Chapter 27

It is a very valuable experience for an American to attend the annual banquet of the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris. The French Government recognizes the affair by having a company of their most picturesquely uniformed soldiers standing guard both inside and outside the hall. The highest officials of the French Government always attend and make speeches. The American Ambassador replies in a speech partly in English, and, if he is sufficiently equipped, partly in French. General Horace Porter and Henry White were equally happy both in their native language and in that of the French. The French statesmen, however, were so fond of Myron T. Herrick that they apparently not only grasped his cordiality but understood perfectly his eloquence. The honor has several times been assigned to me of making the American speech in unadulterated American. The French may not have understood, but with their quick apprehension the applause or laughter of the Americans was instantly succeeded by equal manifestations on the part of the French.

Among the many things which we have inherited from our English ancestry are public dinners and after-dinner speeches. The public dinner is of importance in Great Britain and utilized for every occasion. It is to the government the platform where the ministers can lay frankly before the country matters which they could not develop in the House of Commons. Through the dinner speech they open the way and arouse public attention for measures which they intend to propose to Parliament, and in this way bring the pressure of public opinion to their support.

In the same way every guild and trade have their festive functions with serious purpose, and so have religious, philanthropic, economic, and sociological movements. We have gone quite far in this direction, but have not perfected the system as they have on the other side. I have been making after-dinner speeches for sixty years to all sorts and conditions of people, and on almost every conceivable subject. I have found these occasions of great value because under the good-fellowship of the occasion an unpopular truth can be sugar-coated with humor and received with applause, while in the processes of digestion the next day it is working with the audience and through the press in the way the pill was intended. A popular audience will forgive almost anything with which they do not agree, if the humorous way in which it is put tickles their risibilities.

Mr. Gladstone was very fine at the lord mayor's dinner at Guild Hall, where the prime minister develops his policies. So it was with Lord Salisbury and Balfour, but the prince of after-dinner speakers in England is Lord Rosebery. He has the humor, the wit, and the artistic touch which fascinates and enraptures his audience.

I have met in our country all the men of my time who have won fame in this branch of public address. The most remarkable in effectiveness and inspiration was Henry Ward Beecher. A banquet was always a success if it could have among its speakers William M. Evarts, Joseph H. Choate, James S. Brady, Judge John R. Brady, General Horace Porter, or Robert G. Ingersoll.

After General Grant settled in New York he was frequently a guest at public dinners and always produced an impression by simple, direct, and effective oratory.

General Sherman, on the other hand, was an orator as well as a fighter. He never seemed to be prepared, but out of the occasion would give soldierly, graphic, and picturesque presentations of thought and description.

Not to have heard on these occasions Robert G. Ingersoll was to have missed being for the evening under the spell of a magician. I have been frequently asked if I could remember occasions of this kind which were of more than ordinary interest.

After-dinner oratory, while most attractive at the time, is evanescent, but some incidents are interesting in memory. At the time of Queen Victoria's jubilee I was present where a representative of Canada was called upon for a speech. With the exception of the Canadian and myself the hosts and guests were all English. My Canadian friend enlarged upon the wonders of his country. A statement of its marvels did not seem sufficient for him unless it was augmented by comparisons with other countries to the glory of Canada, and so he compared Canada with the United States. Canada had better and more enduring institutions, she had a more virile, intelligent, and progressive population, and she had protected herself, as the United States did not, against undesirable immigration, and in everything which constituted an up-to-date, progressive, healthy, and hopeful commonwealth she was far in advance of the United States.

I was called upon immediately afterwards and said I would agree with the distinguished gentleman from Canada that in one thing at least Canada was superior to the United States, and it was that she had far more land, but it was mostly ice. I regret to remember that my Canadian friend lost his temper.

One of the historical dinners of New York, which no one will forget who was there, was just after the close of the Civil War, or, as my dear old friend, Colonel Watterson, called it, "The War between the States." The principal guests were General Sherman and Henry W. Grady of Atlanta, Ga. General Sherman, in his speech, described the triumphant return of the Union Army to Washington, its review by the President, and then its officers and men returning to private life and resuming their activities and industries as citizens. It was a word-picture of wonderful and startling picturesqueness and power and stirred an audience, composed largely of veterans who had been participants both in the battles and in the parades, to the highest degree of enthusiasm. Mr. Grady followed. He was a young man with rare oratorical gifts. He described the return of the Confederate soldiers to their homes after the surrender at Appomattox. They had been four years fighting and marching. They were ragged and poor. They returned to homes and farms, many of which had been devastated. They had no capital, and rarely animals or farming utensils necessary to begin again. But with superb courage, not only on their own part but with the assistance of their wives, sisters, and daughters, they made the desert land flourish and resurrected the country.

This remarkable description of Grady, which I only outline, came as a counterpart to the triumphant epic of General Sherman. The effect was electric, and beyond almost any that have ever occurred in New York or anywhere, and Grady sprang into international fame.

Joseph H. Choate was a most dangerous fellow speaker to his associates who spoke before him. I had with him many encounters during fifty years, and many times enjoyed being the sufferer by his wit and humor. On one occasion Choate won the honors of the evening by an unexpected attack. There is a village in western New York which is named after me. The enterprising inhabitants, boring for what might be under the surface of their ground, discovered natural gas. According to American fashion, they immediately organized a company and issued a prospectus for the sale of the stock. The prospectus fell into the hands of Mr. Choate. With great glee he read it and then with emphasis the name of the company: "The Depew Natural Gas Company, Limited," and waving the prospectus at me shouted: "Why limited?"

There have been two occasions in Mr. Choate's after-dinner speeches much commented upon both in this country and abroad. As I was present on both evenings, it seems the facts ought to be accurately stated. The annual dinner of the "Friendly Sons of St. Patrick" occurred during one of the years when the Home Rule question was most acute in England and actively discussed here. At the same time our Irish fellow citizens, with their talent for public life, had captured all the offices in New York City. They had the mayor, the majority of the Board of Aldermen, and a large majority of the judges. When Mr. Choate spoke he took up the Home Rule question, and, without indicating his own views, said substantially: "We Yankees used to be able to govern ourselves, but you Irish have come here and taken the government away from us. You have our entire city administration in your hands, and you do with us as you like. We are deprived of Home Rule. Now what you are clamoring for both at home and abroad is Home Rule for Ireland. With such demonstrated ability in capturing the greatest city on the western continent, and one of the greatest in the world, why don't you go back to Ireland and make, as you would, Home Rule there a success?"

I was called a few minutes afterwards to a conference of the leading Irishmen present. I was an honorary member of that society, and they were in a high state of indignation. The more radical thought that Mr. Choate's speech should be resented at once. However, those who appreciated its humor averted hostile action, but Mr. Choate was never invited to an Irish banquet again.

The second historical occasion was when the Scotch honored their patron Saint, St. Andrew. The attendance was greater than ever before, and the interest more intense because the Earl of Aberdeen was present. The earl was at that time Governor-General of Canada, but to the Scotchmen he was much more than that, because he was the chief of the Clan Gordon. The earl came to the dinner in full Highland costume. Lady Aberdeen and the ladies of the vice-regal court were in the gallery. I sat next to the earl and Choate sat next to me. Choate said: "Chauncey, are Aberdeen's legs bare?" I looked under the table-cloth and discovered that they were naturally so because of his costume. I answered: "Choate, they are."

I thought nothing of it until Choate began his speech, in which he said: "I was not fully informed by the committee of the importance of the occasion. I did not know that the Earl of Aberdeen was to be here as a guest of honor. I was especially and unfortunately ignorant that he was coming in the full panoply of his great office as chief of Clan Gordon. If I had known that I would have left my trousers at home."

Aberdeen enjoyed it, the ladies in the gallery were amused, but the Scotch were mad, and Choate lost invitations to future Scotch dinners.

Few appreciate the lure of the metropolis. It attracts the successful to win greater success with its larger opportunities. It has resistless charm with the ambitious and the enterprising. New York, with its suburbs, which are really a part of itself, is the largest city in the world. It is the only true cosmopolitan one. It has more Irish than any city in Ireland, more Germans and Italians than any except the largest cities in Germany or Italy. It has more Southerners than are gathered in any place in any Southern State, and the same is true of Westerners and those from the Pacific coast and New England, except in Chicago, San Francisco, or Boston. There is also a large contingent from the West Indies, South America, and Canada.

The people who make up the guests at a great dinner are the survival of the fittest of these various settlers in New York. While thousands fail and go back home or drop by the way, these men have made their way by superior ability, foresight, and adaptability through the fierce competitions of the great city. They are unusually keen-witted and alert. For the evening of the banquet they leave behind their business and its cares and are bent on being entertained, amused, and instructed. They are a most catholic audience, broad-minded, hospitable, and friendly to ideas whether they are in accord with them or not, providing they are well presented. There is one thing they will not submit to, and that is being bored.

These functions are usually over by midnight, and rarely last so long; while out in the country and in other towns, it is no unusual thing to have a dinner with speeches run along until the early hours of the next morning. While public men, politicians, and aspiring orators seek their opportunities upon this platform in New York, few succeed and many fail. It is difficult for a stranger to grasp the situation and adapt himself at once to its atmosphere. I have narrated in preceding pages some remarkable successes, and will give a few instances of very able and distinguished men who lost touch of their audiences.

One of the ablest men in the Senate was Senator John T. Morgan, of Alabama. I was fond of him personally and admired greatly his many and varied talents. He was a most industrious and admirable legislator, and a debater of rare influence. He was a master of correct and scholarly English, and one of the very few who never went to the reporters' room to correct his speeches. As they were always perfect, he let them stand as they were delivered.

Senator Morgan was a great card on a famous occasion among the many well-known men who were also to speak. Senator Elihu Root presided with his usual distinction. Senator Morgan had a prepared speech which he read. It was unusually long, but very good. On account of his reputation the audience was, for such an audience, wonderfully patient and frequent and enthusiastic in its applause. Mistaking his favorable reception, Senator Morgan, after he had finished the manuscript, started in for an extended talk. After the hour had grown to nearly two, the audience became impatient, and the senator, again mistaking its temper, thought they had become hostile and announced that at many times and many places he had been met with opposition, but that he could not be put down or silenced. Mr. Root did the best he could to keep the peace, but the audience, who were anxious to hear the other speakers, gave up hope and began to leave, with the result that midnight saw an empty hall with a presiding officer and an orator.

At another great political dinner I sat beside Governor Oglesby, of Illinois. He was famous as a war governor and as a speaker. There were six speakers on the dais, of whom I was one. Happily, my turn came early. The governor said to me: "How much of the gospel can these tenderfeet stand?" "Well, Governor," I answered, "there are six speakers to-night, and the audience will not allow the maximum of time occupied to be more than thirty minutes. Any one who exceeds that will lose his crowd and, worse than that, he may be killed by the eloquent gentlemen who are bursting with impatience to get the floor, and who are to follow him."

"Why," said the governor, "I don't see how any one can get started in thirty minutes."

"Well," I cautioned, "please do not be too long."

When the midnight hour struck the hall was again practically empty, the governor in the full tide of his speech, which evidently would require about three hours, and the chairman declared the meeting adjourned.

Senator Foraker, of Ohio, who was one of the appointed speakers, told me the next morning that at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where he was stopping, he was just getting into bed when the governor burst into his room and fairly shouted: "Foraker, no wonder New York is almost always wrong. You saw to-night that it would not listen to the truth. Now I want to tell you what I intended to say." He was shouting with impassioned eloquence, his voice rising until, through the open windows, it reached Madison Square Park, when the watchman burst in and said: "Sir, the guests in this hotel will not stand that any longer, but if you must finish your speech I will take you out in the park."

During Cleveland's administration one of the New York banquets became a national affair. The principal speaker was the secretary of the interior, Lucius Q. C. Lamar, who afterwards became United States senator and justice of the Supreme Court. Mr. Lamar was one of the ablest and most cultured men in public life, and a fine orator. I was called upon so late that it was impossible to follow any longer the serious discussions of the evening, and what the management and the audience wanted from me was some fun.

Lamar, with his Johnsonian periods and the lofty style of Edmund Burke, furnished an opportunity for a little pleasantry. He came to me, when I had finished, in great alarm and said: "My appearance here is not an ordinary one and does not permit humor. I am secretary of the interior, and the representative of the president and his administration. My speech is really the message of the president to the whole country, and I wish you would remedy any impression which the country might otherwise receive from your humor."

This I was very glad to do, but it was an instance of which I have met many, of a very distinguished and brilliant gentleman taking himself too seriously. At another rather solemn function of this kind I performed the same at the request of the management, but with another protest from the orator and his enmity.

In reminiscing, after he retired from the presidency, Mr. Cleveland spoke to me of his great respect and admiration for Mr. Lamar. Cleveland's speeches were always short. His talent was for compression and concentration, and he could not understand the necessity for an effort of great length. He told me that while Justice Lamar was secretary of the interior he came to him one day and said: "Mr. President, I have accepted an invitation to deliver an address in the South, and as your administration may be held responsible for what I say, I wish you would read it over and make any corrections or suggestions."

Mr. Cleveland said the speech was extraordinarily long though very good, and when he returned it to Secretary Lamar he said to him: "That speech will take at least three hours to deliver. A Northern audience would never submit to over an hour. Don't you think you had better cut it down?" The secretary replied: "No, Mr. President; a Southern audience expects three hours, and would be better satisfied with five."

Justice Miller, one of the ablest of the judges of the Supreme Court at that time, was the principal speaker on another occasion. He was ponderous to a degree, and almost equalled in the emphasis of his utterances, what was once said of Daniel Webster, that every word weighed twelve pounds. I followed him. The Attorney-General of the United States, who went back to Washington the next day with Justice Miller, told me that as soon as they had got on the train the justice commenced to complain that I had wholly misunderstood his speech, and that no exaggeration of interpretation would warrant what I said. The judge saw no humor in my little effort to relieve the situation, and took it as a reply of opposing counsel. He said that the justice took it up from another phase after leaving Philadelphia, and resumed his explanation from another angle as to what he meant after they reached Baltimore. When the train arrived at its destination and they separated in the Washington station, the justice turned to the attorney-general and said: "Damn Depew! Good-night."

Such are the perils of one who good-naturedly yields to the importunities of a committee of management who fear the failure with their audience of their entertainment.

The great dinners of New York are the Chamber of Commerce, which is a national function, as were also for a long time, during the presidency of Mr. Choate, those of the New England Society. The annual banquets of the Irish, Scotch, English, Welsh, Holland, St. Nicholas, and the French, are also most interesting, and sometimes by reason of the presence of a national or international figure, assume great importance. The dinner which the Pilgrims Society tenders to the British ambassador gives him an opportunity, without the formalities and conventions of his office, of speaking his mind both to the United States and to his own people.

The annual banquets of the State societies are now assuming greater importance. Each State has thousands of men who have been or still are citizens, but who live in New York. Those dinners attract the leading politicians of their several States. It is a platform for the ambitious to be president and sometimes succeeds.

Garfield made a great impression at one of these State dinners, so did Foraker, and at the last dinner of the Ohio Society the star was Senator Warren G. Harding. On one occasion, when McKinley and Garfield were present, in the course of my speech I made a remark which has since been adopted as a sort of motto by the Buckeye State. Ohio, I think, has passed Virginia as a mother of presidents. It is remarkable that the candidates of both great parties are now of that State. I said in the closing of my speech, alluding to the distinguished guests and their prospects: "Some men have greatness thrust upon them, some are born great, and some are born in Ohio."

One of the greatest effects produced by a speech was by Henry Ward Beecher at an annual dinner of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick. At the time, the Home Rule question was more than ordinarily acute and Fenianism was rabid. While Mr. Beecher had great influence upon his audience, his audience had equal influence upon him. As he enlarged upon the wrongs of Ireland the responses became more enthusiastic and finally positively savage. This stirred the orator up till he gave the wildest approval to direct action and revolution, with corresponding cheers from the diners, standing and cheering. Mr. Beecher was explaining that speech for about a year afterwards. I was a speaker on the same platform.

Mr. Beecher always arrived late, and everybody thought it was to get the applause as he came in but he explained to me that it was due to his method of preparation. He said his mind would not work freely until three hours after he had eaten. Many speakers have told me the same thing. He said when he had a speech to make at night, whether it was at a dinner or elsewhere, that he took his dinner in the middle of the day, and then a glass of milk and crackers at five o'clock, with nothing afterwards. Then in the evening his mind was perfectly clear and under absolute control.

The Lotos Club has been for fifty years to New York what the Savage Club is to London. It attracts as its guests the most eminent men of letters who visit this country. Its entertainments are always successful. For twenty-nine years it had for its president Mr. Frank R. Lawrence, a gentleman with a genius for introducing distinguished strangers with most felicitous speeches, and a committee who selected with wonderful judgment the other speakers of the evening. A successor to Mr. Lawrence, and of equal merit, has been found in Chester S. Lord, now president of the Lotos Club. Mr. Lord was for more than a third of a century managing editor of the New York Sun, and is now chancellor of the University of the State of New York.

I remember one occasion where the most tactful man who ever appeared before his audience slipped his trolley, and that was Bishop Potter. The bishop was a remarkably fine preacher and an unusually attractive public speaker and past master of all the social amenities of life. The guest of the evening was the famous Canon Kingsley, author of "Hypatia" and other works at that time universally popular. The canon had the largest and reddest nose one ever saw. The bishop, among the pleasantries of his introduction, alluded to this headlight of religion and literature. The canon fell from grace and never forgave the bishop.

On Lotos nights I have heard at their best Lord Houghton, statesman and poet, Mark Twain, Stanley the explorer, and I consider it one of the distinctions as well as pleasures of my life to have been a speaker at the Lotos on more occasions than any one else during the last half century.