Heavy winds and extreme heat sometimes played havoc with Chautauqua schedules. Nature could also make life difficult for participants. Frank Mott recalled:
I remember one blistering hot afternoon in a small Iowa town when Bryan was on the platform, and the orator was drenched with perspiration. He stopped in the middle of one of his rounded periods, dipped both hands into a large pitcher of ice-water that stood on the table before him, and came up with two handfuls of crushed ice, which he held to his throbbing bald head for a minute or two. There was no laughter; I think we all felt sympathetic with the old man.6
Weather was not the only difficulty. Park managers were in charge of rounding up money to bring in speakers and sometimes they chose a few who were not especially talented. Chautauqua parks across the country often had " . . . some who were 'phonies,' some who were too temperamental to endure patiently the rigors of the Chautauqua circuit, some who were everlastingly flirtatious, and some who never did find out exactly what it was all about."7
Although weather and a few "phonies" plagued the parks occasionally, people came by the thousands. During the peak of the circuit-Chautauqua, it has been estimated that nearly 40,000,000 persons annually attended Chautauqua in 10,000 communities throughout Canada and the United States.8 Several were established in Iowa, one of which was in the burgeoning city of Waterloo.
