Wilbur L.Y. Davis

              Wilbur L.Y. Davis
Lecture themes

THE   HOUSE   THAT  JACK   BUILT—A Study in Influence                         LINCOLN—As He Was, Warts and All
JOHNNY,   JUMP   UP!—Success                            THE   MAN   IN   THE   GUTTER—A Plain Talk on Temperance
EPIGRAMS AND PASSAGES
JOHNNY, JUMP UP
A man may be down a well, but, he is the only fellow who can see the stars at noon-day.
Blessed is the man who burns his own smoke.
Blessed is the man who has a muffler on his mouth.
A degree of sympathy is better than a degree from a university.
Bear your cross, don't be cross as a bear.
Blarney is better than blubber.
Boys, like matches, take fire better when rubbed.
If you can't keep anything else, keep sweet.
The young man who paints the town red will soon be painting it black.
Johnny, jump up.
THE  HOUSE THAT JACK  BUILT
What a train of trouble that old rooster stirred up by waking that "priest all shaven and shorn"! And it put the malt out of business in the end.
Love is more contagious than small-pox.
Planets and men are known by the company they keep.
Influence!    Even the liars come in pairs; Annanias and Sapphra were joined together by other than the preacher.
Back of Luther was Huss, back of Livingstone was Moffatt, back of Andrew Carnegie was Colonel Anderson, who loaned the bobbin boy books.    Every great man has a sparker.
We are all tinder; we but wait for someone to set fire to our dreams.
LINCOLN
He never got an "A. B." from college, but he did get an "A-B-E" from the common people.
Emerson, Carlyle, Darwin, Lincoln, were born at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century.    Great men come in galaxies, like God's stars.
Where the break-bone fever starts in the swamps, there the bone-set blooms. Where miasmas rage, the quinine grows. Jeff Davis was born in Kentucky; so God planted Abe Lincoln in an adjoining county, just to have him handy.
Under his hickory shirt he wore a human heart. A man without a policy, he accomplished more than Greeley with a noose for every crime. The Surveyor of the Sangamon, he took up Mason and Dixon's Line and flung it forever into the Gulf of Mexico.
THE  MAN   IN  THE  GUTTER
Does soup ever make a man crazy?
Do fish ever drag a man down under the table?
Does bread ever give a man the big head next morning?
When a man eats a beef-steak to-day, does he crave the whole cow tomorrow, and, if he cannot get it, does it set him smashing the furniture ?
Does a leg of chicken ever send a man home to kick his wife and spank his babies?
Does a woman ever send a notice down to the hotel man forbidding him to sell her husband pancakes?
Do life insurance companies ever turn men down because they are addicted to strawberries and cream?
Do apple dumplings ever make a man rosy-nosed?
Does pumpkin pie ever keep a man from finding the key-hole?
PERSONAL AND PRESS COMMENT
"The House That Jack Built," one of the most pleasing, as well as helpful, lectures given during the Antioch Chautauqua Session of 1910, was delivered by Wilbur L. Y. Davis. I am frank in recommending him to Chautauqua managers, who wish a man to both instruct and entertain. —S. D. FESS, Ph.D., President of Antioch College, Yellew Springs, Ohio.
He was very brilliant and effective, instructive and entertaining.—HERBERT WELCH, D.D., Ph.D., President of the Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio.
One of the brightest and strongest men before the public. Lecture committees fortunate enough to secure his services will contribute thereby to the profit and pleasure of any community, where he may appear.—HENRY C. JAMESON, D.D., District Superintendent, Cincinnati Conference, Cincinnati, Ohio.
He is original in thought, plentifully endowed with great ideas, and a brilliant orator. Audiences are never tired nor disappointed in his platform efforts.—CHARLES G. HECKERT, D.D., President Wittenberg College, Springfield, Ohio.
He is a man of extraordinary keenness of insight and brilliancy of expression—attractive in a rare degree.—FRANK J. MCCONNELL, D. D., Ph.D., President DePauw University, Greencastle, Ind.
Wilbur L. Y. Davis is particularly forceful on the lecture platform. His subjects are usually made more attractive with illustrations that are apt and effective.—HON. ORAN F. HYPES, former Ohio State Senator, also Member of the Board of Control of the Epworth League.
It gives me pleasure to help pass a good thing on to others. It was my pleasure recently to listen to Wilbur L. Y. Davis in his popular lecture, " The House That Jack Built." He has a pleasant address, and his lecture is "chuck full" of spicy, humorous and instructive matter. You will be interested from start to close, and profited.—W. R. MCCHESNEY, Ph.D., Vice President of Cedarville College, Cedarville, Ohio.
He has a pleasing delivery, characteristic of the man, forceful, but easy and graceful. Mr. Davis is a student of the finer type who is able to get the best out of everything and retains what he gets. He reads as he runs, and thinks as he reads, and accordingly commands a fund of information covering vast fields of literature, biography and history. His lectures evidence his complete mastery of the fruits of his research. They are original in their literary style, which is a splendidly sparkling and epigrammatic one. Mr. Davis, with rare good tact, puts just enough of the relish of humor into his addresses to keep his hearers ever on the alert, thus compelling attention to the more serious chain of thought, without seeming to compel it, and commanding interested attention to the end.—HON. JOHN N. GARVER, Springfield, Ohio, former publisher of the Farm and Fireside.
I take great pleasure in commending Wilbur L. Y. Davis to the favorable consideration of lecture bureaus and entertainment committees. I know Mr. Davis well, and am quite adequately acquainted with his style of thought and speech —bright, epigrammatic, thoughtful, forceful.— LEVI GILBERT, D. D., Editor of the Western Christian Advocate, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Wilbur L. Y. Davis is one of the most forceful and inspiring speakers to whom I have ever listened. He has something to say, and says it in a way that no one can misunderstand, or forget.—F. B. DYER, Ph.D., Superintendent of the Public Schools, Cincinnati, Ohio.
It is my pleasure to express my high appreciation of the platform work of Wilbur L. Y. Davis, whom I have heard a number of times. He is a scholar and a student, a traveller and a keen observer who compares and sees both obvious and obscure relations of things and events, and a speaker who puts his thoughts strikingly. He will both entertain and profit his audiences.— CAREY BOGGESS, Ph.D., Superintendent of Public Schools, Springfield, Ohio.
Wilbur L. Y. Davis gave one of the most interesting lectures of the course before the Faculty, students and citizens. From start to finish it was replete with wit, humor and instruction, and held the large audience in rapt attention. "Johnny, Jump Up!" is full of surprises, and teaches lessons of getting ready for the unexpected. The lecturer has strong personality, a pleasing voice, a delightful manner, and a unique power of expression, which at once make him a favorite with his audience.—FRANK CLARE ENGLISH, D.D., former President of Moore's Hill College, Moore's Hill, Ind.
I have heard Wilbur L. Y. Davis deliver his lecture on "Lincoln" three times. Would that I might hear it again! It has been my very good fortune to listen to others discourse upon this same theme; but in Mr. Davis' "Lincoln," there is a terseness of presentation, and a directness of application, such as I have heard from no one else. To listen to him is to be entranced for the hour.—STEPHAN T. DIAL, Ph.D., Superintendent of Public Schools, Lockland, Ohio.
An eloquent, picturesque recital.—WESTERN CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Wilbur L. Y. Davis was greeted by an overflowing house. The address was a masterpiece.— TIMES-STAR, Cincinnati, Ohio.
A vivid description. The lecture of Mr. Davis was above the average of Chautauqua addresses. —THE SUN, Springfield, Ohio.
Wilbur L. Y. Davis delivered a most forceful lecture on "The House That Jack Built" on the closing day's program, before one of the largest audiences any of the Chautauqua programs had previously attracted to the huge tent. Wherever Mr. Davis goes, he is always interesting.—DAILY NEWS, Springfield, Ohio.