The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-10-18
CHAUNCEY nj. DEPEW
Stories and Gossip About the
Great After-Dinner Orator.
HOW HE LOOKS. ACTS, TALKS
His Mail and Newspaper Clippings-Hov
Miilionaires Lunch-Depew's Tenn
perance-At the Dinner Table.

NEW YORK, Oct. Especial Core
spondence. II had long chat today with
Chauneey NJ. Depew on after-dinner speak
ing. He is the greatest after-dinner
orator in the United States, and by and
all, he is one of the most remarkable men
in this country. As a lawyer, he stood
for years at the head of the New York bar,
and as attorney for the VanderbiIts and
for other great corporations he has held
his own against such men as Roscoe
Conkhng, William NJ. Evarts. David Dud-
ley Field and other great lights of this
the strongest legal center of the Union.
As president of the New York Central
railroad he has for years managed one of
the biggest corporations in the country.
and as a leading New York pol
itician he has refused the United
States senatorship, and has declined the
request of the Republican party of his
state to have his name put before its ma
tional conventions as its candidate for the
presidency. Chauncey Depew has all his
life been associated with monopolists and
capitalists, still the masses and the labor
ing men look upon him as their friend;
and though he is strict Republican, the
Democrats delight to listen to his speeches
He is one of the busiest men in the United
States, and apparently the one of our
greatest business men having the most
leisure. He attends more dinners, per-
maps, than any other great railroad presi-
dent IN the country, and makes more
speeches than any professional lecturer or
noted statesman. He receives ten requests
day to deliver addresses or to reply to
speeches and toasts, and he told me this
afternoon that he made more than three
speeches every week, year in and year out,
and that his average had been more than
hundred speeches per annum for years.
In these speeches Mr.. Depew never re-
peats himself. The charge that he retails
his own stories until they become chest
nuts, is not true, for all of his speeches are
published, and he speaks again and again,
year after year, to the same associations
and OF course has to have new speech
every time. How he does it, is a wonder
to everyone. The only explanation of it
is that he is genius, and that he knows
how TO work his genius so that it will pro-
duce the greatest results.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE NEW YORK CENTRAL
RAILROAD.
The daily life of man like this ought to
be interesting. l have had some chance
to study Mr.. Depew's habits today. I
called this morning at the New York Gen.
trail offices and spent a part of the day
watching the presidents work, noting the
stream of callers which flowed almost con-
stantly in and out of his room and chat
ting with his private secretary, Mr. Duval,
about him. You reach these offices by
narrow iron stairs. A forbidding looking
negro. as black as Erebus, opens the door
of the presidents room, and your card
must pass from him to Mr.. Duval before it
gets to Mr.. Depew. Mr.. Duval's room
is about six feet wide and twenty
feet long, and the DIES K in the center of it
runs almost across the width of the room,
and in front and behind this are doors
which lead into the Office of the president
of the New York Central. This office is
perhaps twenty-five feet square. Its fin
ishing is of black walnut, and it has on
three sides walls of glass extending five
feet from the ceiling down to where they
meet the main walls of walnut or plaster.
The room is simply furnished. At roll
ing-top desk in the center sits Mr.. Depew,
and at some distance away are tables
occupied by his two stenographers.
Mr.. Depew's desk is Uttered with pa
pers, and you note by the postage
stamps on his letters that his mail comes