Excerpt from Speech of Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, at the Twentieth Annual Dinner Given by the Montauk Club of Brooklyn, in Celebration of His Seventy-Seventh Birthday, on April 29, 1911

States. In a sense, it is. Within its walls, except in debate upon political questions, there are no divisions of parties. Republicans and Democrats, Stand-patters and Progressives, mingle on the floor, in committee rooms, in the cloak room and the dining room, with a daily familiarity which speedily removes the rough edges from the most acidulous, irritable and irritating of Senators. In the course of years, with hardly an exception, they all become cordial friends, with the heartiest good wishes for long continuance in the Senate. There is a great difference in the jubilant expectations with which one enters upon a new field of work and the calm and reminiscent mood with which he returns to private life. The principal difference which I find now is that while I was in I was in receipt on the average of one hundred and fifty letters a day, one hundred of them wanting things, most of which it was impossible for me to procure, and the other fifty abusing me because I failed to land the writer in a diplomatic or a con sular position, in a high place in the departments, or upon the permanent pension roll either as a beginner or with an increase. As an out, my mail dwindles to twenty letters a day, most of them giving advice. Some say, You are seventy-seven years of age, remarkably well preserved, and yet you cannot hope to reach one hundred unless you quit dining and eating. Others say, Chew until the last morsel has disappeared before you swallow. Others say, You must stop drinking. Others prescribe the limits of exercise and the kinds of health foods. Others tell me that the judgment of a man past seventy is never good as to investments, that radical legislation is to impair the income of railway securities, and, bad management, of industries, but that he has a mine to develop or a fertilizer to put upon the market and with a little money the returns will mean luxury for life.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.