My Memories of Eighty YearsDepew, Chauncey M. (Chauncey Mitchell)
History
My Memories of Eighty Years
Depew, Chauncey M. (Chauncey Mitchell)
Biography; Depew, Chauncey M. (Chauncey Mitchell), 1834-1928; United States -- History -- 1865-1921
Among the many interesting characters whom I met on shipboard
was Emory Storrs, a famous Chicago lawyer. Storrs was a genius
of rare talent as an advocator. He also on occasions would make
a most successful speech, but his efforts were unequal. At one
session of the National Bar Association he carried off all honors
at their banquet. Of course, they wanted him the next year, but
then he failed entirely to meet their expectations.. Storrs was
one of the most successful advocates at the criminal bar, especially
in murder cases. He rarely failed to get an acquittal for his
client. He told me many interesting stories of his experiences.
He had a wide circuit, owing to his reputation, and tried cases
far distant from home.
I remember one of his experiences in an out-of-the-way county of
Arkansas. The hotel where they all stopped was very primitive,
and he had the same table with the judge. The most attractive
offer for breakfast by the landlady was buckwheat-cakes. She
appeared with a jug of molasses and said to the judge: "Will you
have a trickle or a dab?" The judge answered: "A dab." She then
ran her fingers around the jug and slapped a huge amount of molasses
on the judge's cakes. Storrs said: "I think I prefer a trickle."
Whereupon she dipped her fingers again in the jug and let the
drops fall from them on Storrs's cakes. The landlady was
disappointed because her cakes were unpopular with such
distinguished gentlemen.
Once Storrs was going abroad on the same ship with me on a sort
of semi-diplomatic mission. He was deeply read in English literature
and, as far as a stranger could be, familiar with the places made
famous in English and foreign classics.
He was one of the factors, as chairman of the Illinois delegation,
of the conditions which made possible the nomination of Garfield
and Arthur. In the following presidential campaign he took an
active and very useful part. Then he brought all the influences
that he could use, and they were many, to bear upon President Arthur
to make him attorney-general. Arthur was a strict formalist and
could not tolerate the thought of having such an eccentric genius
in his Cabinet. Storrs was not only disappointed but hurt that
Arthur declined to appoint him.
To make him happy his rich clients--and he had many of them--raised
a handsome purse and urged him to make a European trip. Then
the president added to the pleasure of his journey by giving him
an appointment as a sort of roving diplomat, with special duties
relating to the acute trouble then existing in regard to the
admission of American cattle into Great Britain. They were barred
because of a supposed infectious disease.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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