Lou J. Beauchamp: the humorous philosopher

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Lou J. Beauchamp The humorous Philosopher
The thinker who makes you laugh; the humorist who makes you think

Under exclusive management of
THE MUTUAL LYCEUM BUREAU
55 Auditorium Building
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.



Lou J. Beauchamp
MAKES his seventh annual bow to the lyceum public under the auspices of this bureau.  In the past six years he has filled more than 1300 engagements in lecture courses and Chautauquas—a record we believe to be unequaled in the history of the lyceum.  He returns to some of our best courses year after year and we are confident that he fills a larger number of return dates than any man on the platform.  The average rank each season, by our system of reports, has been above ninety-nine per cent.  It is safe to say that no man in the lecture field has been more uniformly successful in pleasing the people.

The reason for Mr. Beauchamp's popularity is not hard to find.  He says he is not better than others, but different; but we say he is both better and different.  His mingling with men of all classes, his years of travel in many lands, his varied experiences as newspaper reporter, his early life among the Indians, his keen sense of the humorous, his profound sympathy with all who need the help of a brother's hand, have all combined in giving to him an inexhaustible store of illustration and practical thought from which to prepare his lectures.

Many men overlook the fact that it is not so much the lecture as the man that needs the preparation.  But above all, Mr. Beauchamp has been endowed by nature with the gift of oratory, eloquence and humor, which cannot be obtained from kings or queens or college courses or years of profoundest study.  Many would-be lecturers fail to take into account this fact in making an inventory of their resources for success on the lecture platform.

Mr. Beauchamp is also a man of high ideals and broad sympathies.  He is the friend of everyone in the audience.  The chairman of one of our committees recently wrote, Our Methodist preacher said in his sermon Sunday morning that he would give a dollar to hear Beauchamp again, and one of our saloon-keepers said he had his money's worth already for the entire cost of the course ticket.  He recognizes that it is not necessary for the man of tact and good humor to offend one class in order to please another.  His aim is to brighten and better the lives of all his hearers.  In doing so he presents more comedy than a high-class theatrical troupe; as much moral truth as is found in a great sermon, and a volume of wisdom for guidance in daily life.  His versatility has given him the trade-mark, The thinker who makes you laugh; the humorist who makes you think.


B. F. Parker, R. W. G. S., Milwaukee, Wis.
The lecture on The Age of the Young Man was the grandest I have ever heard, and will produce an effect that can be measured only when the books are opened at the resurrection.



Rev. E. L. Eaton, Allegheny, Pa.
Beauchamp is a wonderful combination of sense, wit pathos and consecration.  You will laugh and cry and go home inspired with one supreme purpose, to live better and do nobler things for your fellow men.  (Epworth League Lecture Course.)



Warren (Ohio) Daily Tribune
Lou J. Beauchamp entertained a large audience for an hour and a half at the Baptist Church last evening on Take the Sunny Side.  Beauchamp has been an extensive lecturer and traveler, and is rich in observation and illustration.  He weaves poems of his own through his address, and points every moral with an apt story.  His wit is very original, and while his serious references to children, boyhood, and married life were chuck full of good sense, for the most part Take the Sunny Side is a continuous bit of mirth, which makes the audience forget its cares and wonder what is coming next.



Dr. Homer T. Wilson, Boulder, Col.
No man has ever appeared on the Colorado Chautauqua platform who has been received with greater enthusiasm, or whose lectures have produced a greater impression, than Mr. Lou J. Beauchamp.  While his lectures are faultless in matter, matchless in the art of delivery, back of all this is the great heart throbbing with sympathy and love for humanity, so that one is drawn to him, and lingers to catch every word that he utters.  His visit to our Chautauqua has been a divine benediction.  We love the man and his work, and truly feel that a Chautauqua program is not complete without him.

Manager Boulder, Col., and Allerton, Iowa, Chautauquas.



Toronto (Can.) Daily World
Mr. Beauchamp's address was the most thrilling and effective ever delivered under the Club's auspices.  His figure is tall and spare; his face is pale and lean; his voice strong and ringing, with an accent that seems a cross between Irish and French.  He is dramatic to a high degree, and he expresses his thoughts in most beautiful language, making perfect word pictures, while now and then he lets fly a shaft of wit that makes laughing irresistible.




Union Signal
In Chester, S. C., at the close of a series of lectures given in the opera house, the local paper says that although noted stage orators like Henry Watterson, Sam Jones and Thomas Dixon have spoken in Chester, and carried away the plaudits of large and intelligent audiences, not one has equalled Mr. Beauchamp in making friends with every class and condition of men, and in leaving lasting impressions upon the minds and hearts of his hearers by his eloquent and effective words of wisdom and advice.



Rev. Wilbur L. Davidson, D. D., Washington, D.C.
There is but one Lou Beauchamp.  I don't know what we would do without him; still, I hardly know what we would do with another like him.  He stands in a class alone.  He can crowd more words in a minute than any man on the platform and can hold the unflagging interest of an audience for a longer number of minutes than any man who visits the Chautauquas.  He has a heart as big as all outdoors.  He has been through some hard places in life and is consequently full of tender sympathy.  He has high moral purpose in all his work.  His supreme desire is to make men and women better.  He seeks to get them to count their blessings and to forget their troubles.  He is an optimist in every sense of the word, and influences people to look on the bright side of life.

There are few better story-tellers on the platform.  Few men have his ability to make people laugh and cry at will.

I have had him at some of my Chautauquas for two seasons, and the people unanimously demand his return year after year.  I unhesitatingly recommend him as a superb lecture attraction for any Chautauqua.



Scranton (Pa.) Tribune
The lecture given by Lou J. Beauchamp at the Plymouth Congregational Church last evening was one of the best treats of its kind ever delivered before a Scranton audience.  Mr. Beauchamp does not resort to ancient jokes and comic paper sayings to amuse his audience, but gives a legitimate, inspiring and uplifting practical talk on events of everyday life, interjected with his own bright thoughts.



Springfield (Mo.) Republican
His lecture was listened to with rapt attention from start to finish.  The whole lecture was filled with earnestness, sincerity and eloquence.  His wit and humor, while active, do not make up the whole lecture by any means, but he has an equally strong ability for seriousness and pathos.



Green Bay (Wis.) Advocate
There has certainly been no more delightful entertainment in Fort Howard or Green Bay this winter.



Pontiac Daily Leader
Mr. Beauchamp impresses you as a man of marked individuality.  He captivates his audience from the very first, and holds his hearers with a tenacious grip to the end.  But few men on the lecture platform to-day possess the keen wit, tender pathos, and irrefutable logic, which are manifested in the lectures of Mr. Beauchamp.



La Porte (Ind.) Daily Herald
Lou J. Beauchamp's drollery is immense.  He seems to be a born humorist, as he fairly bubbles over with fun.  The mistakes and blunders of humanity were given a pathetic, as well as humorous tinge; tears and laughter, at times, mingled alternately.  If the lecturer's advice were followed, many of the mistakes and blunders of life might be avoided.



Clinton (Ill.) Daily Public
Lou J. Beauchamp was then introduced, and from the beginning to the end of his lecture on Take the Sunny Side, there sparkled a healthful and bright humor and wit, which kept his audience going from one extreme of laughter to another.  Beneath all his wit and humor, however, there is ever a practical lesson for every-day guidance, which will uplift and upbuild his hearers who may heed him.



Asheville (N. C.) Gazette
He is earnest and forcible, while wit, clean and pure, is all the while tumbling out of his mouth.  He is a capital story-teller and mimic, but his stories and impersonations strengthen rather than detract from the force of his argument.



Poughkeepsie (N. Y.) Daily News
This is but a sample, a mere sentence delivered like a blast from a fresh storm, and written down in sweat and hurry to catch breath, while about five hundred words behind the speaker all the time.  It was not only an entertaining speech, but it was the longest speech delivered in the shortest space of time, heard hereabouts since the days of the lecturer in the lyceum course, who used to talk two hours without taking a new breath, so far as anybody could tell.



Hamilton (Ohio) Daily Democrat
At his own home—A prophet not without honor:—At the Globe Opera House Lou J. Beauchamp, Hamilton's great lecturer, closed the series with a magnificent lecture on The Age of the Young Man, and one of the largest audiences of the season heard the finest address given this winter.  Never did Mr. Beauchamp speak better.  His sparkling wit, inspiring eloquence, and marvelous flow of words was at its best, and frequent and long-continued applause was given him.  ******  As he sat down a great wave of applause swept round the hall and grew in volume, continuing several minutes, the greatest ovation given to a speaker during the series.



Murdock McDonald, Esq., Toronto, Can.
Massey Hall seats 5000; we turn people away when Beauchamp is announced to speak.  (Four engagements last season.)

Manager Massey Hall lectures.



News Record, Ft. Smith, Ark.
Beauchamp proved a most delightful entertainer:—Smiles covered every face last night, recreating them in beauty and charging them with happiness.

Nor was it all merriment.  Sense, sound common sense, the peerless rudder that governs a sound life, went hand in hand with humor and became its anchor.  Advice stood uncovered between sense and humor and found lodgment in every heart and brain, whether consciously willed or not.  The audience was not only renewed physically, but took new life on higher moral grounds.  It was a glorious night, an augury of other nights to come.

The secret of Beauchamp's success is in his originality of pose, appearance and utterance.  Long, thin and angular, he originates the humorous in the audience in movement and position, before the humor rolls from his tongue.  He looks like the Old School Presbyterian that he is, as he sits and walks.  But he can hardly open his mouth without chasing this conception away.  His happy power of seeing the false alignments of mankind makes him the crowned king of America's platform humorists.




Los Angeles (Calif.) Examiner
Lou J. Beauchamp, the Laughing Philosopher, drew as fine an audience as ever assembled at an afternoon lecture of the Chautauqua course given in Long Beach.  His lecture of the evening before had spread his fame and the result was he had a crowded house.  The Age of the Young Man was substituted for the theme announced in the program.  Mr. Beauchamp has scored one of the greatest successes ever made at a Long Beach Chautauqua.



Daily Atlas, Monmouth, Ill.
Hon. Lou J. Beauchamp this afternoon delivered his lecture on New Ideas on an Old Subject.  Those who heard the Laughing Philosopher yesterday knew something of the treat which his lecture to-day would be.  He was at his best, and that means that he entertained as few men on the American platform can.  His humor is infectious, his wit keen, and withal his style contains a flavor wholly unknown to the average platform speaker.



Morning Oregonian, Portland, Ore.
This evening Lou J. Beauchamp lectured on Take the Sunny Side.  The Chautauquans have had a fair share of sunshine both day and night the past few days, but Mr. Beauchamp had perhaps the biggest audience that has been in the auditorium this year; and his audience was not disappointed.  He is a rapid talker.  His words come as fast as shots from a Maxim gun and his stories and illustrations are intensely funny and at the same time full of good advice.



New Orleans Picayune
Lou J. Beauchamp is denominated the prince of orators, and though they tell us that oratory is on the decline, and that the magazine, the book and the newspaper have made the orator superfluous, the time is not now when human speech shall have lost its influence, its potency and force.  He is magnetic, eloquent, logical and persuasive, and the audience felt the force of all these influences.



Galena (Ill.) Gazette
He dealt with the practical, everyday affairs that meet people in this busy world.  The men, the women, the boys, the girls, the home, the school, the business and the pleasures of life came in each for a touch of his splendid handling.  Some stern, unpleasant truths were told; some hard hits were given the shams in church, in society and in business; but everybody felt the force of the truths uttered.  It was a helpful, entertaining and instructive lecture.



Daily Sun, Paducah, Ky.
Mr. Beauchamp is a wonderful man.  He can hold a great audience as but few men can.  I sat where I could watch the effect of the speaker upon the hearers.  I saw them laugh; I saw them weep; I saw them come under the spell of the lecturer so completely that they were lost to everything else.  He played upon his auditors like a musician plays upon a great instrument.  Human hearts responded as quickly to his words as an organ responds to the touch of the player.  Yes, the great through was but a great organ, and every hearer was but a string tuned and ready to respond to every touch, and send out praise, laughter, sobs. wails, smiles and approvals, No man ever visited our city and won greater admiration than did Lou J. Beauchamp.



Hopkinsville (Ky.) New Era
Mr. Beauchamp fully sustained his reputation.  He is a man of extraordinary ability as a thinker and speaker, and his fine talent is consecrated to the highest moral purpose.  To those unacquainted with his work his lecture was a revelation.  He speaks very rapidly, but with perfect distinctness, and every sentence contains food for thought.  He is a capital story-teller and humorist.



San Jose. (Cal.) News
No lecturer has ever attracted so much attention or spoken to such large audiences in this city.  It seems that he cannot help being interesting, no matter what he talks about.  He was evidently born that way and is not to blame.  If he was not designed by nature for a lecturer, he would probably have been a star of stars as a comedian.




Lecture Subjects for this Season

Take the Sunny Side
This lecture, like ancient Gaul, is divided into three parts: the first part is for all present, old and young, rich and poor, high and low, white and black, male and female, saints, sinners and newspaper men; the second part is for fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, home builders and home makers, for every one who loves a child; the third part is for young men and young maidens, as I shall talk to them on the sunny side of life, when we all go courting.

This lecture has been given eleven times in one city, four times at one Chautauqua, three times in one course, has been heard in every city from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and is recommended for Mr. Beauchamp's first appearance on any course.



The Age of the Young Man
Where the audience has a large percentage of young people this lecture on Success in Life and How to Achieve It, is said by many committees to be at least equal to any lecture on the platform to-day.  One enthusiastic committeeman writes: The good it does can only be told when the books are opened at the last day.  Plenty of humor, but the purpose of the lecture is to inspire and uplift the young people of to-day and show them their opportunities and privileges in this wonderful age and this wonderful country.



Mistakes; or How to Make the World Better
The funny and serious errors of the individual and the many, showing how to turn our mistakes to account, and make the best out of life.



New Ideas on an Old Subject
A more or less serious presentation of the problems of to-day, political and social.  Especially appropriate for Sunday, and where practical ideas on reform are desired.



In Preparation

The Fifth of July
A patriotic recital of this country's greatness, with the story of the dangers that threaten us, and our duty as good Americans, optimistic, not pessimistic.  A prose setting of Kipling's recessional: Lest We Forget.



The Humor, Pathos and Poetry of Every-Day Life
A companion lecture to Take the Sunny Side.



During his many years on the platform giving his humorous, literary, popular and reform lectures, Mr. Beauchamp has appeared in the larger cities of this country the following number of times:

New York, 7
San Francisco, 14
Oakland, Cal., 30
Boston, 6
Buffalo, 6
Jacksonville, Fla., 8
Norfolk, Va., 12
Omaha, 7
Cincinnati, 34
Rochester, N. Y., 9
Chicago, 54
Cleveland, 8
Atlanta, 14
Richmond, 7
Louisville, 14
Milwaukee, 10
Washington, D. C., 56




PRESS OF BROWN & WHITAKER, HAMILTON, OHIO