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
While Mr. Cleveland was in such unprecedented popular disfavor
when he retired to private life, his fame as president increases
through the years, and he is rapidly assuming foremost position
in the estimation of the people.
Mr. Cleveland had a peculiar style in his speeches and public
documents. It was criticised as labored and that of an essayist.
I asked him, after he had retired to private life, how he had
acquired it. He said his father was a clergyman and he had been
educated by him largely at home. His father was very particular
about his compositions and his English, so that he acquired a
ministerial style. The result of this was that whenever any of
the members of the local bar died, he was called upon to write
the obituary resolutions.
To take a leap over intervening years: After Mr. Cleveland retired
from his second term I used to meet him very frequently on social
occasions and formal celebrations. He soon left the practice of
law and settled in Princeton, where he did great and useful service,
until he died, as trustee of the university and a lecturer before
the students.
Riding in the same carriage with him in the great procession at
the funeral of General Sherman, he reminisced most interestingly
in regard to his experiences while president. Every little while
there would break out a cheer and then a shout in the crowd of
one of the old campaign cries: "Grover, Grover, four years more."
Mr. Cleveland remarked: "I noticed while president a certain
regularity and recrudescence of popular applause, and it was
the same in every place I visited." That cry, "Grover, Grover,
four years more!" would occur every third block, and during
our long ride the mathematical tradition was preserved.
XI. BENJAMIN HARRISON
The year 1888 was one of singular experience for me. I was working
very hard in my professional duties and paying no attention to
public affairs.
The district conventions to send delegates to the national
convention at Chicago began electing their delegates and alternates,
and passing resolutions instructing them to vote for me as their
candidate for president.
After several districts had thus acted I was asked to meet in
Whitelaw Reid's office in the Tribune Building Thomas C. Platt,
our State leader, and United States Senator Frank Hiscock. Platt
demanded to know why I was making this canvass without consulting
the organization or informing them. I told him I was doing nothing
whatever by letter, telegram, or interview; that I had seen no one,
and no one had been to see me.
Mr. Platt, who had been all his life accomplishing things through
the organization, was no believer in spontaneous uprisings, and
asked me frankly: "Are you a candidate?" I told him I was not,
because I did not believe I could be nominated with the present
condition of the public mind in regard to railways, and I was
president of one of the largest systems.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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