in 1897. The Reverend Russell H. Conwell, of Philadelphia’s Baptist Temple, discussed "institutional Churches" with his

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 4, 1892, p. 5. Delivered In Amphitheater, August 1, 1892* ^Schlesinger, ”A Critical Period in American Reli­ gion, 1875-1900,” op. cit., p. 540.

129 Chautauqua audience the following year*

Conwell recommended

the following activities as possibilities for institutional churches:

a church society, a girl»s gymnasium, a boy's

military society, a library and reading room, an evening school, classes in music, a hospital, and church-sponsored entertainment While the ramifications of the institutional church were being explored by Rainsford and Conwell, other methods for instilling a social consciousness in the church were advanced.

Professor Richard T. Ely, In 1893, considered

the subject, "The Study of Social Science and the Christian Minister."

It was Ely's thesis that the study of social

science would prove especially valuable to ministers.

It

would provide them with "understanding" and "Intelligent sympathy" for the wage-earning classes and their problems.2 The Immediate message of social science to ministers, thought Ely, was the "doctrine of stewardship." All our resources, of whatever sort, are committed to us...that we may use them for the glory of God and the good of our fellows. They are a trust. This in­ cludes private property....A profound study of social science in its broadest aspects...will show us that

2-3.

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 19, 1893, pp. Delivered in Amphitheater, August 14, 1893.

^Por a condensed analysis of the alleged defects of current theological education, and suggested remedies, see, William F. Slocum, "Reconstruction in Theological Education," Forum, XXVIII (January, 1900), 571-578.

130

private property has been established and developed, and is now maintained, primarily for social purposes and not primarily for individual purposes. It is... a trust from society and exists for the sake of society. 1 lfYou will all perceive,” Ely continued, ,fwhat a powerful lever this puts in the hands of the Christian minister when he appeals to the owners of property to use their property generously for the sake of others, and not to regard it as something committed to them for selfish enj oyment• Professor Ely, evidently recognizing that steward­ ship alone would not suffice, suggested that government become a progressively more active agency for the general economic welfare.

This, however, he did not dwell upon.

Perhaps Ely felt that if the church would inculcate a message of stewardship, the liberal political economists would be provided a more favorable ideational context within which to continue their assault upon economic laissez faire. The lecturers of 1893, a year of severe panic and depression,3 continued to probe the relation of the church to society.

Two addresses, especially, dealt with a

1Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 25, 1893, p. 3. Delivered in Hall of Philosophy, July 20, 1893. ^Ibid. 3For a full discussion of the magnitude and con­ sequences of this depression see, Ida M. Tarbell, The Nationalizing of Business, chap. xiii.

131 pressing question of the times— what can the church do about the plight of the workingman?

"The Attitude of the

Workingman Toward the Churches" was analyzed by Thomas J. Morgan, a labor leader and socialist, of Chicago,

Morgan

stated that he could "divide the working classes in their attitude towards the churches into three great general divi­ sions*" That of the larger number of them is that of fear* The attitude of the second great division, less numer­ ous than the first, is that of indifference. The at­ titude of the third division, less numerous than that of the second, is that of active antagonism, the last number being most potent... because it embraces within its ranks men of such mental and physical vigor that they dominate the laboring men...* 1 Morgan pictured for the audience a gathering of ten thousand unemployed men that he had seen in Chicago on his way to the train.

They were men in desperate need of

guidance and advice. Do you think you would find a minister among them advising them as to the right course to pursue and pointing the way out? In all the long years of our struggle in Chicago to better our condition.•.did you ever know a minister to aid us in any shape or form or to give us any sympathy? Nol Instead of that we have found them joining in the cry of our masters, misrepre­ senting our every aspiration and desire. Almost to a man the ministers have stood solidly with our masters as against us. 2

^-Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 23, 1893, p. 2* Delivered in Amphitheater, August 16, 1893* ^Ibid., p. 3*

132

But Morgan had more to say.

One suspects that some

clergymen in the audience stirred uneasily as the intrepid Chicago labor leader told them with unequivocal frankness what they could do to win back the workingmen# ••.ministers must cease to be the salaried employes of their masters. They must be•• .freed from such mental and moral serfdom, such intellectual prostitution, if you please# We absolutely refuse to recognize as our friends men who are paid by such men as John V. Farwell, the Phillip Armours, the John Cudahys of the commer­ cial world. We absolutely refuse to be comforted by the erection of mission houses inour midst by these millionaires made rich by plundering the workingman of their rightful earnings. You cannot be a servant of Christ and be the servant of one of these monopolists and millionaires# You have got to do as Christ did#.## You ministers have got to come down to that position again before you can win the respect and confidence of the workingmen, and until you do your influence is futile, your power will vanish, the Protestant churches will simply become club-houses, as they are to a very large extent at the present time, for the enjoyment of the well-fed and well-clad and cultivated congregations. The workingmen will be outside of the institution. 1 Although vague in reference to a positive church program, Morgan*s indictment of the churchfs alliance with wealth was unmistakably clear.

Morgan1s voice was but one

of the many raised in a chorus of protest against the church* s failure to meet its social responsibilities.

Two

months later a writer for the Forum declared: We are living in the ebb-tide of the Christian Church... #The Church has lost the confidence of the people....The theology of the denominations is...apart

^Ibid#

133 from the learning of the times, confined for the most part to the office-bearers of these denominations, and of no value or importance to the people# 1 The answer of organized religion came the day fol­ lowing Morg an rs philippic, in an address by Professor Charles R. Henderson, of the University of Chicago. lecture,

His

"The Attitude of the Churches Toward the Working­

men," was in direct response to Morgan's charges.

He began

by citing estimates of the proportion of adult population that is "in some way attached to some church."

Hostility

to the church must be little, he continued, because most families are associated with some church.

This rather

tenuous reasoning was followed by an explanation of how ministers could aid the workingmen.

"We must help the

poor,” urged Dr. Henderson, "but we must do it by increas­ ing their wages and shortening their hours and giving them more holidays#"^

Few laborers would take issue with this

policy# Ministers from their pulpits, thought Henderson, could aid in the advance of laborfs cause.

They could open

their churches for meetings of workingmen.

And, finally,

^-C • A. Briggs, "The Alienation of Church and People," Forum, XVI (November, 1893), 366. ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 23, 1893, p. 7. Delivered in Amphitheater, August 17, 1893#

134

ministers could invite representatives of labor to their pulpits on Sunday evenings to discuss the workingman^ problems• While Henderson and others recommended specific practices which would enable churches to relate more satis­ factorily to problems of workingmen* the Reverend Josiah Strong aided in the formulation of a social philosophy for liberal Christianity.

Strong, along with Walter Rauschen-

busch, Leighton Williams, and William Howe Tollman, was active in the Brotherhood of the Kingdom, a group bound by the common purpose of realizing a "Christian trans­ figuration of the social order."^ In his appearance at Chautauqua, in 1895, Dr. Strong enunciated principles for the attainment of the kingdom of God on the earth in an address entitled, "The Christian Law of Service Applied to the Industrial Problem." A fundamental principle laid down by Christ which applies directly to the relations of labor and capital is the Christian law of service, asserted Strong.

Production and

distribution for service, Strong continued, is the surest way to build the kingdom of God on this earth.

But few

^-Walter Rauschenbusch, A Theology for the Social Gospel, p. 145.

135

have perceived that the great objective of "every legit­ imate business is not gain but service*"^ The businessman is entitled to some profit, acknowledged Strong, in order that he might support him­ self and his family#

"But the merchant or manufacturer

whose object is gain rather than service is as unworthy of his calling as Is the minister whose object is gain instead of service.”2 Now, the reason for the industrial problem in America, claimed Dr. Strong, is the inevitable clash between two economic interests, labor and capital, as they compete for private gain.

But if ChristTs law of

social service were to supplant the selfish motivation of individual gain, a substantial basis for industrial har­ mony would be formed. Thus did the Reverend Josiah Strong open and close the lectures at Chautauqua urging a socialization of Christianity.

It was a series that included the ad­

dresses of four ministers, two university professors, and a labor leader.

They were men sensitive to the

challenge of adjusting the message of Christianity to make it socially meaningful to industrial, urban America.

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 25, 1895, p. 3# Delivered In Amphitheater, July 23, 1895# 2 Ibid#

136

It was a challenge succinctly stated by a leading period­ ical of the day. The church may refuse to hear the cry that comes out of the depths of poverty and suffering;.. .may attempt the reformation of the individual without regard to his environment, claiming that it has to do solely with spiritual matters regardless of the temporal well-being of humanity. Such a course is open to the church; but let it be remembered that no civil or religious system can long survive that per­ mits, without protest, the exaltation of the few at the cost of the many. And in the great heart of uni­ versal humanity there can be no more horrid infidelity than the assertion that such involuntary poverty as now exists is in harmony with the will of God. 1 These Chautauqua lecturers were part of that van­ guard of liberal Christians who were not deaf to the social outcry.

By urging a social gospel to supplement the tradi­

tional individual gospel of Christianity, they presaged the current of socio-economic progressivism in the new century.

"The new theology," wrote Gabriel,

...had borne fruit in an increased social con­ sciousness on the part of churches. In 1908 the establishment of the Federal Council of Churches was a partial fulfillment of Gladden*s dream of unity. The Council*s vigorous declaration of support for the rights of labor was a triumph for the social gospelers. Other results were the institutional churches••.which had appeared In almost every great American city. In some of the more liberal and more important theolog­ ical seminaries the study of contemporary society had taken its place beside that of Hebrew antiquity. A vigorous and intellectually sophisticated literature sprang up from coast to coast as educated young clergy­ men added their voices to the "demand that social justice be defined In Christian terms." A secular progressivism was in the air as the twentieth century opened.

2

^*C • M. Morse, "The Church and the Working-Man," Forum, VI (January, 1889), 661. 2Ralph H. Gabriel, The Course of American Demo­ cratic Tho~ught, p. 325.

CHAPTER VI SOCIAL REFORM The humanitarian and equalitarian Impulses which surged in the period of Jacksonian Democracy were to be felt throughout the nineteenth century#

ftA lusty young

America was speaking,11 writes Billington, "...for any reform that promised the common man the democracy, the perfected institutions, and the decency he had a right to expect from a benevolent God and an enlightened society. The vigorous idealism of the crusaders for temper­ ance, w o m e n 1s rights, and racial equality had a marked effect on American life and thought.

Although agitation

for the rights of the Negro abated somewhat, following his emancipation, efforts In behalf of the other two re­ forms were redoubled after 1865.

But all three were

lively issues of the day#2 The audiences at Chautauqua heard many of the lead­ ing representatives of national opinion on these subjects

^R. A. Billington, B. J. Loewenberg, and S. H. Brockunier, The United States, p. 194# 2For an excellent account of the "humanitarian striving" of the post-CIvil War period see, Nevins, The Emergence of Modern America, chap. xii.

137

138

during the period 1874-1900*

They witnessed an invasion

of women to speak for temperance and w o me n1s rights.

And

they contemplated, as did other thoughtful Americans, the issues and ideas of the lectures on reformation of our society*

Temperance Reform Prior to 1826, temperance activity in the United States had been limited largely to pronouncements of ministers against the liquor traffic.

Although there

had been a few attempts to inaugurate temperance movements which would have more than local or state significance, no such efforts proved successful until the organization of the American Temperance Society, at Boston, on February 13, 1826. Reorganized in 1836 as the American Temperance Union, total abstinence, rather than temperance, became the aim of the organization.

Under the leadership of this

dominant society, a nationwide campaign of anti-liquor education was undertaken, culminating in the state prohibi­ tion crusades of the fifties.

By 1856, Mthe legislatures

of practically all the states were compelled to wrestle with the Prohibition question.”'** But just at the time

^Ernest H. Cherrington, The Evolution of Prohibi­ tion in the United States, p. 13FI This is one of the most informative accounts of temperance and prohibition activity in the United States up to 1920.

139 when prohibition agitation was reaching its height, and widespread state success seemed assured, the attention of the nation1s moral reform forces was turned forcefully to the burning issue of slavery* When the nation emerged from its preoccupation with the Civil War, it was discovered that nthe prewar movement for state prohibitory laws...had suffered serious reverses during the conflict*”^

Hot only had general public senti­

ment for prohibition declined, but the American Temperance Union had surrendered leadership to the Order of Good Templars, an organization interested in political activity in behalf of temperance* At their annual convention in 1868, the Good Templars adopted a resolution favoring the organization of a new political party “whose platform and principles shall contain prohibition of the manufacture, importation and sale of intoxicating liquors to be used as a beverage. The Hation agreed that this political approach to the temperance question was a sounder program than the traditional appeal to moral standards. The argument which had been found so effective in pulpit and lyeeum were thought to be well adapted to the intelligence of political bodies. Prohibition was

•^Nevins, The Emergence of Modern America, p. 336*

p

Cherrington, op. cit., p. 165.

140

insisted on as a moral necessity? and all who opposed it were denounced as men in league with, the retail liquor-dealers and through them with Satan. As most people are agreed that the solution of political questions depends on considerations connected with the greatest good of the greatest number, and not upon any inner light, it was evident that sooner or later the high abstract side of the question must be abandoned, and the subject be approached in a different way* 1 While the National Prohibition Party entered the presidential campaign in 1872, with meager results, the next year, 1873, marked the large-scale entrance of women into the temperance movement.

The largely spontaneous

w o m a n ’s crusade of 1873, commented the surprised Nation, has ”had great successes*” •••the women in larger or smaller detached bodies go about to the bar-rooms of the town which happens to be the scene of operations, and at each one expostulate with the liquor dealer, pray for him in his own bar­ room, and sing hymns* 2 But, ” ...that the women are likely to form a permanent organization for its suppression seems highly improbable,” was the Nation’s skeptical conclusion about women’s attack on the liquor problem* Women did, however, form a permanent temperance organization, and it was the very next year that this

^-’’The War Against Alcohol,” Nation, XIII (April 1, 1869), 251. 2 ”The Week,” Nation, XVIII (February 12, 1874), 99* 3

XVIII

”The Women and the Temperance Question,” Nation, (February 26, 1874), 135*

141 event took place at the National Sunday School Teachers* Assembly, the first Chautauqua meeting.

,f...During the

progress of this Sunday-school convention, several temper­ ance meetings were held, and the women were moved to under­ take the crystallization of the Crusade Into a permanent force by Its nationalization.”1

A national convention for

temperance women was scheduled to convene In Cleveland later in the summer, and the W om an ’s Christian Temperance Union was launched* During the next two decades, Chautauqua heard some of the nation’s foremost advocates of temperance reform*

Their common plea was for abstinence from liquor*

The lecturers, at first, appealed solely to individual morality.

After 1880, however, they urged legal prohibi­

tion of intoxicating beverages to guarantee abstinence* Often in the speeches, the audience heard references to w o m a n ’s suffrage.

The powerful moral influence of women,

if they were granted the right of suffrage, would be felt In politics; women, the speakers observed, were unanimous In their opposition to the saloon. John B. Gough, the noted temperance lecturer, first spoke at Chautauqua

In 1874*

”Gough was the most supremely

^Henry W. Blair, The Temperance Movement, pp. 510511.

142

popular

of American lecturers of the day#^*

entitled

In an address

The Poes We fight," Gough spoke for over an hour

about the importance of resisting strong drink.

Unless the

temptation is resisted* asserted Gough# the appetite be­ comes so powerful that it cannot be overcome.

And the

consequences of the lust for drink are terrible indeedJ "Sons of wealthy parents, men of the finest culture and education, have descended into the deepest degradation, and died miserable deaths, because they could not throw off the chains of this passion#"^ G o u g h 1s appeal in this speech was not for legal prohibition, but for personal abstinence.

One»s struggle

to resist the temptation of drink can be intense, con­ cluded Gough, but the reward of a healthy, moral life awaits personal victory.

This typically Gough thesis

was in substantial accord with current temperance views# Again, in 1876, abstinence was urged in the temper­ ance address of Prances E, Willard, a doughty woman who resigned her post as Dean of Northwestern University*s

^Pond, Eccentricities of Genius, p. 1# "From 1861 to the time of his death, February 11, 1866, he delivered 3,526 lectures, making in all 9,600 addresses before 9,000,000 hearers#" Ibid,, p, 5# ^Official Report of the National Sunday-School Teachers Assembly, p. 26. Delivered in Auditorium, August 7, 1874*

1

143

Woman's College to devote her life to the temperance crusade*l

Miss Willard, whose speeeh(marked the first ap­

pearance of a woman lecturer on the Chautauqua platform, maintained that the cost of liquor to the nation is prohibitivemoney,

Not only is the cost great in terms of

it is exorbitant in terms of human cost--insanity,

crime, and broken homes*2

My plea, said Miss Willard, is

Mfor Christian women to fight the liquor traffic*"3

Women,

she thought, should lead in the temperance movement because it is the women who suffer most from male intemperance* And what was the role of church women in the temper­ ance crusade?

They could, explained the speaker, "take

the Gospel to the drinking class."4

Such was the proposal

of the woman who became second president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. The next year, Francis Murphy, a leading testimo­ nial speaker whose "blue ribbon badge was worn by untold

^*A tireless woman, Miss Willard averaged one speech a day for the first ten years of her temperance work. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, I, 376* ^For another contemporary estimate of the great cost of intemperance see, "Judge Davis on Temperance," Harper's Weekly, XXIII (January 4, 1879), 3* 3 "Miss Willard's Great Speech," Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, August 1, 1876, p* 2* Delivered In Auditorium, July 31, 1"^6. 4Ibid.

144

thousands of reformed drunkards,"*1* lectured at Chautauqua* His address was a personal appeal to individuals In the audience never to touch liquor nor have it in their homes. Murphy's speech was an account of his life:

his boyhood

in Ireland, and his tasting liquor early; his youth in the United States, the temptations of the city, and his succumb­ ing to these temptations; and, finally, after arrests for drunkenness, how he "was led to seek the Savior. There was a distinct religious tenor in Murphy's address as he equated conversion to abstinence with personal salvation#

To Murphy, as to others in this

early period, victory over intemperance was an individual religious experience. Two days later, the famed John B* Gough, making his second Chautauqua appearance, remarked that one need not become a Christian In order to become an abstainer. But, he continued, becoming a Christian makes the abstinence more certain by giving it a solid religious footing* Temperance people, maintained Gough, make no grandiose claims for total abstinence.

The abstainer

may still retain other vices, but he does cease being a

^Huribut, The Story of Chautauqua, p. 102* 2 "Temperanee Address," Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, August 7, 1877, p. 1. Delivered in Auditorium, August 4, 1877*

145 drunkard.

And why, continued Gough, ofrering his personal

testimony on the point, do I believe that abstinence is a better principle than moderate drinking?

Simply because

’’every drunkard becomes so from trying to be a moderate drinker and failing.”-1Gough and his fellow spokesmen for temperance at Chautauqua, and elsewhere, had preached individual for­ bearance from liquor; legal prohibition was not mentioned. After 1880, the Chautauqua temperance lecturers were unanimous in their support of prohibitory laws to sup­ plement individual conversion from intemperance. The trend toward social control through prohibi­ tion was marked in the eighties.

The Woman*s Christian

Temperance Union, largest of the temperance organizations, was chiefly responsible for this shift in emphasis.

From

the time of its founding in 1874 until the presidential campaign of 1880, the W. C. T. U. was a nonpartisan organi­ zation.

There was no connection between this body and the

Prohibition Party. The women, however, had been led to believe that the presidential candidate on the Republican ticket in 1880, James A. Garfield, was a true friend of the temperance cause. After the election and inauguration, however, Miss [Frances E.] Willard called upon the President at the White House. The reception which

1’’Temperance Address,” Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, August 7, 1877, p. 2. Delivered in Auditorium, August 6, 1877.

146 Mias Willard received on that occasion led her to be­ lieve that neither the President nor the party which he represented were vitally interested in the Prohibi­ tion movement. Consequently, upon her return to Chicago she set about the work of organizing a new political party, and in 1881 with the cooperation of others launched the "Home Protection Party," which was later merged into the National Prohibition party. 1 The new approach to temperance reform was reflected in the lecture on "Temperance" delivered in 1881 by Eli Johnson.

Johnson!s lecture was, in the main, an account

of his experience in temperance work.

He acknowledged

the need for aggressive political activity to supplement the moral crusading of the past. ...I have pounded out my platform so broad that anybody whatever, who has any love for the temperance cause, can stand upon it. It has four planks upon it, and I can give it to you in four lines:: Mental suasion for those who think, Moral suasion for those who drink, Legal suasion for the drunkard-maker, Prison suasion for the statute-breaker. 2 But the conservative James M. Buckley, editor of the influential Christian Advocate, denounced political activity by women even though it be for the cause of temper­ ance.

In 1882, speaking on "New Phases of an Old Fight,"

Buckley urged that the movement for constitutional prohibi­ tion be supported.

There are those, he continued, who

recommend that women be granted the right to vote on the

■*-Cherrington, op. cit., pp. 171-172.

2

3.

Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 4, 1881, pp. 2 Delivered in Amphitheater, August 2, 1881.

147

grounds that the agitation for prohibitory laws would benefit from the political support of women.

But,

begged Buckley, let us not complicate the prohibition issue with female suffrage. Buckley*s argument that woman’s suffrage was not indispensable to the temperance movement ran as follows: (1) prohibition carried in Iowa and Kansas without female suffrage, thus proving it is not indispensable to the temperance cause;

(2) the Catholic and Episcopal Churches

would be alienated from the temperance cause if it were identified with female suffrage, because they are strongly opposed to suffrage for women; and,

(3) men would be

alienated from the temperance cause, for they largely oppose female suffrage.

Besides, added Buckley, if prohibi­

tion were passed by w o m a n ’s vote, men would not respect a "woman’s law."^ The most complete shift from the Individual reforma­ tion stress of the preceding decade came in 1883 in a lecture by the Reverend George H. Vibbert.

In an address,

"Public Opinion and Prohibition," he maintained that temperance reformations, conversions, and pledge-signing have been comparative failures.

The great majority of

the "converted" Individuals eventually renege their pledges.

^-Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 12, 1882, p. 2. - Delivered in Amphitheater, August 8, 1882.

148

Vibbert, unlike Buckley, favored woman’s suffrage* To Vibbert the issue was uncomplicated--women should be granted the right of suffrage because the great majority of women favor temperance and prohibition.

He called for

temperance agitation by both men and women to secure the passage of prohibitory laws.

Once passed, he asserted,

these laws would have an educatory effect, serving to create a public opinion hostile to intemperance* ...law helps to create, to change, to determine public opinion. Law is an educator of public opinion* Good laws help educate public opinion upward; bad laws help to educate people downward. 1 Several years later Charles W. Clark, noting the growing popular interest in such an approach to prohibi­ tion, cautioned: ...we must not forget that the attempt to create moral sentiment by law reverses the true order. Law must follow and enforce the decree of moral sentiment already created by education. Pushed in advance, it becomes inoperative and ridiculous, discouraging in­ stead of stimulating.

2

When Mary T. Lathrop, representing the W o ma n’s Christian Temperance Union, addressed Chautauquans in 1884, she called for vigorous political support of temper­ ance candidates in the forthcoming national elections.

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 22, 1883, p. 2* Delivered in"Amphitheater, August T5, 1883. ^ ’’Temperance Legislation: Uses and Limits,” Atlantic Monthly, LXIII (May, 1889), 600.

149

Arrayed against us, declared Mrs. Lathrop, are the drinkers and the liquor dealers.

The temperance men and women of

America must unite to marshal an overwhelming public senti­ ment against the anti-temperance candidates•1 That the National Prohibition Party benefited from the recent emphasis upon temperance political agitation is suggested in its record.

John Black, Green C. Smith, and

Neal Dow, the Prohibition Partyfs presidential candidates in the elections of 1872, 1876, and 1880, had failed to garner twenty-six thousand votes among them.

In the

election of 1884, however, the Prohibition candidate, John P. St. John received 151,809 votes.

Clinton B.

Fiske, their standard bearer in 1888, received 249,945 votes.

And John Bidwell, the Prohibition Party*s candidate

in 1892, received a total of 270,710 votes.^ While the National Prohibition Party was seeking federal political authority, the temperance forces were working diligently on the state and local scene but with slight success.

By 1889, only four rural states, Maine,

New Hampshire, Vermont, and Kansas, had statewide prohibi­ tion.

Locally, a system of high-license laws was attempted

■1-"Temperance," Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 18, 1884, p. 4. Delivered in Amphitheater, August 15, 1884. ^Cherrington, op . cit., p. 166.

150

in the 1 8 8 0 ’s •

By the end of the decade , thirty-two

states and territories had adopted this system#^* It was Mary T. Lathrop »s thesis, in her 1880 Chautauqua address, that the high-license plan represented no genuine solution to the liquor problem. fewer, though bigger, liquor dealers.

It simply makes

Moreover, she

protested, high-license actually blocks legal prohibition# The high liquor taxes usually go for school support thus lessening the citizenfs tax load; this, of course, makes high-license popular#^ Another remedy, local option, was discussed and dismissed by Mrs. J. Ellen Foster the next year#

Mrs#

Foster had gained prominence in temperance circles for the active role she had played In the Iowa agitation which culminated in the prohibition amendment to IowaTs Constitution in 1882#^

Drawing upon Iowa’s experience

with local option, Mrs. Foster pointed out that liquor alYjays can be obtained in neighboring communities where

■^Schlesinger, The Rise of the City, pp# 353-357, passim# The Theme Today,11 Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 10, 1888, pp# 4-5. Deli vers'd "in Amphitheater, August 8, 1888# ^The National Cyclopoedia of American Biography, XXII, 233#

151 Its sale is legal*

It Is obvious, she continued, that

only constitutional prohibition can halt the liquor traffic.1 Prohibition, concluded Mrs* Poster, simply is a matter of political not Individual ethics*

flOur mission

is to get legislation passed which will give a man the best possible chance to do right*11^ The final address on "The Liquor Problem" was delivered to Chautauquans In 1892 by the indefatigable Mary T* Lathrop*

Of all the great social, economic, and

moral questions of the day, thought Mrs. Lathrop, the liquor problem is the most important* We stand looking into the face of these problems, temperance, the tariff, money, labor, monopoly, ballot-reform, the public school system, and suffrage* They touch on our moral, intellectual, religious, and legislative life; and the need of the next few years is to meet these problems and settle t h e m * . A n d of all these problems, the greatest, and first in the order of logic, statesmanship, and in the order of

Ipor excellent overviews of the several prohibi­ tory measures referred to by Mrs. Foster and her Chau­ tauqua temperance predecessors from 1880 see, "Temperance Legislation: Uses and Limits,” Atlantic Monthly, LXIII (May, 1389), 593-600, and E. R. L. Oould, nThe Temperance Problem: Past and Future," Forum, XVIII (November, 1894), 339-351* ^"Political Ethics,” Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 20, 1889, p* 4. Delivered in Amphitheater, July 27, 1889*

152

G-od, is to settle what ought to be the attitude of a great Christian nation toward the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages* 1 No doubt Mrs* Lathrop wasj herself, heady with enthusiasm over the cause to which she devoted her life* Although by the century’s end only five states, Kansas, Maine, North Dakota, New Hampshire

and Vermont, were

legally dry, public sentiment for prohibition was mount­ ing.

"Temperance agitation," comments Faulkner, had advanced beyond the stage of freak reform and now received support from the most conservative sources. An increasing number of thoughtful people were convinced that the consumption of alcoholic beverages was physically and economically wasteful and that therefore the best interests of the nation would be served by its elimination* 2 Women*s Rights When Frances Wright, a gifted young Scotswoman,

appeared on the American lecture platform in 1824 to speak in behalf of laborers, abolitionism, free public education, and w o m e n ’s rights, she raised a storm of disapproval*

Al­

though the appearance of a woman in public life shocked the conservatives, it did encourage other women anxious

•^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 5, 1892, pp* 23. Delivered i n Amphi the at e r , Augu st 2, 1892. Cf* "Liquor Selling,” Harper’s Weekly, XXXVI (February 13, 1892), 147* ^Harold U. Faulkner, The Quest for Social Justice, p. 223*

153

to discuss their favorite reforms from the public platform* Miss Wright, greatly interested in abolitionism, was joined by other women eager to serve in the anti­ slavery cause.

The Grimke sisters of South Carolina and

Abby Kelly experienced similar hostility as their aboli­ tionist speeches were greeted unchivalrously with a "fu­ sillade of rotten eggs, brickbats and vile abuse. Denied membership in existing anti-slavery organi­ zations, the militant women formed the National Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833*

This pioneer group probably

not only was the first organized women's society but also represented the first concerted effort of women to affect 'Z

the resolution of a political question*

But the interest

of the women soon was to be transferred from the rights of slaves to the rights of women* In 1840 all "friends of the slave" were invited to attend a World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London, and all American gates.

anti-slavery societies were urged to send dele­ The reception accorded the eight American woman

^Harold Faulkner, American Political and Social History, p. 276. ^Carrie Chapman Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler, Woman Suffrage and Politics, p. 14* 3Ibid.

154 delegates provides eloquent testimony of the common opinion in which women of that date were held.

Instead

of receiving a welcome to the convention, the women dele­ gates became the subject of a heated debate, in which it was declared that "all order would end" if "promiscuous female representation be allowed" and "G-od!s clear inten­ tion violated."'*' Incensed over the rejection of the delegates, Lucretia Mott, who was one of the delegates, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the wife of a delegate, pledged their lives to a fight for the rights of women.

They devoted the

next several years to gaining converts to the women's cause, and organized the first Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Palls, New York, in 1848.

At this convention a

"Declaration of Sentiments" was drawn up and adopted.

The

Declaration outlined the civil and political grievances of women, and stated bluntly that "the history of mankind Is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her."^

Therefore,

concluded the manifesto, "...because women do feel them­ selves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of

•**Ibid., p. 17. ^Reported in Eugene A. Hecker, A Short History of Women's Rights, p . 160•

155

their* most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States. This dramatic proclamation and the other subsequent w om en ’s rights conventions added impetus to the struggling movement•

Several states enacted legislation granting

women equal property rights.

The development of seminaries

for ”young ladies” was followed by the establishment of coeducation in some American colleges.

Following the lead

of Oberlin College, and, later, Antioch College, increas­ ing numbers of state universities adopted policies of co­ education.

The first recognition of woman suffrage came

in Kansas when,

In 1861, Its new constitution established

school suffrage

for women. The goal of full suffrage

and

political equality was first realized in the Wyoming Constitution of 1869; It was over twenty years, however, before the next state, Colorado, was to grant full suffrage to all women*

p

It would be erroneous to suggest, however, that the emerging movement for recognition of women’s rights was without stormy opposition.

Most Americans agreed

•^Ibid., p# 162 ^Faulkner, American Political and Social History, pp. 276-277; F. M. Bjorkman and A. G. Porritt (ed.l, Woman Suffrage, pp. 64-105, passim#

156 with Harp er *3 New Monthly Magazine'when. in 1853, it as­ serted that the movement has an "intimate connection with all the radical and infidel movements of the day....It is avowedly opposed to the most time-honored proprieties of social life; it Is opposed to nature; it is opposed to revelation.••.no kindred movement is so decidedly Infidel, so rancorously and avowedly anti-biblical. Years later, Horace Bushnell, the liberal theologian, viewed the mounting agitation for women’s suffrage with alarm.

The contemplation of women in political life was a

specter that moved Bushnell to shudder* ...we shall see, when the days of women’s suffrage are come, that all we had to say of moderation and a gentler type of manners, in our political affairs, has been a most sad mistake, that party strife was never before so bitter and so mixed with hate. Women are a great deal more violent, constitutionally speaking, than men; the very delicacy of their nature makes them so, and as soon as they are called to violence, which now they are not, they will make an element of unmitigated bitterness. When the charities of a womanly nature are burned out, and nothing left but spleen or frenzied passion, we have a spectacle both sad and frightful. 2 Despite such popular opposition to the social and political emancipation of women, the appreciative remarks cf a leading metropolitan newspaper represent a sign of fche times not to be gainsaid:

^"Editor’s Table,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, VII (November, 1853), 838. ^Women’s Suffrage; the Reform Against Nature, pp. -

L32-133.

157

Looked at from whatever point of view, the woman suffrage movement in the United States between 1848 and 1880 is one of the most striking episodes in the social history of the century* Great moral forces were at work and men and women of courage and ability,, whose names will not be lightly forgotten, were on the ground to direct them* The anti-slavery agitation was the impelling and sustaining force of the whole reform movement, and Teetotalism and Woman Suffrage gained im­ measurably from association with the master-spirits whose absorbing thought was the liberation of the slaves* Women fought their way to the platform and the pulpit in the cause of the slave and of temperance, and having won a vantage ground, began to speak for themselves* 1 The number of addresses delivered at Chautauqua on the subject of womenfs rights reflects the keen interest in this

issue#

More than a dozen addresses on this theme

were heard by Chautauqua audiences during the period*

The

great majority of these speeches were concerned with the problem of women's suffrage; only a few dealt with equality of economic opportunity.

Save for the arguments of the

Reverend James M. Buckley in 1892, by 1887 the platform opposition to women's suffrage had ended at Chautauqua* With but a few exceptions, Chautauqua speakers during the period favored political equality for women* Chautauqua's audiences were introduced to the sub­ ject of women's rights in 1879-

The Reverend James M.

Buckley, New York editor of the Christian Advocate, ad­ vanced a conservative position in his address on ’‘Woman

3-New York Tribune, July 3, 1881, p* 8*

158 in the Family, in the Church and in the State."

What is,

asked Buckley, the condition of woman in the United States today?

She occupies, he explained, an excellent position

before the courts; she is treated with the greatest defer­ ence and respect; her divorce rights and property rights are virtually the same as m a n 1s; and she is respected and protected by society. But, continued Buckley, it is unthinkable that woman and man should perform the same functions in society. There is, he explained, a difference in the moral and intel­ lectual nature of the sexes.

The distinctive masculine

characteristics are those in which the understanding takes the lead; man is more frequently governed by judgment and reason.

The distinctive feminine characteristics, on the

other hand, are those in which will or affection are dominant; woman is more frequently governed by feelings and perception. Suffrage, thought Buckley, would do violence to w o m a n ’s fundamental nature. To be trained to vote intelligently, she must be trained to think, feel and act in the spirit of men. It has been said, "It does not harm woman to drop a letter in the post-office. What harm will it do her to drop a little piece of paper in the ballot box?” But the casting of votes is the symbol of governing. To do it properly implies a preliminary training, and the governing spirit. To develop a spirit of govern­ ing in the State will make woman restless in her posi­ tion in the family. 1

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, November, 1879, p. 3. delivered in Amphitheater, August i), 1879.

159 To those who complained that woman, without suf­ frage, was unrepresented in our political system, Buckley offered the traditional argument of virtual representation. "Woman is represented by the operation of the whole system.... Society, being...a collection of families, and not of units, every woman is as really represented as I am."-*Two months later, the historian, Francis Parkman, employed a similar argument as he sought to discredit the non-representation claim of the suffragists. High civilization, ancient or modern, has hitherto rested on the family. The family, and not the individual, has been the political unit, and the head of the family...has been the political repre­ sentative of the rest. To give the suffrage to women would be to reject the principle that has thus far formed the basis of civilized government. 2 In an effort to place both sides of the women’s suffrage question before the audience, Chautauqua, in 1881, held a full-length debate on this live issue.

With the

Reverend Theodore L. Flood upholding the affirmative and the Reverend Henry Lummis supporting the negative, the following proposition was debated:

"Resolved, that

w o ma n’s suffrage Is essential to the highest civiliza­ tion.”

Flood, the affirmative, offered as his first

argument that suffrage Is a human right.

Men and women,

1Ibid.

2

"The Woman Question," North American Review, CXXIX (October, 1879), 312.

160 he reasoned, are equal under natural and moral law— each has a conscience, each is accountable and responsible to God, man, therefore, has no rights under G o d ’s moral govern ment which are denied to woman*

To deny woman the right

of suffrage, then, is to contradict her God-given moral and natural rights. F l o o d ’s second argument for permitting women to vote was that, today, she is the victim of taxation with­ out representation.

This, of course, violates the princlpl

for which the American Revolution was fought.

And, third,

maintained Flood, the w o m a n ’s ballot is needed to aid the temperance cause.

Women, he asserted, are almost unani­

mously in favor of state and national prohibitory legislati o n . To F l o o d ’s contention that suffrage is a natural and moral right, Dr. Lummis, on the negative side of the question, did not reply.

He did maintain that the taxa­

tion without representation cry is without significance. Since personal and poll taxes are not levied against women, their lack of franchise can be no real grievance; for the property taxes some women pay, they receive, In return, government protection of their property.

Finally, con­

tended Lummis, reforms in society do not depend necessarily upon the advocates of reform having the ballot.

Reforms

often languish even when their supporters do have the

161

ballot; moreover, women would be just as divided in their opinion about While

reforms as are men.’ 1' he opposed enfranchisement ofwomen,

Lummis

hastened to point out that women were sovereign in certain, albeit restricted, domains*

He concluded that "the true

sphere of woman is the home, the school, mission work, and religious work* represents no

In this

sphere she isqueen; politics

real prize for woman.

"The audience," reported the Chautauqua Assembly Herald on the Flood-Lummis debate, "was among the largest and most attentive, during the two hours and ten minutes, we have ever seen at Chautauqua."^ In 1884 the Reverend John H. Vincent, co-founder and Principal of Instruction at Chautauqua, was moved to express his views on the subject of woman’s suffrage.

"A

great many people," observed Chautauquafs newspaper, "were on

the tiptoe of curiosity

say on

!Woman Suffrage•*

to hear what he would have to The Chancellor did not disappoint

^This argument was a popular weapon in the arsenal of the opposition to woman suffrage. See, for example, Francis Parkman, "The Woman Question Again," North American Review, CXXX (January, 1880), 16-30, passim* ^ "Womanfs Suffrage Debate," Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 13, 1881, p. 5. Held in Amphitheater, August 12, 1881. 3 Ibid., p. 1.

162 them, but in a plain frank, courageous statement, planted himself squarely against granting the right of suffrage to woman* W o m a n ’s place, declared Dr. Vincent, repeating a familiar argument, is in the home; there she has ample challenge to her splendid intellectual and moral powers* Woman, however, should not be granted suffrage. reasons for denying suffrage to women were:

His

(1) thousands

of women are ill-fitted to vote, such as, for example, Catholic women whose vote would be controlled by the Vatican;

(2) if permitted to vote on moral questions,

women would soon vote on every question, thus creating a class of "political women";

(3) woman suffrage would not

purify politics, but would remove women from the home where their moral influence is of great importance;

(4) there is

no reason to believe that women1s decisions in nominating and voting would be any wiser than m e n ’s.

It was the

speaker’s solemn conclusion that "the immediate result of opening the ballot to women on every question would be the creation of a class of women whose outside and polit­ ical and commercial relations, and whose secular ambitions, would create a center of the most demoralizing Influence p

socially and politically that this country has ever seen."

^Ibid•, August 22, 1884, p* 1* p

"A W o m a n ’s Career," Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 22, 1884, p. 5. Delivered In Amphitheater, August 21, 1884* Cf. Thomas W. Higginson, "Unsolved Problems in Woman Suffrage," Forum, II (January, 1887), 439-449*

163

Dr. Vincent*s theme was reiterated by the Reverend 0* H. Warren in 1887.

Adding nothing new to the tradi­

tional apologia for disfranchisement of women, Dr. Warren insisted that wo ma n’s sphere is the home.

Suffrage, he

continued, would divert woman’s attention from her home and family.

Such a diversion, gloomily predicted Dr.

Warren, would jeopardize the foundations of our civiliza­ tion, for the family is the "center of social power, the fountain of social happiness• In 1890, with four million women engaged in wageearning occupations outside of domestic employment,^ it was inevitable that the subject of women in economic life be discussed at Chautauqua.

Helen Campbell, the prominent

Massachusetts* suffragist, that year spoke on "Social Economics and Women.”

Wages for women, she maintained,

are unreasonably low.

The same causes which depress m e n ’s

wages operate to keep women’s wages low.

In addition,

however, there is a powerful wage-limiting factor which is peculiar to female employment.

Women in business and

industry are confronted constantly with the myth of

^"Woman in the Social Structure," Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 5, 1887, p. 6. Delivered in Amphitheater, July 18, 1887. 2Schlesinger, The Rise of the City, p. 142.

164 feminine inferiority, the medieval notion that women are but an appendage to man#

A further element complicating

the w o m e n ’s wage picture is their lack of mobility# "Women," explained Mrs. Campbell, "cannot tramp from town to town seeking the best wages as men do#"^*

Al­

though w o m a n ’s comparative lack of mobility cannot be corrected, there is no reason, maintained the speaker, why there should be wage discrimination for similar em­ ployment • The Issue of equal political rights for women had aroused such Interest at Chautauqua that, in 1891, a plat­ form meeting on "Political Equality" was held.

The meeting

featured brief remarks by three of the nation’s outstand­ ing suffragist leaders, Susan B. Anthony, Zerelda Wallace, and Anna Howard Shaw.^

Miss Anthony, "one of the ablest

women orators" of the day,^ provided a vivid, capsule description of the struggle for women’s rights.

Although

women have made substantial gains In the past half century, observed Miss Anthony, they still do not possess the franchise.

Pull political equality, she insisted, Is our

goal*

•^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 20, 1890, p. 5. Delivered in Hall of Philosophy, August 18, 1890. ^ Ibid., July 27, 1891, p. 5. in Amphitheater, July 25, 1891#

Platform meeting held

^Pond, Eccentricities of Genius, p. 539.

165 It was the theme of Mrs* Wallace’s short talk that women were in no way attempting to usurp the historical and legitimate functions of men.

"0, my sisters," she cried,

"let us recognize that our mission in the world is not to contend with men for supremacy over the almighty dollar and over the physical f o r c e s B u t ,

she concluded, women can

contribute heavily to the nation’s political life.

While

man’s endowment is Intellectual power and physical force, woman’s endowment, and contribution, is Intellectual power and moral and spiritual force. In the most lively talk of the three, Dr. Shaw charged that the United States, except Wyoming, does not have a true republican form of government, for everyone is not politically equal before the law.

Women, she

urged, should be enfranchised because their natures are different from m e n ’s.

The "noble" men have permitted

Intemperance, gambling, and vice to flourish.

"It Is

about time voters of a different nature participate in p

government." Henry B. Blackwell of Boston, editor of the jVoman ’s Journal, presented his views on the woman suf­ frage question to the 1892 Assembly.

"I like to regard

■^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 27, 1891, p. 5. 2 Ibid., July 27, 1891, p. 5. Cf. "Equal Suffrage," Earper’s Wee¥ly, XXXVI (April 30, 1892), 411.

166

this

question of woman suffrage," began Mr, Blackwell, "as

a part of the general question of the evolution of free government."^

The opponents of impartial suffrage, he

continued, assert that woman *s participation in government is contrary to the precepts of political progress.

Taking

issue with this notion, Blackwell held that the following could be stated as "political axioms":

(1) political

progress, historically viewed, consists in the successive extension of suffrage to classes hitherto disfranchised; and,

(2) the enlargement of woman's sphere of activity and

the recognition of her equal rights mark and measure the progress of civilization.^ In the same summer, Chautauqua heard, on succes­ sive days, two representative leaders of the opposing view­ points on the suffrage question, the Reverend Anna Howard Shaw and the Reverend James M. Buckley.

Dr. Shaw opened

the discussion with a plea "For Woman's Suffrage."

She im­

mediately attacked the popular argument that woman's suf­ frage is contrary to the will of God and foreign to the very nature of woman.

Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 2, 1892, p. 2. Delivered in Amphitheater, July 30, 1892. ^Blackwell, here, was refuting a familiar anti­ suffrage argument. See, for example, Francis Parkman, "The Woman Question," North American Review, CXXIX (October, 1879), 312 ff.

167 It is said that it interferes with woman as a woman* I believe that no law which binds me and prevents me from growth and development is in ac­ cordance with the divine will or in accordance with nature; and whatever makes me a dwarf in mind, in my life, and in the development of my being, is foreign to the will of God, foreign to my nature, and there­ fore, the law which says I cannot develop myself be­ cause I am a woman, is utterly contrary to the will of God, and contrary to the highest interest of woman­ hood* 1 Dr. Shaw then turned her attention to the allega­ tion that woman*s suffrage would spirit the mother from her home duties to the obvious detriment of the family.

Anna

Shaw had little respect for this assertion* I believe in the ballot for woman if but for no­ thing but the protection of the home itself* If any­ one ought to have the right to vote it surely is the mothers of our country. I believe that power and responsibility go together* Woman has the respons­ ibility of rearing her children. Why take from them the power by which they may rear their children? In order to bring up her children as they ought to be, she must have some way of controlling them after they get out on the street, and the only way for her to do this is to have some control over the street, and the only way she can do this is through the ballot* The men have not done it....I believe in a mother*s prayer.. But I would have a great deal more faith in the full cure of the immoral conditions of this country, If while the mother prayed that her boy be saved, that the legalized liquor traffic might be overthrown and gambling dens and dens of vice might be destroyed,*., she held in her hand the ballot*... 2 There was no mistaking Dr. Shaw*s meaning.

Protec­

tion of the home and family would be more certain If, In

-*•Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 9, 1892, p. 5# Delivered in Amphitheater, August 8, 1892* ^Ibid*

168 addition to the m o t h e r s prayer, she possessed the polit­ ical means by which to translate her hopes into concrete legislation. The next day, Dr. Buckley marched to the platform to answer Dr. Sh a w ’s vigorous advocacy of woman*s suffrage. Dr. Buckley*s address marked the last time that Chautauqua audiences were to hear an anti-suffrage lecture during the period; the w omen’s rights movement was gaining strength steadily.'*-

The heart of Buckley*s objection to equal

political rights rested upon an elaboration of the stereotyped differentiation between the nature of man and that of woman. The fundamental proposition upon which I rest the whole case is that there is a feminine soul as well as a female body; a masculine soul as well as a masculine body....The peculiar controlling masculine element is the understanding, and the peculiar feminine element the supremacy of the affections. 2 Woman, then, is unqualified to participate in political life where understanding and reasoning are indispensable personal attributes.

Conversely, thought

Buckley, experience in politics would destroy woman’s usefulness in the home.

■^Hailing Yale University’s decision to admit women to postgraduate courses, a leading periodical noted also the "steady progress In...the enfranchisement of women." See, "Good News from Yale," Harper’s Weekly, XXXVI (March, 1892), 291. ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 10, 1892, p. 5. Delivered in Amphitheater, August 9, 1892.

169 To govern in the state would unfit woman for her position in the family. The governing spirit would become a habit of her character; the element of authority would be substituted for that of persuasive influence. 1 The discussion of the woman suffrage question by Drs. Shaw and Buckley aroused much popular interest at Chau­ tauqua; the spacious Amphitheater was crowded to hear the arguments of each.

The general opinion was that the lead­

ing arguments on both sides of the question had been ably and fairly presented by the advocates.2

While neither

speaker could claim wholesale conversions,

"both appear to

be entirely satisfied with the results."3 On July 24, 1895, the Political Equality Clubs of Chautauqua County, New York, met in the Amphitheater to hear an address on "The New Woman" by the Reverend C. C. Albertson, Pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church at Jamestown, New York.

After discussing the work of

suffragists in Chautauqua County, Dr. Albertson turned to a consideration of the two chief objections of the opposi­ tion to woman's suffrage, the "sphere argument" and the "demoralization arguments."^

llbid. 2For an informative survey of the leading arguments of the day advanced by proponents and opponents of woman suffrage see, Charles W. Clark, "Woman Suffrage, Pro and Con," Atlantic Monthly, LXV (March, 1890), 310-320. ^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 10, 1892, p. 1. 4por a representative contemporary rejection of women's suffrage on these grounds see, Katrina Trask, "Mother­ hood and Citizenship: Woman's Wisest Policy," Forum, XVIII (January, 1895), 609-615.

170 The "sphere argument," explained the speaker, holds that woman's active participation in the affairs of politics would remove her from her appointed place in the home, but it is based upon a mere notion* What is a woman's sphere? The home* So be it. The wife is the bread-maker, the housekeeper. Now what is man's sphere? The farm, the factory, the shop, the store, the office. The husband is the bread-winner. Then do you not see that the exercise of the functions of citizenship takes him from his sphere as certainly as the exercise of the same functions would take her from hers? We are forced to this conclusion: To carry out the scheme of democratic government we must either take people from their ordinary spheres of labor, or we must find people who have no sphere of labor, and dele­ gate them to represent us at the ballot-box i There are such people. They have no special sphere save to consume the fruit of others' labor. But in­ dustrious freemen revolt at being represented by either tramps or dudes* 1 Dismissing the "sphere of activity" argument as not a valid objection to woman's suffrage, Dr. Albertson then directed his attention to the "demoralization argument." This argument, he said, holds that the acquaintance of woman with practical affairs, and her participation in the employments of citizenship, unfits her for the re­ fined and tender ministries of the home. The new woman is in danger of unsexing herself and forfeiting her femininity, say some. But is she? If woman's refinement and tenderness, if her femininity and domesticity are artificial; If they are the result of the restrictions that have hitherto surrounded her, if they are the consequences of seclusion and freedom

^-Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 15, 1895, p. 5.

171 of contact with the world of affairs , then she might forfeit them b y . ..enlarging her practical environ­ ment. But if they are the gift of Almighty God; If they are the attributes of her essential character* the exercise of political rights can neither impair nor destroy them. 1 The threat of woman’s suffrage to her "feminine” nature and to the American home was a notion frequently assailed by the suffragist speakers at Chautauqua.

Two

years after Dr. Albertson’s criticism of this idea, the Reverend Anna Howard Shaw hit it again.

Always the argu­

ment has been raised, she observed, when women went to schools and colleges, when they first entered trades and professions, that the American home was in danger.

But,

Dr. Shaw noted, in each case, woman has succeeded in her new pursuits, and the home has become even more enlightened. Now, continued Dr. Shaw, we have come to the final phase of the great movement for women’s rights, the demand for full political recognition

of the women of America.

And again the same cry goes up, that it will be detrimental to the best interests of the home. For the last thirty years, in every comic almanac and every comic newspaper, we have seen but one picture representing the home of the future when women enter into political life, and I have wondered that in thirty years there has not been ingenuity enough among the artists of the opponents to give us a new picture. But it is the same old picture over and over again. The father sitting at home, table covered with unclean dishes, three youngsters on the floor going for each other might and main, and on the knee of the parental relative sit two babies. They are always twins in this picture. Through the window you see a natty

3-Ibid.

172

little woman, marching off to the polls. Beneath you read: The homes of the future, when women vote," You would naturally suppose this was intended to be an argu­ ment against w oman’s enfranchisement, but it is not. ° It is certainly an argument in its favor, for if a man, the father of a family, is so incapable of governing his children from killing each other the moment their mother leaves the house, he is certainly not capable of running the government. (Great laughter and applause.) 1 Such was the picturesque refutation of a popular anti-suffrage argument by the woman who, reputedly, f1made more converts to the suffrage cause than any other one person. In 1898 Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, soon to become president of the National American Woman Suffrage Associa­ tion, made her first appearance on the Chautauqua platform. Mrs. Catt, speaking on "True Democracy," held that the United States has not quite achieved that political ideal# We shall reach that coveted goal when we grant women the 3 full measure of political rights. Indeed, thought Mrs# Catt, ...a representative government which has invited men of every race and tradition, of every religion and every condition, to come and partake of our citizen­ ship, a government which has asked no questions, but

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 22, 1897, p. 5. Delivered In Amphitheater, July 21, 1897# ^Catt and Shuler, Woman Suffrage and Politics, p. 268# For a legal interpretation of this thesis see, Francis Minor, "Woman’s Legal Right to the Ballot," Forum, II (December, 1886), 351-360#

173 has placed upon their heads the crown of citizenship, needs but a little step to go a little farther and place that same crown upon the heads of the wives and mothers of this lands. 1 Why do we hesitate to take that little, but import­ ant step?

Is it because the public fears that women would

be unable to vote intelligently? Mrs. Catt, are unfounded.

Such fears, exclaimed

Women would contribute toward

Increasing the level of voting intelligence in this country. Within the last twenty-five years there has been a change in our immigration. We have been getting a poorer and more ignorant class, and in this change we have been getting fewer women. The proportional de­ crease is very marked. When women are enfranchised, instead of introducing Into the body politic a class as large as that we already have of the lowest type, it means the Introduction of a class a much larger percentage of those who have been born on our own soil, educated in our own schools, and trained under the stars and stripes.... If all women were entitled to vote, as the men are, there would actually be a larger percentage of women who would be able to read their ballots than there are of men.

2

If the addition of women to the voting public would increase the level of voting intelligence, would they con­ tribute to the "voting morality?”

Mrs. Catt firmly be­

lieved that they would. When we consider that women furnish the minority in the penitentiary, the majority In the churches and societies for philanthropy and charity of every kind,

^Chautauqua Assembly Herald, July 22, 1898, p. 5. Delivered in Amphitheater^ July 20, 1898. 2Ibid.

174 no on© needs to question that there will be an addi­ tion oT morality to our body politic when women are enfranchised* 1 When Mrs* Catt next appeared on the Chautauqua platform, in 1900, she was president of the National American

Woman Suffrage Association*

major "Woman *s Day"

In one of the

addresses, she outlined the history

of the movement for woman!s rights.

This history, she

maintained, might be summarized in terms of three great battles*

At the beginning of the century, woman*s

struggle was to gain the right to study the full cur­ riculum of the common schools. At that time, the argument which was hurled in opposition was the cry that much learning in women was indelicate. We may call It the battle of In­ delicate • • »• The next great battle took place in the middle of the century, when women began to speak in public, to engage in professions and to enter untried occupa­ tions. It was then the worlds united again in a stupendous and bitter and vindictive opposition, and their weapon at that time was the word Immodest...* But the battle of Immodest was won for progress* We are now engaged in the last final struggle and we may call It the battle of Impractical. The attempt to secure the ballot for women meets with this opposition upon every side* 2 But, avowed Mrs. Catt, the present battle of Im­ practical will be won as surely as have the preceding battles been won.

"Society, concluded Mrs. Catt, "will

^Ibid * 2Ibid., July 14, 1900, p. 5. theater, July 14, 1900*

Delivered in Amphi­

175 at last learn that Indelicate, immodest and impractical are synonymous terms so far as the woman's rights movement is concerned and will thrust all three of them in the waste basket with the sentence that they are incompetent, irrelevant and Immaterial.1,1 When Mrs* Catt returned to her seat, the Reverend Anna Howard Shaw walked to the rostrum to deliver the century's final address at Chautauqua on the subject of women's rights*

Why, asked Dr. Shaw, have women been

selected as unworthy of the rights of citizenship?

Surely,

she acknowledged, it is reasonable that male idiots, lunatics, criminals, and children be disfranchised; but why are women Included with those who are excluded from the prerogatives of citizenship?

Then striking at the

heart of the issue, Dr. Shaw exclaimed: What, then, is the crime of woman? If she Is not disfranchised for the causes for which men are, it must be that there is some cause which inheres in woman herself which makes her an unsafe citizen, or else something In the nature of government Itself which would be injurious to women if women participate In government* 2 Dr. Shaw then proceeded to demonstrate that women have a stake in government, that they possess the qualifi­ cations for good citizenship, and that government Is no better nor worse than the elected representatives them­ selves *

1Ibid* 2 Ibid*

176 If, then* women are not disfranchised for any of the causes for which men are, if there is nothing in the nature of woman injurious to the life of the state, if there is nothing in government per se in­ jurious to the nature of woman, then the HTsfranchisement of women in this Republic Is the greatest pos­ sible injustice to woman, to the home, and to the state, then we claim it is the duty of women to seek by every possible power to possess the ballot, which shall enable them to build into the life of the state... a love^ of peace, a love of law, a love of God, and that high moral character which is the only true basis of a great Republic. 1 Despite the vigorous arguments and organized ef­ forts of equal suffrage advocates, such as those that ap­ peared at Chautauqua, the fruits of three quarters of a century of agitation seemed small.

"Partial suffrage ex­

isted, to be sure, for specific purposes in many states, but only four, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho, had granted full political power to women."2

But to thought­

ful Americans "it was apparent, by the time the nine­ teenth century closed, that the universal recognition of the sex in the political sphere could not be denied for long.”^

1Ibid., p. 6. 2Paulkner, The Quest for Social Justice, pp. 172173. M. Hacker and B. B. Kendrick, The United States Since 1865, p. 242.

177

Problems of the Negro One of the most pressing questions emerging from the Civil War was that of the status of the three and a half million emancipated Negroes in the eleven defeated Southern states.

The turbulent era of congressional re­

construction had "accentuated the economic demoralization of the postwar South, prolonged the war-time animosity," and "strengthened racial feeling.”1

It was in a troubled

environment that the Negro began his fitful social, economic, and political advance. The economic progress of the freed Negro was extremely halting and gradual.

While the basis of Negro

economic life was rural, the total amount of farm property owned by Negroes was negligible in 1865.

Even at the

end of the century, Negroes, representing almost thirty per cent of the SouthTs population, owned less than four per cent of Its farm land.2

Farm tenancy increased, but

it was not to prove a substantial nor satisfactory basis for Negro properity.

In addition, "as a result of the

promises of Carpetbaggers...the Negroes had been left re