The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-02-19
CHAUNCEY DEPEW.

For many years the fame of Hon.
story-teller and a speechmaker has
been so continuously spread broadcast
in the public prints and by those per-
sons who have come in contact with
him only on public and social occasions
that his more solid qualities have been
almost lost sight of by a large proper
ton of his fellow-citizens.
Yet, in the view of those who know
him beSt-hiS business associates, those
who have cO-operated with him in pol
itics and the hundreds of working
newspaper men who have had occasion
often to meet him in circumstances
when the stress of affairs has been eX-
acting-Mr. Depew'S characteristics as
an acute, deeply-cultivated, serious
minded, tremendously industrious man,
have seemed overwhelmingly in the
ascendancy. There is no doubt that he
has been vastly helped by his faculty
for saying the right thing in the. right
place, by his ability to amuSe and by
his power of oratory, but these things
have only supplemented those which
he has made most helpful in his jour
ney through life.
HIS MOST VALUABLE QUALITIES.
In the opinion of one who has been
intimately associated with Mr.. DepeW
for more than a score of years, his
most valuable qualities have been the
power of rapid and thorough absorp-
ton and retention of facts, and the
ability to correlate them properly-to
master the true meaning of the whole.
All the ambitions of Mr.. Depew's early
manhood ran along legal and political
lines; yet when, at As, after long serv-
ice as general counsel for the Wander
bilt lines, he was called to the eXecu-
tive department as second vice preSi-
dent of the New York Central, in 1882,
he speedily transformed himself into
so practical a railroad man that three
years later he was made chief of the
line, which position he filed till less
than a year ago, and during its period
of greatest progress, and then was pro-
NOTED to the craftsmanship of all the
Vanderbilt lines.
A TYPICAL AMERICAN PRODUCT.
Chauncey Mitchell Depew is a typical
American product, if ever there was
one. He has now been in active life
about forty-three years. He began
with ability and Willingness to work
as his main resources, and he is round
ing out his career as a member of the
most important legislative body in the
world, and as the highest grade rail
road employee-for he delights to be
termed a railroad employee-in the
United States, the land where railroad
ing has undergone its greatest develop
ment.
Those who believe that the composite
race which is being evolved out of many
nationalities in this country will fur
nish a remarkable new type Of human
ity, can find much support for their
theory in the personality of Mr.. Depew.
In his veins flows the blood of those
Huguenots who came to America when
driven from France and settled the
beautiful town of New Rochelle; of the
sturdy old Dutchman who founded that
New Amsterdam which has become the
greater New York: of the hardy Eng
lishman who fled from old world intol-
erance. The Pilgrim strain in Mr.. De-
pew comes from the Sherman family.
whose most eminent representative was
Roger Sherman, a signer of the declar-
alton of independence. His mother,
Martha Mitchell, was a granddaughter
of Rev. Josiah Sherman, the brother
of Roger, and her father, Chauncey R.
Mitchell, was a lawyer of unusual at
tainments, whose career was cut short
by an early death.
Captain Isaac Depew, Chauncey De-
pew's father, was rugged old chap of
massive physique, who lived in Peek
skill. He owned sloops that sailed up
and down the Hudson, country stores
at various points along the river. farms