HIS BEGINNING AS AN ORATOR.
“Is that where you began your career as an orator?” I asked.
“You mean as a stump-speaker? Yes. I talked for Fremont and Dayton, our candidates, but they were defeated. We did not really expect success, though, and yet we carried eleven states. After that, I went back to my law books, and was admitted to the bar in 1858. That was another campaign year, and I spoke for the party then, as I did two years later, when I was a candidate for the state assembly, and won.”
The real glory hidden by this modest statement is that Mr. Depew’s oratory in the campaign of 1858 gained him such distinction that he was too prominent to be passed over in 1860. During that campaign, he stumped the entire state, winning rare oratorical triumphs, and aiding the party almost more than anyone else. How deep an impression the young member from Peekskill really made in the state legislature by his admirable mastery of the complex public business brought before him, may be gathered from the fact that when, two years later, he was re-elected, he was speedily made chairman of the committee on ways and means. He was also elected speaker, pro tem., and at the next election, when his party was practically defeated all along the line, he was returned.
After briefly referring to the active part he took in the Lincoln campaign, I asked:—
“When did you decide upon your career as a railroad official?”
“In 1866. I was retained by Commodore Vanderbilt as attorney for the New York and Harlem Road.”
“To what do you attribute your rise as an official in that field?”
“Hard work. That was a period of railroad growth. There were many small roads and plenty of warring elements. Out of these many small roads, when once united, came the great systems which now make it possible to reach California in a few days. Anyone who entered upon the work at that time had to encounter those conditions, and if he continued at it, to change them. I was merely a counselor at first.”