HALE AT NINETY-THREE

Taranaki Daily News, 1 June 1927, Page 7

HALE AT NINETY-THREE

WIT OF MR. CHAUNCEY-.DEPEW. AMERICA’S GREATEST ORATOR. San Francisco, May 3. Mr. Chauncey Depew, America’s greatest after-dinner speaker, who was the nation’s orator at the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty, the centennial celebration of the inauguration of George Washington and many other notable occasions, such as the Chicago Exposition, has still-the same, bright, cheery, optimistic outlook on the world and its people, although he has now passed his 93rd birthday. Interviewers found him in excellent health and spirits, states the New Zealand Herald correspondent. Mr. Depew’s rare wit flashed at its brightest when he replied to a question, couched in the vernacular of the smoking-room, “Are you on the water waggon’” “No,” he fairly roared, but his eyes twinkled merrily. “I drink little more and little leta than ever I did, but, before they get any liquor into me, ! I must know the history of it, and where it comes from.” He grew, serious at the next obvious question, and remarked that he thought the prospect of upsetting prohibition was very remote.

“This old world is getting better every day,” Mr. Depew said. “The phrase, ‘the good old days’ is pure fiction. The only trouble is that all your playmates are gone. If a man has lived carefully and preserved his health, he is just as anxious for playmates at 93 as he is at 23. But I find a peculiar advantage in being in the nineties. There are no ‘strings’ tied to expressions or goodwill. Nobody is jealous of you. Everybody knows you don’t want anyone’s job, and that you couldn’t take it if you did.” Mr. Depew hesitated when the question was put to him, but, on reflection, observed that he hoped and believed President Coolidge would be renominated and re-elected. The veterin did not affect to understand what was meant by the expression, “the restlessness of modern youth.” He did not think youth had changed much from his own early years. “Eat and drink what you want and when you like; my opinion on that has never changed,” he said, when asked for a longevity recipe. “The emancipation of woman is written plainly in the skies,” was his comment. “No political party dare overlook her needs.”