The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-01-22
He Once Received the Enormous Fee
of 100000 for Saving a Great
Estate from Bankruptcy.
SOME SECRETS OF POLITICS
WOULD HAVE BEEN SECRETARY OF
STATE HAD HARRISON WON IN '02.
He Believes His Reputation Has Done
Change His Style of Oratory.

The most interesting figure in the Fifty
sixth Congress will be the junior senator
from New York. To the majority of the
people who know him only by reputation
he is likely to be the biggest surprise in the
Fifty-sixth Congress. The average read
ers of newspapers see Mr.. Depew's stories
in circulation and associate his name with
what is light and frivolous. They don't re-
gard him as the serious man of business
who has made for many years an income in
excess of 100000 year by brain work. That
is not the amount he receives from the
railroads whose interests he represents, but
an aggregate Of salaries and fees from
many sources.
Very few people know Mr.. Depew as a.
lawyer; fewer still know him as a financial
expert who has managed great estates and
increased their value many millions. Most
of the men and women who have heard of
Mr.. Depew know him only as a maker Of
after-dinner speeches There is another De-
pew, and L am very much mistaken if he
does not cut a pretty wide swath in the
Senate In knowledge of public affairs he
stands on par with the best-known men,
bers of the Senate; he can make a speech
quicker than any of them, and he can make
a more convincing argument than nine
tenths of them. This is an individual opin-
ion, but it is based on pretty close familiar
ity with the subject
1t seems odd that the best-known man in
America should not be, in the commonly
accepted sense, a public man. The New
York senatorship will be the first office Mr..
Depew has held since he was secretary of
state of New York, more than thirty years
ago. Yet Mr. Depew has been in a way a
III no
thirty years old he had been elected to the
Legislature twice and In his second term
had been leader of the House and speaker
pro tempore in the absence of the presiding
officer for the entire session. He was elect
ed secretary of state of New York at TWEEN
ty-eight by a majority of more than 10000,
reversing the verdict of the year before,
when Seymour ran for Governor. During
that time Mr.. Depew spoke twice day for
six weeks without break. He declined the
mission to Japan offered to him by Johnson,
because he wanted to devote himself to
his profession. He fell into the error of
joining the Greeley Independent movement
as a candidate for Lieutenant Governor in
1872, but the next year he returned to his
old allegiance. With that exception, he has
not been a candidate for Office for thirty
five years, though he has taken an active
part in all national and gubernatorial cam
paigns He was twice a candidate for the
presidential nomination in national conven-
tions, and once carried to Chicago
unanimous New York delegation which was
more than Levi p Morton had at St. Louis.
He withdrew at Chicago in favor of Harri-
son. and Harrison offered him any place in
his Cabinet but that of secretary of state
That is a bit of history not commonly
known. If Harrison had followed the adj
vice of his friends, perhaps he would have
offered the State Department to Mr.. Depew.
They fought with him over the choice of
Blaine, and only yielded when he told them
that public sentiment was so strongly for it
that Blaine must be appointed.
When Blaine seemed to justify all that
Harrsons intimates had said against him
by his sensational withdrawal from the
Cabinet just before the meeting of the
| Minneapolis convention the President Of
fered his place to Mr.. Depew, and Mr..
Depew declined it on the ground that he
could not afford to sacrifice his business in
terests for a nine months appointment
even at the head of the State Department.
| That is a matter of history. But it is not
known to any but Mr.. Depews friends that
if President Harrison had been elected for
another term Mr.. Depew would have been
at the head of his Cabinet.
| One more chapter completes the epitome
of Mr.. Depew's political career. In 1885 Mr..
Depew could have had the caucus nomina-
ton for senator from New York. 1t was
unanimously rendered him, but he declined
it because he had promised his support to
Mr.. Evarts.
RAPID ADVANCEMENT
II started with no capital but these hands
and this head" said Mr.. Depew to an East
side audience in New York That was the
statement that brought forth the famous
retort from the gallery, And that heads a
peach Chauncey."
Mr.. Depew graduated at Yale and re-
turned to his home, in Peekskill, to practice
law. He got into politics almost immediate
ly and stayed in politics until his good hard
sense warned him that he was wasting time
which he ought to devote to business SO
he took up the practice of law more active
ly and became counsel for the Harlem Rail-
road. He did not get the place through any
favoritism, nor did he advance within ten
years TO the position Of counsel for all the
Vanderbilt railroads through favortism.
Commodore Vanderbilt was too practical a
man to advance anyone to a position of re-
sponsibility who was not fit to fill the posi-
ton to the advantage Of the Vanderbilt
lHltIGSlS. TOM the position Oh GOQnSeI MT.
Depew rose to that of president of the New
York Central Railroad; then to the chair
manship of all the Vanderbilt lines. Mean
time he had been elected by all the con-
1icting railroad interests, representing two
thirds of the railroad capital of this coun-
try, chairman of the Joint Traffic Associa-
ton, d position he held until the associa-
ton was dissolved under a decision of the
Supreme Court
1t is a curious fact that Mr.. Depew
should have been the adviser of three gen.
erations of the same family. Tt has been
the rule in the worlds history that the
second generation of family seeks new
advisers. Mr.. Depew's counsel has not only
satisfied three generations of Vanderbilts,
but with each succeeding generation he has
been advanced to posts of greater response
bility.
1t has been a popular cry with Mr.. De-
pew's critics that the Vanderbilts have
made him all that he is. But these great
systems-~the Pennsylvania. the Baltimore
e. Ohio. the Erie. the Wabash, the Delaware
& Iackawanna, the Grand Trunk, the Read
ing-all of them rivals of the Vanderbilt
roads. and several Of them very antagonis-