The most unique experience in my life has been the dinners given
to me by the Montauk Club of Brooklyn on my birthday. The Montauk
is a social club of high standing, whose members are of professional
and business life and different political and religious faiths.
Thirty years ago Mr. Charles A. Moore was president of the club.
He was a prominent manufacturer and a gentleman of wide influence
in political and social circles. Mr. McKinley offered him the
position of secretary of the navy, which Mr. Moore declined. He
came to me one day with a committee from the club, and said:
"The Montauk wishes to celebrate your birthday. We know that it
is on the 23d of April, and that you have two distinguished
colleagues who also have the 23d as their birthday--Shakespeare
and St. George. We do not care to include them, but desire only
to celebrate yours."
The club has continued these celebrations for thirty years by
an annual dinner. The ceremonial of the occasion is a reception,
then dinner, and, after an introduction by the president, a speech
by myself. To make a new speech every year which will be of
interest to those present and those who read it, is not easy.
These festivities had a fortunate beginning. In thinking over
what I should talk about at the first dinner, I decided to get
some fun out of the municipality of Brooklyn by a picturesque
description of its municipal conditions. It was charged in the
newspapers that there had been serious graft in some public
improvements which had been condoned by the authorities and excused
by an act of the legislature. It had also been charged that the
Common Council had been giving away valuable franchises to their
favorites. Of course, this presented a fine field of contrast
between ancient and modern times. In ancient times grateful
citizens erected statues to eminent men who had deserved well of
their country in military or civic life, but Brooklyn had improved
upon the ancient model through the grant of public utilities.
The speech caused a riot after the dinner as to its propriety,
many taking the ground that it was a criticism, and, therefore,
inappropriate to the occasion. However, the affair illustrated
a common experience of mine that unexpected results will sometimes
flow from a bit of humor, if the humor has concealed in it a stick
of dynamite.
The Brooklyn pulpit, which is the most progressive in the world,
took the matter up and aroused public discussion on municipal
affairs. The result was the formation of a committee of one hundred
citizens to investigate municipal conditions. They found that
while the mayor and some other officials were high-toned and
admirable officers, yet the general administration of the city
government had in the course of years become so bad that there
should be a general reformation. The reform movement was successful;
it spread over to New York and there again succeeded, and the
movement for municipal reform became general in the country.
The next anniversary dinner attracted an audience larger than
the capacity of the club, and every one of the thirty has been
an eminent success. For many years the affair has received wide
publicity in the United States, and has sometimes been reported
in foreign newspapers. I remember being in London with the late
Lieutenant-Governor Woodruff, when we saw these head-lines at
a news-stand on the Strand: "Speech by Chauncey Depew at his
birthday dinner at the Montauk Club, Brooklyn." During this nearly
third of a century the membership of the club has changed, sons
having succeeded fathers and new members have been admitted, but
the celebration seems to grow in interest.
During the last fourteen years the president of the club has been
Mr. William H. English. He has done so much for the organization
in every way that the members would like to have him as their
executive officer for life. Mr. English is a splendid type of
the American who is eminently successful in his chosen career,
and yet has outside interest for the benefit of the public. Modest
to a degree and avoiding publicity, he nevertheless is the motive
power of many movements progressive and charitable.
Twenty-four years ago a company of public-spirited women in the
city of Des Moines, Iowa, organized a club. They named it after
me. For nearly a quarter of a century it has been an important
factor in the civic life of Des Moines. It has with courage,
intelligence, and independence done excellent work. At the time
of its organization there were few if any such organizations in
the country, and it may claim the position of pioneer in women's
activity in public affairs.
Happily free from the internal difficulties and disputes which so
often wreck voluntary associations, the Chauncey Depew Club is
stronger than ever. It looks forward with confidence to a successful
celebration of its quarter of a century.
I have never been able to visit the club, but have had with it
frequent and most agreeable correspondence. It always remembers
my birthday in the most gratifying way. I am grateful to its
members for bestowing upon me one of the most pleasurable compliments
of my life.
A public dinner is a fine form of testimonial. I have had many
in my life, celebrating other things than my birthday. One of
the most notable was given me by the citizens of Chicago in
recognition of my efforts to make their great Columbian exhibition
a success. Justice John M. Harlan presided, and distinguished
men were present from different parts of the country and representing
great interests. Probably the speech which excited the most
comment was a radical attack of Andrew Carnegie on the government
of Great Britain, in submitting to the authority of a king or a
queen. Canada was represented by some of the high officials of
that self-governing colony. The Canadians are more loyal to the
English form of government than are the English themselves. My
peppery Scotch friend aroused a Canadian official, who returned
his assault with vigor and interest.
It is a very valuable experience for an American to attend the
annual banquet of the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris.
The French Government recognizes the affair by having a company
of their most picturesquely uniformed soldiers standing guard both
inside and outside the hall. The highest officials of the French
Government always attend and make speeches. The American Ambassador
replies in a speech partly in English, and, if he is sufficiently
equipped, partly in French. General Horace Porter and Henry White
were equally happy both in their native language and in that of
the French. The French statesmen, however, were so fond of
Myron T. Herrick that they apparently not only grasped his cordiality
but understood perfectly his eloquence. The honor has several
times been assigned to me of making the American speech in
unadulterated American. The French may not have understood, but
with their quick apprehension the applause or laughter of the
Americans was instantly succeeded by equal manifestations on
the part of the French.
Among the many things which we have inherited from our English
ancestry are public dinners and after-dinner speeches. The public
dinner is of importance in Great Britain and utilized for every
occasion. It is to the government the platform where the ministers
can lay frankly before the country matters which they could not
develop in the House of Commons. Through the dinner speech they
open the way and arouse public attention for measures which they
intend to propose to Parliament, and in this way bring the pressure
of public opinion to their support.
In the same way every guild and trade have their festive functions
with serious purpose, and so have religious, philanthropic, economic,
and sociological movements. We have gone quite far in this
direction, but have not perfected the system as they have on the
other side. I have been making after-dinner speeches for sixty
years to all sorts and conditions of people, and on almost every
conceivable subject. I have found these occasions of great value
because under the good-fellowship of the occasion an unpopular
truth can be sugar-coated with humor and received with applause,
while in the processes of digestion the next day it is working with
the audience and through the press in the way the pill was intended.
A popular audience will forgive almost anything with which they
do not agree, if the humorous way in which it is put tickles
their risibilities.
Mr. Gladstone was very fine at the lord mayor's dinner at Guild Hall,
where the prime minister develops his policies. So it was with
Lord Salisbury and Balfour, but the prince of after-dinner speakers
in England is Lord Rosebery. He has the humor, the wit, and the
artistic touch which fascinates and enraptures his audience.
I have met in our country all the men of my time who have won fame
in this branch of public address. The most remarkable in
effectiveness and inspiration was Henry Ward Beecher. A banquet
was always a success if it could have among its speakers
William M. Evarts, Joseph H. Choate, James S. Brady, Judge John R. Brady,
General Horace Porter, or Robert G. Ingersoll.
After General Grant settled in New York he was frequently a guest
at public dinners and always produced an impression by simple,
direct, and effective oratory.
General Sherman, on the other hand, was an orator as well as a
fighter. He never seemed to be prepared, but out of the occasion
would give soldierly, graphic, and picturesque presentations of
thought and description.
Not to have heard on these occasions Robert G. Ingersoll was to
have missed being for the evening under the spell of a magician.
I have been frequently asked if I could remember occasions of this
kind which were of more than ordinary interest.
After-dinner oratory, while most attractive at the time, is
evanescent, but some incidents are interesting in memory. At
the time of Queen Victoria's jubilee I was present where a
representative of Canada was called upon for a speech. With the
exception of the Canadian and myself the hosts and guests were
all English. My Canadian friend enlarged upon the wonders of his
country. A statement of its marvels did not seem sufficient for
him unless it was augmented by comparisons with other countries
to the glory of Canada, and so he compared Canada with the
United States. Canada had better and more enduring institutions,
she had a more virile, intelligent, and progressive population,
and she had protected herself, as the United States did not,
against undesirable immigration, and in everything which constituted
an up-to-date, progressive, healthy, and hopeful commonwealth she
was far in advance of the United States.
I was called upon immediately afterwards and said I would agree
with the distinguished gentleman from Canada that in one thing
at least Canada was superior to the United States, and it was
that she had far more land, but it was mostly ice. I regret to
remember that my Canadian friend lost his temper.
One of the historical dinners of New York, which no one will forget
who was there, was just after the close of the Civil War, or, as
my dear old friend, Colonel Watterson, called it, "The War between
the States." The principal guests were General Sherman and
Henry W. Grady of Atlanta, Ga. General Sherman, in his speech,
described the triumphant return of the Union Army to Washington,
its review by the President, and then its officers and men returning
to private life and resuming their activities and industries as
citizens. It was a word-picture of wonderful and startling
picturesqueness and power and stirred an audience, composed
largely of veterans who had been participants both in the battles
and in the parades, to the highest degree of enthusiasm. Mr. Grady
followed. He was a young man with rare oratorical gifts. He
described the return of the Confederate soldiers to their homes
after the surrender at Appomattox. They had been four years
fighting and marching. They were ragged and poor. They returned
to homes and farms, many of which had been devastated. They had
no capital, and rarely animals or farming utensils necessary to
begin again. But with superb courage, not only on their own part
but with the assistance of their wives, sisters, and daughters,
they made the desert land flourish and resurrected the country.
This remarkable description of Grady, which I only outline, came
as a counterpart to the triumphant epic of General Sherman. The
effect was electric, and beyond almost any that have ever occurred
in New York or anywhere, and Grady sprang into international fame.
Joseph H. Choate was a most dangerous fellow speaker to his
associates who spoke before him. I had with him many encounters
during fifty years, and many times enjoyed being the sufferer by
his wit and humor. On one occasion Choate won the honors of the
evening by an unexpected attack. There is a village in western
New York which is named after me. The enterprising inhabitants,
boring for what might be under the surface of their ground,
discovered natural gas. According to American fashion, they
immediately organized a company and issued a prospectus for the
sale of the stock. The prospectus fell into the hands of Mr. Choate.
With great glee he read it and then with emphasis the name of
the company: "The Depew Natural Gas Company, Limited," and waving
the prospectus at me shouted: "Why limited?"
There have been two occasions in Mr. Choate's after-dinner speeches
much commented upon both in this country and abroad. As I was
present on both evenings, it seems the facts ought to be accurately
stated. The annual dinner of the "Friendly Sons of St. Patrick"
occurred during one of the years when the Home Rule question was
most acute in England and actively discussed here. At the same
time our Irish fellow citizens, with their talent for public life,
had captured all the offices in New York City. They had the mayor,
the majority of the Board of Aldermen, and a large majority of
the judges. When Mr. Choate spoke he took up the Home Rule
question, and, without indicating his own views, said substantially:
"We Yankees used to be able to govern ourselves, but you Irish
have come here and taken the government away from us. You have
our entire city administration in your hands, and you do with us
as you like. We are deprived of Home Rule. Now what you are
clamoring for both at home and abroad is Home Rule for Ireland.
With such demonstrated ability in capturing the greatest city on
the western continent, and one of the greatest in the world, why
don't you go back to Ireland and make, as you would, Home Rule
there a success?"
I was called a few minutes afterwards to a conference of the
leading Irishmen present. I was an honorary member of that society,
and they were in a high state of indignation. The more radical
thought that Mr. Choate's speech should be resented at once.
However, those who appreciated its humor averted hostile action,
but Mr. Choate was never invited to an Irish banquet again.
The second historical occasion was when the Scotch honored their
patron Saint, St. Andrew. The attendance was greater than ever
before, and the interest more intense because the Earl of Aberdeen
was present. The earl was at that time Governor-General of Canada,
but to the Scotchmen he was much more than that, because he was
the chief of the Clan Gordon. The earl came to the dinner in full
Highland costume. Lady Aberdeen and the ladies of the vice-regal
court were in the gallery. I sat next to the earl and Choate sat
next to me. Choate said: "Chauncey, are Aberdeen's legs bare?"
I looked under the table-cloth and discovered that they were
naturally so because of his costume. I answered: "Choate, they are."
I thought nothing of it until Choate began his speech, in which
he said: "I was not fully informed by the committee of the
importance of the occasion. I did not know that the Earl of Aberdeen
was to be here as a guest of honor. I was especially and
unfortunately ignorant that he was coming in the full panoply of
his great office as chief of Clan Gordon. If I had known that
I would have left my trousers at home."
Aberdeen enjoyed it, the ladies in the gallery were amused, but
the Scotch were mad, and Choate lost invitations to future Scotch dinners.
Few appreciate the lure of the metropolis. It attracts the
successful to win greater success with its larger opportunities.
It has resistless charm with the ambitious and the enterprising.
New York, with its suburbs, which are really a part of itself,
is the largest city in the world. It is the only true cosmopolitan
one. It has more Irish than any city in Ireland, more Germans
and Italians than any except the largest cities in Germany or
Italy. It has more Southerners than are gathered in any place
in any Southern State, and the same is true of Westerners and
those from the Pacific coast and New England, except in Chicago,
San Francisco, or Boston. There is also a large contingent from
the West Indies, South America, and Canada.
The people who make up the guests at a great dinner are the
survival of the fittest of these various settlers in New York.
While thousands fail and go back home or drop by the way, these
men have made their way by superior ability, foresight, and
adaptability through the fierce competitions of the great city.
They are unusually keen-witted and alert. For the evening of
the banquet they leave behind their business and its cares and
are bent on being entertained, amused, and instructed. They are
a most catholic audience, broad-minded, hospitable, and friendly
to ideas whether they are in accord with them or not, providing
they are well presented. There is one thing they will not submit
to, and that is being bored.
These functions are usually over by midnight, and rarely last
so long; while out in the country and in other towns, it is no
unusual thing to have a dinner with speeches run along until
the early hours of the next morning. While public men, politicians,
and aspiring orators seek their opportunities upon this platform
in New York, few succeed and many fail. It is difficult for a
stranger to grasp the situation and adapt himself at once to its
atmosphere. I have narrated in preceding pages some remarkable
successes, and will give a few instances of very able and
distinguished men who lost touch of their audiences.
One of the ablest men in the Senate was Senator John T. Morgan,
of Alabama. I was fond of him personally and admired greatly his
many and varied talents. He was a most industrious and admirable
legislator, and a debater of rare influence. He was a master of
correct and scholarly English, and one of the very few who never
went to the reporters' room to correct his speeches. As they were
always perfect, he let them stand as they were delivered.
Senator Morgan was a great card on a famous occasion among the
many well-known men who were also to speak. Senator Elihu Root
presided with his usual distinction. Senator Morgan had a prepared
speech which he read. It was unusually long, but very good. On
account of his reputation the audience was, for such an audience,
wonderfully patient and frequent and enthusiastic in its applause.
Mistaking his favorable reception, Senator Morgan, after he had
finished the manuscript, started in for an extended talk. After
the hour had grown to nearly two, the audience became impatient,
and the senator, again mistaking its temper, thought they had
become hostile and announced that at many times and many places
he had been met with opposition, but that he could not be put down
or silenced. Mr. Root did the best he could to keep the peace,
but the audience, who were anxious to hear the other speakers,
gave up hope and began to leave, with the result that midnight
saw an empty hall with a presiding officer and an orator.
At another great political dinner I sat beside Governor Oglesby,
of Illinois. He was famous as a war governor and as a speaker.
There were six speakers on the dais, of whom I was one. Happily,
my turn came early. The governor said to me: "How much of the
gospel can these tenderfeet stand?" "Well, Governor," I answered,
"there are six speakers to-night, and the audience will not allow
the maximum of time occupied to be more than thirty minutes. Any
one who exceeds that will lose his crowd and, worse than that,
he may be killed by the eloquent gentlemen who are bursting with
impatience to get the floor, and who are to follow him."
"Why," said the governor, "I don't see how any one can get started
in thirty minutes."
"Well," I cautioned, "please do not be too long."
When the midnight hour struck the hall was again practically
empty, the governor in the full tide of his speech, which evidently
would require about three hours, and the chairman declared the
meeting adjourned.
Senator Foraker, of Ohio, who was one of the appointed speakers,
told me the next morning that at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where
he was stopping, he was just getting into bed when the governor
burst into his room and fairly shouted: "Foraker, no wonder
New York is almost always wrong. You saw to-night that it would
not listen to the truth. Now I want to tell you what I intended
to say." He was shouting with impassioned eloquence, his voice
rising until, through the open windows, it reached Madison Square Park,
when the watchman burst in and said: "Sir, the guests in this
hotel will not stand that any longer, but if you must finish your
speech I will take you out in the park."
During Cleveland's administration one of the New York banquets
became a national affair. The principal speaker was the secretary
of the interior, Lucius Q. C. Lamar, who afterwards became
United States senator and justice of the Supreme Court. Mr. Lamar
was one of the ablest and most cultured men in public life, and
a fine orator. I was called upon so late that it was impossible
to follow any longer the serious discussions of the evening, and
what the management and the audience wanted from me was some fun.
Lamar, with his Johnsonian periods and the lofty style of
Edmund Burke, furnished an opportunity for a little pleasantry.
He came to me, when I had finished, in great alarm and said:
"My appearance here is not an ordinary one and does not permit
humor. I am secretary of the interior, and the representative of
the president and his administration. My speech is really the
message of the president to the whole country, and I wish you
would remedy any impression which the country might otherwise
receive from your humor."
This I was very glad to do, but it was an instance of which I have
met many, of a very distinguished and brilliant gentleman taking
himself too seriously. At another rather solemn function of this
kind I performed the same at the request of the management, but
with another protest from the orator and his enmity.
In reminiscing, after he retired from the presidency, Mr. Cleveland
spoke to me of his great respect and admiration for Mr. Lamar.
Cleveland's speeches were always short. His talent was for
compression and concentration, and he could not understand the
necessity for an effort of great length. He told me that while
Justice Lamar was secretary of the interior he came to him one
day and said: "Mr. President, I have accepted an invitation to
deliver an address in the South, and as your administration may
be held responsible for what I say, I wish you would read it over
and make any corrections or suggestions."
Mr. Cleveland said the speech was extraordinarily long though
very good, and when he returned it to Secretary Lamar he said to
him: "That speech will take at least three hours to deliver.
A Northern audience would never submit to over an hour. Don't
you think you had better cut it down?" The secretary replied:
"No, Mr. President; a Southern audience expects three hours, and
would be better satisfied with five."
Justice Miller, one of the ablest of the judges of the Supreme Court
at that time, was the principal speaker on another occasion. He
was ponderous to a degree, and almost equalled in the emphasis
of his utterances, what was once said of Daniel Webster, that
every word weighed twelve pounds. I followed him. The Attorney-General
of the United States, who went back to Washington the next
day with Justice Miller, told me that as soon as they had got
on the train the justice commenced to complain that I had wholly
misunderstood his speech, and that no exaggeration of interpretation
would warrant what I said. The judge saw no humor in my little
effort to relieve the situation, and took it as a reply of opposing
counsel. He said that the justice took it up from another phase
after leaving Philadelphia, and resumed his explanation from
another angle as to what he meant after they reached Baltimore.
When the train arrived at its destination and they separated in the
Washington station, the justice turned to the attorney-general
and said: "Damn Depew! Good-night."
Such are the perils of one who good-naturedly yields to the
importunities of a committee of management who fear the failure
with their audience of their entertainment.
The great dinners of New York are the Chamber of Commerce, which
is a national function, as were also for a long time, during the
presidency of Mr. Choate, those of the New England Society. The
annual banquets of the Irish, Scotch, English, Welsh, Holland,
St. Nicholas, and the French, are also most interesting, and
sometimes by reason of the presence of a national or international
figure, assume great importance. The dinner which the Pilgrims
Society tenders to the British ambassador gives him an opportunity,
without the formalities and conventions of his office, of speaking
his mind both to the United States and to his own people.
The annual banquets of the State societies are now assuming greater
importance. Each State has thousands of men who have been or
still are citizens, but who live in New York. Those dinners
attract the leading politicians of their several States. It is
a platform for the ambitious to be president and sometimes succeeds.
Garfield made a great impression at one of these State dinners,
so did Foraker, and at the last dinner of the Ohio Society the
star was Senator Warren G. Harding. On one occasion, when McKinley
and Garfield were present, in the course of my speech I made a
remark which has since been adopted as a sort of motto by the
Buckeye State. Ohio, I think, has passed Virginia as a mother
of presidents. It is remarkable that the candidates of both great
parties are now of that State. I said in the closing of my speech,
alluding to the distinguished guests and their prospects: "Some
men have greatness thrust upon them, some are born great, and some
are born in Ohio."
One of the greatest effects produced by a speech was by
Henry Ward Beecher at an annual dinner of the Friendly Sons of
St. Patrick. At the time, the Home Rule question was more than
ordinarily acute and Fenianism was rabid. While Mr. Beecher had
great influence upon his audience, his audience had equal influence
upon him. As he enlarged upon the wrongs of Ireland the responses
became more enthusiastic and finally positively savage. This
stirred the orator up till he gave the wildest approval to direct
action and revolution, with corresponding cheers from the diners,
standing and cheering. Mr. Beecher was explaining that speech
for about a year afterwards. I was a speaker on the same platform.
Mr. Beecher always arrived late, and everybody thought it was
to get the applause as he came in but he explained to me that it
was due to his method of preparation. He said his mind would
not work freely until three hours after he had eaten. Many speakers
have told me the same thing. He said when he had a speech to make
at night, whether it was at a dinner or elsewhere, that he took
his dinner in the middle of the day, and then a glass of milk
and crackers at five o'clock, with nothing afterwards. Then in
the evening his mind was perfectly clear and under absolute control.
The Lotos Club has been for fifty years to New York what the
Savage Club is to London. It attracts as its guests the most
eminent men of letters who visit this country. Its entertainments
are always successful. For twenty-nine years it had for its
president Mr. Frank R. Lawrence, a gentleman with a genius for
introducing distinguished strangers with most felicitous speeches,
and a committee who selected with wonderful judgment the other
speakers of the evening. A successor to Mr. Lawrence, and of
equal merit, has been found in Chester S. Lord, now president of
the Lotos Club. Mr. Lord was for more than a third of a century
managing editor of the New York Sun, and is now chancellor of
the University of the State of New York.
I remember one occasion where the most tactful man who ever appeared
before his audience slipped his trolley, and that was Bishop Potter.
The bishop was a remarkably fine preacher and an unusually attractive
public speaker and past master of all the social amenities of life.
The guest of the evening was the famous Canon Kingsley, author
of "Hypatia" and other works at that time universally popular.
The canon had the largest and reddest nose one ever saw. The
bishop, among the pleasantries of his introduction, alluded to
this headlight of religion and literature. The canon fell from
grace and never forgave the bishop.
On Lotos nights I have heard at their best Lord Houghton, statesman
and poet, Mark Twain, Stanley the explorer, and I consider it one
of the distinctions as well as pleasures of my life to have been
a speaker at the Lotos on more occasions than any one else during
the last half century.
In Mr. Joseph Pulitzer's early struggles with his paper, the
New York World, the editorial columns frequently had very severe
attacks on Mr. William H. Vanderbilt and the New York Central
Railroad. They were part, of course, of attacks upon monopoly.
I was frequently included in these criticisms.
The Lotos Club gave a famous dinner to George Augustus Sala, the
English writer and journalist. I found myself seated beside
Mr. Pulitzer, whom I had never met. When I was called upon to
speak I introduced, in what I had to say about the distinguished
guest, this bit of audacity. I said substantially, in addition to
Mr. Sala: "We have with us to-night a great journalist who comes
to the metropolis from the wild and woolly West. After he had
purchased the World he came to me and said, 'Chauncey Depew,
I have a scheme, which I am sure will benefit both of us. Everybody
is envious of the prestige of the New York Central and the wealth
of Mr. Vanderbilt. You are known as his principal adviser. Now,
if in my general hostility to monopoly I include Mr. Vanderbilt and
the New York Central as principal offenders, I must include you,
because you are the champion in your official relationship of the
corporation and of its policies and activities. I do not want
you to have any feeling against me because of this. The policy
will secure for the World everybody who is not a stockholder in
the New York Central, or does not possess millions of money. When
Mr. Vanderbilt finds that you are attacked, he is a gentleman and
broad-minded enough to compensate you and will grant to you both
significant promotion and a large increase in salary.'" Then I
added: "Well, gentlemen, I have only to say that Mr. Pulitzer's
experiment has been eminently successful. He has made his newspaper
a recognized power and a notable organ of public opinion; its
fortunes are made and so are his, and, in regard to myself, all
he predicted has come true, both in promotion and in enlargement
of income." When I sat down Mr. Pulitzer grasped me by the hand
and said: "Chauncey Depew, you are a mighty good fellow. I have
been misinformed about you. You will have friendly treatment
hereafter in any newspaper which I control."
The Gridiron Club of Washington, because of both its ability and
genius and especially its national position, furnishes a wonderful
platform for statesmen. Its genius in creating caricatures and
fake pageants of current political situations at the capital and
its public men is most remarkable. The president always attends,
and most of the Cabinet and justices of the Supreme Court. The
ambassadors and representatives of the leading governments
represented in Washington are guests, and so are the best-known
senators and representatives of the time. The motto of the club
is "Reporters are never present. Ladies always present." Though
the association is made up entirely of reporters, the secrecy is
so well kept that the speakers are unusually frank.
There was a famous contest one night there, however, between
President Roosevelt and Senator Foraker, who at the time were
intensely antagonistic, which can never be forgotten by those
present. There was a delightful interplay between William J. Bryan
and President Roosevelt, when Bryan charged the president with
stealing all his policies and ideas.
If the speaker grasped the peculiarities of his audience and its
temperament, his task was at once the most difficult and the most
delightful, and my friend, Mr. Arthur Dunn, has performed most
useful service in embalming a portion of Gridiron history in his
volume, "Gridiron Nights."
Pierpont Morgan, the greatest of American bankers, was much more
than a banker. He had a wonderful collection in his library and
elsewhere of rare books and works of art. He was always delightful
on the social side. He was very much pleased when he was elected
president of the New England Society. The annual dinner that year
was a remarkably brilliant affair. It was the largest in the
history of the organization. The principal speaker was William Everett,
son of the famous Edward Everett and himself a scholar of great
acquirements and culture. His speech was another evidence of
a very superior man mistaking his audience. He was principal of
the Adams Academy, that great preparatory institution for
Harvard University, and he had greatly enlarged its scope and
usefulness.
Mr. Everett evidently thought that the guests of the New England
Society of New York would be composed of men of letters, educators,
and Harvard graduates. Instead of that, the audience before him
were mainly bankers and successful business men whose Puritan
characteristics had enabled them to win great success in the
competitions in the great metropolis in every branch of business.
They were out for a good time and little else.
Mr. Everett produced a ponderous mass of manuscript and began
reading on the history of New England education and the influence
upon it of the Cambridge School. He had more than an hour of
material and lost his audience in fifteen minutes. No efforts of
the chairman could bring them to attention, and finally the educator
lost that control of himself which he was always teaching to the
boys and threw his manuscript at the heads of the reporters. From
their reports in their various newspapers the next day, they did
not seem to have absorbed the speech by this original method.
Choate and I were both to speak, and Choate came first. As usual,
he threw a brick at me. He mentioned that a reporter had come to
him and said: "Mr. Choate, I have Depew's speech carefully prepared,
with the applause and laughter already in. I want yours." Of
course, no reporter had been to either of us. Mr. Choate had in
his speech an unusual thing for him, a long piece of poetry. When
my turn came to reply I said: "The reporter came to me, as
Mr. Choate has said, and made the remark: 'I already have Choate's
speech. It has in it a good deal of poetry.' I asked the reporter:
'From what author is the poetry taken?' He answered: 'I do not
know the author, but the poetry is so bad I think Choate has
written it himself.'"
Mr. Choate told me a delightful story of his last interview with
Mr. Evarts before he sailed for Europe to take up his ambassadorship
at the Court of St. James. "I called," he said, "on Mr. Evarts
to bid him good-by. He had been confined to his room by a fatal
illness for a long time. 'Choate,' he said, 'I am delighted with
your appointment. You eminently deserve it, and you are
pre-eminently fit for the place. You have won the greatest
distinction in our profession, and have harvested enough of its
rewards to enable you to meet the financial responsibilities of
this post without anxiety. You will have a most brilliant and
useful career in diplomacy, but I fear I will never see you again.'"
Mr. Choate said: "Mr. Evarts, we have had a delightful partnership
of over forty years, and when I retire from diplomacy and resume
the practice of the law I am sure you and I will go on together
again for many years in the same happy old way."
Evarts replied: "No, Choate, I fear that cannot be. When I think
what a care I am to all my people, lying so helpless here, and
that I can do nothing any more to repay their kindness, or to help
in the world, I feel like the boy who wrote from school to his
mother a letter of twenty pages, and then added after the end:
'P. S. Dear mother, please excuse my longevity.'"
Where one has a reputation as a speaker and is also known to oblige
friends and to be hardly able to resist importunities, the demands
upon him are very great. They are also sometimes original and unique.
At one time, the day before Christmas, a representative of the
New York World came to see me, and said: "We are going to give
a dinner to-night to the tramps who gather between ten and eleven
o'clock at the Vienna Restaurant, opposite the St. Denis Hotel,
to receive the bread which the restaurant distributes at that hour."
This line was there every night standing in the cold waiting their
turn. I went down to the hotel, and a young man and young lady
connected with the newspaper crossed the street and picked out
from the line a hundred guests.
It was a remarkable assemblage. The dinner provided was a beautiful
and an excellent one for Christmas. As I heard their stories,
there was among them a representative of almost every department
of American life. Some were temporarily and others permanently
down and out. Every one of the learned professions was represented
and many lines of business. The most of them were in this
condition, because they had come to New York to make their way,
and had struggled until their funds were exhausted, and then they
were ashamed to return home and confess their failure.
I presided at this remarkable banquet and made not only one speech
but several. By encouraging the guests we had several excellent
addresses from preachers without pulpits, lawyers without clients,
doctors without patients, engineers without jobs, teachers without
schools, and travellers without funds. One man arose and said:
"Chauncey Depew, the World has given us such an excellent dinner,
and you have given us such a merry Christmas Eve, we would like
to shake hands with you as we go out."
I had long learned the art of shaking hands with the public. Many
a candidate has had his hands crushed and been permanently hurt
by the vise-like grip of an ardent admirer or a vicious opponent.
I remember General Grant complaining of this, of how he suffered,
and I told him of my discovery of grasping the hand first and
dropping it quickly.
The people about me were looking at these men as they came along,
to see if there was any possible danger. Toward the end of the
procession one man said to me: "Chauncey Depew, I don't belong
to this crowd. I am well enough off and can take care of myself.
I am an anarchist. My business is to stir up unrest and discontent,
and that brings me every night to mingle with the crowd waiting
for their dole of bread from Fleischmann's bakery. You do more
than any one else in the whole country to create good feeling and
dispel unrest, and you have done a lot of it to-night. I made up
my mind to kill you right here, but you are such an infernal good
fellow that I have not the heart to do it, so here's my hand."
On one occasion I received an invitation to address a sociological
society which was to meet at the house of one of the most famous
entertainers in New York. My host said that Edward Atkinson,
the well-known New England writer, philosopher, and sociologist,
would address the meeting. When I arrived at the house I found
Atkinson in despair. The audience were young ladies in full
evening dress and young men in white vests, white neckties, and
swallow-tails. There was also a band present. We were informed
that this society had endeavored to mingle instruction with
pleasure, and it really was a dancing club, but they had conceived
the idea of having something serious and instructive before the ball.
Mr. Atkinson said to me: "What won me to come here is that in
Boston we have a society of the same name. It is composed of
very serious people who are engaged in settlement and sociological
work. They are doing their best to improve the conditions of
the young women and young men who are in clerical and other
employment. I have delivered several addresses before that society,
and before the audiences which they gather, on how to live
comfortably and get married on the smallest possible margin. Now,
for instance, for my lecture here to-night I have on a ready-made
suit of clothes, for which I paid yesterday five dollars. In that
large boiler there is a stove which I have invented. In the oven
of the stove is beef and various vegetables, and to heat it is
a kerosene lamp with a clockwork attached. A young man or a young
woman, or a young married couple go to the market and buy the cheap
cuts of beef, and then, according to my instructions, they put it
in the stove with the vegetables, light the lamp, set the clockwork
and go to their work. When they return at five, six, or seven
o'clock they find a very excellent and very cheap dinner all ready
to be served. Now, of what use is my five-dollar suit of clothes
and my fifty-cent dinner for this crowd of butterflies?"
However, Mr. Atkinson and I made up our minds to talk to them as
if they needed it or would need it some day or other, and they
were polite enough to ask questions and pretend to enjoy it.
I understand that afterwards at the midnight supper there was more
champagne and more hilarity than at previous gatherings of this
sociological club.
During one of our presidential campaigns some young men came up
from the Bowery to see me. They said: "We have a very hard time
down in our district. The crowd is a tough one but intelligent,
and we think would be receptive of the truth if they could hear
it put to them in an attractive form. We will engage a large
theatre attached to a Bowery beer saloon if you will come down
and address the meeting. The novelty of your appearance will
fill the theatre."
I knew there was considerable risk, and yet it was a great
opportunity. I believe that in meeting a crowd of that sort one
should appear as they expect him to look when addressing the best
of audiences. These people are very proud, and they resent any
attempt on your part to be what they know you are not, but that
you are coming down to their level by assuming a character which
you presume to be theirs. So I dressed with unusual care, and
when I went on the platform a short-sleeved, short-haired genius
in the theatre shouted: "Chauncey thinks he is in Carnegie Hall."
The famous Tim Sullivan, who was several times a state senator
and congressman, and a mighty good fellow, was the leader of the
Bowery and controlled its political actions. He came to see me
and said: "I hope you will withdraw from that appointment. I do
not want you to come down there. In the first place, I cannot
protect you, and I don't think it is safe. In the second place,
you are so well known and popular among our people that I am
afraid you will produce an impression, and if you get away with
it that will hurt our machine."
In the course of my speech a man arose whom I knew very well as
a district leader, and who was frequently in my office, seeking
positions for his constituents and other favors. That night he
was in his shirt-sleeves among the boys. With the old volunteer
fireman's swagger and the peculiar patois of that part of New York,
he said: "Chauncey Depew, you have no business here. You are
the president of the New York Central Railroad, ain't you, hey?
You are a rich man, ain't you, hey? We are poor boys. You don't
know us and can't teach us anything. You had better get out
while you can."
My reply was this: "My friend, I want a little talk with you.
I began life very much as you did. Nobody helped me. I was a
country boy and my capital was this head," and I slapped it,
"these legs," and I slapped them, "these hands," and I slapped
them, "and by using them as best I could I have become just what
you say I am and have got where you will never arrive."
A shirt-sleeved citizen jumped up from the audience and shouted:
"Go ahead, Chauncey, you're a peach." That characterization
of a peach went into the newspapers and was attached to me wherever
I appeared for many years afterwards, not only in this country
but abroad. It even found a place in the slang column of the great
dictionaries of the English language. The result of the meeting,
however, was a free discussion in the Bowery, and for the first
time in its history that particular district was carried by
the Republicans.
After their triumph in the election I gave a dinner in the
Union League Club to the captains of the election districts.
There were about a hundred of them. The district captains were
all in their usual business suits, and were as sharp, keen,
intelligent, and up-to-date young men as one could wish to meet.
The club members whom I had invited to meet my guests were, of
course, in conventional evening dress. The novelty of the occasion
was so enjoyed by them that they indulged with more than usual
liberality in the fluids and fizz and became very hilarious. Not
one of the district captains touched a drop of wine.
While the club members were a little frightened at the idea of
these East-siders coming, my guests understood and met every
convention of the occasion before, during, and after dinner, as if
it was an accustomed social function with them. The half dozen
who made speeches showed a grasp of the political questions of
the hour and an ability to put their views before an audience which
was an exhibition of a high order of intelligence and self-culture.
In selecting a few out-of-the-way occasions which were also most
interesting and instructive, I recall one with a society which
prided itself upon its absence of narrowness and its freedom of
thought and discussion. The speakers were most critical of all
that is generally accepted and believed. Professor John Fiske,
the historian, was the most famous man present, and very critical
of the Bible. My good mother had brought me up on the Bible and
instilled in me the deepest reverence for the good book. The
criticism of the professor stirred me to a rejoinder. I, of course,
was in no way equal to meeting him, with his vast erudition and
scholarly accomplishments. I could only give what the Bible critic
would regard as valueless, a sledge-hammer expression of faith.
Somebody took the speech down. Doctor John Hall, the famous
preacher and for many years pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian
Church, told me that the Bible and the church societies in England
had put the speech into a leaflet, and were distributing many
millions of them in the British Isles.
It is singular what vogue and circulation a story of the hour will
receive. Usually these decorations of a speech die with the
occasion. There was fierce rivalry when it was decided to celebrate
the four hundredth anniversary of the landing of Columbus in
America, between New York and Chicago, as to which should have
the exhibition. Of course the Western orators were not modest in
the claims which they made for the City by the Lakes. To dampen
their ardor I embroidered the following story, which took wonderfully
when told in my speech.
It was at the Eagle Hotel in Peekskill, at which it was said
George Washington stopped many times as a guest during the
Revolutionary War, where in respect to his memory they preserved
the traditions of the Revolutionary period. At that time the bill
of fare was not printed, but the waiter announced to the guest
what would be served, if asked for. A Chicago citizen was dining
at the hotel. He ordered each of the many items announced to him
by the waiter. When he came to the deserts the waiter said: "We
have mince-pie, apple-pie, pumpkin-pie, and custard-pie." The
Chicago man ordered mince-pie, apple-pie, and pumpkin-pie. The
disgusted waiter remarked: "What is the matter with the custard?"
Alongside me sat a very well-known English gentleman of high
rank, who had come to this country on a sort of missionary and
evangelistic errand. Of course, he was as solemn as the task he
had undertaken, which was to convert American sinners. He turned
suddenly to me and, in a loud voice, asked: "What was the matter
with the custard-pie?" The story travelled for years, was used
for many purposes, was often murdered in the narration, but managed
to survive, and was told to me as an original joke by one of the
men I met at the convention last June in Chicago.
After Chicago received from Congress the appointment I did all
I could to help the legislation and appropriations necessary.
The result was that when I visited the city as an orator at the
opening of the exhibition I was voted the freedom of the city, was
given a great reception, and among other things reviewed the school
children who paraded in my honor.
The Yale alumni of New York City had for many years an organization.
In the early days the members met very infrequently at a dinner.
This was a formal affair, and generally drew a large gathering,
both of the local alumni and from the college and the country.
These meetings were held at Delmonico's, then located in
Fourteenth Street. The last was so phenomenally dull that there
were no repetitions.
The speakers were called by classes, and the oldest in graduation
had the platform. The result was disastrous. These old men all
spoke too long, and it was an endless stream of platitudes and
reminiscences of forgotten days until nearly morning. Then an
inspiration of the chairman led him to say: "I think it might be
well to have a word from the younger graduates."
There was a unanimous call for a well-known humorist named Styles.
His humor was aided by a startling appearance of abundant red hair,
an aggressive red mustache, and eyes which seemed to push his
glasses off his nose. Many of the speakers, owing to the
imperfection of the dental art in those days, indicated their
false teeth by their trouble in keeping them in place, and the
whistling it gave to their utterances. One venerable orator in his
excitement dropped his into his tumbler in the midst of his address.
Styles said to this tired audience: "At this early hour in the
morning I will not attempt to speak, but I will tell a story.
Down at Barnegat, N. J., where I live, our neighbors are very fond
of apple-jack. One of them while in town had his jug filled, and
on the way home saw a friend leaning over the gate and looking
so thirsty that he stopped and handed over his jug with an offer of
its hospitality. After sampling it the neighbor continued the
gurgling as the jug rose higher and higher, until there was not
a drop left in it. The indignant owner said: 'You infernal hog,
why did you drink up all my apple-jack?' His friend answered:
'I beg your pardon, Job, but I could not bite off the tap, because
I have lost all my teeth.'" The aptness of the story was the
success of the evening.
Some years afterwards there was a meeting of the alumni to form
a live association. Among those who participated in the organization
were William Walter Phelps, afterwards member of Congress and
minister to Austria; Judge Henry E. Howland; John Proctor Clarke,
now chief justice of the Appellate Division; James R. Sheffield
(several years later) now president of the Union League Club;
and Isaac Bromley, one of the editors of the New York Tribune,
one of the wittiest writers of his time, and many others who have
since won distinction. They elected me president, and I continued
such by successive elections for ten years.
The association met once a month and had a serious paper read,
speeches, a simple supper, and a social evening. These monthly
gatherings became a feature and were widely reported in the press.
We could rely upon one or more of the faculty, and there was always
to be had an alumnus of national reputation from abroad. We had
a formal annual dinner, which was more largely attended than
almost any function of the kind in the city, and, because of the
variety and excellence of the speaking, always very enjoyable.
The Harvard and Princeton alumni also had an association at that
time, with annual dinners, and it was customary for the officers
of each of these organizations to be guests of the one which gave
the dinner. The presidents of the colleges represented always
came. Yale could rely upon President Dwight, Harvard upon
President Eliot, and Princeton upon President McCosh.
Of course, the interchanges between the representatives of the
different colleges were as exciting and aggressive as their
football and baseball contests are to-day. I recall one occasion
of more than usual interest. It was the Princeton dinner, and
the outstanding figure of the occasion was that most successful
and impressive of college executives, President McCosh. He spoke
with a broad Scotch accent and was in every sense a literalist.
Late in the evening Mr. Beaman, a very brilliant lawyer and partner
of Evarts and Choate, who was president of the Harvard Alumni
Association, said to me: "These proceedings are fearfully prosaic
and highbrow. When you are called, you attack President McCosh,
and I will defend him." So in the course of my remarks, which
were highly complimentary to Princeton and its rapid growth under
President McCosh, I spoke of its remarkable success in receiving
gifts and legacies, which were then pouring into its treasury every
few months, and were far beyond anything which came either to
Yale or Harvard, though both were in great need. Then I hinted
that possibly this flow of riches was due to the fact that
President McCosh had such an hypnotic influence over the graduates
of Princeton and their fathers, mothers, and wives that none of
them felt there was a chance of a heavenly future unless Princeton
was among the heirs.
Mr. Beaman was very indignant and with the continuing approval
and applause of the venerable doctor made a furious attack upon
me. His defense of the president was infinitely worse than my
attack. He alleged that I had intimated that the doctor kept tab
on sick alumni of wealth and their families, and at the critical
moment there would be a sympathetic call from the doctor, and,
while at the bedside he administered comfort and consolation,
yet he made it plain to the patient that he could not hope for
the opening of the pearly gates or the welcome of St. Peter unless
Princeton was remembered. Then Beaman, in a fine burst of oratory,
ascribed this wonderful prosperity not to any personal effort or
appeal, but because the sons of Princeton felt such reverence and
gratitude for their president that they were only too glad of an
opportunity to contribute to the welfare of the institution.
The moment Beaman sat down the doctor arose, and with great
intensity expressed his thanks and gratitude to the eloquent
president of the Harvard alumni, and then shouted: "I never,
never, never solicited a gift for Princeton from a dying man.
I never, never, never sat by the bedside of a dying woman and
held up the terrors of hell and the promises of heaven, according
to the disposition she made of her estate. I never, never looked
with unsympathetic and eager anticipation whenever any of our
wealthy alumni appeared in ill health."
The doctor, however, retaliated subsequently. He invited me to
deliver a lecture before the college, and entertained me most
delightfully at his house. It was a paid admission, and when
I left in the morning he said: "I want to express to you on behalf
of our college our thanks. We raised last evening through your
lecture enough to fit our ball team for its coming contest with
Yale." In that contest Princeton was triumphant.
The Yale Alumni Association subsequently evoluted into the Yale Club
of New York, which has in every way been phenomenally prosperous.
It is a factor of national importance in supporting Yale and keeping
alive everywhere appreciation and enthusiasm for and practice of
Yale spirit.
My class of 1856 at Yale numbered ninety-seven on graduation.
Only six of us survive. In these pages I have had a continuous
class meeting. Very few, if any, of my associates in the New York
Legislature of 1862 and 1863 are alive, and none of the State
officers who served with me in the succeeding years. There is
no one left in the service who was there when I became connected
with the New York Central Railroad, and no executive officer in
any railroad in the United States who held that position when
I was elected and is still active.
It is the habit of age to dwell on the degeneracy of the times
and lament the good old days and their superiority, but Yale is
infinitely greater and broader than when I graduated sixty-five
years ago. The New York Legislature and State executives are
governing an empire compared with the problems which we had to
solve fifty-nine years ago.
I believe in the necessity of leadership, and while recognizing
a higher general average in public life, regret that the world
crisis through which we have passed and which is not yet completed,
has produced no Washington, Lincoln, or Roosevelt. I rejoice that
President Harding, under the pressure of his unequalled responsibilities,
is developing the highest qualities of leadership. It is an
exquisite delight to visualize each administration from 1856 and
to have had considerable intimacy with the leaders in government
and the moulders of public opinion during sixty-five unusually
laborious years.
Many who have given their reminiscences have kept close continuing
diaries. From these voluminous records they have selected according
to their judgment. As I have before said, I have no data and must
rely on my memory. This faculty is not logical, its operations are
not by years or periods, but its films unroll as they are moved
by association of ideas and events.
It has been a most pleasurable task to bring back into my life
these worthies of the past and to live over again events of greater
or lesser importance. Sometimes an anecdote illumines a character
more than a biography, and a personal incident helps an understanding
of a period more than its formal history.
Life has had for me immeasurable charms. I recognize at all times
there has been granted to me the loving care and guidance of God.
My sorrows have been alleviated and lost their acuteness from a
firm belief in closer reunion in eternity. My misfortunes,
disappointments, and losses have been met and overcome by abundant
proof of my mother's faith and teaching that they were the discipline
of Providence for my own good, and if met in that spirit and
with redoubled effort to redeem the apparent tragedy they would
prove to be blessings. Such has been the case.
While new friends are not the same as old ones, yet I have found
cheer and inspiration in the close communion with the young of
succeeding generations. They have made and are making this a
mighty good world for me.