Albert Edward Wiggam

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ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM


ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM
MORE AND MORE the public is demanding lecturers who represent a big and vital cause, whose lectures are the battle cries of some great crusade, — lectures that sound to the common man the slogan of a new hope and give an electric tonic to the beliefs and energies of the people.  Such a man, lecturer and orator, is Albert Edward Wiggam.  No man has done more to guide and inspire the great movement for the conservation of human resources, the nation wide medical inspection and physical examination of the school child.  Indeed, as a lay authority in the fields of preventive and sociological medicine and with the highest endorsement of the medical profession he has, in our belief, lifted the most eloquent voice of our time against the useless slaughter of babes and children due to the individual and national ignorance, greed, stupidity and neglect.  His mastery of facts and figures in the great battle for national efficiency coupled with his keen wit, his large and generous humor, his passionate eloquence, his magnificent voice and magnetic personality have placed his work in the forefront of the great crusades of the age and are rapidly making him a national figure.  His lectures upon the problems of human conservation and national efficiency have received the highest encomiums from workers in these fields and have stirred legislatures and municipal bodies to concrete action.  Mr. Wiggam does not deliver simply health talks, altho following in the wake of his lectures parents are crowding the physicians' offices with defective and backward children which were not before suspected to be such, but Mr. Wiggam is a recognized authority in the fields of preventive medicine and the application of the findings of science to every day living.  His campaign therefore takes on a wider aspect than merely the prevention of disease and is a plea for the socialism of science, the application of the ministrations and discoveries of science to a happier social and political order as well as to more rational and wholesome living.




WIGGAM Crusade Lecturer
MR. WIGGAM at the age of twenty-five was one of the noted younger political orators of the country, and, having left writing editorials for one of our great dailies to go on the platform, he has always taken a great interest in public questions.  He holds that the man who assumes to be a lecturer owes a duty to his audiences and to the Lyceum institution, to have a big vital message to deliver — a message that tends toward the uplift and betterment of his countrymen — a message that will leave a lasting impress rather than merely afford laughter and good humor for the time being.  The lectures announced on these pages contain such messages.  In these Mr. Wiggam instructs, entertains, and arouses active interest in questions and matters of public concern.

We have just averaged up the last one hundred and twenty confidential committee reports from Mr. Wiggam's lectures.  Mr. Wiggam has exceeded our own strong predictions made a year ago.  ALL THE REPORTS are satisfactory; many are extraordinary.  But the keynote of them all is that the Wiggam lectures are new.  They sound a new tocsin.  Nothing like it ever before in our ten years of courses.  He is sounding a new battle-cry of progress.  We did not believe these big problems could be handled on the platform successfully, but Wiggam disproved it.  One moment he was talking about how to cure a bad cold, the next proving that our educational system is upside down, and the next drawing an eloquent picture of the future of the country, but he makes them all equally dramatic, humorous and inspiring and leads always towards a great climax.  These are a few of the confidential expressions about Mr. Wiggam and his work.  We say, therefore, with greater confidence than ever, that Mr. Wiggam will prove a big, strong wholly satisfying attraction on the biggest Chautauqua or Lyceum Course.  Everywhere at the more than eighteen hundred lyceums and Chautauquas at which he has appeared, many of them three and four times, he has stirred the people as no other man, against the whole vast horror of unnecessary disease and the resulting terrible waste of national vitality, health, wealth, and power.



Crusade Lectures (Note the Sub-Titles)

FORTY KINDS OF FOOLS, Or the Nursery of the Nation
DOLLARS AND SENSE, Or the Health and Wealth of the Nation
THE REIGN OF THE COMMON PEOPLE, Or Efficient Democracy
CONSCIENCE AND THE MICROSCOPE, Or the Good Samaritan in the Twentieth Century




WIGGAM WHO IS LEAVING A TRAIL OF FIRE WHEREVER HE LECTURES

PRESS AND PERSONAL MENTION
Ralph Parlette—When God makes an ugly man, he gives him brains enough to make up for it.  Seems like when he saw Albert Wiggam, he saw the need of special effort—gave him brains in overdose, wit inexhaustible, eloquence inspiring.  Ten years ago I first heard him and marveled.  He has been growing every minute.  He has arrived—arrived long ago—but mark it, this is only the beginning of Wiggam's real career.  He is to become one of the great figures in the lyceum—that skinny, shambling tower of bones.  Down Indiana way they call him the second Beveridge, but I get to thinking of Lincoln when I see see him.

Parker Stockdale, the eminent Western Literary Critic—The oratorical portion of Mr. Wiggam's Dollars and Sense I firmly believe is not excelled for chaste, poetic and beautiful eloquence in the English tongue.  Our language has no higher possibilities of power and beauty than he has wrought from it.


Winthrop—Wiggam is a wonder and a cyclone.  He made our people sit up and listen for two hours.  During this time he never went to the water pail once or cleared his neck for action.  His words ran as easily as water out of the nozzle of the hose in the hands of the Winthrop fire company.  He never batted an eye or waited for an idea to take an emetic and come up.  One word tumbled its predecessor out of the way without confusion and Wiggam said things, too.  He paid glowing tributes to the American boy and girl and his good advice to each and every one in all walks of life was a marvel of sense and good judgment.  Certainly such talk as Wiggam gave us must have a good effect on our community and make us better men and women.  His whole talk was an uplift for the good of the whole fabric of civilization.  On all sides one can hear kindly comment on the lecture and its beneficial effect on all who heard it.—
Review.

John Temple Graves, the most eloquent Southener of today, the successor of Grady—A rising orator of our country.  I predict for you a magnificent future.  I hear on all sides that you are rising rapidly to a most distinguished place on the American platform.  You deserve all the honor that is being conferred upon you.


Webster City, Iowa—Albert Edward Wiggam, in a brilliant and witty lecture, appeared last evening as the third number.  He delighted a very appreciative audience.  Mr. Wiggam is an orator of splendid ability. his discussion was principally on the American boy and the American girl and the enormous responsibility of the parent in directing them in the right course.  He called attention to the great success of the rural boy, how kindly the smiles of fortune shone upon him in the great world of business.  The speaker stated that from a census taken it had been ascertained that 83 per cent. of the men who had met with great financial success were at sometime in their life boys on the farm.  A good parentage, a splendid rearing, stated the speaker, was the foundation of these mighty successes, and it is evident that the majority of these men were fortunate enough to have had their characters moulded in the rural districts, with a good and God-like mother to smile upon them.  The lecture on the whole is considered the most entertaining and interesting that has thus far been given.—
Press.


Arlington, O.—The lecture Monday night by Albert Edward Wiggam on Dollars and Sense was a most extraordinary presentation of the results of the latest scientific investigations into methods of raising and training American childhood and youth.  At first we were disposed to think he was advertising the physician and the dentist, but at the conclusion we were impressed with the thought that he is an advance agent of a great moral and physical uplift that is sure to purify and enrich American manhood and womanhood.—
Press.


Kansas City, Mo.—Albert Edward Wiggam appeared before a magnificent audience (of two thousand people) last evening and charmed everyone by the originality of his thought and the beauty of his eloquence.  We have heard many of the great lecturers of the country, and Mr. Wiggam is not surpassed for eloquence on the American platform.  He is a philosopher, poet and orator.—
Western Church News.


Lebanon, Ind.—It was one of the most practical and sensible addresses ever given in this city.  Those who missed it have met a positive misfortune.  It was popping out all the time with the most delightful humor, and was a finished performance.  If anybody went with the expectation of being bored his fears were speedily dispelled and he joined heartily in the applause which greeted each climax of the orator's address.—
Daily Reporter.



A Bit of Platform Record Briefly Stated
1800 paid lectures in 8 years.  In 1906-'07 Mr. Wiggam filled his first lecture engagements in Iowa—32 in all.  The next season he filled 65 engagements in Iowa, being returned to every course where he appeared the year before.  The third season in Iowa showed 95 engagements in the state with the same record of returns, and in many communities committees are now asking for his fourth lecture.  In 1910-11 Mr. Wiggam has given 225 lectures, and many communities were unable to secure a date.



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