When the Republican convention met in 1912 I was again a delegate.
In my fifty-six years of national conventions I never had such an
intensely disagreeable experience. I felt it my duty to support
President Taft for renomination. I thought he had earned it by
his excellent administration. I had many ties with him, beginning
with our associations as graduates of Yale, and held for him a
most cordial regard. I was swayed by my old and unabated love
for Roosevelt. In that compromise and harmony were impossible.
I saw that, with the control of the organization and of the
convention on the side of Mr. Taft, and with the wild support for
Roosevelt of the delegates from the States which could be relied
upon to give Republican majorities, the nomination of either
would be sure defeat.
I was again a delegate to the Republican convention of 1916.
The party was united. Progressives and conservatives were acting
together, and the convention was in the happiest of moods. It was
generally understood that Justice Hughes would be nominated if
he could be induced to resign from the Supreme Court and accept.
The presiding officer of the convention was Senator Warren G. Harding.
He made a very acceptable keynote speech. His fine appearance,
his fairness, justice, and good temper as presiding officer
captured the convention. There was a universal sentiment that if
Hughes declined the party could do no better than to nominate
Senator Harding. It was this impression among the delegates, many
of whom were also members of the convention of 1920, which led
to the selection as the convention's candidate for president of
Warren G. Harding.
My good mother was a Presbyterian and a good Calvinist. She
believed and impressed upon me the certainty of special Providence.
It is hard for a Republican to think that the election of
Woodrow Wilson was a special Providence, but if our candidate,
Mr. Hughes, had been elected he would have had a hostile Democratic
majority in Congress.
When the United States went into the war, as it must have done,
the president would have been handicapped by this pacifist Congress.
The draft would have been refused, without which our army of
four millions could not have been raised. The autocratic measures
necessary for the conduct of the war would have been denied.
With the conflict between the executive and Congress, our position
would have been impossible and indefensible.
I had a personal experience in the convention. Chairman Harding
sent one of the secretaries to me with a message that there was
an interval of about an hour when the convention would have nothing
to do. It was during such a period the crank had his opportunity
and the situation was dangerous, and he wished me to come to
the platform and fill as much of that hour as possible. I refused
on the ground that I was wholly unprepared, and it would be madness
to attempt to speak to fourteen thousand people in the hall and
a hundred million outside.
A few minutes afterwards Governor Whitman, chairman of the New York
delegation, came to me and said: "You must be drafted. The
chairman will create some business to give you fifteen minutes
to think up your speech." I spurred my gray matter as never before,
and was then introduced and spoke for forty-five minutes. I was
past eighty-two. The speech was a success, but when I returned
to my seat I remembered what General Garfield had so earnestly
said to me: "You are the only man of national reputation who
will speak without preparation. Unless you peremptorily and
decisively stop yielding you will some day make such a failure
as to destroy the reputation of a lifetime."
In a letter President Harding has this to say in reference to
the occasion: "Just about a year ago (1916) it was my privilege
as chairman of the Republican convention at Chicago to call upon
you for an address. There was a hiatus which called for a speech,
and you so wonderfully met the difficult requirements that I sat
in fascinated admiration and have been ready ever since to pay
you unstinted tribute. You were ever eloquent in your more active
years, but I count you the old man eloquent and incomparable in
your eighties. May many more helpful and happy years be yours."
I was again a delegate to the convention in June, 1920. The
Republicans had been for eight years out of office during
Mr. Wilson's two terms. The delegates were exceedingly anxious
to make no mistake and have no friction in the campaign.
The two leading candidates, General Wood and Governor Lowden,
had nearly equal strength and were supported by most enthusiastic
admirers and advocates. As the balloting continued the rivalry
and feeling grew between their friends. It became necessary to
harmonize the situation and it was generally believed that this
could be best done by selecting Senator Warren G. Harding.
Very few conventions have a dramatic surprise, but the nomination
of Governor Coolidge, of Massachusetts, for vice-president came
about in a very picturesque way. He had been named for president
among the others, and the speech in his behalf by Speaker
Frederick H. Gillett was an excellent one. Somehow the convention
did not seem to grasp all that the governor stood for and how
strong he was with each delegate. When the nominations for
vice-president were called for, Senator Medill McCormick presented
Senator Lenroot, of Wisconsin, in an excellent speech. There
were also very good addresses on behalf of the Governor of Kansas
and others.
When the balloting was about to start, a delegate from Oregon
who was in the rear of the hall arose and said: "Mr. Chairman."
The chairman said: "The gentleman from Oregon." The Oregon
delegate, in a far-reaching voice, shouted: "Mr. Chairman,
I nominate for vice-president Calvin Coolidge, a one-hundred-per-cent
American." The convention went off its feet with a whoop and
Coolidge was nominated hands down.
I again had a personal experience. The committee on resolutions,
not being prepared to report, there was that interval of no
business which is the despair of presiding officers of conventions.
The crowd suddenly began calling for me. While, of course, I had
thought much on the subject, I had not expected to be called upon
and had no prepared speech. Happily, fifteen thousand faces and
fifteen thousand voices giving uproarious welcome both steadied
and inspired me. Though I was past eighty-six years of age, my
voice was in as good condition as at forty, and was practically
the only one which did fill that vast auditorium. The press of
the country featured the effort next day in a way which was
most gratifying.
Among the thousands who greeted me on the streets and in the
hotel lobbies with congratulations and efforts to say something
agreeable and complimentary, I selected one compliment as unique.
He was an enthusiast. "Chauncey Depew," he said, "I have for
over twenty years wanted to shake hands with you. Your speech
was a wonder. I was half a mile off, way up under the roof, and
heard every word of it, and it was the only one I was able to hear.
That you should do this in your eighty-seventh year is a miracle.
But then my father was a miracle. On his eighty-fifth birthday he
was in just as good shape as you are to-day, and a week afterwards
he was dead."