resident Calvin Coolidge, a one-hundred-per-cent
American." The convention went off its feet with a whoop and
Coolidge was nominated hands down.

I again had a personal experience. The committee on resolutions,
not being prepared to report, there was that interval of no
business which is the despair of presiding officers of conventions.
The crowd suddenly began calling for me. While, of course, I had
thought much on the subject, I had not expected to be called upon
and had no prepared speech. Happily, fifteen thousand faces and
fifteen thousand voices giving uproarious welcome both steadied
and inspired me. Though I was past eighty-six years of age, my
voice was in as good condition as at forty, and was practically
the only one which did fill that vast auditorium. The press of
the country featured the effort next day in a way which was
most gratifying.

Among the thousands who greeted me on the streets and in the
hotel lobbies with congratulations and efforts to say something
agreeable and complimentary, I selected one compliment as unique.
He was an enthusiast. "Chauncey Depew," he said, "I have for
over twenty years wanted to shake hands with you. Your speech
was a wonder. I was half a mile off, way up under the roof, and
heard every word of it, and it was the only one I was able to hear.
That you should do this in your eighty-seventh year is a miracle.
But then my father was a miracle. On his eighty-fifth birthday he
was in just as good shape as you are to-day, and a week afterwards
he was dead."

XXII. JOURNALISTS AND FINANCIERS

In reminiscences of my journalistic friends I do not include many
of the most valued who are still living. Of those who have passed
away one of the most faithful and devoted was Edward H. Butler,
editor and proprietor of the Buffalo Evening News.

Mr. Butler began at the bottom as a newspaper man and very early
and rapidly climbed to the top. He secured control of the
Evening News and soon made one of the most, if not the most,
widely circulated, influential, and prosperous papers of western
New York. Personally and through his paper he was for many years
my devoted friend. To those he loved he had an unbounded fidelity
and generosity. He possessed keen insight and kept thoroughly
abreast of public affairs was a journalist of high order.

It was my privilege to know Charles A. Dana very well. I first
met him when he was on the New York Tribune and closely allie