3-077-865 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

American Celebrities: Mr. Chauncey M. Depew, 1890. Mr. Depew...has been an active politician and partisan all his life, and has enthusiastically upheld the supremacy of his native State [ie New York]...The Vanderbilts were valuable friends to Mr. Depew, and he was soon largely engaged in the development of the New York Central Railroad, of which he is now one of the most important officers...He is bitterly opposed to the Government running railways, and was once heard to say that there were 600,000 men working in connection with railways in America, and that they were "a Republic in themselves." Mr. Depew is in constant request to take the chair at meetings...His after-dinner speeches are admirably delivered, and, being illustrated with apt anecdotes, and amusing by their genial vein of sarcasm, they are hailed with delight. When it is known that Depew is to speak, the meeting or festivity gains in supporters...He is never more earnest and eloquent than when he is speaking of the grandeur of the Republic, and the incorruptible integrity of its first President, George Washington. We understand that Mr. Depew's orations and after-dinner speeches have been collected, and will shortly he issued in book form by Messrs. Cassell and Co'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.