CHAUNCEY MITCHELL DEPEW.
AMERICA’S MOST FAMOUS AFTER-DINNER ORATOR.
T is impossible in a sketch like this to do justice to the remarkable versatility of Mr. Depew. His admirable addresses would fill several bulky volumes. As an after-dinner speaker, he is without a peer, and his wit, logic and eloquence never fail him. What could be more apt than his words, when, upon entering a public hall where a number of leading men were straining themselves to prove the Christian religion a delusion and a sham, and there were instant and clamorous calls for him, he said: “Gentlemen, my mother’s Bible is good enough for me; have you anything better to offer?” And then with touching pathos and impassioned words he made an appeal for the religion which they reviled, which must have pierced the shell of more than one agnostic heart.
Chauncey Mitchell Depew was born at Peekskill, New York, April 23, 1834. His remote ancestors were French Huguenots, who founded New Rochelle, in Westchester County. His father, Isaac Depew, was a prominent and highly esteemed citizen of Peekskill, and his mother, Martha Mitchell, was a representative of the distinguished New England family, one of whose members, Roger Sherman, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Chauncey spent his boyhood in Peekskill, where he prepared for college. He was a bright student, and at the age of eighteen entered Yale College, from which he was graduated in 1856, with one of the first honors of his class. In June, 1887, Yale conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. It will be noted that Mr. Depew reached his majority at about the time of the formation of the Republican Party. Although of Democratic antecedents, he had been a close student of politics and his sympathies were with the aims of the new political organization, to which he speedily gave his allegiance.
Mr. Depew studied law in his native village, and was admitted to the bar in 1858. In the same year, he was elected as a delegate to the Republican State Convention, this being an acknowledgment of the interest he had taken in the party, and the skill and energy he had shown in advocating its policy. He began the practice of law in 1859, and was highly successful from the first. In his early manhood, his striking power as a stump speaker, his readiness at repartee, and his never-failing good humor, made him a giant in politics, to which he was literally forced to give attention. But with all these extraordinary gifts, he could launch the thunderbolts of invective against wrong and stir the profoundest depths of emotion by his appeals. He loved liberty and hated oppression, and has always believed that the United States of America is the happiest and greatest country upon which the sun ever shone. His patriotic speeches are models of eloquence and power.
In 1860 he took the stump for Abraham Lincoln and added greatly to his reputation as a ready, forceful, and brilliant pleader for that which he believed to be right. It cannot be denied that he contributed much to the success of that memorable election.
In 1861 Mr. Depew was nominated for the Assembly in the Third Westchester County District, and, although the constituency was largely Democratic, he was elected by a handsome majority. He fully met all the high expectations formed, and was re-elected in 1862. By his geniality, wit, integrity and courtesy he became as popular among his political opponents as among his friends. He was made his party’s candidate for Secretary of State, directly after the Democrats had won a notable triumph by the election of Horatio Seymour as Governor; but by his dash and brilliancy and his prodigious endurance (he spoke twice a day for six weeks), he secured a majority of 30,000. So admirably did he perform the duties of the office that he was offered a renomination, but declined.
During the administration of President Johnson, Secretary of State Seward appointed Mr. Depew Minister to Japan, but after consideration, the offer was declined. He seemed to have decided to withdraw from politics and to devote his time and energies to his profession. That shrewd railway man and financier, Commodore Vanderbilt, had watched the career of Depew, and had formed a strong admiration for him, while the eldest son, William H. Vanderbilt, became his firm friend. In 1866 Mr. Depew was appointed the attorney for the New York and Harlem Railroad Company, and three years later, when that road was consolidated with the New York Central, he was made the attorney of the new organization, being afterward elected a member of the Board of Directors.
As other and extensive roads were added to the system, Mr. Depew, in 1875, was promoted to be general counsel for them all, and elected to a directorship in each of the numerous organizations. The year previous the Legislature had made him Regent of the State University, and one of the Commissioners to build the Capitol at Albany.
In 1884 the United States senatorship was tendered to Mr. Depew, but he was committed to so many business and professional trusts that he felt compelled to decline the honor. Two years before, William H. Vanderbilt had retired from the presidency of the New York Central, and in the reorganization Mr. Depew was made Second Vice-President. The President, Mr. Rutter, died in 1885, and Mr. Depew was elected to the presidency, which office he still holds.
At the National Republican Convention of 1888, New York voted solidly for Mr. Depew as its candidate for the Presidency, but he withdrew his name. At the convention at Minneapolis in 1892 he was selected to present the name of President Harrison, and made one of the best speeches of his life. When Mr. Blaine resigned as Secretary of State, President Harrison urged Mr. Depew to accept the place, but after a week’s deliberation he felt obliged to decline the honor. He has, however, continued to take an active interest in politics.
During the last ten years Mr. Depew has been frequently abroad, and some of his happiest speeches have been delivered on board steamers and in foreign banqueting halls, where he never forgets to speak in words of patriotic praise of America.
THE PILGRIMS.
HEY were practical statesmen, these Pilgrims. They wasted no time theorizing upon methods, but went straight at the mark. They solved the Indian problem with shotguns, and it was not General Sherman, but Miles Standish, who originated the axiom that the only good Indians are the dead ones. They were bound by neither customs nor traditions, nor committals to this or that policy. The only question with them was, Does it work? The success of their Indian experiment led them to try similar methods with witches, Quakers, and Baptists. Their failure taught them the difference between mind and matter. A dead savage was another wolf under ground, but one of themselves persecuted or killed for conscience sake sowed the seed of discontent and disbelief. The effort to wall in a creed and wall out liberty was at once abandoned, and to-day New England has more religions and not less religion, but less bigotry, than any other community in the world.
In an age when dynamite was unknown, the Pilgrim invented in the cabin of the “Mayflower” the most powerful of explosives. The declaration of the equality of all men before the law has rocked thrones and consolidated classes. It separated the colonies from Great Britain and created the United States. It pulverized the chains of the slaves and gave manhood suffrage. It devolved upon the individual the functions of government and made the people the sole source of power. It substituted the cap of liberty for the royal crown in France, and by a bloodless revolution has added to the constellation of American republics, the star of Brazil. But with the ever-varying conditions incident to free government, the Puritan’s talent as a political mathematician will never rust. Problems of the utmost importance press upon him for solution. When, in the effort to regulate the liquor traffic, he has advanced beyond the temper of the times and the sentiment of the people in the attempt to enact or enforce prohibition, and either been disastrously defeated or the flagrant evasions of the statutes have brought the law into contempt, he does not despair, but tries to find the error in his calculation.
If gubernatorial objections block the way of high license, he will bombard the executive judgment and conscience by a proposition to tax. The destruction of homes, the ruin of the young, the increase of pauperism and crime, the added burdens upon the taxpayers by the evils of intemperance, appeal with resistless force to his training and traditions. As the power of the saloon increases the difficulties of the task, he becomes more and more certain that some time or other and in some way or other he will do that sum too.
