John H. Gross

              figure 1




John F. Gross



A DUNBAR ATTRACTION






T
HOUSANDS of men, I actually believe, have asked me 
How can I get started as a Lyceum lecturer?
 On the lookout for real ones, I usually tried to draw the questioner out a bit and find out what was in his head and heart.  A large proportion of these men were avowedly looking for the 
easy money
 which they 
knew
 there was in lecturing. Some were just naturally loquacious, verbose or wanted to be heard and seen One man, a total stranger, while riding with a friend of mine one day suddenly started repeating a verse of poetry well known to everybody and followed it with 
Don't you think that would make a fine ending?


Ending to what?
 said my friend.  
Why to a lecture I am getting up
 he added. Friend tactily admitted that this recitation would undoubtedly functionate as an ender, all right, but wishing to be considerate of his feelings, for he was really somewhat of a man, he said, 
Brother, lecturing is a side line to 
living
 and 
doing!
 Lecturers tell of the 
how
 and 
why
 of things they have 
been thru, studied out, worked at, fought out
 or 
dug out.
  It's an 
effect
 and not a 
cause.
  The mainspring of 
worthy deeds
 and 
great achievements
 is not 
money,
 nor luxury. It's the love that flows from a big heart for every fellowman—that unselfishness which will bring in the millennium—which is bringing it in. If you've really found yourself and are busy making others happier or better, or have thought out anything that will help ordinary folks like me, and have demonstrated or can show that it makes good every time, then all you need to do to become a lecturer is to be just yourself, anxious to deliver your message because it will help encourage, boost somebody, and be as Sam Jones said,Like a beer barrel which runs with a fiz and foam just anywhere you tap it.Don't put a price on your services or figure how much you can make delivering it.  Let that take care of itself.  It it's worth delivering the price will adjust itself.




During the last Chautauqua season that I was personally with the Dunbar Company, while playing at one of those home grown community building Chautauquas in Ohio, I met among the other local boosters a tall young fellow of excellent appearance with a singularly frank and interesting face, a big but sympathetic voice and a manner that was sincere and compelling.  I just couldn't help liking him.  He was right in the thick of the fray and would do anything from driving tent pegs to preaching a baccalaureate Chautauqua sermon.  Several days was I there and the better I knew him the better I liked him.  Everybody called him just plain John—for John H. Gross was his name.  I liked to talk with him, for somehow I couldn't stay around him without 
feeling
 that the world was growing better, and I liked to be in his sunshine.  He saw men, women, boys and girls all around him just as they were and not as they ought to be, and they knew he was their friend.  When a 
down and out
 looked into John's face, he just knew there was another chance for him, for Gross 
knew
 there was, and helped the 
down and outer
 find it.




The other day, Gross came to Chicago to attend a great Sunday School Convention and I saw him again and after talking with him an hour, I said, 
John, I want you to give something of yourself to the Chautauquas—just to talk to these splendid home folks who turn aside for a week or two in summer to improve themselves, their families, their communities, just like you have to me.  They want your type of men among them.  I know, for I have met six hundred Chautauqua audiences face to face.  They will like your unselfish demeanor, your plain language, your warm heart.  You can grip them just like you grip me—I know you 
can,
 for I am not easily gripped.




John studied it over two or three days, then came back and answered 
all right.
  He said he would talk about 
The Strength of Men
 and that it would be just John and nobody else.  Later I heard him give it and it's a real delight.  He has a series of talks that are 
just splendid
—that's the word.  He's no clown nor humorist—but he does bring an occasional smile.




I want him heard for he's worth it!  He has a lot of press clippings.  Some of them do him real justice, others are plainly bent on complimenting him—hence valueless for your purpose.  If you read several pages of them, I doubt if you would have as good an idea of him as you have after reading these plain facts.  He'll make big!  In his every expression he shows the imprint of such men as Henry Van Dyke, at whose feet he sat in Princeton.  He's worth while.




HARRY DUNBAR.







JOHN F. GROSS





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