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Show Raised the Roof for Grant rt Maine Lumberman Made it Clear to Greeley and Depew That the Pine Tree State Was Not for Them. fn 1872, when Horace Greeley, opposing op-posing General Grant, was running for president as the candidate of the Liberal Lib-eral Republican party, the New York state branch of that party nominated Chauncey M. Depew for lieutenant governor. The Liberal Republican national na-tional committe-3 wanted to make a strong campaign In the state of Maine, which, then as now, hek! an early fall state election, and so it sent Mr. Depew into Maine to make several addresses. His first speech was scheduled to of the late Nelson Dingley. There was a strong Libera! Republican sentiment sen-timent among the college men of the 1'ice Tree state, and so it happened that at the Lewiston meeting Mr. Depew De-pew found himself on the platform with the president of Bates college and several of his professors, as well as with the party leaders in that locality, lo-cality, and the college president acted as chairman of the meeting. The hail was packer;. But Mr. Depew De-pew noticed that while the audience was orderly, it was not very demonstrative. demon-strative. He dldhis best to warm it up. but without any great success, though he drew forth plenty of applause ap-plause from the college men on the platform. Wheu the finished, the college president pres-ident rose. "Fellow citizens," he exclaimed, ex-claimed, "the nominee of the Liberal Republican party fcr president, Horace Greeley, is a citizen of New York. The distinguished gentleman vre have heard tonight, is a nominee of the Liberal Republican party of New York for lieutenant governor. I move three cheers for the distinguished distin-guished sous of New York, our candidates, candi-dates, Horace Greeley and Chauncey M. Depew." Then he braced himself. swung his arms, and shouted: "Hip! Hip!" ' "His own hurrah and that of those who occupied the platform with him greeted him. Again he waved his arms with an impressive gesture, "flip! Hip!" he shouted. The only response was his own hurrah hur-rah ana that of two professors. For a third time he waved his arms, and, "Hip! Hip!" he cried. His own hurrah was the only response. re-sponse. Then there arose in the center of the house a giant of a lumberman, who had a good-natured face and a voice that had plainly been trained by matching it with the winds of winter in the lumber camps. "Now, fellow citizens," he shrilled forth, "they have tried to give three cheers for those New Yorkers. I move that we just take the roof off for General Gen-eral Grant!" Instanly pandemonium broke loose and the cheering lasted for ten minutes, min-utes, so that the roof actually seemed almost to vibrate with it. Through it all sat Mr. Depew and the college president pres-ident and the professors, and when it was ended silently and gently they departed from that hall. From that hour forth Mr. Depew never doubted for whom Maine would go "hell bent" in the fall. And today he laughs whenever he recalls the incident, in-cident, but never so heartily as did General Grant when the story was told to him for the first time at a little dinner given In his honor just before he smarted upon his trip around the world. (Copyright, 1910. by E. .1. Edwards.) |