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Show 1 DEPEW, 78, STILL SPRIGHTLY Chauncey M. Depew, seventy-eight years old, stepped into the reception recep-tion room of his wide, high-ceilinged house at No. 27 West Fifty-fourth street, with the same springy, erect carriage which has distinguished him always. With his same old genial smile and hand clasp he demanded to know of a reporter if he were not as young looking as ever. He appeared to be. "Well," said Mr. Depew, "I suppose you want to know the secret of youth?-What? youth?-What? Most wealthy Americans don't know It? So, so. Well, they use their acquisitive faculties so much that they forget how to play. I always mixed work with play in physicianlike physician-like quantities. It's the secret of health, wealth and pleasure. But I fear it has won me the reputation of being a frivolous person." Mr. Depew shook his head. "A frivolous person," he repeated y" c .ssSfSsXNjj N " X 'J meditatively. Then his eyes twinkled. ; "Yes," in answer to a question. He had read Joseph H. Choute's declara-tiontion declara-tiontion that this is an age of defamation and crimination. Hut he (.Mr. Depew) De-pew) did not agree with it "This age isn't a circumstance to former ages," he said. "Why, back in the days when the republic first started if you were to have read ihe opposition oppo-sition papers you must have concluded that George Washington was every- j thing from a hypocritical liar to an unmentionnble bigot, not to mention the other unmentionable mentions made of him. . Hamilton was secretary of the treasury, and saying he was a defaulter was a mild form of praise. If he had lived then Mr. Choate would probably have been speechless. "However, I was reading over some letters written by a Federalist ancestor ances-tor of mine to his son Just after Jefferson's election. He wrote that .lelTerson was 'an infidel and a Jacobin.' Further, he said that he was glad he was leaving a republic that was going to the dogs under Jefferson's administration. administra-tion. Whenever I'm blue I read those letters and grow optimistic." |