Bryan and Jones were early Chautauqua speakers
by Silvia Pettem
William Jennings Bryan and Samuel P. Jones were an unlikely pair on a speaking tour, but individually and together they roused crowds in Boulder during Chautauqua's early days.
The national educational and cultural resort opened its Boulder venue in 1898. Although audiences enjoyed entertainers, musicians, and films, they were riveted on speakers. Politics, religion, and anti-liquor sentiments dominated the stage.
William Jennings Bryan, a former U.S. Representative from Nebraska, was the most popular speaker in 1899. The Democrat was known as the "silver-tongued orator" and had run for U.S. president but lost against Republican William McKinley. Still, Bryan was well-liked in Boulder County and other mining districts of the West, as he supported the free and unlimited coinage of both gold and silver.
When he stepped off the train in downtown Boulder, he was greeted by thousands of well-wishers. A reporter wrote, “Cheersyells, hand-clapping, waving of hats and handkerchiefs, a roar of sound and a seething sea greeted the ear and the eye simultaneously."
Six additional trains brought crowds from Fort Collins, the mountain towns, and from Denver, temporarily doubling Boulder’s population. Stores closed at noon, and crowds lined Bryan’s carriage route as he was driven uphill to the auditorium on the Chautauqua grounds. Many people walked from the downtown depot, while others rented horse-drawn hacks or squeezed onto Boulder’s new electric streetcars. Colorado women had recently won the right to vote, and they made up a large part of Bryan’s audience.
At the beginning of the program, a band played “Hail to the Chief.” When the renowned speaker was introduced as “the next president,” men, women, and children burst into wild applause.
Another early speaker was Samuel P. Jones, who was an evangelical minister and anti-liquor crusader. He was known for being humorous and theatrical, but his message was a simple one of living a good life that was as sin-free as possible.
Both Bryan and Jones returned to Boulder in July 1905 for Jones/Bryan Day. By then Bryan had lost his second presidential election, but the people in Boulder still loved him. The audience gave him a standing ovation and deafening applause.
At the time, speeches went on for three or four hours, and the only seats in the auditorium were wooden benches. After listening to Bryan, Boulder Daily Camera editor L.C. Paddock wrote that the benches were "unthinkably hard," but "Bryan is the only man who ever rendered them tolerable to the spine."
