William Rainey Bennett: the great singing orator in lecture-musical-entertainments

              Figure

William Rainey Bennett The Great Singing Orator in
LECTURE-MUSICAL-ENTERTAINMENTS
Presented by The Mutual Lyceum Bureau, Auditorium Building, Chicago, Illinois



A FOREWORD
WILLIAM RAINEY BENNETT is no experiment but has been tried in the unerring crucible of public opinion and has stood the test.  Without reserve therefore we present Dr. Bennett as a strong and sterling attraction who has been a marked success in everything he has taken up.  Until recently Dr. Bennett was minister to a large church and had the greatest popular following of any preacher in the State of Indiana.  He solved the problem Why do Working Men Not Attend Church?  by crowding the largest church auditorium in a city of 30,000 every Sunday night with all kinds and conditions of men, Jews, Catholics, Athesits, Capitalists and Labor Unionists.

Mr. Bennett is now lecturing of Sunday afternoons at The Grand Opera House to over packed houses, and this in a city where he has lived for five years.  Here he has organized a People's Movement which is enthusiastically supported by people and press—his lectures being published in full in the city dailies.

In his combination work of singing and speaking, he has no peer on the platform of today.  No better tenor voice will have appeared in your city.  Marion Green, America's Greatest Basso Cantante, says that he knows of no tenor on the platform who has the stuff in his voice that Bennett's has.  He has the happy factulty of mingling music with word-pictures so that one embellishes the other, and in many instances producing very dramatic effects.

But Dr. Bennett is not a reed shaken by the wind.  He strikes a note of no uncertain sound.  He feels the Spirit in the Air and believes in the larger morals of clean citizenship.  He has the Folk-LaFollette-Hughes fibre, and is not afraid.

Mingled with all his enthusiasm for a higher social and civic life, Dr. Bennett is the embodiment of a splendid optimism.  He is so full of health and happiness that his very personality inspires an audience.

His entertainment is a series of song, story, and solid substance, woven together with the touch of a master.  He will thrill you, still you, and put tonic in your blood.  He leaves his audience in a glow.

—THE MUTUAL LYCEUM BUREAU



I. The Man Who Can
INTRODUCED BY A TENOR RECITAL OF SIX SONGS.  A great inspiring fusillade of facts, fun, and fancy.  Its theme is: He Can Who Thinks He Can.  In every brain is a sleeping genius; it can be awakened.  This lecture will do it.  It helps a young man or woman to find himself.  It gives him health, poise, power.  Absolutely different from this Anglo-Saxon Get-There type of lecture.  Every laugh comes in naturally.  Nothing is forced.  This lecture contains the famous Wolf Chase which Judge Ben Lindsey pronounced as good as the best Lew Wallace ever wrote.



II. The Master Thought
PREFACED WITH TENOR SOLOS.  A profound lecture on the art of having a strong face, and a fine body and a beautiful soul.  It is powerful, practical, personal, enlivened with most beautiful description, and a great dramatic climax on the Crucial Moment or The Fight with The Octopus.  Through it all there is a fine vein of Humor that flows easily.



III. The Young Man and His Sweetheart
OR THE HARMONIES OF LIFE.  from the Infant crying in the night, and with no language but a cry, down to the Sunset and Evening Star, and after that—the dark.

In this entertainment, Mr. Bennett sings illustrative songs to suit the sentiment of his story, such as Sleep Little Baby of Mine, My Rosary, Love's Old Sweet Song, and many others.  There is Boy Life, Child Slavery, The Dawn of the Mustache, The Game, The Young Man's Religion, His Sweetheart, Her Sweetheart, The Proposal, The Wedding, The New Home, The Old Home, The Golden-Rod Age, Twilight.

The whole program is a series of surprises.  The way the music falls in with the sentiment is truly entrancing and dramatic.




SOME OPINIONS FROM MEN OF NOTE

SENATOR LAFOLLETTE, OF WISCONSIN.
You ought to do a lot of this lecture work.  You have the stuff in you.



THE LATE SAM JONES.
If I could sing like my brother here (Mr. Bennett), I would sing instead of speak to you.



B. F. MOORE, Ex-Pres. Ind. State Teachers' Ass'n.
William R. Bennett's lectures NEVER FAIL to interest and instruct.  He is ESPECIALLY FINE in Teachers' Associations and commencement addresses.  Hear him.



COL. SWEENY, OF IOWA.
He is a wit, a thinker, an orator of great power.  Secure him if you can.



PRES. HUGHES. OF RIPON, WISCONSIN.
I see now why you are successful.  You touch life where we live it.



E. E. CARR, CHAUTAUQUA MGR., CHICAGO.
Dr. Bennett is one of the most fascinating speakers I have ever heard.  He puts so much soul in his work.



BOONE (IOWA) NEWS-REPUBLICAN.

The speaker of the day was Dr. William Rainey Bennett in his Man Who Can lecture, and he certainly made good.  He himself is rightly entitled to the name The Man Who Can, for he has a message and he speaks as one having authority.  His fine stage presence, his flashes of with, his facial expression, his ease and elegance on the platform all combine to make him a popular orator.  The audience was demonstrative.—
Chautauqua Notes.



SIBLEY (IOWA) GAZETTE.

Dr. Bennett delivered a great address yesterday at Chautauqua.  There was a fine audience which did not hesitate to show its appreciation.  Dr. Bennett is an inspiration and leaves a crowd in a glow His illustrations and dramatic descriptions made his thoughts as plain as the light of day.  There is no mistake, Mr. Bennett is a Live Wire.—
Chautauqua Notes.



EVANSVILLE (INDIANA) COURIER.
Dr. William Rainey Bennett spoke to over 700 men at Evan's Hall yesterday at the big Y. M. C. A. meeting.  He gave a powerful lecture on The Master Thought.  In it were many humorous spots, but each story drove home a great truth.  Dr. Bennett is not a rampant speaker, but very intense and dramatic.  The men were highly pleased and many crowded to the front to shake hands with the speaker.



MARION (INDIANA) NEWS-TRIBUNE.
THE BENNETT LECTURES that we print each Monday morning have boomed the circulatin of the paper and have brought more results than any other feature.  The Temple is always crowded to hear him.



SHENANDOAH, IOWA.
Dr. William R. Bennett delivered a course of eight lectures before the Page County Normal Institute this summer.  These lectures were entertaing and highly instructive and made one of the best features of the Institute.  I most cheerfully recommend him as an Institute Lecturer, and guarantee him to give satisfaction.

Respectfully,
(SUPT.) H. E. DEATER.



CLARINDA (IOWA) CHAUTAUQUA.
The three lectures given at our Chautauqua were the most thoughtful, substantial of any this season.  Many said that The Man Who Can was the most brilliant, and The Master Thought the deepest and most helpful of all our fine array of lectures.  Mr. Bennett always stimulates the mind.

WM. ORR, President.



E. W. HOCH, GOVERNOR OF KANSAS.
I have heard Mr. William R. Bennett deliver his splendid lecture, The Man Who Can, and came out from under the spell of it with the settled conviction that he is a fine illustration of his subject.  Mr. Bennett is a thinker, a philosopher and a young man of fine oratorical abilities and a master of good English.  His lecture abounds in wholesome sentiment, beautiful word pictures and flights of real oratory.

E. W. HOCH.



BEN B. LINDSEY, THE KID'S JEDGE.
I meant every word I said to you regarding the strength of your lecture.  I told the boys that some of your descriptive work was as fine as some of the best that Lew Wallace ever wrote.  I was also impressed with the fact that your lecture combined a splendid optimism with certain warnings and cautions and descriptive material that made it an unusual combination, especially for Chautauqua work, where entertainment, instruction and inspiration are demanded by the audience.

BEN B. LINDSEY.



THE WELLSTON (OHIO) TRANSCRIPT.
A packed house which frequently showed its appreciation of Mr. Bennett's jokes as well as gave close attention to the many splendid thoughts presented by him, attested the fact that the people thoroughly appreciate a good thing.



PRINCETON, INDIANA.
Your lecture at our place was a DECIDED SUCCESS.  The best we have had, being the general verdict.  I recommend to any committee wanting something to inspire and uplift the people, to get Dr. Bennett, in The Man Who Can.

E. E. ROBERTS, Sec. Course.



GREENFIELD, INDIANA.
Dr. Bennett's lecture on The Man Who Can, was one of the most brilliant addresses we have ever heard.

O. STALEY, Pres. Teachers' Ass'n.



OSAGE, IOWA.
Dr. William R. Bennett, of Marion, Ind., lectured in this community a year ago.  The Sunday School of the First Congregational Church secured him for a RETURN engagement and made a nice bunch of money, as those who heard Mr. Bennett at his first appearance attended en masse.

Sincerely yours,
(REV.) BRYANT C. PRESTON.



ROCHESTER, MICHIGAN.
William R. Bennett gave the second number of our lecture course, and I am pleased to say he simply captured our large audience, and held it to the last.  He is one of the VERY BEST entertainers we have had in Rochester.  He is a fine orator, full of wit and humor.  As a tenor soloist, we have never had his superior.

(PROF.) A. L. CRAFT, Manager.



WESTPORT, INDIANA.
To the sick: If you have that tired feeling from torpid liver and have no aim or ambition, I, as a physician, would prescribe, The Man Who Can, by Dr. Bennett, in broken doses for two hours.  If that don't cure you and fill you full of blood, its no use to try Peruna.  I have seen two large audiences take his medicine as if it were candy and they haven't got over it yet.

O. F. WELSH, M. D.



DWIGHT (ILLINOIS) STAR AND HERALD.
The Man Who Can was a big success.  It was philosophical, logical, witty, breezy, solid and eloquent.  Bennett is one of the sure great lectures of the next decade.  He possesses a magnificent force and a wonderful voice, is at home utterly before an audience.  He made a great hit and we will want him again.

WIRT LOWTHER, Mgr.





FROM COMMITTEES WHO PAY THE MONEY

MALTA, OHIO.
Your lecture gave the BEST satisfaction of our five numbers.  Many have asked that you be booked next year on our course.

(SUPT.) GEORGE M. STRONG.



CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.
Dr. William R. Bennett, Marion, Ind.

Dear Sir: I wish to let you know that your tenor recital and lecture on The Man Who Can, at our church, were greatly enjoyed by all who heard them.  I have heard nothing but commendation and praise for your evening's entertainment.

Such a combination of humor and inspiring thought is seldom heard on the lecture platform.

Sincerely yours, W. R. PARR, Pastor St. Paul's Cong'l.  Church, Chicago.



HARTFORD CITY, INDIANA.
Allow me to congratulate you for your admirable lecture given at our commencement.  Nothing but PRAISE has been heard from the people.

ISAAC R. HARROLD, Trustee.



MOUNT VERNON, INDIANA.
Mount Vernon has had a lecture course for ten years, and during that time much of the very best talent on the platform has been brought to this city.  I desire to say that the lecture by Dr. Bennett was one of the best attractions that we have ever had.  The audience that greeted Dr. Bennett filled Masonic Hall to overflowing.  Everybody in the house followed the speaker with rapt attention, and the repeated hearty applause by the audience showed that it was pleased in every way.  Dr. Bennett is a charming and eloquent speaker, and in addition to his power of oratory, is an excellent tenor soloist and could easily entertain the most musical audience a whole evening with song.

If Dr. Bennett should come again the hall will not hold the people that will want to come and hear him.

(PROF. E. G. BOWMAN, Mgr. Lecture Course.)

NOTE—DR.  BENNETT DID COME AGAIN, AND THE HOUSE WAS PACKED.  THE MASTER THOUGHT WAS EVEN BETTER THAN THE MAN WHO CAN.



EDGERTON, WISCONSIN.

He held his audience in a spell.  No stronger speaker has ever appeared before an Edgerton (Wis.) audince.—
High School Advocate.



GALENA, ILLINOIS.
He is a strong manly man.  He has a winning personality, an expressive face and a well stored mind.  He is intellectually tall with a pleasing voice and manner and a great heart full of love for humanity.  His words always live.  He made a great hit with Old Galena.



ST. JOSEPH (MO.) NEWS-PRESS.
Mr. Bennett is an immensely popular tenor soloist, and his characteristically winning voice, united with his charming personality, makes him a favorite with all audiences.



PHILADELPHIA (PA.) TALENT.
William Rainey Bennett remembered for his lectures and his tuneful work in that ministerial quartet at the Chautauqua last summer, is coming forward with swinging strides.  His church at Marion, Ind., is getting far too small for the crowd.  The city papers reproduce his sermons and some of them have lately graced the New York Journal's magazine section.  Bennett's sentences bristle and snap.  He is a new and original edition, positively unpreacherlike, but wholesome, and is filling a large contract just now—lecturing six nights a week and preaching twice on Sunday.



ST. PETER, MINNESOTA.
Mr. William R. Bennett gave a very POWERFUL address here at our commencement.  His subject was, The Man Who Can.  He held his audience at will for an hour and forty minutes, and many said to me that it was the shortest hour and forty minutes of their lives.  It was full of vim, vigor, interest and inspiration such as many people need to let them realize that they are living in a new century.

Very truly,
V. R. WASSON, Superintendent Public Schools.



ALFRED, NEW YORK.
William R. Bennett is a thinker of much power and knows how to say what he thinks.  He can melt the heart or brighten the eye; thrust rottenness through with his sword or pour the oil of peace upon the bleeding wounds.  He knows the gamut of the human heart and has dug into the depths of human thought.  He has a message.

OTHO P. FAIRFIELD, A. B. Prof. of Latin, Alfred University.

N. B.—DR. BENNETT WAS RECALLED HERE ON OUR COURSE TO FILL THE PLACE OF JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES, AND HE NOT ONLY FILLED IT BUT RUN IT OVER.



CORNELL (IOWA) COLLEGE.
We think we get the best in the land, and we do.  It is my honest conviction that this lecture equals the best of anything in the way of lectures or addresses, to which it was my privilege to listen, during the five years I spent in that institution.  If it were in my power I would gather all the youths of our land to hear this most fascinating lecture that they might catch the spirit of the Man Who Can.

REV. R. T. WESTERN.



VINCENNES (INDIANA) CAPITAL.

William Rainey Bennett, of the Congregational Church, Marion, Ind., is a soloist of rare ability, to be surpassed by few.  For a number of years he has had great success as a choir leader and a director of Oratorios.  Mr. Bennett is also an orator of great ability.  Those who heard his two lectures, The Man Who Can, and The Master Thought, found him to be a deep thinker and a brilliant entertainer.  He has a magnetic personality and has no trouble in winning a place in the hearts of his hearers.—
At the Chautauqua.



WATHENA (KANSAS) NEWS-PRESS.

Mr. William Rainey Bennett, first tenor of the famous Hesperian Male Quartet, gave his lecture, The Master Thought, to a large and enthusiastic audience in the Auditorium this morning.  The people had come primarily to hear Sen.  Lafollette, who spoke later in the day, but all were loud in their praise of Dr. Bennett's lecture.  It was beyond doubt one of the most brilliant orations both in thought and expression ever delivered on the Wathena platform.—
Chautauqua Notes.



CRAWFORDSVILLE, INDIANA.

The Opera House was crowed between the four walls from roof to floor with over a hundred on the stage.  The class address was delivered by Rev. William R. Bennett, of Marion, Indiana, and it was an interesting, snappy lecture, abounding in wit, instruction and liveliness.  Everyone said it was one of the greatest speeches ever delivered in the city.  His singing was superb.—
Times-Journal.



DANVILLE (ILLINOIS) PRESS.

William Rainey Bennett is a new star on the lecture horizon.  His wit and humor anecdotes and sensible thoughts have amazed and delighted the audiences.—
Chautauqua Assemby.




NOBLITT-FITCH PTG. CO. 8 MARION, INDIANA

TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION LABEL MARION