rs he thought the failure to reach the supreme recognition to
which he was entitled was due to his humor having created the
impression in the minds of his countrymen that he was not a serious
person.

Wayne MacVeagh was a very interesting and original speaker. He
had a finished and cultured style and a very attractive delivery.
He was past master of sarcasm as well as of burning eloquence on
patriotic themes. When I was a freshman at Yale he was a senior.
I heard him very often at our debating society, the Linonian, where
he gave promise of his future success. His father-in-law was
Simon Cameron, secretary of war, and he was one of the party which
went with Mr. Lincoln to Gettysburg and heard Lincoln's famous
address. He told me that it did not produce much impression at
the time, and it was long after before the country woke up to its
surpassing excellence, and he did not believe the story still
current that Mr. Lincoln wrote it on an envelope while on the train
to Gettysburg.

MacVeagh became one of the leaders of the American bar and was
at one time attorney-general of the United States. He was successful
as a diplomat as minister to Turkey and to Italy.

I heard him on many occasions and spoke with him on many after-dinner
platforms. As an after-dinner speaker he was always at his best
if some one attacked him, because he had a very quick temper. He
got off on me a witticism which had considerable vogue at the time.
When I was elected president of the New York Central Railroad,
the Yale Association of New York gave me a dinner. It was largely
attended by distinguished Yale graduates from different parts of
the country. MacVeagh was one of the speakers. In the course of
his speech he said: "I was alarmed when I found that our friend
Chauncey had been elected president of the most unpopular railroad
there is in the country. But rest assured, my friends, that he
will change the situation, and before his administration is closed
make it the most popular of our railroad corporations, because
he will bring the stock within the reach of the poorest citizen
of the land." The stock was then at the lowest point in its history
on account of its life-and-death fight with the West Shore Railroad,
and so, of course, the reverse of my friend MacVeagh's prediction
was not difficult.

One of the greatest and most remarkable orators of his time was
Henry Ward Beecher. I never met his equal in readiness and
versat