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.
In Mr. Joseph Pulitzer's early struggles with his paper, the New York World, the editorial columns frequently had very severe attacks on Mr. William H. Vanderbilt and the New York Central Railroad. They were part, of course, of attacks upon monopoly.
I was frequently included in these criticisms.
The Lotos Club gave a famous dinner to George Augustus Sala, the English writer and journalist. I found myself seated beside Mr. Pulitzer, whom I had never met. When I was called upon to speak I introduced, in what I had to say about the distinguished guest, this bit of audacity. I said substantially, in addition to Mr. Sala: "We have with us to-night a great journalist who comes to the metropolis from the wild and woolly West. After he had purchased the World he came to me and said, 'Chauncey Depew, I have a scheme, which I am sure will benefit both of us. Everybody is envious of the prestige of the New York Central and the wealth of Mr. Vanderbilt. You are known as his principal adviser. Now, if in my general hostility to monopoly I include Mr. Vanderbilt and the New York Central as principal offenders, I must include you, because you are the champion in your official relationship of the corporation and of its policies and activities. I do not want you to have any feeling against me because of this. The policy will secure for the World everybody who is not a stockholder in the New York Central, or does not possess millions of money. When Mr. Vanderbilt finds that you are attacked, he is a gentleman and broad-minded enough to compensate you and will grant to you both significant promotion and a large increase in salary.'" Then Iadded: "Well, gentlemen, I have only to say that Mr. Pulitzer's experiment has been eminently successful. He has made his newspaper a recognized power and a notable organ of public opinion; its fortunes are made and so are his, and, in regard to myself, all he predicted has come true, both in promotion and in enlargement of income." When I sat down Mr. Pulitzer grasped me by the hand and said: "Chauncey Depew, you are a mighty good fellow. I have been misinformed about you. You will have friendly treatment hereafter in any newspaper which I control."The Gridiron Club of Washington, because of both its ability and genius and especially its national position, furnishes a wonderful platform for statesmen. Its genius in creating caricatures and fake pageants of current political situations at the capital and its public men is most remarkable. The president always attends, and most of the Cabinet and justices of the Supreme Court. The ambassadors and representatives of the leading governments represented in Washington are guests, and so are the best-known senators and representatives of the time. The motto of the club is "Reporters are never present. Ladies always present." Though the association is made up entirely of reporters, the secrecy is so well kept that the speakers are unusually frank.
There was a famous contest one night there, however, between President Roosevelt and Senator Foraker, who at the time were intensely antagonistic, which can never be forgotten by those present. There was a delightful interplay between William J. Bryan and President Roosevelt, when Bryan charged the president with stealing all his policies and ideas.
If the speaker grasped the peculiarities of his audience and its temperament, his task was at once the most difficult and the most delightful, and my friend, Mr. Arthur Dunn, has performed most useful service in embalming a portion of Gridiron history in his volume, "Gridiron Nights."Pierpont Morgan, the greatest of American bankers, was much more than a banker. He had a wonderful coIlection in his library and elsewhere of rare books and works of art. He was always delightful on the social side. He was very much pleased when he was elected president of the New England Society. The annual dinner that year was a remarkably brilliant affair. It was the largest in the history of the organization. The principal speaker was William Everett, son of the famous Edward Everett and himself a scholar of great acquirements and culture. His speech was another evidence of a very superior man mistaking his audience. He was principal of the Adams Academy, that great preparatory institution for Harvard University, and he had greatly enlarged its scope and usefulness.
Mr. Everett evidently thought that the guests of the New England Society of New York would be composed of men of letters, educators, and Harvard graduates. Instead of that, the audience before him were mainly bankers and successful business men whose Puritan characteristics had enabled them to win great success in the competitions in the great metropolis in every branch of business.
They were out for a good time and little else.
