THE LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 
 
 GROVER CLEVELAND 
 
 WILLIAM O. STODDARD 
 M 
 
 Author of " George Washington" "John Adams and Thomas Jefferson" 
 
 " Madison, Monroe and John Quincy Adams, 1 1 "Jackson and Van 
 
 Buren" "Harrison^ Tyler and Polk" " Taylor, 
 
 Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan" "Lincoln 
 
 and Johnson" "Ulysses S. 
 
 Grant" etc. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES & BROTHER 
 

 S? 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1888, 
 BY FREDERICK A. STOKES & BROTHER. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Cleveland Family A Spreading Tree The Eighth 
 Generation The Young Minister s Romance A Coun 
 try Parsonage Birth of Grover Cleveland I 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Central New York Early Political Training Going to 
 the Academy A Noisy Bell A Clerk at Twelve Hab 
 its of Study More Schooling Two Years in a Country 
 Store Death of Rev. Mr. Cleveland 10 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A Year in New York City Ambition Taking Shape A 
 Friend in Need Westward Ho! An Uncle Worth 
 Having Short-Horn Literature Rod and Gun 21 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Cleveland a Law Student All Night among the Books 
 The Drift of Politics Admitted to Practice First 
 Success The Civil War Two Brothers in the Army 
 and One to Care for their Mother Steady Advances . . . 30 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland Assistant District- Attorney Drafted as a 
 Soldier A Defeated Candidate Rising at the Bar 
 Elected Sheriff Two Executions 43 
 
 922874 
 
iv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Defective Financiering The First Case in a New Law 
 Practice Capacity for Work Death of Oscar Folsom 
 Old Law Cases Preparing for a National Reputa 
 tion 58 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Politics after the Civil War The New Vote The New 
 Democratic Party Mr. Cleveland Talked of for Alder 
 man Elected Mayor of Buffalo 66 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Mayors Reform Message The First Veto Skir 
 mishing The Great Fight over the Sewer The Street- 
 Cleaning Contract Minor Vetoes The Semi-Centen 
 nial of Buffalo 78 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Widening Fame The Buffalo Pattern Bolt The Cleve 
 land Boom Nominated for Governor of New York 
 The Scratchers A State Canvass Watched by the Na 
 tion A Great Majority and a New Star in American 
 Politics 102 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Fruits of the Victory Extraordinary Expenses of 
 the Mayor s Office The Dinner at the Manhattan Club 
 Speech of the Governor-Elect Going to Work at Al 
 bany The First Message to the Legislature 115 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Bachelor s Hall at the Executive Mansion The Execu 
 tive Chamber Open Doors Retained for the State 
 Habits of Business A Legislative Critic and Editor 
 Veto Messages The Five-Cent Fare Bill The Mayor s 
 Bill 126 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Approval of Good Men Minor Vetoes Prisons and 
 Criminals The Pardoning Power Rising to a Higher 
 Level of Fame The Purity of Elections 143 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hospitalities of the Executive Mansion Neglect of Polit 
 ical Machinery Balanced Parties The Presidency 
 Protection and Free Trade Second Annual Message of 
 Governor Cleveland Occasional Public Speeches 1 50 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Presidential Outlook in 1884 Looking for an Avail 
 able Candidate The New York Battleground The 
 Rival Chicago Conventions The Nomination of Graver 
 Cleveland and James G. Blaine 1 66 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Great Fight for the New York Vote Governor 
 Cleveland s Acceptance Partisan Virulence The Rip 
 Van Winkle Vote An Astonishing Result Triumph 
 of the Democratic Party After the Election 181 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The Main Question Old Parties and Oppositions New 
 Parties out of Old Old and New Washington City 
 The White House The Inauguration of President 
 Cleveland The Inaugural Address 199 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Executive Business Offices A Coat of Arms The Cab 
 inet The Commission of General Grant Office Seekers 
 A Working President Death of Vice-President Hen- 
 dricks The First Annual Message to Congress 212 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The Political Situation The Chinese Question The La 
 bor Commission The Butter Bill The Social Season 
 A Wedding at the White House The Home at Oak 
 View 231 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The New Management of Social Affairs The Opposition 
 The Dependent Pension Bill The Texas Aid Bill- 
 Second Annual Message An Island Queen A Centen- 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 nial Year Summer Vacation Tours West and South 
 Annual Message to the Fiftieth Congress The Mill 
 Bill 240 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 An Undisputed Leadership The Democratic National 
 Convention Grover Cleveland Renominated for Pres 
 ident by Acclamation Allen G. Thurman for Vice- 
 President The National Republican Convention 
 Harrison and Morton 254 
 
Lives of the Presidents of the J/nitzd State* 
 
 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 TWENTY-SECOND PRESIDENT 
 
 BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Cleveland Family A Spreading Tree The Eighth 
 Generation The Young Minister s Romance A 
 Country Parsonage Birth of Grover Cleveland. 
 
 ABOUT a quarter of a century before the Wash 
 ington family settled in Virginia, there arrived in 
 the colony of Massachusetts Bay a man named 
 Moses Cleveland. 
 
 In the year 1635 only a few scattered settlements 
 along the Atlantic coast were held by the English 
 pioneers. Only a very few clearings had been made 
 above tide water on the bank of any river. The 
 Canadas were held by the French, and they claimed 
 also the vast interior, the lake country, and the 
 valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries. The 
 Spaniards had as yet no thought of ever losing any 
 part of their possessions on the continent or among 
 the islands. Great Britain herself was in the early 
 
CLE VELAND. 
 
 jpcreserit greatness, and her American 
 cbl6nieVhacl tfefdfe them a century and a half of 
 unceasing struggle with adverse circumstances ere 
 they would be ready to set up for themselves. 
 There was no man in that day so stark mad as to 
 assert that they would ever do so, much less that 
 they would yet own tenfold more American land 
 than the King of England then asserted a right to 
 govern. His government of the colonial patches 
 was, indeed, undisputed by the colonists, but it was 
 altogether unrecognized by the powerful tribes of 
 red men, who resisted every advance of the white 
 man s frontier as an invasion. 
 
 The colonists, as a whole, had come to the New 
 World to found an empire of whose extent and 
 character and power they could form only vague, 
 indefinite imaginations. 
 
 Each particular colony had undertaken to found 
 a State, a new province of Great Britain, quickly 
 developing a sensitive jealousy concerning its char 
 tered rights, as against any usurpation by the 
 mother country or any encroachment on the part of 
 any other colony. Then and afterward there was 
 no other political element more important or a root 
 of greater events than that historic jealousy. 
 
 Each individual colonist, if a man of character 
 and worth, like Moses Cleveland, came to the col 
 ony of his choice to found a family, and the history 
 of this Republic groups itself very readily among 
 the roots and the widely spreading branches of these 
 old family trees. 
 
 Moses Cleveland came from the town of Ipswich, 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 3 
 
 Suffolk County, England, which had already sent 
 out so many emigrants that one New England town 
 had borrowed its name. He did not at once be 
 come a citizen, but deferred taking the " freeman s 
 oath" required by colonial law until 1643. He 
 married, September 26th, 1648, Ann Winn, daugh 
 ter of Edward and Joanna Winn, of Woburn, where 
 he made his home, and where he died, January pth, 
 1701. The Cleveland family in America was 
 founded, for seven sons and four daughters came to 
 the Woburn homestead. Among their descendants 
 there have been many good men and noble women ; 
 citizens of every reputable occupation and profes 
 sion ; farmers, mechanics, lawyers, and physicians ; 
 sailors and ship captains ; soldiers and army officers 
 up to the grade of major-general ; ministers of the 
 Gospel and missionaries to foreign lands. Through 
 generation after generation, among the older colonies 
 and States, and as pioneers of new States that they 
 helped to found and form, the descendants of the 
 sons and daughters of Moses Cleveland were scat 
 tered far and wide, until the most distinguished of 
 them all grew to manhood in a region which, in 
 16$ 5> was held by a nation of red warriors strong 
 enough to have swept away the infant colony of 
 Massachusetts Bay. 
 
 The second son, Aaron, became a farmer, a house 
 carpenter, and a man of property. The assessors 
 valued his taxable estate at two hundred and twenty- 
 one pounds, eight shillings, threepence, and that 
 was almost wealth in those hard old days. He con 
 tinued to reside at Woburn, as is testified by his 
 
4 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 gravestone in the cemetery. The only clear glimpse 
 of his personal character is gathered from the tra 
 dition that Dorcas Wilson, whom he married, was 
 considered the belle of Woburn. Once more the 
 family tree flourished notably, for ten children came 
 to this one branch, without mentioning the fruitful- 
 ness of any other. 
 
 The eldest son in this third generation, Captain 
 Aaron Cleveland, made a home for himself at East 
 Haddam, in the Connecticut colony, in 1738, and 
 he was then already a man of wealth and family. 
 He had married, in 1702, a lady named Abigail 
 Waters, of Irish descent, whose personal charms 
 and accomplishments became one of the traditions 
 of the family. The captain is said to have made his 
 fortune mostly in land speculations. It was esti 
 mated at his death at three thousand pounds, and 
 the fact that his income rendered any trade or busi 
 ness unnecessary is indicated in the Haddam records, 
 which describe him as a " gentleman." Once more 
 the tree had many branches, for ten children gath 
 ered around the table of Captain Aaron Cleveland, 
 and most of these became pioneers, like their an 
 cestors. 
 
 The seventh child in this fourth generation was 
 named Aaron, after his father and grandfather, and 
 he also grew to manhood as an Englishman. He 
 entered Harvard College at sixteen, was graduated 
 in 1735, studied theology, and became a minister of 
 the Presbyterian Church. After a useful pastorate 
 at Haddam, Conn., and another at Maiden, Mass., 
 a change of views led him to enter the ministry of 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 5 
 
 the Church of England. He crossed the Atlantic 
 Ocean to be ordained in London, and returned to 
 take charge of a parish at Halifax, N. S. He mar 
 ried, in 1702, Susannah Porter, herself the daughter 
 of a clergyman of an old Massachusetts stock. Once 
 more the olive branches were ten in number, and 
 the country was in need of as many men and women 
 of that kind as it could possibly be blessed with. 
 Clearly and unmistakably is its patriotic tone and 
 tendency indicated in the fact that its elder son, 
 Stephen, was the first naval officer commissioned by 
 the Continental Congress, and that its head was the 
 warm personal friend of Benjamin Franklin. At the 
 close of his charge at Halifax, Mr. Cleveland was 
 appointed to the parish of Newcastle, Pa. On his 
 way he made a visit to Dr. Franklin, at whose house 
 he was taken ill and died. The obituary notice 
 written and printed by the doctor himself, then edi 
 tor of the Pennsylvania Gazette, testifies to the es 
 teem with which he regarded his friend. 
 
 Like many another minister of the Gospel, Aaron 
 Cleveland died poor. His widow returned to Mas 
 sachusetts and, with the aid of friends, set up a 
 small " store" at Salem. She managed to make a 
 respectable living for her family, but as fast as they 
 grew old enough they each in turn began to care 
 for themselves. The second son, Aaron, was ap 
 prenticed to a hat maker. He served his full time, 
 and then became clerk and general helper for a hat 
 ter at Norwich. He worked his way into a partner 
 ship, and then set up in business on his own account. 
 His wife s maiden name was Alice Hyde, and thir- 
 
6 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 teen children came to them. The young hatter was 
 an exceedingly energetic and capable business man. 
 At the age of thirty years he had acquired an inde 
 pendence. He also stood so well in the opinion of 
 his neighbors that they sent him to the Legislature. 
 He was one of the earliest of abolitionists, and em 
 phasized his radicalism by introducing a bill for the 
 immediate abolition of slavery in the State of Con 
 necticut. After taking an active part in politics, 
 this Aaron Cleveland also entered the ministry and 
 became well and widely known not only for his 
 usefulness, but for a vein of dry fun which made 
 him unpleasant company for scoffers. He died at a 
 good old age, in the year 1815. 
 
 A son of the abolitionist clergyman, receiving 
 the name of Charles, born in 1772, became a clergy 
 man, and was during many years a city missionary 
 in Boston. He was widely known and honored as 
 " Father Cleveland." The next older brother of 
 the city missionary was named William. He was 
 the second in the long row of children, and was born 
 in 1770. He was, therefore, but six years old when, 
 in 1776, he ceased to be an English boy, and became 
 an American by the Declaration of Independence. 
 As he grew up he developed uncommonly good 
 mechanical capacity, and became an expert silver 
 smith and watch maker. Many a long year after 
 ward a grandson of his was assured by men who had 
 carried watches made by William Cleveland that a 
 Governor of New York would be a complete suc 
 cess if he could make the State run as well as one of 
 his grandfather s timepieces. They should, per- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. ^ 
 
 haps, have noted that the governor did not make 
 the State, nor could he take it in pieces and clean it 
 and put it together again. 
 
 The silversmith married at the age of twenty- 
 three, for his wedding with Margaret Falley took 
 place in the week before Christmas, 1793. The 
 greater part of his life was spent in Connecticut, 
 but he finally removed to Black Rock, near Buffalo, 
 N. Y., where he died in the year 1837. He was a 
 man of high character, and was during twenty-five 
 years a deacon of the Congregational Church. His 
 first-born son died early, but his second grew to 
 manhood. He was born June iQth, 1805, and was 
 named Richard Falley Cleveland, and with him the 
 history and tendencies and traditions of the Cleve 
 land family became of special interest to all the 
 people of the United States. He WAS a scholarly 
 and thoughtful boy, taking such advantage of the 
 schools provided for him that he was prepared to 
 enter Yale College in 1820, although he had already 
 been compelled to earn a part of his own support. 
 He was graduated, with honors, in 1824, and had 
 long since determined to become a minister of his 
 own denomination. 
 
 In order to obtain an addition to his means of 
 support during a three-years course at the Princeton 
 Theological Seminary, he obtained employment as 
 a tutor in the city of Baltimore. He was only nine 
 teen, too young to think of marriage, but not at all 
 too young to be fascinated by the beauty and the 
 many excellent qualities of Miss Ann Neale. Her 
 ather was a gentleman of Irish descent, and held a 
 
8 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 good social position. He was a law-book publisher 
 and had other business affairs, but was not wealthy. 
 Nobody knows precisely how much or what was 
 said by Richard or by Ann or by her father during 
 that year of tutorship work in Baltimore, nor is 
 there any record of the use made of the vacations 
 in the three years theological course at Princeton 
 which followed. The days of probation came to an 
 end, however, and the scholarly young graduate of 
 the Theological Seminary received at once a call to 
 the pastorate of the Presbyterian Church at Wind- 
 ham, Conn. It was true that the salary offered was 
 small, but then it was a beginning, and it was ac 
 cepted. Richard s pulpit work began, and after 
 only a few months of it he was ready for another 
 visit to Baltimore, in the Autumn of 1829. Ann 
 Neale had loyally waited for him, and the long- 
 promised wedding took place. It was a bright day, 
 full of promise, but not prophetic of this world s 
 wealth or honor. The great, bright hope before 
 the young people was wonderfully pure and unsel 
 fish, and it was realized, usefulness, happiness, trials, 
 and all. As the years went by, no less than nine 
 young faces gathered around the minister s table 
 and fireside. Five were girls, of whom four in due 
 time were married, and of these one went as a mis 
 sionary to Ceylon. Four were boys, and of these 
 one became a Presbyterian clergyman, two were 
 Union soldiers in the Civil War, and were after 
 ward, in 1872, lost at sea ; while the other, fifth 
 child and third son, became President of the United 
 States. 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 9 
 
 The first pastorate at Windham, Conn., and a 
 second at Portsmouth, Va., were followed in 1834 
 by a call to the Presbyterian Church at Caldwell, 
 N. J., not far from the city of Newark. Mr. Cleve 
 land was installed in December of that year with a 
 salary of about five hundred dollars. The parish 
 had long been under the care of Rev. Stephen 
 Grover. He had even been the first occupant of 
 the " manse," as people called the parsonage, into 
 which his young successor now entered. It was a 
 very comfortable home for a rural minister a plain, 
 old-fashioned two-story house, with tall trees in 
 front and with about two acres of land belonging 
 to it. 
 
 In this house, on March iSth, 1837, Stephen 
 Grover Cleveland was born. He was named after 
 the honored old pastor of the Caldvvell church, as is 
 testified by the parish record of births and baptisms, 
 but he was never called Stephen. When he grew 
 older, the one name by which he had been known 
 from infancy seemed to him to be all that he re 
 quired, and the other boys found " Grove" as good 
 a nickname as " Steve" could have been. There 
 was nothing whatever remarkable about the new 
 baby, for he was even considered slight and small 
 at first, although vigorously healthy. It must be 
 said, however, that he came into the world sur 
 rounded by every necessary care and comfort, and 
 with every advantage except wealth. His first three 
 years were passed at the Caldwell parsonage, and 
 then that home was exchanged for another every 
 way as quiet and as rural. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Central New York Early Political Training Going 
 to the Academy A Noisy Bell A Clerk at Twelve 
 Habits of Study More Schooling Two Years 
 in a Country Store Death of Rev. Mr. Cleveland. 
 
 IN the year 1841 Mr. Cleveland accepted a call to 
 the pastorate of the Presbyterian Church in Fayette- 
 ville, Onondaga County, N. Y. It was a small but 
 pretty village, a few miles only from what was then 
 the larger village and is now the city of Syracuse. 
 The houses were nearly all detached, with gardens 
 or grounds of their own, and were scattered along 
 one main street, with two or three short branches. 
 There were trees everywhere ; grass and mayweed 
 and dock and thistles had their own way with the 
 roadsides and fence corners, and even invaded the 
 sidewalks ; and it was not at all easy to mark the 
 line where any wayfarer passed out of the village 
 into the country. The marvellous prosperity of 
 Central New York had already made a good begin 
 ning, but its full tide had not come. Roads and 
 bridges were so defective that toll-paying " plank 
 roads" were constructed along the most frequented 
 highways, as if in memory of the corduroys which 
 had answered the purposes of the early settlers, and 
 had broken their wagons for them. There were al 
 most no able-bodied paupers, but, on the other hand, 
 there were not many rich men. It was asserted, as 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. II 
 
 an evidence of the impossible things which might 
 come true in good times, that there were ten men 
 in Onondaga County who were each worth a hun 
 dred thousand dollars. That was a story over which 
 sober people shook their heads, but then it was a 
 remarkable county. At Syracuse, or rather in and 
 about that part of it which was then the village of 
 Salina, arose the salt springs which had made the 
 salt licks of Onondaga Lake a great resort for deer 
 and for Indian hunters of deer until the Iroquois 
 were broken and swept away. More salt water was 
 now obtained by boring wells, and a great industry 
 was springing up to build a city and to present vex 
 atious questions of protection and free trade to the 
 politicians of the State and of the nation. East 
 ward, not many miles, was the Oneida Reservation 
 and the " Oneida stone." Southward, a dozen 
 miles or so, was the Onondaga Reservation, where 
 a remnant of that once powerful tribe still lingered 
 around the spot where anciently had burned their 
 " sacred fire," and where still the pagan half of 
 their race met yearly to eat the succotash feast and 
 to burn the white dog to the Manitou of the Onon- 
 dagas. 
 
 Syracuse was the trading centre of the county. 
 Through it ran the Erie Canal, with several locks at 
 which boys and girls from the country used to stare 
 with breathless interest, for each boat that went 
 through seemed to use up half a pond full of water. 
 A branch canal ran northward to Oswego, and a 
 traveller by that could get to the shore of Lake 
 Ontario. 
 
12 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 It was a great country for a boy to grow up in. 
 It was not in any sense new, and some of the houses 
 had moss on their roofs ; but there were plenty of 
 genuine log houses back among the hills whose 
 owners had not yet become sufficiently forehanded 
 to build framed, white-painted dwellings with green 
 blinds, such as might be lived in by men whose 
 farms were nearer to market. It was not a new 
 country, indeed, but it was very young and it was 
 growing tremendously, while in no other part of 
 the United States was there a greater degree of 
 mental activity. It was said that more politics, such 
 as they were, and more religion, such as it was, could 
 be found within twelve miles of Salt Point than in 
 the District of Columbia. 
 
 The first four years of any man s life are generally 
 a blank to him, and Grover Cleveland s personal 
 reminiscences may be said to have begun with 
 his journey from Caldwell, N. J., to Newark; 
 across the ferry to New York City ; on a sailing 
 vessel, a truly wonderful affair, up the Hudson 
 River to Albany ; and thence by a swift packet 
 boat, going often as much as six miles an hour, 
 along the Erie Canal, to Manlius, in Onondaga 
 County. He knew nothing at all of the overland 
 trip to Fayetteville, for it took place during hours 
 of darkness. The family arrived at their new home 
 at about midnight, just in time to escape the peril 
 of travelling on Sunday. Their household goods 
 were not unpacked and put into the parsonage until 
 Monday morning, of course. 
 
 Rev. Richard F. Clevelnnd s Fayetteville pastor- 
 
GROWER CLEVELAND. 13 
 
 ate began with the Sunday sunrise. It was to con 
 tinue during nine years, the very prime of his own 
 life and usefulness, covering also, perhaps, the most 
 important period in the development and formation 
 of the character of his son Grover. The parsonage 
 was a two-story, unpretending structure across the 
 street from the village academy, and was itself the 
 first and most important school. The preparation 
 made in it for subsequent attendance upon the other 
 school over the way began to bear fruit very early. 
 It was natural that a taste for reading should come 
 at once to a boy who learned how to read in such a 
 home. It was also a matter of course that the 
 political and social tendencies and ideas with which 
 its atmosphere was pervaded should take deeper and 
 deeper root year after year. 
 
 The common-school system of the State of New 
 York was as yet in a somewhat chaotic condition. 
 There were, indeed, what were called " district 
 schools," but these were of widely varying and 
 fluctuating standards of excellence. Most of them 
 were taught in a straggling and haphazard sort of 
 manner. They were, however, vastly better than 
 no schools at all, and the right kind of boy could 
 get something of value out of them. Their era of 
 reformation and development was sure to come, and 
 a present remedy for their known defects was found 
 in the " academy," with which almost every consid 
 erable village was provided. 
 
 That of Fayetteville, like the rest, had its primary 
 department, where boys and girls could be received 
 as soon as they had elsewhere acquired the merest 
 
14 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 rudiments of education. Grover Cleveland s earliest 
 recorded ambition was kindled by the idea of some 
 day becoming a student of the academy, but he had 
 to endure, first, a preparatory course of two years 
 in the very red, wooden, unbeautiful district school- 
 house. He entered this, for the first time, when he 
 was eight years old, and the course of study he was 
 then pursuing included every right good place for 
 digging bait, or for enticing fish with it afterward, 
 which a small boy could obtain any knowledge of 
 and hope to profit by. Nuts and berries and many 
 other important elements of natural history were 
 also receiving thorough and conscientious attention. 
 Day after day, during those two district school 
 years, Grover saw the favored students of the acad 
 emy go and come to and from the dignified belfry 
 crowned structure so near to his own home, but 
 seemingly so far from him. Many of them seemed 
 to be but a few inches taller than himself. They 
 were getting wiser and wiser all the while, he knew, 
 and they had all sorts of fun, to which he was as yet 
 an outsider. He begged his father again and 
 again for promotion from the district school to the 
 academy, but those few inches were in the way, and 
 so were a vague number of months of time, for Mr. 
 Cleveland had his doubts as to the propriety of such 
 very early scholarship. Even in the cradle, how 
 ever, it is said that Grover exhibited signs of un 
 common persistency and strength of will, and his 
 life-long characteristic now came out buoyantly. 
 He looked and he longed and he envied day after 
 day, and he continued his ambitious petition until 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 15 
 
 his father yielded. The necessary books were pro 
 cured, and then the academy benches received one 
 more new boy. He was very young barely eleven ; 
 he was sturdy rather than large for his age, and he 
 was brimming with exultation over the important 
 victory he had won in getting there. He was just 
 the boy to become popular among his mates. None 
 of them were more fond of rough sports and games 
 of physical strength, or more ready for any descrip 
 tion of schoolboy adventure, in Summer or Winter. 
 At the same time they discovered something very 
 odd about him, for hardly any of them were in sym 
 pathy with his precocious liking for books for even 
 school books. A great many boys can comprehend 
 another fellow s enthusiasm for " Robinson Crusoe," 
 but it is not so easy for a boy who owns a kite and 
 a ball club and a pair of skates to see much beauty 
 in the books which ought to be the only ones in his 
 desk. 
 
 The older children of the Cleveland family were 
 already attending the academy before it was entered 
 by Grover, and the younger followed in regular suc 
 cession. All were well spoken of by the neighbors, 
 but Cecil was understood to be doing uncommonly 
 well in mathematics, while Grover was really distin 
 guishing himself by his rapid progress in Greek and 
 Latin. 
 
 A tendency toward reading implies a disposition 
 to the kind of seclusion which any interesting book 
 calls for, but that was the only uncompanionable 
 trait in Grover s schoolboy character. Once the 
 book was put away, he was as ready for fun as was 
 
1 6 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 any other youngster in Fayetteville, and those of 
 near his own age were even willing to acknowledge 
 a kind of leadership that was not at all weakened by 
 his superiority in the recitation room. 
 
 There was one dark night, for instance, when the 
 good people of the village were startled from their 
 slumbers by the untimely clangor of the academy 
 bell. It did not seem to be ringing for fire or tolling 
 for a funeral, but was going on in an insane, tumult 
 uous rattle of its own invention. Everybody knew 
 that the academy door was locked, that the win 
 dows were closed, and that the bell had been shut 
 up for the night, with no business before it until nine 
 o clock next morning. 
 
 It was not altogether the fault of the bell. An 
 examination detected a rope attached to its ham 
 mer, and that rope went out from the belfry window 
 to the branches of a tree many feet from the build 
 ing. Grover Cleveland and his brother William 
 were at the end of the rope, and there is no precise 
 record of the remarks which were made to them 
 about it. 
 
 The school days passed busily and merrily away, 
 and came to an end in 1849. Grover had won for 
 himself an exceedingly good reputation as a bright, 
 intelligent, and trustworthy boy. The family was 
 large, however, and the minister s salary was mod 
 erate. It was necessary for its younger members to 
 begin early to think of contributing to the common 
 fund and to prepare for making their own way in 
 the world. Grover was only twelve years old, but 
 he was eager to do his part. Deacon McViccar, of 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 17 
 
 his father s church, kept a " country store" in the 
 village, and was ready to give the minister s son an 
 opportunity. The establishment contained the cus 
 tomary assortment of commodities drugs, dry 
 goods, patent medicines, groceries, and whatever 
 else the deacon could foresee a customer for among 
 his neighbors. Groverhad been about the youngest 
 boy at the academy, and now he became the young 
 est merchant s clerk in Fayetteville. He had not 
 by any means abandoned his books, however. The 
 love of them had grown with his growth, and he 
 now gave to them all the hours which were not de 
 manded by Deacon McViccar and his customers. 
 There were not many other boys just entering their 
 teens who worked as hard all day and then pored 
 over printed pages to so late an hour in the even 
 ing. He won the esteem and good will of his em 
 ployer, while he persistently continued the educa 
 tional process which was preparing him to profit by 
 every opportunity which the course of events might 
 afterward offer him. 
 
 Only a little more than a year was passed in this 
 first employment, and the unknown future had in 
 store a rapid succession of changes. The Cleveland 
 family had been more than commonly united, hus 
 band and wife, brothers and sisters, deserving and 
 receiving sincere and devoted affection ; but it was 
 soon to be scattered. The first premonition came 
 in the failing health of Mr. Cleveland, rendering 
 regular pastoral work severe and burdensome. He 
 was glad to accept an offer of duties under the 
 American Home Missionary Society, with a salary 
 
iS GROWER CLEVELAND. 
 
 of a thousand dollars a year and a residence at Clin 
 ton, N. Y., where his sons could avail themselves of 
 the preparatory school, of Hamilton College, and of 
 Houghton Seminary. 
 
 The removal to Clinton was made in 1851. The 
 elder son, William, was already in the college, from 
 which, in due time, he went out to follow his father s 
 profession and keep up the clerical traditions of that 
 branch of the Cleveland family. The rest of the 
 family settled at once in their new home, but Grover 
 took advantage of the kind of vacation given him 
 to make what was for him an exceedingly impor 
 tant journey. He had an uncle named Lewis F. 
 Allen, who owned a great stock farm near Buffalo, 
 N. Y., away off in the dim western regions along 
 the shore of Lake Erie, and a visit was determined 
 upon. It was a romantic pilgrimage for a boy to 
 make, and it was filled with all sorts of adventures 
 going and coming. Five or six? weeks were ex 
 pended among the varied attractions of the Allen 
 farm, the grand fishing to be had near it, and the 
 great sights to be seen along the Niagara River. 
 No wonder was it that Grover s pocket money almost 
 all ran away from him. He did not ask his uncle 
 for any, but managed to work his way home along 
 the canal, making friends as he went. That jour 
 ney, as a whole, was but one stage in a trip he as 
 yet knew nothing about. On his return he entered 
 the preparatory school, fully expecting to pass from 
 it into college. He had been doing almost too well 
 with his books, and he now studied harder than 
 ever. He was ready to pass the required examina- 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 19 
 
 tion before the right year of his life arrived, and his 
 childhood victory in the matter of the academy 
 could not be repeated at Hamilton. His father 
 suggested to him that he had been giving his mind 
 to his studies after a fashion which rendered a 
 change advisable, and that he might profit by tem 
 porary attendance at a school of practical business. 
 The family finances had also something to do with 
 the fact that Grover applied for and obtained em 
 ployment as a clerk once more in the store of 
 Deacon McViccar, at Fayetteville. The cash part 
 of his remuneration was to be fifty dollars the first 
 year and one hundred dollars the second, and the 
 father s heavily burdened strength was sensibly re 
 lieved. He needed relief, for his new duties were 
 by no means light in the hands of a man who could 
 not help attending to them with conscientious fidel 
 ity. It was among their unpleasant features that 
 they required much travel, with frequent and pro 
 tracted absences from home ; and what Mr. Cleve 
 land s health demanded was repose. 
 
 Grover finished his two years in the Fayetteville 
 store, giving entire satisfaction to his employer, 
 reading diligently, and making a man of himself, 
 while the other children also grew, walking in right 
 paths, and the older of them were fast becoming 
 men and women. At the end of the time contracted 
 for, the clerk returned to Clinton, hoping to become 
 again a scholar ; but he was disappointed. His 
 father had determined to give up his position under 
 the Home Missionary Society, for which he no 
 longer had physical strength, and to accept a call to 
 
20 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 the pastorate of the Presbyterian Church at Holland 
 Patent, a village on the Black River Railroad, a few 
 miles north of Utica, N. Y. He had been failing, 
 failing, but neither he nor his family had any idea 
 but what a change, less work, less care, would en 
 able him to rebuild and to continue the good work 
 to which he had given himself. The new home was 
 reached in September, 1853, but it was not to con 
 tain, even at the first, the entire family. William 
 had obtained a position as instructor in the Institu 
 tion for the Blind in the city of New York ; Ann, 
 the elder daughter, was already married, and the 
 second daughter, Mary, was making preparations 
 for her wedding. Another change came quickly 
 and unexpectedly. 
 
 The pastor preached in the village church one 
 Sunday, and the next, and the next. The wedding 
 was to take place that week, and Grover and his 
 sister Mary drove over to Utica one day to make 
 some of her required purchases. They were walk 
 ing in a street of that town when a sombre message 
 which had followed caught up with them. Their 
 father had passed away, and their widowed mother 
 needed them at home. A shadow and part of the 
 heavier responsibilities of human life had fallen 
 very suddenly upon a boy of sixteen. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 A Year in New York City A mbition Taking Shape 
 A Friend in Need Westward Ho ! An Uncle 
 Worth Having Short-Horn Literature Rod and 
 Gun. 
 
 LIKE many another faithful pastor, Richard 
 Falley Cleveland died poor. To the small property 
 he left behind him, the good people of the churches 
 in Fayetteville, Clinton, and Holland Patent added 
 the gift to his widow of the homestead in the latter 
 place, and here she remained until her appointed 
 time came. 
 
 All the children of the Cleveland family had been 
 brought up with a clear idea that they were to work 
 their own way in the world, but some of them were 
 too young to make a beginning when their father 
 was taken away. The rest were ready to help their 
 mother and each other, but they could not accom 
 plish anything worth while by remaining at home. 
 
 The Institution for the Blind, in which William 
 was an instructor, was managed by a board presided 
 over by Hon. Augustus Schell, long well known and 
 influential in the political and business circles of 
 New York. With a little help from him, Grover 
 also obtained immediate employment as an ac 
 countant and assistant instructor in the institution. 
 It provided him with the means of support for the 
 
22 GROVE R CLEVELAND. 
 
 time being, but it offered no opening for the future. 
 It was a temporary makeshift, and that seemed to 
 be all ; but it was not so. A boy so bright, already 
 so uncommonly well prepared to receive impres 
 sions and ideas, could not possibly remain, as Grover 
 Cleveland did, during an entire year, in such a place 
 and among such surroundings, without undergoing 
 educational processes as important as they were ex 
 ceptional. Apart from the more subtle effects 
 upon mind and character to be produced by daily 
 association with and observation of the people who 
 knew no difference between day and night, it was 
 in after time to be of value to the general welfare 
 that the son of Pastor Cleveland was early made 
 familiar with the methods and management of great 
 public charities. Moreover, up to this time he had 
 been a country boy, brought up in a little rural 
 world parsonage, school, congregation, village 
 which was certainly very good, but which was neces 
 sarily narrow. The great city was now around him, 
 with its palaces and its poverties, with its com 
 merce, and its business, and its politics, and its con 
 fusing Babel of all the nations of the earth mingling 
 in one community. It was an epitome of the great 
 world, and the boyish eyes that studied it were by 
 no means blind. They saw whatever they could 
 see without any cash outlay, but not any of the 
 amusements or pleasures of the metropolis which 
 involved expense, for every cent which could be 
 saved by close economy went to eke out the slender 
 resources of the widowed mother in her country 
 home. 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 23 
 
 Too much of life could not be spent in such a 
 manner by a youth into whom the idea and expec 
 tation of rising in the world had been instilled from 
 his very cradle. His vague ambition was beginning 
 to take the shape of a determination to become a 
 lawyer, but how that was to be accomplished was 
 apparently an insoluble problem. It was, at all 
 events, one which could not be solved in the New 
 York Institution for the Blind, and the great city 
 itself seemed to offer no opening. All its pathways 
 were thronged, and a crowd of applicants waited 
 before every door of possible opening. There was 
 said to be more room and there might be a better 
 hope for an enterprising boy in the West, if he could 
 find means for getting there. Grover pondered the 
 matter well, and, at the end of the year, he gave up 
 his position in the institution and went home to his 
 mother s house in Holland Patent. She, of course, 
 could give him nothing more than her loving sym 
 pathy and her advice, while money was required for 
 a fortune-seeking journey. It was a good thing for 
 a boy in such a strait to have inherited a good man s 
 name and the honor belonging to it, and to have 
 established for himself a high character. Capable 
 men who have made money are apt to know how 
 to keep it, and any liberality they may have does 
 not go out to the vicious, the reckless, and the shift 
 less. There is a high degree of pleasure to be ob 
 tained in helping a young fellow, but it sours into 
 disgust if he does not then go ahead and help him 
 self. When Grover Cleveland applied to Hon. Ing- 
 ham Townsend for a loan of twenty-five dollars to 
 
24 GROVE R CLEVELAND. 
 
 carry him westward he was precisely the boy to 
 obtain it, almost as a matter of course, from a man 
 who was known to be fond of lending a helping 
 hand. Mr. Townsend s terms as a money lender 
 were peculiar. Grover was not really expected to 
 return the money, but if, in after time, he should 
 find another young fellow in need of a lift, as he 
 himself was then, the money, if Grover should be 
 able to spare it, was to be transferred to him upon 
 similar conditions. It may be that Mr. Townsend 
 borrowed the idea from Benjamin Franklin, who 
 sent a number of small sums upon their benevolent 
 travels in very much the same manner. Grover 
 gave his note, as a matter of form, and he kept his 
 contract in more ways than one. He does not seem 
 to have made any report of the sums of money, 
 smaller or larger, which he gave or loaned to the 
 young or the old during the next dozen of years, 
 but at last Mr. Townsend received from him the 
 following letter, dated at Buffalo, N. Y., January 
 23d, 1867 : 
 
 " I am now in condition to pay my note which you hold, given 
 for money borrowed some years ago. I suppose I might have paid 
 it long before, but I have never thought you were in need of it, 
 and I had other purposes for my money. I have forgotten the 
 date of the note. If you will send me it, I will mail you the prin 
 cipal and interest. The loan you made me was my start in life, 
 and I shall always preserve the note as an interesting reminder of 
 your kindness. Let me hear from you soon. With many kind 
 wishes lo Mrs. Townsend and your family, I am yours, very re 
 spectfully, 
 
 " GROVER CLEVELAND." 
 
 Ingham Townsend lived to the age of eighty-one 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 25 
 
 years, dying in 1883, after he had seen the boy to 
 whom he had given a " first start in life" elected 
 governor of the State. The phrase contains a fal 
 lacy, after all, since if Grover had not already made 
 a very good start indeed he would not have re 
 ceived that twenty-five dollars. 
 
 There was another boy in Holland Patent who 
 had made up his mind to go West, and Grover had 
 company when he set out. He had decided not to 
 waste any of his precious money, and he searched 
 through the young city of Utica for any kind of 
 work that would help him in his plan. He sought 
 there in vain, went on to have a similar experience 
 in Syracuse, and then determined to try Buffalo, al 
 though the destination really in his mind was the 
 city of Cleveland, O. Whether or not he was at 
 tracted by the name as well as by the well-under 
 stood prosperity of the latter place, he had made up 
 his mind that it must contain a law office into which 
 he could manage to work his way. He had no 
 friend there, not even an acquaintance, and his plan 
 of operation was to the last degree cloudy and un 
 defined. The very fact that he had formed it, how 
 ever, and the courage and force with which he was 
 proceeding to carry it out, won for him at once his 
 next step upon the ladder of success. 
 
 Grover Cleveland had already made one memo 
 rable visit to Buffalo, and he could not now pass 
 through without going to see his aunt and uncle. 
 Mr. Lewis F. Allen was a lawyer by profession and 
 a farmer and stock breeder by preference. He was 
 a man of high social standing, good financial cir- 
 
26 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 cumstances, and of uncommon intelligence. He 
 became in after days a radical Republican in poli 
 tics, and was elected to the Legislature by that 
 party in his district. 
 
 The suburb of Black Rock had not yet been ab 
 sorbed by Buffalo, and Grover left his young com 
 panion in the city, while he walked out into the 
 country to see his relations. 
 
 The Allen homestead was a handsome, solidly 
 built stone house of two stories, and was every 
 way an inviting place for a boy visitor. Only a part 
 of Mr. Allen s farming and breeding operations 
 were carried on at this place, however, for he had 
 another establishment, with a farm of about one 
 thousand acres, on Grand Island, in the Niagara 
 River, where he kept a herd of about fifty short- 
 horned Durham cattle, which were his especial 
 pride. The house itself, standing at no great dis 
 tance from the river bank, had been built, in 1817, 
 by General Peter B. Porter, Secretary of War in 
 the Cabinet of John Quincy Adams, and afterward 
 a major-general of New York militia during the 
 War of 1812. Without and within it bore testi 
 mony to the character and the tastes of its present 
 owner. The rooms were commodious and well fur 
 nished, and it is declared that there were books, 
 books, books, everywhere. 
 
 Here the young adventurer, going West to study 
 law, received a warm and appreciative welcome. 
 In a spirit of sturdy self-reliance, if not of boyish 
 pride, he had not come to ask for any help from his 
 uncle. He did not ask for any, and it was offered 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 27 
 
 to him in an exceedingly acceptable shape. Mr. 
 Allen had his own opinion of the fortunes and mis 
 fortunes of the Cleveland family, or rather of that 
 branch of it of which Rev. Richard F. Cleveland 
 had been the head. He is reported as saying at a 
 later day : 
 
 " Grover s father was a good man. He was highly respected as 
 a minister, and was a preacher of fine abilities. But his modesty 
 killed him I mean that he didn t have push enough. He was 
 conscientious and devoted to his work, but he could never take ad 
 vantage of his opportunities for advancement. He never got 
 along in the world as he might have done if he had been a little 
 more worldly. He had a large family. After he left college he 
 went to teach school in Baltimore, and found his wife there. They 
 had nine children. Cecil and Fred, the two who were lost at sea, 
 went into the army when the Civil War broke out. All the daugh 
 ters are living. Four of them are married. The youngest one 
 has inherited her father s literary abilities." 
 
 Unworldliness and diffidence had stinted the 
 prosperity of the father, in his opinion, but here was 
 one of the sons with " push" enough to carry him 
 right out into a strange country, afoot and alone. 
 It was an appeal to precisely the right spot in the 
 heart of a self -helpful man like Mr. Allen. 
 
 " Stop here, my boy," he said. " The law busi 
 ness is of no use in Ohio. If you stop here, I will 
 try and find you a place." 
 
 He added that he had work enough for such a 
 boy, in his own house and study, to keep him busy 
 until the following Autumn, at a fair compensation, 
 and that it would be time enough then to hunt up 
 a law office. 
 
 So good an offer was closed with at once, and 
 
28 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 Grover walked back to the city, found his compan 
 ion, explained the change in his plans, and said 
 good-by to him, for he went on westward, according 
 to his original purpose. 
 
 So, in the Spring of the year 1855, the road to a 
 law office began to open through a noble stock farm 
 and through a miscellaneous mass of papers from 
 which Mr. Allen was laboriously compiling the sec 
 ond volume of " The American Short-Horn Herd 
 Book." Grover was diligent, painstaking, and 
 every way capable of relieving his uncle of a large 
 part of the drudgery entailed by such a work. He 
 did his share so efficiently that his connection with 
 it was not permitted to cease with that volume. 
 Six years later, when the fifth of the series was 
 printed, Mr. Allen said in its preface : 
 
 " In the compilation of the second, third, fourth, and fifth vol 
 umes of this work, I take pleasure in expressing my acknowledg 
 ment to the kindness, industry, and ability of my young friend and 
 kinsman, Grover Cleveland, Esq., of Buffalo, a gentleman of the 
 legal profession, who has kindly assisted my labors in correcting 
 and arranging the pedigrees for publication ; and to him is a por 
 tion of the credit due for the very creditable display which our 
 American short-horns make before the agricultural public." 
 
 The herd book may have been somewhat tire 
 some literary digging, but the stock farm itself fully 
 justified the enthusiasm of its owner, while the 
 shooting and fishing to be had were the best that 
 Grover had yet known, and he was as healthily fond 
 of both as ever. When he had work to do, he did 
 it well, as his uncle testified of him, but when he 
 and his cousins could get over upon Grand Island, 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 29 
 
 most of their work was done with rod and gun. 
 There was, after all, something like a vacation and 
 a long picnic about that Summer of 1855, passed in 
 so pleasant a home, with such friends, relieved from 
 care as to the present and almost as to the future. 
 No wonder that health and spirits rose to running 
 over and that Grover meddled with strange oxen 
 until he was kicked across the stable, or with a big 
 muscalonge until they had to pry open the crea 
 ture s mouth with a stick to rescue a badly bitten 
 finger. Short-horns, or strange fish, or the heaps 
 of books in his uncle s library whatever came in the 
 way was sure to be investigated persistently. The 
 five months required by the volume undergoing 
 compilation slipped away with great profit to mind 
 and body, and left Pastor Cleveland s son in excel 
 lent condition for beginning a much longer and 
 more difficult apprenticeship than that which he had 
 in this manner served to agricultural literature. Of 
 the sixty dollars cash earned, the greater part went 
 to the widowed mother at Holland Patent. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Cleveland a Law Student All Night among the 
 Books The Drift of Politics Admitted to Prac 
 tice First Success The Civil War Two Brothers 
 in the Army and One to Care for their Mother 
 Steady Advances. 
 
 LONG before Autumn arrived Grover had won a 
 fixed and settled place in the good-will of his uncle. 
 Mr. Allen knew all the lawyers in Buffalo, as he 
 himself asserted, and he pondered well beforehand 
 his nephew s choice among them. He selected a 
 gentleman named Hibbard, who was entirely un 
 aware of the compliment thus paid him, and who 
 received the young applicant for a clerkship in a 
 manner which cut off the application at once. There 
 was probably no intentional rudeness, but Grover, 
 although only eighteen, was a trifle high-strung, 
 and he thought he heard a reason for turning on his 
 heel and instantly leaving Mr. Hibbard s office. 
 The latter did not even guess what sort of clerk he 
 had missed getting ; and Mr. Allen, on hearing 
 Grover s report, expressed a gruff determination to 
 make the next inquiry in person, instead of sending 
 his too sensitive nephew. As he relates the matter : 
 
 " Then I went to town and saw Rogers Rogers, Bo wen & 
 Rogers it was then ; they are all dead now but one, who is in 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 31 
 
 Europe and asked him if they didn t want a boy in the office. 
 Rogers said they didn t want any one, though they liked smart 
 boys. I told him there was a smart boy at my house who wanted 
 to come in and see what he could do. Well, said Rogers, 
 there s a table, pointing to one in a corner. That s the way 
 Grover went into their office. Rogers took him in as a favor to 
 me, without seeing the boy at all. But they soon found out he 
 was smart, and then they wanted to keep him. I told them to pay 
 him what they could afford to pay." 
 
 No pay at all came until after the new clerk had 
 fully proved his value to the office, but his circum 
 stances were by no means unpleasantly straitened. 
 In after years Mr. Allen s indignation was hotly 
 aroused over sensational stories printed concerning 
 the hardships and privations which his young rela 
 tive had undergone in his desperate struggles to ob 
 tain a legal education. He was as well dressed as 
 other young men, for his uncle had a pride about 
 that, and paid for three or four suits of clothes as 
 they were needed. During the first part of his re 
 lations with Rogers, Bowen & Rogers he continued 
 to board with his uncle, and the only drawback was 
 the walk of two miles, going and coming, since part 
 of the way was over a badly made and badly kept 
 country road, which might at times be a slough of 
 mud and at other times heavily drifted with snow. 
 The walk was duly taken, however, storm or shine, 
 and it was noted that no other person about the 
 office was more regularly punctual than was the new 
 clerk and student. There was but one other law 
 student and a copyist, and these managed to give 
 Grover a remarkable experience at the very outset of 
 his legal career. The head of the firm, the senior 
 
32 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 Mr. Rogers, was a man of few words, except, per 
 haps, before a jury or in engineering a point of law. 
 His first indication to the new-comer of a course of 
 study to be pursued consisted in banging down be 
 fore him upon the table the first volume of Black- 
 stone s Commentaries, remarking : " That s where 
 they all begin !" 
 
 Whether or not the story belongs to that very 
 day and night, Grover picked up the book and be 
 gan. It was not a novel, but it was absorbingly in 
 teresting to a youth who regarded it as the gate 
 through which he must pass to success in life, to 
 wealth, and to honorable fame. There was no 
 doubt but what he yet would master a treatise 
 which for the hour so completely mastered him. It 
 was for more than one hour, however. He forgot 
 all about the time of day, and the other people in 
 the office, lawyers and clerks, forgot all about him. 
 They completed their own tasks, locked the doors 
 behind them, and went away to whatever else might 
 be waiting for them. Young Cleveland knew noth 
 ing of their going or of any other mundane matter 
 but Blackstone s Commentaries, until the fading 
 light warned him that he must tear himself away 
 from that book. Then the locked doors informed 
 him that for one night he was to be imprisoned, 
 without supper or breakfast, and with no better 
 company than a large law library and the accumu 
 lated papers of the firm s extensive practice. He 
 knew that the family out at Black Rock would won 
 der what had become of him, and he was sure of 
 being made fun of when let out next morning, but 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 33 
 
 he had a remarkably fine opportunity for silent and 
 solitary meditation over what he had been reading 
 and over any and every other subject which might 
 come to him for consideration. 
 
 The board and clothing which he received from 
 Mr. Allen did not come in a manner to offend a 
 spirit of independence, for work upon the herd book 
 went on from time to time. There was simply no 
 money in the young man s pocket, and he could 
 well afford to wait a while for that to come. Up 
 in the morning for an early breakfast. Off in all 
 weathers in time to be punctual at the office. 
 Scrupulousjy diligent there in the discharge of every 
 duty placed upon him and in further delving into 
 Blackstone and his fellows in the law library. All 
 the way back to Black Rock for supper and for an 
 evening over his uncle s papers, or any reading 
 which might take their place. There was no time 
 for mere amusement, but the obstacles to success in 
 life gave way rapidly before such iron industry. 
 
 One day, not long after the course of law study 
 began, Mr. Allen asked his nephew how he was get 
 ting along. 
 
 " Pretty well, sir," said Grover, " only they don t 
 tell me anything." 
 
 Mr. Allen was determined that that boy should 
 have everything that belonged to him in any man s 
 law office, and he went at once to his friend Mr. 
 Rogers with what seemed to him so serious a com 
 plaint. "If the boy has got any brains, " replied 
 the crusty counsellor, " he will find out for himself 
 without any telling." 
 
34 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 No better satisfaction could be had, and young 
 Cleveland was compelled to find his own way 
 through the tangled wilderness of legal learning. 
 During two entire years the compensation allowed 
 him did not rise above four dollars per week. Then 
 higher duties came and better pay, and a small attic 
 room was hired in the Southern Hotel, in Buffalo. 
 It was by no means equal to the pleasant quarters 
 out at Black Rock, but there was a saving of time 
 as well as of toil in escaping from so long and rough 
 a walk. It was a hotel much patronized by cattle 
 dealers, among whom the sub-editor of the " Short- 
 Horn Herd Book" already had many acquaint 
 ances. He now continued his habit of early rising, 
 and his breakfast was generally eaten with the 
 drovers, by candle light at some seasons. The 
 little attic room was a capital place for study, and 
 its tireless occupant had no fear of any interruption 
 after reaching it. He possessed an uncommonly 
 tough and vigorous constitution, strengthened now 
 by long years of thoroughly good and regular hab 
 its, and he found it capable of enduring without 
 harm the merciless drain of the work he put upon it. 
 
 Political party excitement ran very high in the 
 first year which Grover Cleveland passed with the 
 Buffalo law firm, but he was not yet a voter, and he 
 could do no more than hear and read and watch the 
 course of events. The National Democratic Con 
 vention met in May, at Cincinnati, and nominated 
 James Buchanan for President and John -C. Breck- 
 inridge for Vice-President. The People s Party, 
 which quickly took the name of Republican, held a 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 35 
 
 National Convention at Philadelphia on June i8th, 
 and nominated John C. Fremont for President and 
 William L. Dayton for Vice-President. The rem 
 nant of the old Whig Party, taking up the candidates 
 previously named by the Convention of the Ameri 
 can, or Know-Nothing Party, nominated, in Sep 
 tember, at Baltimore, Millard Fillmore and Andrew 
 Jackson Donelson. 
 
 The Whig and Democratic press and public speak 
 ers were agreed in one vehement declaration that 
 the success of the Republican Party then or at any 
 subsequent Presidential election would bring upon 
 the country civil war and the dissolution of the 
 Union. The Republicans replied that no such con 
 sequence ought to come or would come and that a 
 question relating to human rights could not be de 
 cided by a threat or even a peril of violence. The 
 political campaign ended in the election of Mr. Bu 
 chanan, but the Republicans secured one hundred 
 and fourteen electoral votes out of two hundred 
 and ninety-six, and it was evident that they were 
 rapidly gaining strength. They had exhibited much 
 more than any but their most sanguine leaders had 
 expected. 
 
 The first year of Mr. Buchanan s administration 
 went by without any perceptible lull in the general 
 excitement. Events in Kansas and the course of 
 legislation in Congress were strengthening the Re 
 publican Party at the North and feverishly stimu 
 lating the development of the Secession movement 
 at the South. All over the United States, during 
 that year of hot debate and anxious forecast, thou- 
 
36 GROVE R CLEVELAND 
 
 sands of young Americans became of age and pre 
 pared to form their first political affiliations. 
 Among them was Grover Cleveland, and with the 
 year 1858 began his active membership in the Dem 
 ocratic Party. He did more than merely go to the 
 polls and vote at the November election. He went 
 with a pocket full of tickets and remained at the 
 polls all day, as a volunteer distributor, a service for 
 which his hearty and genial manners peculiarly 
 qualified him. There is a social and political evil 
 in the fact that too many bright young fellows 
 feel a sort of unwholesome reluctance in follow 
 ing so excellent an example, or have no polit 
 ical ideas and convictions to sustain them in such 
 an exhibition of patriotic energy. Grover Cleve 
 land s work for the party in whose usefulness he 
 believed did not cease with that first day at the 
 polls. He made a continuing practice of faithful 
 attendance on election day from that time forward 
 until he was chosen governor of the State. He 
 thereby made himself widely acquainted with his 
 fellow-citizens, and the rigid fairness with which he 
 served his own party and his repudiation of trades 
 and tricks with tickets won him an important de 
 gree of confidence among his immediate antago 
 nists. He was in full accord with the Democratic 
 Party as it then existed, and he was vigorously pre 
 paring for usefulness in a political future which none 
 could then foresee. 
 
 Another year went by, and in May, 1859, f ur 
 years after beginning his course of study, Mr. Cleve 
 land was admitted to the bar. He had won the en- 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 37 
 
 tire confidence of his employers, and they now 
 placed him in charge of the office, with what was 
 considered the very good salary of six hundred dol 
 lars a year, speedily raised to one thousand. A 
 gentleman who was at that time one of his office as 
 sociates afterward wrote of him : 
 
 " Grover won our admiration by his three traits of indomitable 
 industry, unpretentious courage, and unswerving honesty. I never 
 saw a more thorough man at anything he undertook. Whatever 
 the subject was, he was reticent until he had mastered all its bear 
 ings and had made up his own mind, and then nothing could 
 swerve him from his conviction. It was this quality of intellect 
 ual integrity more than anything else, perhaps, that made him 
 afterward listened to and respected, when more brilliant men who 
 were opposed to him were applauded and forgotten." 
 
 To have an established position and a sufficient 
 support immediately upon admission to the bar is 
 a success which does not come to many young law 
 yers, and Grover Cleveland was but twenty-two 
 years of age when he reached this result of his per 
 sistent study and work. It placed him at once in 
 the front rank of the younger members of his pro 
 fession in the city of Buffalo, and gave his admiring 
 uncle and aunt good reason to be proud of the man 
 ner in which they had taken him up. It is said that 
 he had very little of the " personal magnetism" as 
 cribed to many men who achieve eminence and to 
 some whose winnings are not altogether desirable, 
 but he had a noteworthy faculty for attracting to 
 himself the strong good will of the best men with 
 whom he became associated. Year by year the 
 circle of these esteems and friendships widened, and 
 
38 C ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 it was well, with reference to a large part of them, 
 that he held aloof from extreme partisanship in 
 politics and gave himself entirely to the business in 
 his hands. 
 
 No man of any force of character, nevertheless, 
 could fail to take a distinct political position of 
 some sort in Erie County in the years 1859, 1860. 
 It had been an ancient stronghold of the Whig 
 Party, and had sent Millard Fillmore, year after year, 
 to the State Legislature and then to Congress, and 
 it now contained thousands of men who fully agreed 
 with him in his earnest prophecies of trouble to 
 come. Not a few who, at least half way, believed 
 him added sturdily, " Let it come," and passed 
 over into the swelling ranks of the Republican 
 Party. Among these was Mr. Allen himself, but 
 not his nephew, and when the party lines were 
 drawn for the campaign of 1860, they found them 
 selves upon opposite sides of the great question of 
 the day. One section of the Democratic Party, 
 standing alone for that campaign only, nominated 
 Stephen A. Douglas for President and Herschel 
 V. Johnson for Vice-President. The Whigs who 
 in 1856 had voted for Millard Fillmore now drop 
 ped their old party name and reappeared as the 
 Constitutional Union Party, with John Bell and 
 Edward Everett as their candidates. Both of these 
 political factors, Whig and Democratic, were to 
 be quickly absorbed by the two great parties, to one 
 of which every man among them really belonged. 
 Of these, the Republican Party, already controlling 
 a large majority of the Northern States, nominated 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 39 
 
 Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, while the 
 regular " old line" Democracy nominated John C. 
 Breckinridge and Joseph Lane. Every vote cast 
 in a Northern. State for either Douglas or Bell 
 might nearly as well have been cast for Lincoln, so 
 far as the electoral college and the Presidency were 
 concerned. That of Grover Cleveland was not 
 among them. He was faithful to the doctrines he 
 had already imbibed, and he acted with the party 
 which, in his opinion, offered the only hope of 
 escape from the evils threatened by a Republican 
 success. Now that all is over, it is easy to discern 
 that any such hope was fallacious, that the moral 
 and social forces in operation in 1860 were too pow 
 erful for possible control, and that the time of an 
 inevitable revolution had fully come. The political 
 crisis was not then so easily to be comprehended, 
 and the Republican Party itself contained not many 
 men who would have voted as they did if they had 
 at all believed that the Sumter gun, the campaigns 
 of the Potomac, the Mississippi, the Cumberland, 
 the Tennessee, and the James were to follow. 
 Even the most conservative Democrats had no pro 
 phetic anticipation of the vast proportions of the 
 Civil War, but they voted for Breckinridge and 
 Lane and against what they termed a sectional 
 party, and then and afterward they preserved in 
 vigorous activity a political organization whose in 
 estimable value to the country is evident to every 
 student of constitutional government. 
 
 Law business went on as usual in the office of 
 Rogers, Bowen & Rogers, in the courts of Erie 
 
40 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 County, and in the other courts throughout the 
 United States during the political campaign and 
 through the sombre Winter which followed. Then 
 Spring came, and Lincoln was inaugurated, and the 
 thunder of the coming storm began to mutter 
 among the heavy clouds along the Southern hori 
 zon. Day after day and week after week it became 
 more plainly evident that disunion meant forcible 
 secession and that the doubtful slave States were 
 drifting helplessly into the great tide that was 
 sweeping all on toward what seemed to be a na 
 tional shipwreck. The fall of Fort Sumter came at 
 last, and the first call for troops, and the battle of 
 Bull Run, and then the startled, staggering, wrath 
 ful but relentlessly determined nation, through its 
 chosen and lawful President and its Congress, shouted 
 its ringing summons for five hundred thousand vol 
 unteers. 
 
 There were four brothers in the Cleveland family, 
 sons of Pastor Cleveland, but the elder son, Will 
 iam, was a minister of the Gospel, and only three 
 were liable to military duty. 
 
 It was plain that a time had come when every 
 young American owed service to his country, with 
 out reference to any party vote he ever had cast or 
 yet might give, and the three brothers considered 
 the matter. Grovcr was in a position which would 
 enable him, better than the others, to contribute to 
 the support of their widowed mother, and he had 
 also more to lose than they by breaking up his busi 
 ness connections. It was decided, therefore, that 
 Richard Cecil and Lewis Frederick should answer 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 41 
 
 the call for volunteers and that Grover should re 
 main a civilian. Taking the country through, there 
 were not many families whose membership did bet 
 ter than this. 
 
 The volunteers marched away, the war went on, 
 with its varying record of disaster and success, and 
 all the political elements at the North which had 
 predicted and dreaded its coming drew together in 
 a strong and solid opposition which criticised, de 
 nounced, and at times almost hampered and hin 
 dered the party in whose hands was the adminis 
 tration of the Government and the direction of the 
 armies. Between the two political extremes, mod 
 erating each in turn, was a fluctuating mass of con 
 servative men, some of whom were known as War 
 Democrats and some by other names. Among these 
 it is safe to class the young Democratic Buffalo law 
 yer, who had two brothers in the army and who 
 would have been there himself if not prevented by 
 a manifest and sacred duty. 
 
 From somewhere among these first years after 
 Grover Cleveland was admitted to practice and be 
 fore any great prosperity came to him there has 
 floated down a legend in explanation of the fact 
 that he afterward so long remained a bachelor. It 
 is a story of a fair face that frowned and then that 
 smiled, and of a light that passed away of a white 
 stone and a green mound in the cemetery. It is 
 one of those closed doors along the corridor of life 
 before which biography will not linger, because of 
 the withered moss-roses that are scattered on the 
 threshold. 
 
42 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 There are anecdotes, more or less authentic, re 
 lating to skilful management of law cases and a 
 singularly methodical and faithful performance of 
 dry details of professional business. There are other 
 floating waifs which tell of social qualities, personal 
 kindliness, and .liberality. Putting them all to 
 gether, they do but indicate in the usual way the 
 well-known processes through which a rising man 
 steadily obtains the hold upon his fellow-citizens 
 which they themselves at last discover and make of 
 public or party use. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland Assistant District- Attorney Drafted 
 as a Soldier A Defeated Candidate Rising at the 
 Bar Elected Sheriff- Two Executions. 
 
 MR. CLEVELAND S duties in connection with the 
 business of Rogers, Bowen & Rogers were of a lim 
 ited nature, and did not constitute him in any sense 
 a member of the firm. He was, therefore, free to 
 accept and attend to any private practice which 
 might offer. Some did offer, from time to time, 
 and was managed in a manner which gave him the 
 confidence of his clients and their friends, while 
 winning the professional approval of older practi 
 tioners. There is rarely any opportunity for brill 
 iant display in the minor cases which drift within 
 the reach of a very young lawyer. 
 
 In 1863, the fourth year of this mingling of office 
 work and general business, the information that 
 an assistant district-attorney for Erie County was 
 soon to be selected went the rounds of the Buffalo 
 law circles. It was an appointment much to be de 
 sired by any young lawyer, as opening a pretty sure 
 gate to reputation and practice. There were, of 
 course, a number of bright young men eager to ob 
 tain the prize, and they and their friends for them 
 reached out for it as best they might. There was, 
 nevertheless, a kind of undertone of common opin- 
 
44 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 ion, making itself heard, that Grover Cleveland was 
 the right man for the place. He made no effort, 
 presented no application, keeping aloof from the 
 current discussion of the matter, while the claims 
 and qualities of the several aspirants were almost 
 necessarily compared with his own. The result of 
 such a process of the selection of the fittest brought 
 him an unsought offer of the appointment. He was 
 able to accept it, therefore, without bringing upon 
 himself any of the injurious consequences of a rivalry 
 and a contest. 
 
 There were especial reasons why the Buffalo bar 
 desired an assistant district-attorney from whom 
 they might expect diligence and capacity. The law 
 did not require that the district-attorney himself 
 should be a resident of the city of Buffalo, where 
 most of the business of the office was transacted. 
 Mr. Cyrenius C. Torrance, who then held the posi 
 tion, was in delicate health, and his home was at 
 Gowanda, a country village thirty miles from Buf 
 falo. So far, therefore, as the ordinary routine of 
 work might be concerned, Grover Cleveland became 
 district-attorney, and all his ambition was aroused 
 to the thorough performance of every duty which 
 Mr. Torrance was compelled to leave in his hands. 
 He began to make his mark at once. Case after 
 case, as he took it up, in its order, was handled in 
 a manner which testified to the good results of pre 
 vious fidelity. Nothing was permitted to take him 
 away from the increasing and even oppressive de 
 mands of his public duties. While in the office of 
 Rogers, Bowcn & Rogers, members of the firm and 
 
GROVE R CLEVELAND. 45 
 
 others had frequently invited him to their houses, 
 and in other ways had tried to draw him out into 
 society. It was not only a testimony of their per 
 sonal esteem, but a kindly expression of their idea 
 that he was confining himself too closely to the 
 hard-work part of human life. He had almost uni 
 formly refused to be turned aside, even in so pleas 
 ant a manner, from the one aim before him, and he 
 now did the same. Cordial and kindly to all who 
 came and ready to respond heartily to every friendly 
 greeting, he had that upon his hands which de 
 manded every hour of time and every ounce of 
 strength, and to all social enticements he gave a 
 courteous but firm denial. 
 
 The course of the Civil War and the management 
 of national affairs by the Lincoln administration 
 and by the Republican majority in Congress dur 
 ing the years 1861 and 1862 had been greatly mis 
 understood by the people of the country. The 
 very magnitude of the terrible struggle for national 
 life and unity confused the minds of men. All dis 
 asters to the Union arms were painted darkly, while 
 the most important successes, vitally affecting the 
 final result, were either undervalued or ignored. The 
 burdens of the war, its awful cost in human life and 
 in what seemed fabulous treasure, sickened the very 
 hearts of a multitude. The South was putting forth 
 its utmost strength, heroically, and it was needful 
 that the Union armies in the field should be re 
 newed and heavily re-enforced ; but volunteers did 
 not now come forward as at the first. Even heaped- 
 up bounties d*id not offer a sufficient stimulus. 
 
46 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 The Autumnal elections of 1862 sent out a voice 
 of political warning also. The Democratic Oppo 
 sition, absorbing now the conservative elements of 
 the old Whig Party, notably the Fillmore Whigs 
 of Erie County, N. Y., gained a strength which 
 gave it the control of several Northern States and 
 of many important municipalities. One of the 
 seemingly minor and almost unimportant fruits of 
 the political change had been the election of Mr. 
 Torrance to be District-Attorney of Erie County, 
 that Grover Cleveland might receive his first public 
 employment in the following year. 
 
 President Lincoln and the strong men who ood 
 around him were equal to the emergency. Warned 
 by the soldiers of the South and by the voters of 
 the North that the war must be pushed with even 
 the vigor of desperation, the response of the na 
 tional Executive and the national Legislature was 
 grandly energetic. Already, September 22d, 1862, 
 just before the adverse elections, the President had 
 issued his first Proclamation of Emancipation, and 
 the second followed at the end of the specified 
 ninety days. Another proclamation declared the 
 suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus in speci 
 fied cases arising in connection with the Civil War. 
 The succeeding session of Congress strengthened the 
 national finances by the National Bank Act and by 
 other measures, and provided unlimited re-enforce 
 ments for the army by the Draft Act. A year of 
 unprecedented military activity was planned, and 
 it was well understood that 1863 would witness a 
 trial of strength between the contending forces which 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 47 
 
 the South, at least, could never hope to repeat, un 
 less her arms should prove phenomenally successful. 
 The machinery of the Draft Act was prepared with 
 extraordinary rapidity and efficiency, and in mid- 
 Summer it began to reach out its iron hands for its 
 harvest of living men. The successive measures of 
 the Administration were bitterly, wrathfully criti 
 cised by the orators and press of the Opposition. 
 There were muttered threats of forcible opposition 
 to the draft in many places. In New York City its 
 enforcement was made the occasion of a riot, in 
 which fourteen hundred men were killed, but there 
 was little real trouble elsewhere. The day for its 
 pitiless lottery came in Buffalo, and the first name 
 drawn from the wheel was that of Grover Cleveland. 
 
 There could not be one moment of hesitation as 
 to what was his duty as a patriotic citizen. Presi 
 dent Lincoln wanted one more rifleman, tallying 
 with that slip of paper drawn from the wheel con 
 taining the list of serviceable citizens of Erie County. 
 He did not especially require an assistant district- 
 attorney who already had two brothers in the 
 army. Mr. Cleveland quietly provided a substitute, 
 as permitted by the law, and went on with the in 
 creasing mass of important public law cases in his 
 hands. The fact that he was now the sole support 
 of his mother received a pointed commentary in the 
 fact that the money required to procure a substitute 
 was borrowed of Mr. Torrance. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland s duties as assistant district-at 
 torney began with the year 1863, at a salary of 
 only six hundred dollars, the real advantages ex- 
 
48 GROVE R CLEVELAND. 
 
 pected being strictly professional and largely in the 
 future. His moderate partisanship, in connection 
 with his efficient services as a " working Democrat," 
 were given yet another recognition in that year. 
 The old Second Ward of Buffalo contained a large 
 German population, and was Republican by a pretty 
 regular majority of about two hundred and fifty. 
 The local Democracy insisted upon nominating 
 Grover Cleveland for supervisor, without much idea 
 of electing him ; but, to the astonishment of all men, 
 he only fell short of success by thirteen votes, while 
 the rest of the party ticket was as badly beaten as 
 ever. Perhaps there were shrewd political managers 
 in Buffalo even then who took notes for future ref 
 erence concerning a man who could bring out all the 
 strength of his own party and at the same time 
 borrow votes from the other side. 
 
 The military events of the year 1863 included the 
 victory at Gettysburg and the complete success of 
 General Grant s campaign in the West, but their 
 effect upon the popular mind was not fully compre 
 hended until the close of the Presidential campaign 
 of 1864. It was a matter of course that Abraham 
 Lincoln should be renominated for President by 
 the Republican Party. Andrew Johnson was named 
 with him for Vice-President. The Democratic 
 Party drew into its ranks every element of Northern 
 opposition to the Lincoln administration, expressed 
 its criticisms and complaints vehemently in its plat 
 form, but nominated as its candidate for President 
 General George B. McClellan, with George H. 
 Pendleton, of Ohio, for Vicc-President. They were 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 49 
 
 able to win but twenty-one votes in the electoral 
 college against two hundred and twelve given to 
 Lincoln and Johnson, and they failed to elect a suf 
 ficient number of members of Congress to answer the 
 purposes of legislative " opposition" required for 
 political health under all known forms of constitu 
 tional and representative government by the people. 
 
 With the year 1865 the official term of Mr. Tor- 
 ranee, and so of his energetic assistant, was to expire 
 by limitation, and there was no question whatever 
 as to who should then be the Democratic candidate 
 for district-attorney. Mr. Cleveland was nomi 
 nated, as a matter of course, in the hope that his 
 personal popularity and his known fitness for and 
 familiarity with the duties of the position might 
 carry him through, in spite of the disaster which 
 the party had suffered in Erie County at the elec 
 tion in 1864. He ran very well, although he posi 
 tively refused to take any personal part in the can 
 vass. He attended court and argued cases while 
 his friends electioneered for him. They did their 
 best, but the odds against them were too great, and 
 his close personal friend, the Republican candidate, 
 Lyman K. Bass, was duly elected. 
 
 It was no disaster whatever to Grover Cleveland 
 that he was defeated in the canvass for district-at 
 torney. He had won all that he could win in con 
 nection with that office, and it was time for him to 
 strike out into general practice. His course during 
 the years in which he had been in charge of a large 
 and important part of its business had given him a 
 very desirable prominence before the public as well 
 
50 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 as a good rank at the bar, and it was certain that 
 private practice of all sorts would now come to him. 
 His arrangements for business were speedily made, 
 and he formed a partnership, in January, 1866, with 
 Isaac K. Vanderpoel, a lawyer of excellent stand 
 ing and reputation, formerly Treasurer of the State 
 of New York. The firm of Vanderpoel & Cleveland 
 continued until August, 1869, when it was dissolved 
 by the election of its senior member as Police Jus- 
 tice of Buffalo. A new firm was formed at once, 
 consisting of A. P. Laning, Grover Cleveland, and 
 Oscar Folsom. They were warm personal friends 
 as well as business associates, and this, too, was yet 
 to be an important factor in the career of Mr. Cleve 
 land. The firm of Laning, Cleveland & Folsom 
 found its hands at once full of important business. 
 In that very first year, 1869, they were counsel for 
 the defence in the most noted libel suit which, until 
 then, had occurred in that part of the State that of 
 Hon. David S. Bennett against the Buffalo Commer 
 cial Advertiser. The damages claimed were one 
 hundred thousand dollars, and the various points at 
 issue the nature of the case, the standing of the 
 parties, the business interests involved all attracted 
 to it an uncommon intensity of popular interest. Its 
 management was especially in the hands of Mr. 
 Cleveland, and to him, in general estimation, was 
 given the credit of gaining an unexpected triumph 
 for his clients and, at the same time, for correct 
 business methods and for the freedom of the press. 
 There are a number of cases on the docket during 
 1868, 1869, and 1870 whose importance, character, 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 51 
 
 and history go far toward explaining what would 
 otherwise be the enigma of the strong position held 
 by Mr. Cleveland in the city and county at this 
 early day. It was a kind of strength deserving a 
 careful study by the managers of political parties, 
 for it is readily and thoroughly understood by the 
 clear-headed common people of America. Once it 
 is gained, to any exceptional degree, by any man in 
 one county for instance, in Erie County any other 
 county, to whose voters the fact and its nature are 
 made plain, becomes as the first county with ref 
 erence to that man. Men feel that they know him, 
 and they speak of him as an acquaintance and a 
 neighbor, and unless they are altogether opposite 
 to him in their political opinions, they are very 
 likely to vote for him as soon as an opportunity 
 offers. Daniel Webster s genius and learning do 
 not present so strong an appeal for the confidence 
 and support of a voter who can form no satisfactory 
 mental picture of them and to whom their possess 
 or looms up as a kind of myth, rather than as a 
 familiar and friendly human being. 
 
 In the year 1870 the Democratic Party was aware 
 that the Congressional district constituted by Erie 
 County was Republican by a small and doubtful 
 majority, which might be overcome by judicious 
 nominations and a vigorous canvass. It possessed 
 a strong candidate for Congress in Hon. David 
 Williams, the manager of the Lake Shore Railroad, 
 but any important defect in the list of minor can 
 didates to be voted for at the same election would 
 probably defeat the ticket. This was, therefore, 
 
52 GROVE R CLEVELAND. 
 
 made up with great care. The second office in rank 
 among those to be filled was that of sheriff. The 
 shrievalty nomination was probably to be the turn 
 ing point between success and failure. The party 
 managers had only one problem before them, and 
 they solved it. They needed a man, well known 
 throughout the county and particularly in Buffalo, 
 against whose personal and business character no 
 just criticism could be made. He must be a Demo 
 crat whose party record was without flaw, that he 
 might draw out the full strength of his own some 
 what jealous and exacting party. He must at the 
 same time be a man who had not, by extreme par 
 tisanship, made it impossible for him to obtain a 
 few hundred votes which might otherwise be cast 
 for a Republican. 
 
 It was what is sometimes termed " an off year" 
 in politics, midway between two Presidential cam 
 paigns. In the great contest of 1868 General U. S. 
 Grant had been elected President and Schuyler 
 Colfax Vice-President, with two hundred and four 
 teen votes in the electoral college, but thirty-three 
 of the eighty electoral votes given to Horatio Sey 
 mour and Francis P. Blair were those of the State 
 of New York. There were everywhere indications 
 that the old Civil War party lines were breaking, and 
 the Democracy throughout the country determined 
 to send more of its own men to Congress in 1872. 
 
 The post of Sheriff of Erie County was known to 
 be very lucrative, and it carried with it an amount 
 and kind of political influence which rendered it 
 sure to be fought for with all the force of the party 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 53 
 
 which already held it. In order to carry the key 
 and central point of the political battlefield, the 
 thoughtful party leaders decided to nominate Grover 
 Cleveland, as being the one man who united in him 
 self all the understood requirements for success. 
 This decision was reached without any consultation 
 with Mr. Cleveland. When the District Convention 
 met and the unsought nomination was made, he 
 strongly protested against the use of his name. De 
 feat might be in many ways injurious, while success 
 would compel him to give up the growing law prac 
 tice that was fast fulfilling the boyish dream which 
 had brought him to Buffalo in 1855. His friends, 
 in reply, frankly explained to him the situation, and 
 he was induced to put aside his personal objections. 
 The canvass was made, and a Democratic victory 
 resulted. Mr. Williams went to Congress, and Mr. 
 Cleveland became Sheriff of Erie County on Janu 
 ary ist, 1871, leaving the law business of Laning, 
 Cleveland & Folsom in the hands of his partners. 
 His connection with them could not be instantly 
 and entirely severed, but his new duties prevented 
 his taking, thenceforth, any very active part in the 
 current practice of the firm. 
 
 As expected, the sharpest fight of the campaign 
 had been over the sheriff, and not over the Con 
 gressman. Mr. Cleveland succeeded by a majority 
 of only about one hundred, but it was distinctly 
 understood that the usual Republican majority had 
 been overcome by a sufficient number of the mem 
 bers of that party, who discerned reasons for prefer 
 ring the Democratic nominee. 
 
54 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 There was a surprise in store for all concerned, for 
 Mr. Cleveland himself expressed surprise at his own 
 election, and then proceeded to remodel the meth 
 ods of transacting the affairs of the sheriff s office. 
 During a long series of official terms, and in the 
 hands of Whigs, Democrats, or Republicans, there 
 had been an order, or rather a disorder, of things 
 full of loopholes for gross favoritism, extravagance, 
 and corruption. Mr. Cleveland had not come to 
 steal, directly or indirectly, nor was he disposed to 
 permit questionable practices in any part of his offi 
 cial domain. There were men in his own party who 
 imagined that the customary spoils would simply 
 change their destination and be apportioned among 
 good Democrats instead of among equally good Re 
 publicans, but they were to be disappointed. The 
 contracts for county supplies, for instance, were no 
 longer awarded by favor, but to the lowest bidders, 
 in fair and public competition, to the great benefit 
 of the county treasury, while every department was 
 subjected to a rigid and business-like censorship, 
 which killed off old-time frauds. 
 
 The better elements of both parties looked on ap 
 provingly, while certain other elements of each mut 
 tered and grumbled. Special care was taken in se 
 lections of minor officials connected with the office, 
 and the deputy in immediate charge of it was Mr. 
 W. L. G. Smith, a gentleman of respectable literary 
 attainments, who had been United States Minister 
 to China under President Buchanan. 
 
 The term of office for which Mr. Cleveland was 
 elected covered the years 1871, 1872, and 1873, no 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 55 
 
 Incumbent being eligible for a consecutive re-elec 
 tion. Although now receiving a considerable in 
 come, he made no change in the quiet, bachelor 
 habits to which he had so long been accustomed. 
 He did not even take a more active interest in local 
 politics or exhibit any desire to become better known 
 as a party manager. He had been almost forced 
 into the position which he now held, and he had no 
 ambition which could induce him to act the part 
 only too well known to American electioneering as 
 that of " Boss." 
 
 The sheriff of a county has the charge and care of 
 all criminals convicted in the county courts, and in 
 this department also Mr. Cleveland is said to have 
 effected desirable improvements. One duty came 
 to him here, however, which presented a singular 
 test of his steadiness of nerve, or, perhaps, of the 
 entire absence from him of the kind of shuddering 
 sentimentalism which can almost pride itself upon 
 turning over to another hand a disagreeable or pain 
 ful duty. The laws of the State of New York do 
 not provide for the creation of the social outcast 
 known in other lands and times as the public execu 
 tioner, the " headsman" or the " hangman." The 
 terrible death penalty is rarely exacted, but in the 
 few extreme cases in which the judge, and the jury, 
 and the State Executive agree that a criminal must 
 no longer live, a mournful effort is made to surround 
 the place of execution with a sombre dignity and 
 solemnity. When the simple but ghastly machinery 
 of a scaffold is all in place for its grim function and 
 the condemned felon stands upon the drop, with 
 
56 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 the rope at his neck, the end comes with the quick 
 severing of the cord which retains in place the 
 weight or fall. The cutting of that cord is, there 
 fore, the taking of human life. It seems to be done 
 by the hand which holds the axe whose edge comes 
 down upon the hemp, but in that hand are concen 
 trated the moral and legal responsibilities of every 
 official, high or low ; of every detective, or witness, 
 or lav/yer ; and of every unknown agency in any 
 manner contributing to the awful result. The jury, 
 and the judge, and the governor, and the sheriff cut 
 the cord as one person, whether or not the latter 
 shrinks from a positive, physical performance of his 
 last duty and commits it to the hand of a temporary 
 deputy, hired at a high price from among the men 
 who are less sensitive in the matter of taking human 
 life. Sheriff Cleveland was unable to discern the 
 imagined sentimental elevation of an officer of the 
 law lifting his hand or dropping his handkerchief, 
 as a signal to another man, above that other man 
 who, at that signal, dropped an edge of steel upon 
 a releasing cord. In the two capital cases which 
 occurred during his term of office he performed the 
 final duty himself, but in each case he accomplished 
 first an important public service. In one, while 
 making no undue effort to secure a pardon, which 
 was plainly not merited, it was at his instance that 
 the governor caused a special inquiry by medical 
 expercs as to the sanity of the convict. In both a 
 judicious effort was made on behalf of decent pri 
 vacy and in resistance of the morbid, pernicious 
 curiosity which is accustomed to haunt the last 
 scenes of a criminal tragedy. 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 57 
 
 From month to month and from year to year, 
 even the murmurs of the dissatisfied assisted in mak 
 ing the general public uncommonly well acquainted 
 with their sheriff and with the surprising course that 
 he was taking. He went out of the office, at the 
 end of his term, with a very large augmentation of 
 the peculiar reputation and strength which had 
 caused his nomination and secured his election. 
 
 There was one interruption to the toilsome rou 
 tine of Sheriff Cleveland s attention to public duties. 
 His brothers Cecil and Frederick had become 
 lessees of the Victoria Hotel, at Nassau, and had 
 looked forward to an abundant prosperity. One 
 dark day, in the year 1872, however, the news came 
 that the Steamer Missouri, upon which they were 
 passengers, had been burned at sea, and that they 
 had perished with the rest. It was necessary for 
 Mr. Cleveland to leave his office to his deputies 
 during about six weeks, that he might make a 
 mournful voyage to the Bermudas and settle the 
 affairs of his kindred. He went and returned, mak 
 ing his first and only acquaintance with the ocean. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Defective Financiering The First Case in a New 
 Law Practice Capacity for Work Death of Oscar 
 Folsoin Old Law Cases Preparing for a National 
 Reputation. 
 
 ON leaving the sheriff s office, Mr. Cleveland re 
 turned, without any parade whatever, to the law. 
 His old-time practice, with its business connections 
 and channels of increase, had long since passed away 
 from him. He was now in very good circumstances, 
 from former earnings and from the accumulated, 
 "unexpended fees of the shrievalty. He would have 
 been a man of considerable property if it had not 
 been for certain noticeable defects of character. 
 One of these, testified to by his partners and associ 
 ates, was his incapacity for charging and collecting 
 his fees. He simply did not know how to get out 
 of a fat case the professional winnings which might 
 be in it and which it would have yielded to a law 
 yer of better capacity in that particular field. An 
 other serious flaw in his financial management was 
 a weakness for undertaking the causes of poor men 
 and for paying the current outlays from his own 
 funds. One of his partners, Mr. W. S. Bissell, is re 
 ported as saying, years later : 
 
 " I am now closing up a case of Cleveland s which has been 
 running on for years, during all which time he has paid all dis- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 59 
 
 bursements, such as costs of entry, witness fees, etc., out of his 
 own pocket, because the man was too poor to meet these necessary 
 expenses. And this is only one case out of many that are here on 
 our books. I have often told him that he had no right to accept 
 the praises of the press and the public for his incorruptibility in 
 office, because it was nothing to the credit of a man who cares 
 nothing for money." 
 
 Another defect, less serious than these in its in 
 jury to his bank account, was a known disposition 
 to keep his old contract with Ingham Townsend 
 and to send out twenty-five dollars, more or less, 
 without any hope or expectation of ever seeing the 
 money again. 
 
 In spite of all these drawbacks, which continued 
 to operate in after time, Mr. Cleveland made a new 
 beginning as a lawyer in the month of January, 
 1874, entirely independent of any immediate profits 
 from his practice. His first case brought him no 
 fee nor any advance of his reputation at the bar. 
 A poor woman, an utter stranger, living out in the 
 country at some distance from Buffalo, came to him 
 with a story of a mortgage upon her home. It was 
 due overdue, and it was about to be foreclosed by 
 its too grasping owner. The property would be 
 sold under the hammer at a ruinous sacrifice, and 
 she and hers would be left homeless and in poverty. 
 Her husband was sick, unable to attend to work or 
 business, and she had come to Mr. Cleveland for 
 advice in her last extremity. The sum required of 
 her was about fourteen hundred dollars, and she had 
 not even enough to pay a respectable fee to a law 
 yer for telling her, perhaps, that the law must take 
 its course. Mr. Cleveland gave her very good ad- 
 
60 GROVE R CLEVELAND. 
 
 vice. He examined the case, and told her to sit 
 still. Then he went to his bank himself, drew out 
 the money in greenbacks, hired a horse and buggy, 
 and sent a messenger to tender payment to the 
 holder of the mortgage. Her home was rescued 
 very easily, and there are those whose convictions 
 would incline them to the idea that such a first case 
 was an uncommonly hopeful beginning. It is said 
 by an ancient writer, "The liberal. soul deviseth 
 liberal things, and by liberal things shall he stand." 
 
 At about this time an entirely new law firm was 
 constructed. It consisted of Lyman K. Bass, the 
 successful Republican candidate for district-attorney 
 in 1865 ; of Grover Cleveland, the defeated Demo 
 cratic candidate in that year ; and of a gentleman 
 named W. S. Bissell. The firm name was Bass, 
 Cleveland & Bissell, and it was speedily overrun 
 with business. Two years afterward, in 1876, the 
 health of Mr. Bass failed, and he went to Colorado 
 for its restoration, leaving the firm " Cleveland & 
 Bissell," to be joined, in iSSi, by Mr. George J. 
 Sicard. 
 
 During the three years of his term as sheriff of 
 Erie County Mr. Cleveland had not in any wise 
 ceased to be a lawyer and a laborious student of 
 law. He returned to his chosen profession not 
 rusted by inactivity nor under any necessity of 
 stumblingly catching up with the times. He was 
 rather rested and ripened and better than ever pre 
 pared to succeed in undertaking business of a high 
 grade and winning for himself an honorable rank 
 at the bar. That of Erie County had, from early 
 
GROVE R CLEVELAND. 61 
 
 days, included some of the most capable lawyers of 
 the State, or of the United States, among whom 
 and in trials of capacity with whom both original 
 and acquired power were requisite to obtain distinc 
 tion. The position at this time and afterward at 
 tained by Mr. Cleveland has been well defined by 
 Hon. George W. Clinton, a son of Governor De 
 Witt Clinton, Vice-Chancellor of the University of 
 New York and Chief Judge of the Superior Court. 
 
 " As a lawyer," says Judge Clinton, " he was known both as a 
 counsellor and an advocate, and he often appeared before a jury. 
 In his jury addresses he never fired over the heads of the jury in 
 rhetorical eloquence. He addressed himself to them directly, as 
 an honest, sensible man speaking to his fellows, and he won his 
 verdicts by his close and full arguments and his thorough knowl 
 edge of all the evidence in the case. He was strictly honorable, 
 and never endeavored to take petty advantages of the opposing 
 counsellor of the jury. So keen was his sense of honor and justice 
 that it would have been against the grain of his character to have 
 tried to mislead a jury, if justice was opposed to him. I certainly 
 never knew him to make the effort. When he began practice his 
 reputation as a lawyer was respectable. It rose gradually among 
 the profession until, at the time he became mayor, he may truth 
 fully be said to have been eminent at the bar of Erie County." 
 
 An all-important element of the swift success 
 which now came to the ex-sheriff was to be found in 
 the unimpaired and exceptional toughness of a con 
 stitution which enabled him to endure extraordinary 
 toil without exhibiting outward signs of fatigue. 
 One of the gentlemen at this time associated with 
 him has recorded, concerning his capacity for work : 
 
 " He [Mr. Cleveland] was the most industrious man I ever knew 
 in any department of life. I have often said to him that I could 
 not work as he did. Time after time he would remain here all 
 
62 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 night in the office working on his cases. . . . He is, more 
 over, the most self-reliant man I ever saw. When he was here he 
 never wanted people to assist about him. What he had to do he 
 would do himself." 
 
 So had it been from the beginning, from the time 
 when a persistent little fellow in a very short jacket 
 succeeded in becoming a scholar in the Fayetteville 
 Academy. Whatever resources of mind, or body, or 
 of circumstances had been given him, he had made 
 the most of them, courageously and tirelessly, and 
 success followed as a necessary result. 
 
 In the year 1875 occurred a sad event, which, in 
 terminating suddenly another life, may have pre 
 pared the way for the future entrance of a new ele 
 ment into that of Mr. Cleveland. The junior part 
 ner in the old law firm of Laning, Cleveland & Fol- 
 som, Mr. Oscar Folsom, was one of those excep 
 tional men for whom their personal friends feel an 
 attachment strongly resembling that of kinship. He 
 was a graduate of the University of Rochester, 
 where he had distinguished himself for scholarly 
 qualities, at the same time that he was about the 
 most popular man in his class. After entering the 
 legal profession he rose rapidly and seemed to have 
 before him a career of brilliant and solid success. 
 In the latter part of July, 1875, however, he was 
 thrown from a carriage, in a runaway, and was al 
 most instantly killed. 
 
 A meeting of the bar of Erie County was promptly 
 called. It was presided over by Judge Daniels of 
 the Supreme Court, and was addressed by a num 
 ber of distinguished gentlemen, eloquently express- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 63 
 
 ing deep feeling over so startling a termination of 
 so bright a life. Mr. Cleveland was called upon, 
 and there was something peculiarly touching in the 
 tribute which he paid to the memory of his friend. 
 At the same time, no better example can be given 
 of his oratorical power, apart from his trained capac 
 ity for explaining a law point or making a clear 
 argument before a dull or listless jury. It was alto 
 gether unpremeditated, but was carefully reported 
 for the press. 
 
 " It. has been said, Light sorrows speak, great grief is dumb, 
 and the application of this would enforce my silence on this occa 
 sion. But I cannot go so far, nor let the hour pass without add 
 ing a tribute of respect and love for my departed friend. He was 
 my friend in the most sacred and complete sense of the term. I 
 have walked with him, talked with him, ate with him, and slept 
 with him was he not my friend ? 
 
 " I must not, dare not recall the memories of our long and lov 
 ing friendship. And let not my brethren think it amiss if I force 
 back the thoughts which come crowding to my mind. I shall 
 speak coldly of my friend ; but the most sacred tribute of a sad 
 heart, believe me, is unspoken. 
 
 " In the course of a life not entirely devoid of startling incidents, 
 I can truly say I never was so shocked and overwhelmed as when 
 I heard, on Friday night, of the utath of Oscar Folsom. I had an 
 engagement with him that evening, and was momentarily expect 
 ing him when I received the intelligence of his injury ; and before 
 I reached the scene of the accident I was abruptly told of his 
 death ; I shall not attempt to describe my emotions. Death 
 seemed so foreign to this man, and the exuberance of his life was 
 so marked and prominent, that the idea of his dying or his death 
 seemed to me incongruous and out of place. And before I saw 
 him dead I found myself reflecting, How strange he would look, 
 dying or dead. 
 
 " I had seen him in every other part of the drama of life but 
 this and for this he seemed unfitted. 
 
 " His remarkable social qualities won for him the admiration of 
 
64 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 all with whom he came in contact, while his great, kind heart 
 caused all to love him who knew him well. He was remarkably 
 true in his friendships, and having really made a friend he grap 
 pled him with hooks of steel. Open and frank himself, he op 
 posed deceit and indirection. His remarkable humor never had 
 intentional sting ; and though impulsive and quick, he was al 
 ways just. In the practice of his profession and in the solution of 
 legal questions he saw which was right and just, and then expected 
 to find the law leading him directly there. 
 
 " It is not strange to find joined to a jovial disposition a kind 
 and generous heart ; but he had, besides these, a broad and cor 
 rect judgment and a wonderful knowledge of men and affairs ; 
 and the instances are numerous in my experience when his strong 
 common-sense has aided me easily through difficulties. Such was 
 my friend. 
 
 " The sadness of his taking off has no alleviation. I shall not 
 dwell upon the harrowing circumstances. On Friday afternoon 
 Oscar Folsom, in the midday of life, was cherishing bright antici 
 pations for the future. Among them, he had planned a home in 
 an adjoining town, where he calculated upon much retirement and 
 quiet. He had already partially perfected his arrangements, which 
 were soon to be fully consummated. Within forty-eight hours he 
 reached the town of his anticipated residence. But God had in 
 tervened. The hands of loving friends bore him to a home, but 
 not the home he had himself provided. He found peace in the 
 home that God provides for the sons of men, and quiet ah ! such 
 quiet in the grave. I know how fleeting and how soon forgotten 
 are the lessons taught by such calamities. The gay will laugh, 
 the solemn brow of care plod on, and each one as before pursue 
 his favorite phantom. But it seems to me long, long years will 
 intervene before pleasant memories of his life will be unmingled 
 with the sad admonitions furnished by the death of Oscar Folsom. 
 
 " Let us cherish him in loving remembrance and heed well the 
 lesson of his death ; and let our tenderest sympathy extend to a 
 childless father, a widowed wife, and fatherless child." 
 
 His own course with reference to these was yet 
 to prove the utter sincerity of his utterances before 
 the Buffalo bar. 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 65 
 
 There is nothing generally interesting in old law 
 cases. Their dry mummies, in the form of court 
 records and heaps of old papers, seem as if there 
 could never have been any life in them ; yet they all 
 once belonged to the lives of men and women. 
 They are dramas, many of them tragedies, of hope 
 and disappointment, of strife and sorrow, of passion 
 and of crime. The career of any busy lawyer, no 
 tably such a career as had thus far been that of 
 Grover Cleveland, needs but to be put into story by 
 a skilful hand to exceed in interest any possible cre 
 ation of a novelist. Imagination falls short of the 
 reality, always ; but these true stories will never be 
 told, for who shall read and interpret the hearts on 
 both sides of any case and trace the relation of their 
 stilled or quickened beatings to the dry and formal 
 papers and the action of counsel and of court ? 
 
 Year after year, in a long succession of cases, 
 lesser and greater, Mr. Cleveland firmly established 
 his reputation as one of the leading lawyers of West 
 ern New York. As one of his professional friends 
 remarked of him, " He was the strongest man I 
 ever knew without a national reputation." 
 
 When such a statement can truthfully be made 
 of any man, it is hardly less than a prophecy of na 
 tional fame to come, for the individual making the 
 assertion cannot have been the only keen-eyed ob 
 server who has discovered so important a fact. 
 There were really several thousands of men, in Buf 
 falo alone, who had already formed very much the 
 same opinion and were only waiting a suitable op 
 portunity to give it practical expression, by ballot or 
 otherwise. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Politics after the Civil War The New Vote The 
 New Democratic Party Mr. Cleveland Talked of 
 for Alderman Elected Mayor of Buffalo. 
 
 IT was necessary that a new generation should 
 arise before the United States could come out from 
 under the dark shadow of the Civil War. It was 
 almost necessary that the old generation should en 
 tirely pass away. Strangely enough, some of the 
 worst effects of the great struggle were thrown off 
 vastly more readily by men who had borne arms on 
 either side than by other men who had but talked 
 or written about the war. There were sound rea 
 sons, beyond any dispute, for the nation s decision, 
 at the polls, that its government should, for a time, 
 at least, be carried on by the men who had con 
 ducted the war to a successful conclusion. Equally 
 wise, however, were the local constituencies who 
 were beginning to strengthen the hands of the hith 
 erto almost overwhelmed Opposition in Congress. 
 
 This Opposition retained, from political necessity, 
 the name of the Democratic Party, although it now 
 included men who had sat in the Chicago Conven 
 tion of 1860 ; many who had been prominent sup 
 porters of the Lincoln administration ; with a long 
 list of the best soldiers of the Union armies. In 
 most of the Southern States it held an unquestion- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 67 
 
 able preponderance from its curious inheritance of 
 the entire " secession" vote which was detrimen 
 tal to the best interests of those commonwealths 
 and to the position of the party at the North. 
 
 In the year 1872, while Mr. Cleveland was sheriff 
 of Erie County and took no unduly active part in 
 politics, although working steadily and efficiently 
 with his own party, the Presidential campaign was 
 less vigorously contested than usual. From its be 
 ginning to its end not many men had any serious 
 doubt of a Republican victory, but thoughtful poli 
 ticians studied the election returns for indications 
 of the drift of public opinion and for omens of the 
 political future. 
 
 The Republican Party renominated General Grant 
 for President and named Senator Henry Wilson, of 
 Massachusetts, for Vice-President. The Opposition 
 declared itself a coalition of the regular Democratic 
 Party and the Liberal Republicans, and nominated 
 Horace Greeley for President and B. Gratz Brown 
 for Vice-President. Undoubtedly a large number 
 of dissatisfied Republicans voted for that ticket, but 
 a vastly larger number of Democrats, who took no 
 interest in such an election, quietly remained at 
 home. In 1868 the popular vote had shown an al 
 most parallel rate of increase for both parties, with 
 the advantage in favor of the Democracy. 
 
 In 1872 the popular vote seemed to say that 
 while the Republican Party had gained five hundred 
 and eighty-one thousands of voters, the Democratic 
 Party had gained only one hundred and twenty-four 
 thousand. The death of Mr. Greeley before the 
 
68 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 meeting of the electoral colleges of the several 
 States yet farther disturbed the elements for mak 
 ing calculations. The electoral votes gave the 
 prophesied result even more decisively than had 
 been expected : two hundred and eighty-six for 
 Grant and Wilson ; forty-two for Thomas A. Hen- 
 dricks for President and forty-seven for B. Gratz 
 Brown for Vice-President, and the remainder scat 
 tering confusedly. The coalition had failed to 
 carry any Northern State. It had not really been 
 a coalition. It had been rather a marvellously blind 
 and blundering attempt to discover and to organize 
 the elements which all competent politicians knew 
 to be in existence for a strong and efficient Opposi 
 tion. One of those elements would not support a 
 memory of the secession movement, in the person 
 of any leader, Northern or Southern. Another 
 was as positive in its rooted aversion to any mem 
 ory of abolitionism, represented, for instance, by 
 even so moderate and capable a man as Horace 
 Greeley. Yet another important element saw or 
 felt that the right time had not come, and if it 
 voted at all it did not urge anybody else to do so. 
 The executive and the legislative branches of the 
 National Government were apparently turned over 
 by the people to the compact and powerful party 
 which had saved the Union and the life of the na 
 tion ; but the reaction had out been delayed, and 
 in the Autumn of 1874 the House of Representa 
 tives contained a strong Democratic majority. The 
 Presidential term wore away, and 1876 came, and once 
 more the Republican Party and the Opposition held 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 69 
 
 their national conventions, but in the mean time tre 
 mendous changes had taken place. In 1872, out 
 of three hundred and sixty-six electoral votes, sev 
 enteen for President and fourteen for Vice-Presi 
 dent had been rejected for reasons growing out of 
 the as yet defective reconstruction of the Southern 
 commonwealths. In 1876, Colorado, with three 
 votes, having been added, there were to be three 
 hundred and sixty-nine electoral votes, with no 
 known reason why any should fail of being counted. 
 Minor elections throughout the country showed 
 that the Republican Party had lost nothing in 
 numerical strength, but at the same time proved 
 that the Opposition was making greater relative 
 gains and taking vast strides toward power. It was 
 grasping the lion s share of all naturalized immi 
 grants, and it was sweeping in every form and shade 
 of disaffection with the long and stringent rule of 
 the old Republican Party. Evidently a new politi 
 cal era was dawning, and the most sagacious calcu 
 lators and prophets confessed that the future was an 
 insoluble problem. 
 
 The Republican Party nominated Rutherford B. 
 Hayes for President and William A. Wheeler for 
 Vice-President. 
 
 The Democratic Party nominated Samuel J. Til- 
 den and Thomas A. Hendricks. There was an 
 omen of coming trouble, however, in the almost 
 chaotic condition of the Southern vote and in the 
 fiercely jarring factions of the Republican Party. 
 The Opposition did not as yet feel strong enough 
 to indulge in the luxury of factions. There had 
 
70 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 been a Democratic Party, just before the Civil War, 
 which had elected Abraham Lincoln by insisting 
 upon running two candidates of its own, and the 
 lesson was not likely to be soon forgotten. The 
 returns of the election of 1876 were startling. The 
 Republican Party had gained four hundred and 
 thirty-six thousand eight hundred and eighty votes 
 over its record for 1872, while the Democratic gain 
 was one million four hundred and fifty thousand 
 eight hundred and six, and it held a majority of 
 more than a quarter of a million above its old an 
 tagonist. This majority, however, was not so dis 
 tributed as to insure a preponderance in the elec 
 toral college. There was, at first, an apparent de 
 cision in favor of the Democratic candidate, with a 
 remaining doubt out of which was quickly born one 
 of the most bitter and perilous contests in American 
 political history. The settlement of the many 
 points in dispute required the creation, by act of 
 Congress, of what was known as the Electoral Com 
 mission, a new court of appeals with specific pow 
 ers. Its judgment was rendered only just in time 
 to authorize the inauguration of President Hayes 
 on March 4th, 1877, and the States were declared 
 to have given him one hundred and eighty-five 
 electoral votes, against one hundred and eighty- 
 four for Mr. Tilden. A majority of one was suffi 
 cient, and all the nation drew a breath of relief ; but 
 the title of President Hayes was not considered 
 without flaw until June I4th following, when it was 
 so declared by an overwhelming vote in Congress. 
 The difference of a million and a half between its 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 71 
 
 vote of 1872 and its vote of 1876 was a notification 
 to the old-time Democratic leaders that a new party- 
 had arisen, and that it must look around for new 
 men to place before the people, or that it must ex 
 pect defeat. A sort of enigma was propounded, 
 seeing that as yet it had no apparent means for in 
 dicating by name the right individual among its 
 tumultuous four and a quarter millions. Hopeful 
 Democrats assured each other that the coming man 
 would show his marks before long, but not any of 
 them dreamed of looking for him in a busy law office 
 in Western New York, and in the person of a very- 
 quiet bachelor, who as yet had held no office higher 
 than that of county sheriff. A year or so later, 
 he was, indeed, talked of for alderman of his own 
 ward in the city of Buffalo. The story of that is 
 told by a leading citizen, one of his strong personal 
 friends, but a stanch Republican. They were at 
 breakfast together at the City Club. 
 
 " He [Mr. Cleveland] said that the people of his ward were 
 badgering him to run for alderman ; that the ward was a Repub 
 lican one, and they thought he might carry it. He thought it was 
 his duty to run ; that he would be able in that way to give con 
 trol of the council to the Democrats, and in that way keep those 
 fellows (the other aldermen) straight. He seemed to be annoyed 
 that the people should put it .on the ground of obligation, as he 
 did not want to give his time to it, nor was it congenial to his tastes 
 to accept such a place. He thought it would interfere with his 
 business. 
 
 " I said to him : Cleveland, I would not take the place ; you 
 have the right idea of it ; your professional career is of vastly 
 more importance than the wrangling position of alderman ; but 
 I ll tell you what, Cleveland, I am a Republican ; but if you will 
 run for mayor I will vote for you. I do not think he anticipated 
 the nomination of mayor." 
 
72 GROVE R CLEVELAND. 
 
 The preponderance of duty was against the alder- 
 manic canvass, but Mr. Welch had given an unpre 
 meditated, conversational expression to an idea that 
 was ready to take form in the minds of many hun 
 dreds of other Republicans who knew Mr. Cleveland. 
 
 The Presidential campaign of 1880 came, and 
 found a noteworthy condition of affairs. The Re 
 publican Party, solid and firm in spite of its fac 
 tions, had again increased by more than four hun 
 dred thousand votes, as if by the regular growth of 
 a healthy body. The Democratic Party, however, 
 had failed to absorb all the elements of the Opposi 
 tion this time, and was in a minority of nine hun 
 dred and fifteen, so nearly were the great powers 
 equalized, while a third ticket, a " Greenback" 
 fantasy, carried away three hundred thousand of 
 the quadrennial increase. The Republican can 
 didates, James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur, 
 both of whom were to fill the Executive chair, re 
 ceived two hundred and fourteen electoral votes 
 against one hundred and fifty-five given to General 
 Winfield S. Hancock and William H. English, the 
 Democratic nominees. The Opposition had made 
 two blunders. It had failed to unite Ijie prevalent 
 disaffection against the dominant party, and it had 
 discovered no new men. Its candidate for Presi 
 dent was only a very brilliant military record, sin 
 gularly devoid of political strength, and its candidate 
 for Vice-President was a resurrected memory of the 
 old party strifes of the days before the Civil War. 
 
 The thirty-five electoral votes of the State of 
 New York, which had been given to Tilden in 1876, 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND, 73 
 
 were cast for Garfielcl in 1880. Erie County was 
 yet Republican, and the city of Buffalo was a veri 
 table stronghold of that party. 
 
 The course of Mr. Cleveland during all these suc 
 cessive trials of party strength had been such as to 
 identify him firmly and consistently with the doc 
 trines and fortunes of the growing new party, whose 
 several branches, North and South, had been so 
 successfully grafted into the old, deeply-rooted stem 
 which had borne the same name under altogether 
 different political conditions. He was a Democrat 
 of the unquestionably regular denomination from 
 his boyhood up, but capable of a broad and liberal 
 treatment of those opposed to him upon any point, 
 that left them entirely free to agree with him and 
 to act with him with reference to any other. His 
 list of personal friends, beginning with his uncle, 
 contained a large number of well-known Republi 
 cans. At the City Club, and other places of public 
 resort for gentlemen, citizens of character and influ 
 ence were beginning to discuss with growing ear 
 nestness a topic, and a list of topics, which could be 
 separated, somewhat, from the field of State and 
 national party issues. 
 
 Even the games of whist at the club and Mr. 
 Cleveland was said to be an uncommonly good 
 whist player were sometimes interfered with, 
 broken up by gusts of indignant commentary upon 
 the wretchedly corrupt condition of the municipal 
 management of the city of Buffalo. 
 
 Somewhat similar was the state of affairs in many 
 other cities and large towns throughout the country. 
 
74 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 A number of these, and even several of the States 
 of the Union, were rapidly drifting into bankruptcy 
 and repudiation through reckless extravagance and 
 shameless jobbery. It was not a fault of any party, 
 but a disorder of a feverish and over-stimulated 
 time. Its most prominent and disgraceful repre 
 sentative had been the Democratic "Tweed Ring" 
 of New York City, broken up at last by a com 
 bination of the honest elements of both political 
 parties. A reformation of abuses existing in the 
 city of Buffalo called for a like combination in the 
 year iSSi. 
 
 The Republican rule in Buffalo had been sustain 
 ed by majorities ranging from twenty-five hundred 
 to five thousand, nearly related, from one campaign 
 to another, to the recorded votes given to State and 
 national party tickets. There was no use whatever 
 in any Democrat running for the office of mayor 
 simply as a Democrat. There could be no benefit 
 won by the party, on the other hand, in raising the 
 cry of " reform," unless it should place before the 
 people a candidate sufficiently well known as ca 
 pable of embodying that idea and fit to be trusted 
 with the fulfilment of its promise. The rank and 
 file of the Republican Party, with all the personal 
 following of its candidates, good or bad, would 
 surely go with and for any straight party ticket 
 nominated. Democratic success called for a name 
 which would attract at least two thousand of the 
 best and most thoughtful Republicans of Buffalo. 
 When the Democratic City Convention met it was 
 a sort of Diogenes, searching with an uncommonly 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 75 
 
 anxious lantern the streets and lanes of its own 
 organization all over Buffalo. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland was not a member of the conven 
 tion. He was interested in its proceedings and in 
 their result, for he had long been in the .habit of 
 strongly expressing his public-spirited indignation 
 over the known waste and misappropriation of the 
 municipal funds, and over grave defects in the ad 
 ministration of the people s business. On that day, 
 however, he was trying a case in court, while the 
 convention made its search and discovered the name 
 it was in need of. He was nominated for mayor as 
 a Democrat, but particularly as the Democratic cit 
 izen whose personal character carried in it an assur 
 ance of something more than mere partisanship. 
 
 As soon as the nomination was made and the ap 
 plause with which it was received had subsided, a 
 committee was appointed to go to the court room 
 and notify the candidate of what had been done. 
 He heard them when they came, expressed a simple 
 and modest assent, and returned with them to the 
 hall of the convention. 
 
 Here he was received with enthusiasm, but he 
 had no speech to make. While heartily and hope 
 fully accepting the nomination, his address was un 
 expectedly brief, and was devoid of all attempt at 
 any oratorical effect. In fact, it was thoroughly 
 business-like and commonplace, and as soon as he 
 could punctuate it with a bow to the convention he 
 went back to the court room and finished his sus 
 pended argument. A more formal acceptance, con 
 stituting also the "platform" upon which he pro- 
 
76 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 posed to be brought before the people, was quickly 
 afterward transmitted and published. It was as 
 follows : 
 
 " GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION : I am informed that you 
 have bestowed upon me the nomination for the office of mayor. 
 It certainly is a great honor to be thought fit to be the chief officer 
 of a great and prosperous city like ours, having such important 
 and varied interests. I hoped that your choice might fall upon 
 some other and more worthy member of the city Democracy, for 
 personal and private considerations have made the question of ac 
 ceptance on my part a difficult one. But because I am a Democrat, 
 and because I think no one has a right, at this time of all others, 
 to consult his own inclinations as against the call of his party and 
 fellow citizens, and hoping that I may be of use to you in your 
 efforts to inaugurate a better rule in municipal affairs, I accept the 
 nomination tendered me. 
 
 " I believe much can be done to relieve our citizens from their 
 present load of taxation, and that a more rigid scrutiny of all pub 
 lic expenditures will result in a great saving to the community. I 
 also believe that some extravagance in our city government may 
 be corrected without injury to the public service. 
 
 " There is or there should be no reason why the affairs of our 
 city should not be managed with the same care and the same econ 
 omy as private interests. And when we consider that public 
 officials are the trustees of the people, and hold their places and ex- 
 ercise their powers for the benefit of the people, there should be no 
 higher inducement to a faithful and honest discharge of public duty. 
 
 " These are very old truths ; but I cannot forbear to speak in 
 this strain to-day, because I believe the time has come when the 
 people loudly demand that these principles shall be, sincerely and 
 without mental reservation, adopted as a rule of conduct. And I 
 am assured that the result of the campaign upon which we enter 
 to-day will demonstrate that the citizens of Buffalo will not toler 
 ate the man or the party who has been unfaithful to public trusts. 
 
 " I say these things to a convention of Democrats, because I 
 know that the grand old party is honest and they cannot be unwel 
 come to you. 
 
 " Let us, then, in all sincerity promise the people >an improve- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 77 
 
 ment in our municipal affairs ; and if the opportunity is offered 
 us, as it surely will be, let us faithfully keep that promise. By 
 this means, and by this means alone, can our success rest upon a 
 firm foundation and our party ascendency be permanently assured. 
 Our opponents will wage a bitter and determined warfare, but with 
 united and hearty effort we shall achieve a victory for our entire 
 ticket. 
 
 " And at this day, and with my record before you, I trust it is 
 unnecessary for me to pledge to you my most earnest endeavors 
 to bring about this result ; and if elected to the position for which 
 you have nominated me, I shall do my whole duty to the party, 
 but none the less, I hope, to the citizens of Buffalo." 
 
 The canvass was, as he anticipated, " bitter and 
 determined," but it was soon discovered to be some 
 thing more than a mere party struggle. The Re 
 publicans of Buffalo had no thought of changing 
 their relations to their great national organization, 
 but a very large number of them could not be per 
 suaded that the abuses spoken of in Mr. Cleveland s 
 letter of acceptance were a correct expression of 
 Republicanism. They therefore voted for the 
 Democratic nominee, and he was elected by a major 
 ity of three thousand five hundred over his com 
 petitor. Many of even those who voted against him 
 were well satisfied with the result, while more were 
 disposed to watch him with lynx-eyed jealousy and 
 see if he really meant anything by his promises of re 
 form. On the whole, they did not believe it would 
 all amount to anything more than the ordinary bait 
 in every political platform trap that is set to catch 
 voters. They had been too sharp to be caught, they 
 said to themselves, and so they were prepared to be 
 the more deeply and permanently influenced by the 
 fact that Mayor Cleveland kept his word. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Mayor s Reform Message The First Veto 
 Skirmishing The Great Fight Over the Sewer 
 The Street-Cleaning Contract Minor Vetoes The 
 Semi-Centennial of Buffalo. 
 
 " A CITY set upon a hill cannot be hid." A hu 
 man character may possess the qualities for which 
 other men are seeking, and yet its value will fail of 
 general recognition until it shall be placed upon 
 some elevation where it can be seen by other eyes 
 than those which have been close by it in some hol 
 low. The work done by Grover Cleveland in the 
 law office of Rogers, Bowen & Rogers had been 
 understood by the narrow circle of observers who 
 soon selected him for assistant district-attorney. 
 The field of recognition steadily widened, and he 
 became Sheriff of Erie County. The direct opera 
 tion of the same law of human society had now car 
 ried him into the mayor s chair. 
 
 The commerce of the fresh-water inland seas of 
 North America is enormous and is rapidly increas 
 ing. Its best connection with the commerce of the 
 great world is through the natural and artificial 
 channels provided by the State of New York, cen 
 tral among which arc the Hudson River, the Erie 
 Canal, and their auxiliary railway lines. At the 
 Atlantic terminus of this great avenue of trade and 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 79 
 
 transportation is the great city known as New York 
 and Brooklyn, arbitrarily but conveniently divided 
 by the East River and by existing charters into two 
 municipalities. Second to this among the cities of 
 the Empire State is the city of Buffalo, at the lake 
 end of the avenue, and the fact that the latter has 
 a population bordering upon a quarter of a million 
 does not adequately express its commercial connec 
 tions, its manufacturing importance, and its political 
 prominence among the cities of the United States. 
 
 The city of New York does not govern itself, but 
 is jealously provided by the State with a system of 
 " boards of commissioners," greatly diminishing the 
 power and responsibility of its mayor and aldermen. 
 It is otherwise in Buffalo, and the provisions of the 
 city charter provide a wide field for the exercise of 
 local executive and legislative ability. It was a 
 field very thickly grown with offensive weeds in the 
 year iSSi. 
 
 The city is politically divided into thirteen wards, 
 and the majority which elected Mr. Cleveland was 
 not well distributed among them. Each ward was 
 entitled to two aldermen, and in only five was the 
 opposition to the old order of things able to elect 
 its candidates. The Common Council consequently 
 contained only ten "reform" members, against six 
 teen who were, at least, prepared to resist innova 
 tion. The minority of ten was sufficient, however, 
 to protect the veto power of the mayor, and to pre 
 vent a two-thirds vote from carrying obnoxious legis 
 lation over his head. If, therefore, he was not at 
 once in position to originate and carry into effect 
 
8o GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 reform measures, he could immediately present an 
 impassable barrier to unlawful or otherwise objec 
 tionable proceedings on the part of the Common 
 Council. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland entered upon the discharge of his 
 new duties on January 2d, 1882, and the public 
 waited eagerly for his first official utterance. It 
 came in the shape of the customary message from 
 the mayor to the council. Its reading before that 
 body by their clerk was listened to with profound 
 but somewhat agitated attention, and the news 
 papers of Buffalo which published it sold many more 
 copies than usual, for something like a gust of pure 
 air seemed to come with it. 
 
 " To the Honorable the Common Council of the City of Buffalo : 
 
 " In presenting to you my first official communication, I am by 
 no means unmindful of the fact that I address a body, many of 
 the members of which have had large experience in municipal 
 affairs ; and which is directly charged, more than any other instru 
 mentality, with the management of the government of the city 
 and the protection of the interests of all the people within its 
 limits. This condition of things creates grave responsibilities, 
 which I have no doubt you fully appreciate. It may not be amiss, 
 however, to remind you that our fellow citizens, just at this time, 
 are particularly watchful of those in whose hands they have placed 
 the administration of the city government, and demand of them 
 the most watchful care and conscientious economy. 
 
 " We hold the money of the people in our hands, to be used for 
 their purposes and to further their interests as members of the 
 municipality ; and it is quite apparent that, when any part of the 
 funds which the taxpayers have thus intrusted to us are diverted 
 to other purposes, or when, by design or neglect, we allow a 
 greater sum to be applied to any municipal purpose than is neces 
 sary, we have, to that extent, violated our duty. There surely is 
 no difference in his duties and obligations, whether a person is in- 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 81 
 
 trusted with the money of one man or many. And yet it some 
 times appears as though the officeholder assumes that a different 
 rule of fidelity prevails between him and the taxpayers than that 
 which should regulate his conduct when, as an individual, he holds 
 the money of his neighbor. 
 
 " It seems to me that a successful and faithful administration of 
 the government of our city may be accomplished, by bearing in 
 mind that we are the trustees and agents of our fellow citizens, 
 holding their funds in sacred trust, to be expended for their ben 
 efit ; that we should at all times be prepared to render an honest 
 account to them touching the manner of its expenditure, and that 
 the affairs of the city should be conducted, as far as possible, upon 
 the same principles as a good business man manages his private 
 concerns. 
 
 " I am fully persuaded that in the performance of your duties 
 these rules will be observed. And I, perhaps, should not do less 
 than to assure your Honorable Body that, so far as it is in my 
 power, I shall be glad to co-operate with you in securing the faithful 
 performance of official duty in every department of the city govern 
 ment." 
 
 It is a severe and sufficient commentary upon the 
 previous and current management of Buffalo public 
 affairs, that such words as these were not only 
 necessary, but were resentfully regarded by some of 
 those who heard them as a prophecy of a revolution 
 at hand. The message went on to criticise in vigor 
 ous terms the jobbery, the " shameful neglect of 
 duty," " the wasting (to use no stronger, term) of 
 the people s money," and the mismanagement pre 
 vailing in several departments of the municipal ser 
 vice. At the end of its caustic arraignment of the 
 street-cleaning department, one alderman could 
 endure it no longer and moved that the further 
 reading of so extraordinary a document be dispensed 
 with, but a majority of the council decided to let it 
 
82 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 go on. The clerk proceeded with the mayor s man 
 uscript, and abuse after abuse and evil after evil 
 was set forth in terse, unsparing directness of speech. 
 Even the public schools had suffered, and they and 
 their needful buildings and appliances had been 
 made the instruments of dishonesty. The neglected 
 health of the city received sharp commentary, and 
 a condition of its drainage indicated by the fact 
 that thirty-six per cent of its annual deaths were 
 caused by preventable zymotic diseases. The im 
 mediate construction was recommended of a sewer 
 in the lower part of the city, and the abatement of 
 at least one great source of injury. The public 
 printing, the duties of the city auditor, the hours of 
 work of clerks and other officials in the employ of 
 the city, and matters relating to their pay-rolls, 
 with other subjects, were dealt with after a manner 
 which testified to the care and thoroughness with 
 which Mr. Cleveland had prepared himself for the 
 important task which he had undertaken. The 
 closing paragraph of the message was as follows : 
 
 " In conclusion, I desire to disclaim any dictation as to the per 
 formance of your duties. I recognize fully the fact that with you 
 rests the responsibility of all legislation which touches the pros 
 perity of the city and the correction of abuses. I do not arrogate 
 to myself any great familiarity with municipal affairs, nor any 
 superior knowledge of the city s needs. I speak to you not only 
 as the chief executive officer of the city, but as a citizen, proud of 
 its progress and commanding position. In this spirit the sugges 
 tions herein contained are made. If you deem them not worthy 
 of your consideration, I shall still be anxious to aid the adoption 
 and enforcement of any measures which you may inaugurate, look 
 ing to the advancement of the interests of the city and the welfare 
 of its inhabitants." 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 83 
 
 Perhaps he was right in disclaiming any spirit of dic 
 tation, but his suggestions were terrifically pungent. 
 They contained something plainly resembling a 
 declaration of war, and they aroused the good peo 
 ple of Buffalo to a continued interest in their own 
 affairs equal to that which had been stirred up at 
 the election. The customary reaction and subsid 
 ence into a limp and plundered state did not take 
 place. No after opportunity was given for stagna 
 tion, _as the mayor s voice was quickly heard again. 
 
 The Common Council adjourned, and went home 
 to digest the message. When they came together 
 again they tried their legislative skill upon a scheme 
 which had been long in preparation for the estab 
 lishment of a city "morgue." According to the 
 received ideas of the public service, the science and 
 art of it called for the creation of offices with pay 
 and perquisites as a kind of municipal skeleton to 
 the several bones of which official duties might be 
 attached at leisure. The aldermen, therefore, voted 
 that there should be a keeper of the morgue, fixed 
 his salary, named the man who was to draw the 
 pay, and felt that they had made a good beginning. 
 The city of Buffalo was on its way to the possession 
 of a place of keeping for anybody who might there 
 after be found dead. The morgue was founded, 
 and the first piece of new legislation went to the 
 mayor. At the next session of the council, how 
 ever, there it was before them again vetoed, with 
 remarks which were sadly like an appendix to the 
 message. What they had done was briefly re 
 hearsed, including " a resolution of the council di- 
 
84 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 recting the Superintendent of Public Buildings to 
 provide accommodations for such morgue in the 
 building occupied as police headquarters ;" but the 
 point of the veto was aimed rather at what they had 
 failed to do. 
 
 " The above, so far as I can find," said the mayor, " is all that 
 has been done toward establishing the proposed house of the dead. 
 The precise objects of its establishment ; the conditions under which 
 subjects shall be received into it ; how they shall be cared for while 
 there, and under what regulations they may be taken away ; what 
 disposition, under various circumstances, shall be made of them ; 
 the care and disposition of property which may be found upon the 
 persons of the dead, and many other things necessarily incident to 
 the conducting of such an institution, are left entirely unprovided 
 for." 
 
 They had intended to do all of that some day, 
 and more, too, and the man that kept the morgue 
 would have found out what to do with anything 
 that might be brought to him, and there was no 
 call for a veto to stop the pay and leave any poor 
 dead body without a home to go to. It was very 
 polite of the mayor to add, however : 
 
 " Might it not be well for your Honorable Body to review the 
 proceedings already had, with a view to such future action as shall 
 be necessary to accomplish the objects which I have indicated ? 
 
 " I commend the whole subject to your careful consideration, 
 with the assurance of my cordial co-operation in perfecting an 
 establishment which, if not an absolute necessity, may prove to be 
 a great public convenience." 
 
 With the assistance of their committee on ordi 
 nances and of the city attorney, the morgue legisla 
 tion was in due time put into good shape, but no 
 official s pay began until his work also began. 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 85 
 
 The Buffalo people enjoyed a quiet laugh over 
 that first veto, but the next bit of municipal news 
 made them open their eyes. The public printing, 
 up to date performed under quiet arrangements 
 made with favored parties, was now given out to 
 the lowest bidder in public competition, and it was 
 discovered that its former cost had been from fifty 
 to eighty-five per cent more than the new contract 
 price. 
 
 The next veto came soon and dealt with a reso 
 lution of the council providing for the publication 
 in certain German newspapers of a synopsis of their 
 proceedings. The mayor had been expected to sign 
 this, since no enlightened demagogue, with an eye 
 open to his own political future, would be rash 
 enough to offend the large and influential German 
 vote. It may be that there was forgetfulness of 
 the fact that our thrifty German Americans have 
 even less willingness than others to pay money in 
 useless taxes, and are the last men to take offence 
 at being relieved from fraudulent exactions. The 
 mayor s remarks were moderately bitter, for he 
 said : 
 
 " The effect of the resolution under consideration is to give these 
 newspapers eight hundred dollars each for doing no more than 
 they will in a sense be obliged to do without it. This comes very 
 near being a most objectionable subsidy, which, I think, a little 
 reflection will satisfy us all we ought not to encourage, and which, 
 I am sure, the people are not prepared to tolerate." * 
 
 Before the first month of Mr. Cleveland s term 
 ended, proper attention had been paid to several of 
 his recommendations, including that with reference 
 
86 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 to pay rolls and methods of payments. It was all 
 good and important work, but it was like skirmish 
 ing in comparison with some things which were to 
 follow. 
 
 One important subject shortly overshadowed all 
 others. The mayor s message had not giv,en the 
 people of Buffalo their first information that there 
 was a needless aggregate of sickness among them, 
 and that their death-rate was murderously high. 
 There were many who were unwilling to believe the 
 worst, and who almost resented such an aspersion 
 upon the fair fame of the city. Even its business 
 and its growth might suffer if the outside world 
 should obtain an impression that it was a place for 
 well men to get sick in. When, therefore, the pro 
 fessional medical adviser of the Board of Health 
 made to that commission a report which told the 
 truth, they ordered him to present, in writing, his 
 authority for his unpleasant assertions, " and to 
 point out, if possible, the causes which have pro 
 duced the unusual mortality reported, . . . in order 
 that proper measures may be adopted to diminish 
 our unnecessarily large death-rate." 
 
 He was entirely prepared to reply. His author 
 ity, he stated, was the National Board of Health at 
 Washington, and his presentation of facts did not 
 admit of any dispute. He added to it : 
 
 " The explanation, I think, is not difficult, and happily it can be 
 remedied. Buffalo should be what we once supposed It was, one 
 of the healthiest cities in our land. Our climate is delightful and 
 healthful excepting during two or three spring months. The land 
 upon which it is built is sufficiently high to give good drainage. 
 
CKOVER CLEVELAND. 87 
 
 Our water is not excelled in quality, and in quantity it is absolutely 
 inexhaustible. What, then, are the causes that run up our mortal 
 ity rate as compared to other and less favorably situated cities ? 
 As chief causes I would mention insufficient sewerage, and as a 
 natural consequence poisoned well water ; uncleanliness of houses 
 and surroundings, the keeping of large numbers of cattle, crowded 
 together in poorly ventilated buildings ; overcrowded school 
 rooms, and, lastly, the Hamburg Canal. 
 
 " Perhaps many citizens would have placed my last-mentioned 
 cause first as a destroyer of life. I have placed it last advisedly, 
 believing, as I do, that it produces less sickness and death than the 
 others named. It is, however, a great nuisance, and undoubtedly 
 causes a large amount of sickness. 
 
 " The remedies are self-evident, and only require money intel 
 ligently expended. I would provide a way to thoroughly sewer 
 every part of the city, then close up every well, and prohibit the 
 digging of any new ones. This would necessitate the introduction 
 of Niagara water into every house ; oblige citizens to keep their 
 houses and surroundings clean ; prohibit the keeping of large 
 numbers of cattle or other animals in the populated portions of the 
 city ; build more school houses, and push forward to early com 
 pletion the intercepting sewer. 
 
 " Nothing that I have suggested is impracticable, and unless 
 these suggestions are carried out in whole or in part, Buffalo may 
 some day rival in the death-rate Salt Lake City with its polyga 
 mous institutions." 
 
 With reference to drainage, something had al 
 ready been projected. The previous Common 
 Council had voted that an intercepting sewer should 
 be constructed, and had even advertised for pro 
 posals. Somehow or other, the lowest bid obtained 
 was one of one million five hundred and sixty-eight 
 thousand dollars, and nothing more had been ac 
 complished. The actual sewer was as far away as 
 ever, though daily becoming more needful, and so 
 the mayor told the council in a message. He told 
 
88 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 them, also, that the people of Buffalo could not in 
 trust them and the various officers working under 
 them with the performance of so important a work 
 and the expenditure of so much money. He advised 
 that the entire matter should be turned over to a 
 special commission, to be selected with care from 
 among the best citizens of Buffalo. 
 
 "I am satisfied," he said, "that a commission, properly se 
 lected, to prosecute this work, would be the means of saving much 
 time and money, and that the sewer would be better and more 
 thoroughly built than in any other way. 
 
 41 I therefore recommend that measures be taken to secure the 
 passage of a law organizing such a commission, with full control 
 of the construction of this sewer ; and that in the same bill such 
 provisions may be incorporated as are necessary to provide for the 
 payment of the expenses of the work." 
 
 Here was an innovation, indeed, and a direct prop 
 osition to curtail the power of the legislative branch 
 of the city government. A million and a half of 
 dollars was to be spent, perhaps more, and not an 
 alderman was to have any power over its expendi 
 ture. The most active and influential party workers 
 would have no control over the employment of 
 men, the letting of sub-contracts, the purchases of 
 materials, or any other part of the great job. What 
 was the use and where the profit of politics, as a 
 trade, if the best thing under the city government 
 for a long time was to be stolen from the alder 
 men in such an outrageous manner as this ? 
 
 The public press had spoken approvingly of the 
 mayor s advice, and it was well for the aldermen to 
 act, at first, with moderation. A report a sort of 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 89 
 
 protest made to the council by the city engineer, 
 even went so far as to say that there would be no 
 objection to an advisory Board of Commissioners, 
 provided these should be without power of practical 
 interference. He also declared that the plans and 
 construction of the proposed work involved no prob 
 lems which could not be readily and successfully 
 solved in his own office, and the council at once 
 passed a vote in his favor, of which the mayor said, 
 in a message dealing vigorously with the entire 
 subject : 
 
 " This action of your Honorable Body I cannot approve, as I 
 do not see why it does not allow the engineer to increase his force 
 of assistants in his discretion. This is, of course, a power that 
 ought not to be conferred on any city officer. 
 
 " It seems to me that the good taste of the engineer is not con 
 spicuous in thus putting forward his official pride as a reason why 
 any particular plan, looking to the accomplishment of this very 
 important work, should not be adopted. At a time like this, when 
 everybody is or should be anxious to be speedily rid of our city s 
 disgrace, no such consideration ought to intervene. 
 
 " But I am utterly amazed to learn at this late day, from the 
 engineer s communication, that the job we have on hand is such 
 an easy one." 
 
 All the points at issue were sharply touched, but 
 a much more important step had already been taken 
 by the mayor. Through State Senator Titus, of 
 the Erie district, a bill had been introduced in the 
 State Legislature, providing for the establishment 
 of the Sewer Commission, with ample power of 
 every kind. The council came together in wrath, 
 and adopted a preamble and resolutions protesting 
 against the passage of the bill, and asking Senator 
 
90 GROWER CLEVELAND. 
 
 Titus to withdraw it. They were building better 
 than they knew. They were not building a sewer, 
 indeed, but a State reputation for Grover Cleveland, 
 for their action began to advertise liberally his 
 single-handed fight for the reform of the city of 
 Buffalo. There were constituencies in other parts 
 of New York, and beyond its boundaries, whose local 
 circumstances prepared them to be well pleased in 
 hearing that such a man had been discovered in 
 Erie County. 
 
 The mayor s reply to the action of the Common 
 Council contained his own criticisms upon the bill 
 prepared by Senator Titus, and suggested improve 
 ments in its provisions, but firmly and politely dis 
 sented from their own course, 
 
 41 I have no doubt," he said, " the rights and interests of the 
 people in this matter, so far as State legislation is concerned, can 
 be safely left in the keeping of those who represent our citizens in 
 the two branches of the State Legislature." 
 
 The press and the people were so strongly with 
 the mayor that the council pretended to yield. 
 They were willing to have a Sewer Commission 
 under a State law, and they at once had a new bill 
 drafted and sent to Albany, as a substitute for the 
 pernicious legislation presented by Senator Titus. 
 It was a carefully-worded bill, designed to protect 
 the vested rights of every Buffalo alderman, and the 
 Sewer Commission it provided would have been 
 merely supervisory if not supervision ary. The 
 mayor sent to the council a message of denuncia 
 tion of their action and their bill, remarking : " I 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 91 
 
 cannot see that the commissioners contemplated by 
 the act would be more than dignified inspectors of 
 the work therein mentioned. . . . Rather than 
 this, I think it would be better to abandon the idea 
 of a commission entirely." 
 
 It was again made evident, through the press and 
 otherwise, that the people were with the mayor. The 
 council once more yielded, and a commission with 
 actual power was obtained. While in the very proc 
 esses of their slow and grumbling assent, however, 
 the council opened another part of the great drain 
 age which that sewer had been expected to perform. 
 It was to have been the means of obtaining from 
 the State Legislature authority for the issue of city 
 bonds to pay for the construction of the work. 
 Other fortunate cities had obtained such powers, 
 from time to time, and had been able to issue no 
 end of bonds after the stream began to run. The 
 council adopted a resolution asking for the required 
 legislation, and sent it to the mayor for his signa 
 ture, but it came back with a veto. He said that 
 ten years were to be required for the construction 
 of the sewer, and the city was rich enough to pay 
 as it went without adding to the city debt. It be 
 gan to dawn upon the minds of some men who read 
 that message, that this Buffalo lawyer, who had 
 turned out so remarkable a mayor, was beginning to 
 show symptoms of statesmanship. 
 
 By the act of the Legislature, the Sewer Commis 
 sioners were to be five in number, nominated by the 
 mayor and confirmed by the Common Council. All 
 power over the sewer would not be lost by the lat- 
 
92 GROVE R CLEVELAND. 
 
 ter body, if it could compel the mayor to name 
 commissioners acceptable to the aldermen. He had 
 determined, rather, to appoint competent men ac 
 ceptable to the taxpayers. When he did so, his 
 nominations to the council were laid upon the 
 table, remained there a week, and were then taken 
 up and rejected. During the week which followed, 
 the aldermen had the privilege of hearing and read 
 ing the opinions of their fellow citizens concerning 
 the mayor s nominations and their own action, and 
 what they heard and read was full of wholesome 
 instruction. When they came together again they 
 received another of the mayor s politely-worded 
 messages. It renominated the same five gentlemen 
 as before, giving cogent reasons for their selection, 
 and they were at once confirmed by a vote of sev 
 enteen to eight. The fight for good drainage and 
 economy was fairly won. The new board employed 
 well-known experts to assist in maturing the re 
 quired plans, and then let the contract at seven 
 hundred and sixty-four thousand three hundred and 
 seventy dollars that is, the city was saved over 
 eight hundred thousand dollars upon that job. 
 
 There had been an especial cause for the prompt 
 manner in which the Common Council confirmed 
 the Sewer Commissioners upon that day, June 26th, 
 1882. They were in what is commonly called a 
 peck of trouble over another of their independent 
 dealings with the public funds, and they were ex 
 pecting yet another message from the mayor. They 
 had voted to give the contract for cleaning the 
 streets of the city, during five years following, to 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 93 
 
 one George Talbot, for the sum of four hundred and 
 twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars per 
 annum, although it was publicly well known that 
 responsible men were offering to do precisely the 
 same work at a much lower price. 
 
 There had been much bargaining and dickering 
 over that job, and several aldermen had actually 
 become ashamed of themselves. Hardly had they 
 organized for business, upon June 26th, before 
 the penitents were on their feet, hastening to ex 
 plain, to retract, to express their disapproval of 
 their previous action, and to say how sincerely they 
 wished that they had never done anything of the 
 kind. The regular order of business, however, re 
 quired that any message from the mayor should 
 take precedence, and there was no opportunity 
 given then to wash their political hands and faces 
 before it became the duty of their clerk to read to 
 them the following uncommonly interesting letter 
 from Grover Cleveland : 
 
 " I return without my approval the resolution of your Honor 
 able Body, passed at its last meeting, awarding the contracts for 
 c eaning the paved streets and alleys of the city for the ensuing 
 five years to George Talbot, at his bid of four hundred and twenty- 
 two thousand rive hundred dollars. 
 
 " The bid thus accepted by your Honorable Body is more than 
 one hundred thousand dollars higher than that of another perfectly 
 responsible party for the same work ; and a worse or more sus 
 picious feature in this transaction is that the bid now accepted is 
 fifty thousand dollars more than that made by Mr. Talbot himself 
 within a very few weeks, openly and publicly to your Honorable 
 Body, for performing precisely the same services. This latter cir 
 cumstance is, to my mind, the manifestation on the part of the 
 contractor of a reliance upon the forbearance and generosity of 
 
94 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 your Honorable Body, which would be more creditable if it were 
 less expensive to the taxpayers. 
 
 " I am not aware that any excuse is offered for the acceptance 
 of this proposal, thus increased, except the very flimsy one that 
 the lower bidders cannot afford to do the work for the sums they 
 name. 
 
 " This extreme tenderness and consideration for those who de 
 sire to contract with the city, and this touching and paternal solici 
 tude lest they should be improvidently led into a bad bargain, is, 1 
 am sure, an exception to general business rules, and seems to have 
 no place in this selfish, sordid world, except as found in the adminis 
 tration of municipal affairs. 
 
 " The charter of your city requires that the mayor, when he dis 
 approves any resolution of your Honorable Body, shall return the 
 same with his objections. 
 
 " This is a time for plain speech, and my objection to the action 
 of your Honorable Body, now under consideration, shall be 
 plainly stated. I withhold my assent from the same, because I 
 regard it as the culmination of a most bare-faced, impudent, and 
 shameless scheme to betray the interests of the people, and to 
 worse than squander the public money. 
 
 " I will not be misunderstood in this matter. There are those 
 whose votes were given for this resolution whom I cannot and 
 will not suspect of a wilful neglect of the interests they are sworn 
 to protect ; but it has been fully demonstrated that there are influ 
 ences, both in and about your Honorable Body, which it behooves 
 every honest man to watch and avoid with the greatest care. 
 
 " When cool judgment rules the hour, the people will, I hope 
 and believe, have no reason to complain of the action of your 
 Honorable Body, But clumsy appeals to prejudice or passion, in 
 sinuations, with a kind of low, cheap cunning, as to the motives 
 and purposes of others, and the mock heroism of bra/en effrontery 
 which openly declares that a wholesome public sentiment is to be 
 set at naught, sometimes deceives and leads honest men to aid in 
 the consummation of schemes which, if exposed, they would look 
 upon with abhorrence. 
 
 " If the scandal in connection with this street-cleaning contract, 
 which has so roused our citizens, shall cause them to select and 
 watch with more care those to whom they intrust their interests, 
 and if it serves to make all of us who are charged with official 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 95 
 
 duties more careful in their performance, it will not be an unmiti 
 gated evil. 
 
 " We are fast gaining positions in the grades of public steward 
 ship. There is no middle ground. Those who are not for the 
 people, either in or out of your Honorable Body, are against 
 them, and should be treated accordingly." 
 
 The vetoed contract had no friends remaining. 
 The street-cleaning was subsequently let out, for 
 the same term of years, at three hundred and thir 
 teen thousand five hundred dollars per annum that 
 is, at a net yearly saving of one hundred and nine 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 Some weeks before the culmination of the long 
 struggle over the sewer and street-cleaning con 
 tracts, one veto message sent in by the mayor had 
 seemed, to the eyes of ordinary politicians, as if he 
 were determined upon committing political suicide. 
 The Common Council had voted a gift of five hun 
 dred dollars to the Fireman s Benevolent Associa 
 tion, and the only fault to be found was that they 
 had plainly violated a clause in the State Constitu 
 tion. They had at the same session voted to take 
 five hundred dollars from the Fourth of July fund 
 and apply it to the expenses of celebrating Deco 
 ration Day, and in this had been merely guilty of a 
 misdemeanor expressly provided against in the city 
 charter. In disapproving of this part of the coun 
 cil s liberality, the mayor wrote to them : 
 
 " I deem the object of this appropriation a most worthy one. 
 The efforts of our veteran soldiers to keep alive the memory of 
 their fallen comrades certainly deserves the aid and encourage 
 ment of their fellow citizens. We should all, I think, feel it a duty 
 and a privilege to contribute to the funds necessary to carry out 
 
96 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 such a purpose. And I should be much disappointed if an appeal 
 to our citizens for voluntary subscriptions for this patriotic object 
 should be in vain. 
 
 " But the money contributed should be a free gift of the citizens 
 and taxpayers, and should not be extorted from them by taxation. 
 This is so, because the purpose for which this money is asked does 
 not involve their protection or interest as members of the com 
 munity, and it may or may not be approved by them." 
 
 More was said, very well and very plainly, and 
 the leading Republican journal of Buffalo, the Ex 
 press, uttered an important prophecy of changes 
 which were shortly to come when it made the fol 
 lowing commentary : 
 
 " A whole volume of sound sense and just principles of munic 
 ipal government will be found condensed in a brief veto sent to 
 the council yesterday by Mayor Cleveland. It is refreshing to 
 read the message. Appropriations of the public funds must not be 
 made except in accordance with law. Safeguards provided by the 
 constitution and the charter must be respected. The money raised 
 by taxation must not be diverted from its legitimate objects. 
 However worthy the sentiment recognized in any misappropria 
 tion, justice, not generosity, must prevail. When the council 
 wrongfully votes away the people s money, there is no credit in 
 the act, because the money, having been extorted from the people, 
 is not a free gift from that body. The city government is a busi 
 ness establishment, and must be conducted on business principles. 
 All these golden rules are laid down in disapproving a vote of five 
 hundred dollars for Decoration Day a small sum for a worthy 
 object ; but, as the mayor shows, it is not the amount of the 
 appropriation, nor the merit of it, but the principle involved, which 
 must be considered. Private bounty ought to be equal to such a 
 call, and then, to prove that he thinks so, Mr. Cleveland privately 
 contributes one tenth of the whole sum needed, thus supplement 
 ing excellent principle by liberal example." 
 
 The work went bravely on, and there were minor 
 vetoes, called for by widely-varying specimens of 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 97 
 
 loose and wasteful legislation. As one citizen 
 pointedly remarked, Mr. Cleveland seemed to re 
 gard the city as his client, for whose every interest, 
 large or small, he was bound to make a fight. 
 Among those interests, not the least in social im 
 portance, was that of the street children, to the evils 
 of whose sad condition his attention was especially 
 directed by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
 to Children. 
 
 During month after month, the citizens of Buffalo 
 became more and more proud of their reform mayor. 
 They talked about him to strangers, somewhat as- if 
 he had been a local rarity which distinguished Buf 
 falo above all the less fortunate municipalities of 
 the State and of the Union. They wrote letters 
 about him to the journals of New York, Chicago, 
 and other great cities, which were to be pitied be 
 cause of their supposable poverty at that time in 
 their mayor department. 
 
 It was in the year 1882 that Buffalo completed its 
 first half century of existence, for it was only a 
 young lady of a city after all. It was determined 
 to have a grand celebration of the occasion, and to 
 combine the anniversary of the locality with that of 
 the nation. Since the Fourth of July was that year 
 to come upon a Sunday, its parade was necessarily 
 transferred to the 3d of the month. Every effort 
 was made to express the pride felt by the citizens 
 of Buffalo in the character and prosperity of their 
 community. There was a grand procession of the 
 military, the firemen, the police, the many societies, 
 and the citizens. The portrait of the first mayor 
 
98 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 was borne through the streets side by side with that 
 of the mayor for 1882, and the latter made an ad 
 dress, during the festivities of the evening, which 
 cannot well be omitted from the record of these 
 phenomenally important months of his career. 
 
 " LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : I ought, perhaps, to be quite con 
 tent on this occasion to assume the part of quiet gratification. But 
 I cannot forbear expressing rny satisfaction at being allowed to 
 participate in the exercises of the evening, and I feel that I must 
 give token of the pleasure I experience in gazing with you upon 
 the fair face of our queen city at the age of fifty. I am proud with 
 you in contrasting what seems to us the small things of fifty years 
 ago, with the beauty, and the greatness, and the importance of to 
 day. The achievements of the past are gained ; the prosperity of 
 the present we hold with a firm hand ; and the promise of the 
 future comes to us with no uncertain sound. It seems to me to 
 day that of all men the resident of Buffalo should be the proudest 
 to name his home. 
 
 " In the history of a city, fifty years but marks the period of 
 youth, when all is fresh and joyous. The face is fair, the step is 
 light, and the burden of life is carried with a song ; the future, 
 stretching far ahead, is full of bright anticipations, and the past, 
 with whatever of struggle and disappointment there may have 
 been, seems short, and is half forgotten. In this heyday of our 
 city s life, we do well to exchange our congratulations, and to revel 
 together in the assurances of the happy and prosperous future 
 ihat awaits us. 
 
 " And yet I do not deem it wrong to remind myself and you, 
 that our city, great in its youth, did not suddenly spring into ex 
 istence clad in beauty and in strength. There were men fifty 
 years ago who laid its foundations broad and deep ; and who, 
 with the care of jealous parents, tended it and watched its growth. 
 Those early times were not without their trials and discourage 
 ments ; and we reap to-day the fruit of the labors and the perse 
 verance of those pioneers. Those were the fathers of the city. 
 Where are they ? Fifty years added to manhood fills the cup of 
 human life. Most have gone to swell the census of God s city, 
 which lies beyond the stream of faith. A few there are who list- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 99 
 
 lessly linger upon the bank, and wait to cross, in the shade of trees 
 they have planted with their own hands. Let us tenderly remem 
 ber the dead to-night, and let us renew our love and veneration 
 for those who are spared to speak to us of the scenes attending our 
 city s birth and infancy. 
 
 " And in this, our day of pride and self-gratification, there is, I 
 think, one lesson at least which we may learn from the men who 
 have come down to us from a former generation. 
 
 " In the day of the infancy of the city which they founded, arid 
 for many years afterward, the people loved their city so well that 
 they would only trust the management of its affairs in the strong 
 est and best of hands ; and no man in those days was so engrossed 
 in his own business but he could find some lime to devote to pub 
 lic concerns. Read the names of the men who held places in this 
 municipality fifty years ago, and food for reflection will be found. 
 Is it true that the city of to-day, with its large population and 
 with its vast and varied interests, needs less and different care 
 than it did fifty years ago ? 
 
 " We boast of our citizenship to-night. But this citizenship 
 brings with it duties not unlike those we owe our neighbor and 
 our God. There is no better time than this for self-examination. 
 He who deems himself too pure and holy to take part in the affairs 
 of his city, will meet the fact that better men than he have thought 
 it their duty to do so. He who cannot spare a moment in his greed 
 and selfishness to devote to public concerns, will, perhaps, find a 
 well-grounded fear that he may become the prey of public plun 
 derers ; and he who indolently cares not who administers the 
 government of his city, will find that he is living falsely, and in the 
 neglect of his highest duty. 
 
 " When our centennial shall be celebrated, what will be said of 
 us ? I hope it may be said that we built and wrought well, and 
 added much to the substantial prosperity of the city we had in 
 charge. Brick and mortar may make a large city, but the encour 
 agement of those things which elevate and purify, the exaction of 
 the highest standard of integrity in official place, and a constant, 
 active interest on the part of the good people in municipal govern 
 ment, are needed to make a great city. 
 
 " Let it be said of us when only our names and memory are left 
 in the centennial time, that we faithfully administered the trust 
 v/hich we received from our fathers, and religiously performed 
 
100 GROVE R CLEVELAND. 
 
 our parts in our day and generation, toward making our city not 
 only prosperous, but truly great." 
 
 Less importance attaches, apparently, to his re 
 marks upon the occasion of the laying of the corner 
 stone of the building erected for the uses of the 
 Young Men s Christian Association, but an extract 
 from them will bear a close examination, although 
 entirely devoid of any attempt at oratorical effect : 
 
 " We this day bring into a prominent place an institution which, 
 it seems to me, cannot fail to impress itself upon our future with 
 the best results. Perhaps a majority of the citizens have heard of 
 the Young Men s Christian Association, and perchance the name 
 has suggested, in an indefinite way, certain efforts to do good and 
 to aid generally in the spread of religious teaching. I venture to 
 say, however, that a comparatively small part of our community 
 have really known the full extent of the work of this association, 
 and may have thought of it as an institution well enough in its way 
 a proper enough outlet for a superabundance of religious enthu 
 siasm doing, of course, no harm, and perhaps very little good. 
 Some have aided it by their contributions from a sense of Chris 
 tian duty, but more have passed by on the other side. We have 
 been too much in the habit of regarding institutions of this kind as 
 entirely disconnected from any consideration of municipal growth 
 of prosperity, and have too often considered splendid structures, 
 active trade, increasing commerce, and growing manufactures as 
 the only things worthy of our care as public-spirited citizens. A 
 moment s reflection reminds us that this is wrong. The citizen 
 is a better business man if he is a Christian gentleman, and surely 
 business is not the less prosperous and successful if conducted on 
 Christian principles. 
 
 "This is an extremely practical, and perhaps not a very ele 
 vated view to take of the purposes and benefits of the Young Men s 
 Christian Association, but I assert that if it did no more than to 
 impress some religious principles upon the business of our city, it 
 would be worthy of generous support. And when we consider the 
 difference, as a member of the community, between the young 
 man who, under the influence of such an association, has learned 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 101 
 
 his duty to his fellows and to the State, and that one who, subject 
 to no moral restraint, yields to temptation, and thus becomes vi 
 cious and criminal, the importance of an institution in our midst 
 which leads our youth and young men in the way of morality and 
 good citizenship must be freely admitted. 
 
 " I have thus only referred to this association as in some manner 
 connected with our substantial prosperity. There is a higher 
 theme connected with this subject which touches the welfare, tem 
 poral and spiritual, of the objects of its care. Upon this I will not 
 dwell. I cannot, however, pass on without invoking the fullest 
 measure of honor and consideration due to the self-sacrificing and 
 disinterested efforts of the men, and women, too, who have labored 
 amid trials and discouragements to firmly plant this association in 
 our midst upon a sure foundation. We all hope and expect that 
 our city has entered upon a course of unprecedented prosperity 
 and growth. But to my mind not all the signs about us point 
 more surely to real greatness than the event which we here cele 
 brate. Good and pure government lies at the foundation of the 
 wealth and progress of every community. As the chief executive 
 of this proud city, I congratulate all my fellow citizens that to-day 
 we lay the foundation stone of an edifice which shall be a beautiful 
 ornament, and, what is more important, shall enclose within its 
 walls such earnest Christian endeavors as must make easier all 
 our efforts to administer safely and honestly a good municipal 
 government." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Widening Fame The Buffalo Pattern Bolt The 
 Cleveland Boom Nominated for Governor of New 
 York The Scratchers A State Canvass Watched 
 by the Nation A Great Majority and a New Star 
 in American Politics. 
 
 IN his message to the Common Council denounc 
 ing the street-cleaning contract, Mayor Cleveland 
 told them : " We are fast gaining positions in the 
 grades of public stewardship." 
 
 He could plainly see the grade and position won 
 for themselves by men who were manifestly betray 
 ing their trusts, but as yet he had no perception of 
 the prominence which his fight for honest steward 
 ship was acquiring for himself. His course had been 
 approve.4 by , the 4 citizens and by the public press of 
 Buffalo, with -small reference to mere party lines. 
 The- Republicans who had repudiated their own 
 party nominations to vote for him and make him 
 mayor were especially grateful to him for the man 
 ner in which he had justified their independent ac 
 tion. While all Democrats were claiming him and 
 advertising him as a representative Democrat, a fine 
 specimen of what their party really consisted of, his 
 Republican supporters were even more eagerly pro 
 claiming, throughout the State, that the reform of 
 Buffalo had been accomplished by their own public 
 
GROVE R CLEVELAND. 103 
 
 spirit and by the acumen which had enabled them 
 to find and help so great a rarity as an honest Demo 
 crat. He was a man, they said, who could be 
 trusted by any body of Republicans who might wish 
 to administer at any time another rebuke to their 
 own party management. There was a tremendous 
 array of facts in support of this defence of them 
 selves by the Buffalo Independents, and it was read 
 or listened to with deep interest by the sagacious 
 chiefs of the Democratic Party. 
 
 The latter were becoming better and better aware, 
 from month to month, in. the year 1882, that the 
 Republican Party was preparing a grand opportu 
 nity for a well-led Opposition movement, patterned, 
 for instance, very much like that which had suc 
 ceeded so well in the city of Buffalo. 
 
 In 1879 tne Democratic candidate for governor 
 of the State had fallen forty-two thousand votes be 
 hind his Republican competitor, Governor Cornell, 
 but in 1880 General Hancock had received only 
 three thousand less votes than were given to Gen 
 eral Garfield. Nevertheless, the entire official 
 patronage and influence of the national and State 
 governments being now in the hands of the Repub 
 lican Party, with what seemed a reasonably safe 
 majority for any respectable ticket it might choose 
 to nominate, there appeared to be no hope what 
 ever for the election of a Democratic governor in 
 1882. The appearance was not deceitful, and there 
 was no such hope or prospect whatever. A regular 
 Democratic nomination, pitted against a regular 
 Republican nomination, would have been swept 
 
104 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 away by a much larger majority than that which 
 had given the electoral vote of New York to Gar- 
 field and Arthur. No such contest was to occur, 
 however, in 1882, and the Republican Party was 
 not to have the privilege of voting for a candidate 
 of its own selection. A large majority of its mem 
 bership wished the re-election of Governor Cornell, 
 but their will was overruled by a knot of powerful 
 party chiefs, and their State Convention was so 
 manipulated, not to employ any stronger term, that 
 a member of President Arthur s Cabinet, Judge 
 Folger, a very capable and excellent gentleman, 
 was placed at the head of the State ticket. 
 
 There was a loud and angry murmur of rebellion 
 from one end of the State to the other. Men who 
 had voted for Fremont, and for Lincoln, and for 
 every regular Republican nomination set before them 
 since 1856, rushed into print with unstinted denun 
 ciations of the unpardonable dictation attempted 
 and the outrageous processes through which it had, 
 apparently, succeeded. By so doing, they placed 
 before the Democratic leaders the exciting ques 
 tion, " Have we among us any man for whom these 
 insulted and enraged Republicans can be induced 
 to vote ?" 
 
 There was a long list of distinguished gentlemen 
 to be pondered over, but the best known among 
 them were men too intensely Democratic, and of 
 the others it was almost evident that as yet they 
 had made no record which would answer the re 
 quirements of the hour. Immediately a number of 
 prominent citizens of Erie County responded en- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 105 
 
 thusiastically that Buffalo could solve the problem. 
 They had the very man, and there were in their city 
 hundreds of Republicans, as angry as any of their 
 brethren elsewhere, who would be ready to tell the 
 anti-Folger bolters that it was entirely safe to vote 
 for Grover Cleveland. They asserted that in case 
 of his nomination, a fourth part of the assumed Re 
 publican majority of twenty thousand would disap 
 pear along the shore of Lake Erie. 
 
 Editorial articles, correspondence, anecdotes of 
 the Buffalo municipal reform, began to appear in 
 the columns of leading Republican newspapers, and 
 even portraits of Mr. Cleveland, not all works of 
 art, were pretty generally distributed, that other 
 constituencies than his own might make a kind of 
 personal acquaintance with him. 
 
 Much of this work had actually preceded the meet 
 ing of the Republican Convention and the nomina 
 tion of Judge Folger, but it burst into sudden and 
 swift energy as the consequences of that political 
 error became apparent. There had been " Cleve 
 land Clubs" in a number of places, but more now 
 sprang into existence, like mushrooms. The Demo 
 cratic State Convention had been called to meet at 
 Syracuse on September 22d, 1882, and as the day 
 drew near, the press teemed with more numerous 
 eulogies of the reform Mayor of Buffalo. What the 
 party slang of the day describes as a " boom" was 
 taking place, and the prospects of other candidates 
 were fast ebbing away. 
 
 When the convention assembled, its first duty 
 was the adoption of a platform of resolutions, and 
 
106 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 these did not fail to severely criticise the nomination 
 of Judge Folger, and to open a gate for any Repub 
 lican voters whose views of it were thus set forth. 
 Specified reforms in State and national adminis 
 tration were demanded, and the dominant party 
 was vigorously arraigned for alleged defects in its 
 methods of dealing with important interests. Pre 
 vious Democratic platforms had done the same, with 
 at least equal vehemence of expression, and yet 
 sweeping Republican victories had expressed the 
 popular doubt concerning the sincerity of the party 
 bringing the indictments. Something more than 
 ringing phrases and bitter denunciations would have 
 to be offered if a different result were now to be 
 hoped for. It would be entirely easy to nominate 
 a good and distinguished Democrat, for whom even 
 angrily dissatisfied Republicans would refuse to 
 vote, and few of the latter had any personal objec 
 tion to Judge Folger. 
 
 When the resolutions had been read and adopted, 
 the really most important work of the convention 
 began. Half a dozen or so of names were offered 
 as candidates for nomination for governor of the 
 State, and in behalf of each a eulogistic speech was 
 made. The name of Grover Cleveland was pre 
 sented by Hon. Daniel N. Lockwood, of Buffalo, 
 the same gentleman who, in 1881, had moved his 
 nomination for mayor. He had prepared a speech 
 which answered the purpose in hand admirably, for it 
 was made to appear that the platform already adopted, 
 no less than the error of the Republican Party, had 
 been made to fit the nomination of Mr. Cleveland. 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 107 
 
 The first ballot taken in any such nominating con 
 vention, not overshadowed in advance by one great 
 name, is apt to have two predominant characteris 
 tics. Part of its votes are often purely complimen 
 tary, expressing local good-will for a favorite citizen. 
 More distinctly, however, is the first ballot a vote 
 of inquiry into the relative strength of the candi 
 dates before the convention. The result was emi 
 nently satisfactory to the eager gentlemen from 
 Erie County. Only one more ballot of investiga 
 tion was required in order to satisfy everybody else 
 that the right man had been discovered, and then, 
 on the third ballot, Grover Cleveland was nomi 
 nated. His party had decided that his was the one 
 name around which its own most orthodox element 
 and all the other elements required for success could 
 be drawn together. 
 
 The real platform of the Democratic Party, in the 
 animated canvass which followed, was Mr. Cleve 
 land s record as reform Mayor of Buffalo and his 
 letter accepting the nomination. The latter was as 
 
 follows : 
 
 " BUFFALO, October 7, 1882. 
 
 " Hon. Thomas C. Ecclesine, Chairman, etc. 
 
 " DEAR SIR : I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, 
 informing me of my nomination for Governor by the Democratic 
 State Convention, lately held at the city of Syracuse. 
 
 " I accept the nomination thus tendered to me, and trust that, 
 while I am gratefully sensible of the honor conferred, I am also 
 properly impressed with the responsibilities which it invites. 
 
 " The platform of principles adopted by the convention meets 
 with my hearty approval. The doctrines therein enunciated are 
 so distinctly and explicitly stated that their amplification seems 
 scarcely necessary. If elected to the office for which I have been 
 
io8 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 nominated, I shall endeavor to impress them upon my administra 
 tion and make them the policy of the State. 
 
 " Our citizens for the most part attach themselves to one or the 
 other of the great political parties ; and, under ordinary circum 
 stances, they support the nominees of the party to which they pro 
 fess fealty. It is quite apparent that under such circumstances the 
 primary election or caucus should be surrounded by such safe 
 guards as will secure absolutely free and uncontrolled action. 
 Here the people themselves are supposed to speak ; here they put 
 their own hands to the machinery of government ; and in this 
 place should be found the manifestations of the popular will. 
 When by fraud, intimidation, or any other questionable practice, 
 the voice of the people is here smothered, a direct blow is aimed 
 at a most precious right, and one which the law should be swift to 
 protect. If the primary election is uncontaminated and fairly con 
 ducted those there chosen to represent the people will go forth 
 with the impress of the people s will upon them, and the benefits 
 and purposes of a truly representative government will be attained. 
 
 " Public officers are the servants and agents of the people, to 
 execute laws which the people have made and within the limits of 
 a constitution which they have established. Hence the interfer 
 ence of officials of any degree, and whether State or Federal, for 
 the purpose of thwarting or controlling the popular wish, should 
 not be tolerated. 
 
 " Subordinates in public places should be selected and retained 
 for their efficiency, and not because they may be used to accom 
 plish partisan ends. The people have a right to demand, here as 
 in cases of private employment, that their money be paid to those 
 who will render the best service in return, and that the appoint 
 ment to and tenure of such places should depend upon ability and 
 merit. If the clerks and assistants in public departments were 
 paid the same compensation, and required to do the same amount 
 of work, as those employed in prudently-conducted private estab 
 lishments, the anxiety to hold those public places would be much 
 diminished, and, it seem - to me, the cause of Civil Service Reform 
 materially aided. 
 
 "The system of levying assessments for partisan purposes on 
 those holding office or place cannot be too strongly condemned. 
 Through the thin disguise of voluntary contributions, this is seen 
 to be naked extortion, reducing the compensation which should 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 109 
 
 be honestly earned, and swelling a fund used to debauch the peo 
 ple and defeat the popular will. 
 
 " I am unalterably opposed to the interference by the Legisla 
 ture with the government of municipalities. I believe in the in 
 telligence of the people when left to an honest freedom in their 
 choice, and that when the citizens of any section of the State have 
 determined upon the details of a local government, they should be 
 left in the undisturbed enjoyment of the same. The doctrine of 
 home rule, as I understand it, lies at the foundation of Republican 
 institutions, and cannot be too strongly insisted upon. 
 
 " Corporations are created by the law for certain defined pur 
 poses, and are restricted in their operations by specific limitations. 
 Acting within their legitimate sphere, they should be protected ; 
 but when by combination or by the exercise of unwarranted power 
 they oppress the people, the same authority which created should 
 restrain them and protect the rights of the citizens. The law 
 lately passed for the purpose of adjusting the relations between 
 the people and corporations should be executed in good faith, with 
 an honest design to effectuate its objects and with a due regard 
 for the interests involved. 
 
 " The laboring classes constitute the main part of our popula 
 tion. They should be protected in their efforts peaceably to assert 
 their rights when endangered by aggregated capital, and all stat 
 utes on this subject should recognize the care of the State for hon 
 est toil and be framed with a view of improving the condition of 
 the workingman. 
 
 " We have so lately had a demonstration of the value of our 
 citizen soldiery in time of peril, that it seems to me no argument 
 is necessary to prove that it should be maintained in a state of 
 efficiency, so that its usefulness shall not be impaired. 
 
 " Certain amendments to the constitution of our State, involv 
 ing the management of our canals, are to be passed upon at the 
 coming election. This subject affects diverse interests and, of 
 course, gives rise to opposite opinions. It is in the hands of the 
 sovereign people for final settlement ; and as the question is thus 
 removed from State legislation, any statement of my opinion in 
 regard to it, at this time, would, I think, be out of place. I am 
 confident that the people will intelligently examine the merits of 
 the subject and determine where the preponderance of interest 
 lies. 
 
no G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 " The expenditure of money to influence the action of the people 
 at the polls, or to secure legislation, is calculated to excite the 
 gravest concern. When this pernicious agency is successfully em 
 ployed a representative form of government becomes a sham ; and 
 laws passed under its baleful influence cease to protect, but are 
 made the means by which the rights of the people are sacrificed, 
 and the public treasury despoiled. It is useless and foolish to shut 
 our eyes to the fact that this evil exists among us ; and the party 
 which leads in an honest effort to return to better and purer meth 
 ods will receive the confidence of our citizens and secure their sup 
 port. It is wilful blindness not to see that the people care but 
 little for party obligations, when they are invoked to countenance 
 and sustain fraudulent and corrupt practices. And it is well for 
 our country and for the purification of politics that the people, at 
 times fully roused to danger, remind their leaders that party meth 
 ods should be something more than a means used to answer the 
 purposes of those who profit by political occupation. 
 
 " The importance of wise statesmanship in the management of 
 public affairs cannot, I think, be overestimated. I am convinced, 
 however, that the perplexities and the mystery often surrounding 
 the administration of State concerns grow, in a great measure, 
 out of an attempt to serve partisan ends rather than the welfare of 
 the citizen. 
 
 " We may, I think, reduce to quite simple elements the duty 
 which public servants owe, by constantly bearing in mind that they 
 are put in place to protect the rights of the people, to answer their 
 needs as they arise, and to expend for their benefit the money 
 drawn from them by taxation. 
 
 " I am profoundly conscious that the management of the diverse 
 interests of a great State is not an easy matter, but I believe, if 
 undertaken in the proper spirit, all its real difficulties will yield to 
 watchfulness and care. 
 
 " Yours respectfully, 
 
 " GROVER CLEVELAND." 
 
 The varying figures of the election returns of pre 
 vious years had been of such a nature that almost 
 any sort of prognostication could be drawn from 
 them. There had been Democratic factions as in- 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. ill 
 
 subordinate as any now supposed to exist in the 
 Republican camp and elections had been disas 
 trously influenced thereby. In several successive 
 Presidential campaigns, New York had been the 
 most uncertain factor in any forecast of the probable 
 result. There were forces now at work, however, 
 which were undoubtedly underestimated by the 
 most capable politicians of both parties. Every 
 body desired an improvement in the administration 
 of the affairs of the State, but not many men were 
 prepared to forget all their experiences and expect 
 perfect sincerity in that direction from any party 
 organization with which they were acquainted. 
 Precisely the same desire for improvement, for re 
 form, had existed before, but it had exercised only a 
 moderate influence over election returns. The 
 voters who had wished, but had not hoped, now be 
 came widely awakened to read with surprised inter 
 est the messages of Grover Cleveland to the Com 
 mon Council of Buffalo, and even indifferent stay- 
 at-homes were stirred up to the experiment of cast 
 ing a ballot for him. As to the disaffection in the 
 Republican Party, the leaders whose arrogance had 
 aroused it scoffed at it, at first, as a chronic discon 
 tent, which was not likely to do any more mischief 
 in this case than in others. At a comparatively re 
 cent election, the name of " Scratchers" had been 
 applied to several thousands of Republicans who 
 dropped one name or more from their regular ticket 
 without inserting any substitute. To these came 
 the entirely pertinent example and assurances of 
 the " reform Republicans of Buffalo. What had 
 
112 GROVER CLEVELAND, 
 
 been done for a town might as well be done for a 
 State, and the Scratchers became energetic workers 
 for Grover Cleveland. 
 
 The Republican leaders who had scoffed at the 
 murmurs against the nomination of Judge Folger 
 were presently dismayed by the storm they had cre 
 ated. They had been accustomed to manage and 
 to command and to find their well-disciplined party 
 following them in compact column. They were dis 
 mayed, but they were also bitterly angry. The men 
 who now turned away from them and from their 
 brilliant records, legislative, administrative, or mili 
 tary, to find something better in the name and fame 
 of a mere country lawyer, a county sheriff, a city 
 mayor for, as yet, only half a year those men were 
 declared to be either lunatics or deserters, hardly a 
 shade better than traitors. The canvass grew hot 
 ter, from day to day, and it rapidly assumed an as 
 pect of national importance. New York is the 
 most wealthy and populous of the States of the 
 Union. It contains the largest city ; its journals 
 are the most widely read of any, while its closely 
 balanced politics and its large factorship in the 
 electoral college concentrate upon it the most anx 
 ious scrutiny of the thoughtful citizens of every 
 other American commonwealth and community. 
 All the nation, therefore, read with deep interest 
 the story of the manner in which Mayor Cleveland 
 had beaten the aldermen, and it was felt pretty gen 
 erally that what the whole country needed was some 
 sort of intercepting sewer, rightly planned and con 
 structed. An additional importance was given to 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 113 
 
 one phase of the situation by a peculiarly unwise 
 movement on the part of the more extreme Repub 
 licans. In the Democratic State Convention, the 
 Chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, prepar 
 ing and reporting the party platform, was a gentle 
 man, Roger A. Pryor, who had been a general in 
 the Confederate Army during the Civil War. . An 
 effort was made, with this as one of its texts, to con 
 nect the existing Democratic Party with the Rebel 
 lion of 1861, as if it were or had been in sympathy 
 with secession and disunion. The recoil was de 
 structive, for many of the supporters of Mr. Cleve 
 land were able to show uncommonly good war rec 
 ords, while adding that the return of Confederate 
 soldiers to active and distinguished citizenship was 
 of itself the greatest triumph won for the Union 
 armies. 
 
 The few short weeks of the canvass went swiftly 
 by and the November polls were opened. When 
 they closed, at sunset, Grover Cleveland had been 
 elected Governor of New York, by the largest ma 
 jority known to its history one hundred and ninety- 
 two thousand. More than a hundred thousand Re 
 publicans had evidently decided that their private 
 convictions and their public duty required them to 
 vote for him. A new name, a star of the first mag 
 nitude, had swiftly arisen in the political sky. There 
 was something so startling about it as to entirely 
 justify the remark made by one cynical observer, 
 who sneered : " Well, yes ; he s gone up like a 
 rocket, but he ll come down like the stick." 
 
 There were, indeed, many who spoke of the ex- 
 
114 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 ceeding suddenness with which Grover Cleveland 
 had obtained a national reputation, but in so doing 
 they were forgetful of both the earlier and later his 
 tory of their own country. 
 
 The United States is only an aggregate of many 
 small election districts, and a man who is well known 
 in one of these can seem as an old acquaintance to 
 the voters of the district next adjoining within one 
 week s time, if his friends and the local newspapers 
 work efficiently. Moreover, at every election, quite 
 a respectable numfcer of freemen cast their intelli 
 gent ballots for men of whom they really know 
 nothing whatever, 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Fruits of the Victory Extraordinary Expenses 
 of the Mayor s Office The Dinner at the Manhat 
 tan Club Speech of the Governor -Elect Going to 
 Work at Albany The First Message to the Legis 
 lature. 
 
 THE combined Opposition gained an amazing vic 
 tory at the polls in November, 1882. The precise 
 nature of their triumph, however, was by no means 
 hidden from acute politicians of either party, and it 
 was yet to be seen whether or not the Republican 
 ascendancy in New York had received a permanently 
 shattering blow. Of course, the Democratic strength 
 had been augmented and consolidated, and was 
 likely to be kept well in hand for some time to 
 come, but the future action of its auxiliary force of 
 temporarily disaffected Republicans was by no 
 means certain, while that party was known to be 
 gaining and not weakening in other parts of the 
 country. It was almost a tradition of American 
 politics that a reaction against the party in power 
 should take place half way between two Presidential 
 elections, and that then the pendulum of the doubt 
 ful vote should swing back again. How far it was 
 now about to swing was likely to depend largely 
 upon the use which might be made by Grover Cleve 
 land of his opportunities as Governor of the State 
 
n6 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 of New York. Keen-eyed calculators saw that there 
 were dangers ahead. If he should undertake in 
 stupid earnest to fulfil his promises of reform, he 
 would surely array against himself, one after an 
 other, as many powerful interests as the course of 
 defective legislation should throw in his way. It 
 was to be hoped, rather, that he would inaugurate 
 an " era of good feeling," and rally around him all 
 the clans of all the available political tribes, includ 
 ing especially any refugees in any typical Repub 
 lican or Democratic cave of Adullam. 
 
 The Democratic Party leaders made an exceed 
 ingly judicious use of the immediate occasion. 
 During the brief but exciting canvass, Mr. Cleve 
 land had remained in Buffalo in the daily perform 
 ance of his duties as mayor. He had seemed to be 
 about the most cool and undisturbed Democrat in 
 Erie County, not to mention any of his Independent 
 Republican friends. He received the news of his 
 election with steady equanimity, one of its most 
 pleasing features to him being the fact that his own 
 county gave him six thousand six hundred and fifty- 
 three more votes than it had given for the Demo 
 cratic candidate for governor in 1879. His exact 
 majority there was seven thousand three hundred 
 and forty. As soon as the results were declared, 
 he began to make all necessary preparations for the 
 extraordinary change which was before him. If 
 among the members of the Board of Aldermen of 
 Buffalo there were any who felt a degree of personal 
 relief and pleasure upon receiving what they were 
 assured was the last message ever to be sent to 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 117 
 
 them by Grover Cleveland, there was not one who 
 did not instantly vote for the cash appropriation it 
 requested of them. He asked that a warrant should 
 be authorized for the payment of the incidental and 
 extraordinary expenses of the mayor s office during 
 the year 1882. The sum total of his outlay, ad 
 vanced from his own pocket, had been twenty-five 
 dollars and twenty-four cents, and the warrant on 
 the Treasury was drawn ; but one alderman won 
 dered why Cleveland did not make the odd cents up 
 to a round quarter, somehow. His public and pri 
 vate business affairs were quickly in good shape to 
 be left behind him, and he accepted an invitation 
 which he had received to visit the city of New York, 
 as the guest of the Manhattan Club. 
 
 The social standing and personal character of this 
 organization, thoroughly and representatively Dem 
 ocratic, rendered it the most fitting instrumentality 
 for putting a species of seal upon the record which 
 had been made by and for the governor-elect. A 
 grand banquet was given by the club, on December 
 6th, 1882, and of the two hundred and fifty gentle 
 men whose presence was invited, an ample propor 
 tion had not been previously associated with Demo 
 cratic victories. 
 
 Perhaps the banquet was intended, without the 
 governor-elect s knowledge, as a species of brilliant 
 interrogation. It may have served to ask the mo 
 mentous question : " Is not this the right man for 
 New York to uphold as its selection for the next 
 Democratic Presidential nomination ?" 
 
 Whatever may have been its purposes, other than 
 
US G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 social and complimentary, it offered Mr. Cleveland 
 an excellent opportunity, of which he took an all 
 but unsparing advantage. It enabled him to pub 
 lish his clear perception of the true nature of the 
 popular movement which had given him his phe 
 nomenal majority. There were afterward features 
 of his official and political course and conduct which 
 required for their perfect interpretation a reference 
 to his reply to his enthusiastic welcome by the 
 Manhattan Club. To the distinguished assembly 
 gathered in his honor, he said : 
 
 " We stand to-night in the full glare of a grand and brilliant 
 manifestation of the popular will, and in the light of it how vain 
 and small appear the tricks of politicians and the movements of 
 partisan machinery. He must be blind who cannot see that the 
 people well understand their power, and are determined to use it 
 when their rights and interests are threatened. There should be 
 no scepticism to-night as to the strength and perpetuity of our 
 Government. Partisan leaders have learned, too, that the people 
 will not unwittingly and blindly follow, and that something more 
 than wavering devotion to party is necessary to secure their alle 
 giance. I am quite certain that the late demonstration did not 
 spring from any pre-existing love for the party which was called 
 to power, nor did the people put the affairs of the State in our 
 hands to be by them forgotten. They voted for themselves, and 
 in their own interest. If we retain their confidence, we must de 
 serve it, and we may be sure they will call on us to give an account 
 of our stewardship. We shall utterly fail to read aright the signs 
 of the times if we are not fully convinced that parties are but in 
 struments through which the people work out their will, and that 
 when they become less or more, the people desert or destroy them. 
 The vanquished have lately learned these things, and the victors 
 will act wisely if they profit by the lesson. I have read and heard 
 much of late touching the great responsibilities cast upon me, and 
 it is certainly predicated upon the fact that my majority was so 
 large as to indicate that many not members of the party to which 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 119 
 
 I am proud to belong, supported me. God knows how fully I ap 
 preciate the responsibilities of the high office to which I have been 
 called, and how much I sometimes fear that I shall not bear the 
 burden well. It has seemed to me that a citizen who has been 
 chosen by his fellows to discharge public duties owes no less nor 
 more to them whether he is selected by a small or a large major 
 ity. In either event he owes to the people who honored him his 
 best endeavors to carefully protect their rights and further their 
 interests. An administration is only successful in a partisan sense 
 when it appears to be an outgrowth and result of party principles 
 and methods. These honored doctrines of the Democratic Party 
 are dear to me. If honestly applied in their purity I know that 
 the affairs of the Government will be fittingly and honestly admin 
 istered, and I believe that all the wants and needs of the people 
 would be met. They have survived all changes, and good, patri 
 otic men have clung to them through all disasters as the hope of 
 political salvation. Let us hold them as a sacred trust, and not 
 forget that the intelligent, thinking, reading people will look to a 
 party which they put in power to supply all their various needs 
 and wants, and that the party which keeps pace with the develop 
 ments and progress of the times, which keeps in sight its land 
 marks, and yet observes the things which are in advance, and 
 which will continue true to the people as well as to its traditions, 
 will be the dominant party of the future. My only aspiration is to 
 faithfully perform the duties of the office to which the people of 
 my State have called me, and I hope and trust a proud endeavor 
 will light the way to a successful administration." 
 
 At every point the great banquet was a complete 
 success, and the response of Governor Cleveland was 
 read by a wider and more deeply interested public 
 than has often studied an after-dinner speech in this 
 country. 
 
 Three weeks later the Executive Mansion at 
 Albany was ready for its new occupant, and, on Jan 
 uary 1st, 1883, in company with his law partner, 
 Mr. Bissell, the governor-elect came from Buffalo to 
 take possession. A greater than ordinary public 
 
120 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 curiosity had been aroused with reference to the 
 inauguration ceremonial, and there were crowds of 
 people around the State Capitol the next morning. 
 They were awaiting the arrival of the new governor, 
 and the retiring governor, Mr. Cornell, was in the 
 Executive Chamber of the Capitol, also waiting to 
 receive him. Unannounced, and all but unnoticed, 
 a pair of quiet gentlemen on foot pushed their way 
 among the throng until they disappeared through 
 the costly, very costly portal of the Capitol. One 
 of them was Grover Cleveland, and the other was 
 his private secretary, Daniel S. Lamont. There 
 had been no parade whatever ; nothing but a quiet 
 and business-like coming to the performance of an 
 appointed task. 
 
 Success in that performance, or failure, and the 
 degree of either, would surely have a direct and im 
 portant effect upon the future of the Democratic 
 Party and of Mr. Cleveland s own career, while the 
 situation had its peculiar difficulties. Immediately 
 behind him lay the record of Governor Cornell, and 
 the people of the State had found very little fault 
 with the conduct of that public servant. The great 
 mass of his own party had been so well satisfied with 
 his administration, that his putting aside, unjustly, 
 for personal and not for public reasons, had pre 
 pared the way for Mr. Cleveland s election. It ap 
 peared fairly evident that Mr. Cornell s successor 
 was not likely to shine by any express comparison 
 with him. Hundreds of citizens who had loudly 
 extolled, for campaign purposes, the reforms accom 
 plished by the Mayor of Buffalo, openly expressed 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 121 
 
 their doubt if he had in him enough of natural-born 
 statesmanship to spread equally well over the affairs 
 of a great State. Perhaps the first noticeable fea 
 ture of the new administration was the fact to be 
 discovered in his message to the Legislature that 
 he had not taken the trouble to entertain and con 
 sider that doubt. Whatever were the other fea 
 tures of the message, it was ringing with self-reliance, 
 without containing one sentence which consciously 
 asserted it. 
 
 There were a few words in the opening clause of 
 the message which reminded other men that he 
 might require a little time for the study of this case, 
 in which the State had retained him, for he said : 
 
 "I transmit this, my first annual message, with the intimation 
 that a newly-elected executive can hardly be prepared to present 
 a complete exhibit of State affairs, or to submit in detail a great 
 variety of recommendations for the action of the Legislature." 
 
 The exhibit, and the recommendations which he 
 was called upon for and was prepared to make at 
 once, included all which might belong to the chief 
 executive of a nation, with the exception of any 
 thing relating to foreign affairs and matters of war 
 and peace. 
 
 The finances of the State, as evidenced by reports 
 from the comptroller s office, were in good condi 
 tion, but the system of taxation by means of which 
 they were rendered so left it " notoriously true that 
 personal property not less remunerative than land 
 and real estate escapes to a very great extent the 
 payment of its fair proportion of the expense inci- 
 
122 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 dent to its protection and preservation under the 
 law." So said the governor in the next section of 
 his message, and there were gentlemen familiar with 
 the subject who shook their heads a little, even 
 while they assented to his declaration of " the im 
 perfection of our laws touching the matter of tax 
 ation and the faulty execution of existing statutes." 
 
 The manner in which the State canals were dealt 
 with showed that careful study had been given to 
 that subject, while in connection with it the gover 
 nor advised the creation of some tribunal answering 
 the general purposes of a court of claims. By this, 
 it was made to appear, several existing offices could 
 be dispensed with or condensed and a saving of 
 thirty thousand dollars yearly could be accom 
 plished. 
 
 The public schools were mentioned with an ex 
 pression of approval of their condition and manage 
 ment. Better methods and more thoroughness in 
 the supervision of savings banks and of insurance 
 companies was recommended. Attention was asked 
 to needed improvements in the drill and instruction 
 of the uniformed militia. 
 
 Attentive readers of the message reached this 
 part of it without discovering anything unusually 
 interesting. There were those, however, who had 
 voted for " reform" with an idea that it was to have 
 especial reference to the State prisons and the uses 
 made of convict labor. These now discovered that 
 their grievance was one of the matters with which 
 the governor was as yet unprepared to deal. He 
 said : 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 123 
 
 " If these penal institutions are self-sustaining, without injury 
 or embarrassment to honest labor, it is a matter for congratula 
 tion ; but it is, at least, very questionable whether the State should 
 go further and seek to realize a profit from its convict labor. In 
 my judgment it should not, especially if the danger of competition 
 between convicts and those who honestly toil is thereby increased, 
 and the overcrowding of any of the prisons, with its attendant 
 evils, is the result." 
 
 Attention was asked to insane asylums and other 
 charitable institutions. 
 
 The fees and charges imposed upon commerce at 
 the port of New York by existing laws were sharply 
 remarked upon, and reform here was plainly asked 
 for. Other matters were touched, including the 
 State Capitol building, the State judiciary, and the 
 reapportionment of the State into convenient Con 
 gressional districts. 
 
 With reference to the subject of Civil Service Re 
 form, so widely discussed during the political can 
 vass, the message said : 
 
 "It is submitted that the appointment of subordinates in the 
 several State departments, and their tenure of office or employ 
 ment, should be based upon fitness and efficiency, and that this 
 principle should be embodied in legislative enactment, to the end 
 that the policy of the State may conform to Unreasonable public 
 demand on that subject." 
 
 The ex-Mayor of Buffalo knew something about 
 municipal affairs, and he was ready to give an opin 
 ion concerning the best remedy for known evils. 
 He said : 
 
 " The formation and administration of the government of cities 
 are subjects of much public interest, and of great importance to 
 many of the inhabitants of the State. The formation of such gov- 
 
124 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 ernments is properly matter for most careful legislation. They 
 should be so organized as to be simple in their details and to cast 
 upon the people affected thereby the full responsibility of their ad 
 ministration. The different departments should be in such accord 
 as in their operation to lead toward the same results. Divided 
 counsels and divided responsibility to the people, on the part of 
 municipal officers, it is believed, give rise to much that is objec 
 tionable in the government of cities. If, to remedy this evil, the 
 chief executive should be made answerable to the people for the 
 proper conduct of the city s affairs, it is quite clear that his power 
 in the selection of those who manage its different departments 
 should be greatly enlarged." 
 
 Large parts of the membership of both of the 
 great political parties had loudly complained of their 
 inability to make themselves heard at all in party 
 management, and a note of reform was sounded in 
 the message : 
 
 " The protection of the people in their primaries will, it is hoped, 
 be secured by the early passage of a law for that purpose, which 
 will rid the present system of the evils which surround it, tending 
 to defraud the people of rights closely connected with their priv 
 ileges as citizens." 
 
 A general exhortation to watchfulness and fidelity 
 closed the first communication of Governor Cleveland 
 to the Legislature. Some men said that he had laid 
 out too much, or more than was at all likely to be 
 accomplished during his term of office, and they 
 were right enough, since he was not the legislative, 
 but the executive, servant of the people. Other 
 men, eagerly expecting something sensational and 
 exciting, declared that his message was a very tame 
 affair. Any kind of governor might have said all 
 that was in it and not set up for a reformer at all. 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 125 
 
 Perhaps there were others who discerned an un 
 looked-for maturity and an acquaintance with pub 
 lic affairs beyond what might have been expected 
 from a mere " ward politician," as Mr. Cleveland s 
 opponents had contemptuously termed him. 
 
 The great mass of the citizens of the Empire 
 State, if they read the message at all, did so and 
 then went about their business with that curious 
 willingness to let things take care of themselves un 
 til next election which is so marked a feature of 
 American politics. They had provided themselves 
 with a Legislature, a governor, and with nobody 
 knew just how many other officials, and so long as 
 the great social machine jolted along without hurt 
 ing any man, his place was to let it jolt. Perhaps 
 this new man from Erie County might run against 
 something, if he should try to keep his promises, 
 and if he did the newspapers would have something 
 to say about it. There had been a real busy cam 
 paign, to be sure, but it was all over now. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Bachelor s Hall in the Executive Mansion The Ex 
 ecutive Chamber Open Doors Retained for the 
 State Habits of Business A Legislative Critic 
 and I Editor Veto Messages The Five-Ceitf Fare 
 Bill The Mayor s Bill. 
 
 FOR the first time in his life Grover Cleveland 
 found himself keeping house. He had decidedly 
 too much house to keep, considering the facts that 
 he was a bachelor and that his dwelling was the 
 commodious residence provided by the State of New 
 York for its governors. There was something pecu 
 liarly lonesome about it, for although the mansion 
 has no claim to magnificence, it is amply large 
 enough for a numerous family as well as for private 
 and public hospitalities. During all his years of 
 professional and official life in Buffalo, since leaving 
 his uncle s house at Black Rock, he had lived very 
 unostentatiously, beginning with his attic room at 
 the Southern Hotel. After that he had had some 
 experience of boarding-houses, but had been best 
 satisfied with his later apartments, well furnished 
 and comfortable, in the same building with his law 
 office and exceedingly convenient to all his work 
 and business. 
 
 In those days any person seeking him was most 
 likely to find him, at almost any hour, toiling away 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 127 
 
 among the books and papers in his office. The 
 endless procession of his fellow citizens now pour 
 ing toward him discovered that he was forming a 
 strictly similar habit of life in Albany. The Execu 
 tive Chamber at the Capitol was his work room, and 
 there was his time to be spent, as the work upon 
 his hands called for all the trained, methodical, tire 
 less industry which had been the one secret of his 
 success in life. All the circumstances of his educa 
 tion and career had inclined him to a dislike of cer 
 emonial formality and of the guarded etiquette 
 which is often so useful, so necessary a protection 
 to men in positions of authority. He now some 
 what hastily swept away any barriers which might 
 surround the Executive Chamber, for he gave the at 
 tendants a sweeping direction to " admit any one 
 who asks to see the governor." 
 
 The requirements of public business and of a con 
 scientious economy of time, with the help of a few 
 dozens daily of useless intruders, would surely ob 
 tain the reform of so unwise a law as that ; but the 
 order indicated character, and the fact of its utter 
 ance gave sincere pleasure to a multitude of simple 
 people who had no idea of ever going to Albany. 
 
 Grover Cleveland was governor as completely as 
 he had been sheriff or mayor, but it was speedily 
 evident that he had taken up his duties with an idea 
 of their nature and of his relations to them which 
 corresponded with rare accuracy to his own individ 
 uality. He was really the attorney and counsellor 
 retained in the great case of the State and Peo 
 ple of New York v. Whomsoever-it-may-concern. 
 
128 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 That direct and comprehensive view of the matter 
 simplified everything for him, and it also throws a 
 helping light upon his course of action as governor. 
 It would be a needlessly stupid misconception to 
 suppose that the uses of the State executive were 
 in this manner narrowed or that they lost anything 
 of their dignity. 
 
 The multiform ramifications of the " great case" 
 in hand were found to require a transfer of the 
 work-a-day routine of the Buffalo apartments and 
 law office to the Executive Mansion and Chamber. 
 These latter were less than a mile apart, just a good, 
 bracing walk after a seven-o clock-in-the-morning 
 breakfast. On reaching the Chamber business be 
 gan, with heaps of documents and correspondence 
 already prepared by a hard-worked private secretary. 
 Sooner or later, as the work in hand might indicate, 
 visitors were admitted, but at one o clock the gov 
 ernor walked out and went home for luncheon. 
 Punctually at two o clock he was again in the Cham 
 ber to toil until six, and that hour was apt to ter 
 minate any reception of callers. Dinner had to be 
 walked home after and eaten, that Governor Cleve 
 land might be back at his work by eight o clock in 
 the evening. Precisely how late in the night it 
 might be before another walk home could be taken 
 was not always easy to guess beforehand, but word 
 went out through the city of Albany that " This 
 here new governor s a right down hard-working sort 
 of man. Doesn t make any fuss, neither. He 
 walks, too ; doesn t seem to have any use for a car 
 riage." 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 129 
 
 The Legislature of 1882 had provided fora " Civil 
 Service Reform" Commission, and Governor Cleve 
 land s appointments in compliance with the law 
 gave very general satisfaction. Only moderate and 
 almost inevitable criticisms were made upon his 
 other appointments. With reference to such fault 
 as was found, he was doubtless entitled to the de 
 fence made for President Lincoln in the matter of 
 military commanders : " Well, but you know he 
 had a good deal on his hands, and he hadn t 
 time to make a lot of new men. He had to 
 pick and choose among such an assortment as 
 there was on hand, and some of em were odd pat 
 terns." 
 
 Any sketch of a public man still before the peo 
 ple, if it happen to be prepared for party purposes, 
 may properly contain a minute record of his public 
 acts, but biography, designing to present a just view 
 of character and career, does not require such mi 
 nuteness. 
 
 Merely local success attained by Grover Cleveland, 
 within what was deemed a narrow area, had only 
 prepared the minds of men to watch with more than 
 ordinary curiosity for any further indications of the 
 broader grasp of mind and will, the dignified re 
 quirements of executive statesmanship, which are 
 not often discovered, but which, when found, are of 
 such vast value. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland had absolutely no parliamentary 
 experience. He had not sought legislative duties 
 or honors. It may be that his distaste for them 
 grew out of an instinctive perception in his own 
 
130 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 mind that he lacked the peculiar qualifications of a 
 parliamentary leader. 
 
 In any legislative assembly there were weaker and 
 more flexible men who could out-manceuvre him. 
 It now remained to be seen whether or not his 
 capacity and training fitted him for the important 
 and responsible post of State critic and revising edi 
 tor of the huge volume of current legislation at 
 Albany, for that is precisely what the law demands 
 that the governor shall be. 
 
 Upon questions affecting the entire nation, the 
 new governor s record was as yet simply that of his 
 party. His speech before the Manhattan Club, 
 however, with his first message as its commentary, 
 testified that he was prepared to take an indepen 
 dent position. He was a man who was in the habit 
 of thinking for himself and having the courage of 
 his convictions. Beyond that, his earlier utter 
 ances did not go, and each executive act, positive or 
 negative, followed its immediate predecessor with 
 out anything resembling a prophetic warning. It 
 was not long before a number of disturbed and anx 
 ious lobbyists were heard to remark, in one form or 
 another, " There is no telling what Grover Cleve 
 land will do next. Any kind of bill must take its 
 own chances with him." 
 
 The intense toil performed in the Executive 
 Chamber was measured precisely by what the friends 
 of each particular bill, large or small, described as 
 its chances," omitting from these all considera 
 tions outside of the public uses, the legal, structure, 
 and the constitutionality of the measure itself. Al- 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 131 
 
 most, if not quite, for the first time in the history 
 of the Legislature, it found the governor acting as 
 its law counsel, as well as critic and editor, for really 
 well-meaning bills, with defects only of construc 
 tion, came quietly slipping back unvetoed, to be 
 tinkered up for signature. There was rarely any 
 extended discussion or delay in such cases, and 
 nobody was disposed to say that the governor 
 was " exercising an undue influence over legisla 
 tion." 
 
 Owing to the rapid growth of the State in wealth 
 and population, the rise of hamlets into villages and 
 towns, and the swift expansion of new settlements 
 into prosperous cities, the work of successive Legis 
 latures has largely consisted of experimental " char 
 ter" manufacturing and mending. The city of New- 
 York alone has furnished an all but ceaseless run of 
 business of this sort largely job work. Governor 
 Cleveland s declarations concerning municipal re 
 forms pointed directly at local self-government and 
 local responsibility. In this he was pretty well sus 
 tained by public opinion, except with reference to 
 the great seaport, where no local majorities could 
 be intrusted with focalized interests which are world 
 wide rather than municipal. 
 
 Only a month or so after the inauguration, " An 
 act to amend and consolidate the several acts relat 
 ing to the city of Elmira, " was returned with a veto 
 message which denounced it as " special legislation 
 of the most objectionable character," and designed 
 to " establish a different rule to govern the liability 
 of the city of Elmira in cases of injury caused by 
 
132 . GROVE R CLEVELAND. 
 
 negligence, than that which prevails in other parts 
 of the State." 
 
 A bill relating to the city of Lyons was returned 
 with specific reasons for its disapproval, and with 
 general remarks relating to the class of measures to 
 which it evidently belonged. 
 
 " There are other sections of this charter," said the governor, 
 " which might be criticised, to which I will not refer. It is quite 
 apparent that something should be done to prevent the introduc 
 tion, or, at any rate, the passage of such bills as this. They seem 
 often to be prepared without any care, or without any appreciation 
 of the evils to be remedied, or the manner of accomplishing im 
 provements. Once here, they attract but little attention, because 
 they are supposed to be of no importance to the Legislature, being 
 local in their nature. And then they are good-naturedly allowed 
 to pass and to reach the executive, a mass of impracticable incon 
 sistencies and incongruous and useless crudities, which, if allowed 
 to go upon our statute books, would be a disgrace to the State and 
 the law-making power." 
 
 There were other vetoes which exhibited the same 
 readiness to protect any public purse throughout 
 the State, from such overflowing patriotism as had 
 induced the aldermen of Buffalo to give away other 
 men s money for the celebration of Decoration Day. 
 For example, the Legislature was carefully given 
 the constitutional reasons why it had no power to 
 authorize the county of Chautauqua to appropriate 
 for the construction of a soldiers monument, money 
 raised for general purposes by taxation. 
 
 An unnecessary act to enable the Fayetteville 
 supervisors to borrow money to buy a fire engine 
 was sent back with as scrupulous care as was any 
 more important measure. 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 133 
 
 The character and minuteness of Governor Cleve 
 land s examination of legislation brought before 
 him, as well as his very thorough study of the gen 
 eral subject of local self-government by the people, 
 do not appear so manifestly in any of his earlier or 
 later veto-messages as in the reasons given by him 
 for approving and signing what was known as the 
 Mayor s Bill, enacting a notable change in the con 
 duct of New York City affairs. There was a very 
 powerful opposition to this measure, and its most 
 active opponents were prominent members of the 
 Democratic Party. To them and to the general 
 public, the governor argued the entire case, in a 
 message dated March i/th, 1884, but which had 
 evidently been long in course of preparation. He 
 had knowledge of the kind of work which might 
 sometimes be expected from a board of aldermen, 
 whether Buffalo Republicans or New York Demo 
 crats, and he knew that the people of the latter city 
 had generally shown good sense in the selection of 
 their mayors. The message may be dull reading 
 to many, but the man who prepared and sent it can 
 be better understood by its perusal. Any practised 
 student of human character will hardly fail to note 
 a high degree of philosophical sincerity in Governor 
 Cleveland s analysis of the bill. He wrote : 
 
 " The interest which has been aroused regarding the merits of 
 this bill, and quite a determined hostility which has been devel 
 oped on the part of those entitled to respectful consideration, ap 
 pear to justify a brief reference to the principles and purposes 
 which seem to me to be involved in the measure, and an incidental 
 statement of the process of thought by which I have been led to 
 approve the same. 
 
134 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 " The opponents of the bill have invoked the inviolability of the 
 rights of the people to rule themselves, and have insisted upon the 
 preservation of a wise distribution of power among the different 
 branches of government ; and I have listened to solemn warnings 
 against the subversive tendency of the concentration of power in 
 municipal rule, and the destructive consequences of any encroach 
 ment upon the people s rights and prerogatives. 
 
 " I hope I have not entirely misconceived the scope and reach of 
 this bill ; but it seems to me that my determination as to whether 
 or not it should become a law does not depend upon the reverence 
 I entertain for such fundamental principles. 
 
 " The question is not whether certain officers heretofore elected 
 by the people of the city of New York shall, under the provisions 
 of a new law, be appointed. The transfer of power from an elec 
 tion by the people to an appointment by other authority, has al 
 ready been made. 
 
 " The present charter of the city provides that the mayor shall 
 nominate, and by and with the consent of the Board of Aldermen 
 appoint the heads of departments. 
 
 " The bill under consideration provides that after the ist day of 
 January, 1885, all appointments to office in the city of New York 
 now made by the mayor and confirmed by the Board of Aldermen 
 shall be made by the mayor without such confirmation. 
 
 " The change proposed is clearly apparent. 
 
 " By the present charter the mayor, elected by all the people of 
 the city, if a majority of twenty-four aldermen elected by the voters 
 of twenty-four separate districts concur with him, may appoint the 
 administrative officers who shall have charge and management of 
 the city departments. 
 
 " The bill presented for my action allows the mayor alone to ap 
 point these officers. This authority is not conferred upon the 
 mayor now in office, who was chosen without anticipation on the 
 part of the people who elected him, that he should exercise this 
 power, but upon the incoming mayor who, after the passage of the 
 act, shall be elected, with the full knowledge on the part of the 
 people, at the time they cast their votes, that they are constituting 
 an agent to act for them in the selection of certain other city 
 officers. 
 
 " This selection under either statute is delegated by the people. 
 In the one case it is exercised by the chief executive acting with 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 135 
 
 twenty-four officers representing as many different sections of the 
 municipality ; in the other by the chief executive alone. 
 
 " I cannot see that any principle of Democratic rule is more 
 violated in the one case than in the other. It appears to be a mere 
 change of instrumentalities. 
 
 " It will hardly do to say that because the aldermen are elected 
 annually, and the mayor every two years, that the former are 
 nearer the people and more especially their representatives. The 
 difference in their terms is not sufficient to make a distinction in 
 their direct relations to the citizen. 
 
 " Nor are the rights of the people to self-government in theory 
 and principle better protected when the power of appointment is 
 vested in twenty-five men, twenty-four of whom are responsible 
 only to their constituents in their respective districts, than when 
 this power is put in the hands of one man elected by all the people 
 of the municipality with particular reference to the exercise of such 
 power. Indeed, in the present condition of affairs, if disagreement 
 arises between the mayor and the aldermen, the selection of officers 
 by the representative of all the people might be defeated by the 
 adverse action of thirteen representatives of thirteen alderrnanic 
 districts. And it is perfectly apparent that these thirteen might, 
 and often would, represent a decided minority of the people of the 
 municipality. 
 
 " It cannot be claimed that an arrangement which permits such 
 a result is pre-eminently democratic. 
 
 "It has been urged that the proposed change is opposed to the 
 principle of home rule. If it is intended to claim that the officers, 
 the creation of which is provided for, should be elected, it has no 
 relevancy, for that question is not in any manner presented for 
 rny determination. And it surely cannot be said that the doctrine 
 of home rule prevents any change by the Legislature of the organic 
 law of municipalities. The people of the city cannot themselves 
 make such change ; and if legislative aid cannot be invoked to that 
 end, it follows that abuses, flagrant and increasing, must be con 
 tinued, and existing charter provisions, the inadequacy of which 
 for the protection and prosperity of the people is freely admitted, 
 must be perpetuated. It is the interference of the Legislature with 
 the administration of municipal government, by agencies arbitra 
 rily created by legislative enactment, and the assumption by the 
 law-making power of the State of the rights to regulate such de- 
 
136 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 tails of city government as are or should be under the supervision 
 of local authorities, that should be condemned as a violation of the 
 doctrine of home rule. 
 
 " In any event I am convinced that I should not disapprove the 
 bill before me on the ground that it violates any principle which 
 is now recognized and exemplified in the government of the city of 
 New York. 
 
 " I am also satisfied that as between the system now prevailing 
 and that proposed, expediency and a close regard to improved 
 municipal administration lead to my approval of the measure. 
 
 " If the chief executive of the city is to be held responsible for 
 its order and good government, he should not be hampered by any 
 interference with his selection of subordinate administrative offi 
 cers ; nor should he be permitted to find in a divided responsibility 
 an excuse for any neglect of the best interests of the people. 
 
 " The plea should never be heard that a bad nomination had 
 been made because it was the only one that could secure con 
 firmation. 
 
 " No instance has been cited in which a bad appointment has 
 been prevented by the refusal of the Board of Aldermen of the city 
 of New York to confirm a nomination. 
 
 " An absolute and undivided responsibility on the part of the 
 appointing power accords with correct business principles, the appli 
 cation of which to public affairs will always, I believe, direct the 
 way to good administration and the protection of the people s 
 interests. 
 
 " The intelligence and watchfulness of the citizens of New York 
 should certainly furnish a safe guarantee that the duties and powers 
 devolved by this legislation upon their chosen representative, will 
 be well and wisely bestowed ; and if they err or are betrayed, their 
 remedy is close at hand. 
 
 " I can hardly realize the unprincipled boldness of the man who 
 would accept at the hands of his neighbors this sacred trust, and 
 standing alone in the full light of public observation, should wil 
 fully prostitute his powers and defy the will of the people. 
 
 " To say that such a man could by such means perpetuate his 
 wicked rule, concedes either that the people are vile or that self- 
 government is a deplorable failure. 
 
 " It is claimed that because some of these appointees become 
 members of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, which de- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 137 
 
 termines very largely the amount of taxation, therefore the power 
 to select them should not be given to the mayor. If the question 
 presented was whether officials having such important duties and 
 functions should be elected by the people or appointed, such a con 
 sideration might well be urged in favor of their election. But they 
 are now appointed, and they will remain appointive, whether the 
 proposed bill should be rejected or approved. This being the sit 
 uation, the importance of the duties to be performed by these 
 officials has to do with the care to be exercised in their selection, 
 rather than the choice between the two modes of appointment 
 which are under consideration. 
 
 " For some time prior to the year 1872, these appointments were 
 made by the mayor without confirmation, as is contemplated by 
 the bill now before me. In that year a measure passed the Legis 
 lature giving the power of appointment to the Common Council. 
 The chief executive of the State at that time was a careful and 
 thorough student of municipal affairs, having large and varied ex 
 perience in public life. He refused to approve the bill, on the 
 ground that it was a departure from the principle which should be 
 applied to the administration of the affairs of the city, and for the 
 reason that the mayor should be permitted to appoint the subordi 
 nate administrative officers without the interference of any other 
 authority. 
 
 " This reference to the treatment of the subject by one of my 
 distinguished predecessors in office, affords me the opportunity to 
 quote from his able and vigorous veto message which he sent to 
 the Legislature on that occasion. He said : 
 
 " Nowhere on this continent is it so essentially a condition of 
 good government as in the city of New York, that the chief execu 
 tive officer should be clothed with ample powers, have full control 
 over subordinate administrative departments, and so be subject to 
 an undivided responsibility to the people and to public opinion for 
 all errors, shortcomings, and wrong-doings by subordinate officers. 
 
 " He also said : 
 
 Give to the city a chief executive, with full power to appoint 
 all heads of administrative departments. Let him have power to 
 remove his subordinates, being required to publicly assign his 
 reason. 
 
 " He further declared : 
 
 " The members of the Common Council, in New York, will 
 
138 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 exert all the influence over appointments which is consistent with 
 the public good, without having the legal power of appointment, 
 or any part of it, vested in their hands. 
 
 " In 1876, after four added years of reflection and observation, 
 he said, in a public address, when suggesting a scheme of munic 
 ipal government : 
 
 " Have, therefore, no provision in your charter requiring the 
 consent of the Common Council to the mayor s appointment of 
 heads of departments ; that only opens the way for dictation by the 
 council or for bargains. This is not the way to get good men nor 
 to fix the full responsibility for maladministration upon the peo 
 ple s chosen prime minister. 
 
 " These are the utterances of one who, during two terms, had 
 been Mayor of the city of New York, and for two terms Recorder 
 of that city ; and who for four years had been Governor of the 
 State. 
 
 " No testimony, it seems to me, could be more satisfactory and 
 convincing. 
 
 "It is objected that this bill does not go far enough, and that 
 there should be a rearrangement of the terms of these officers ; also 
 that some of them should be made elective. This is undoubtedly 
 true ; and I shall be glad to approve further judicious legislation 
 supplementary to this, which shall make the change more valuable 
 and surround it with safeguards in the interests of the citizens. 
 But such further legislation should be well digested and conserva 
 tive, and, above all, not proposed for the purpose of gaining a 
 mere partisan advantage. 
 
 " I have not referred to the pernicious practices which the present 
 mode of making appointments in the city of New York engenders, 
 nor to the constantly-recurring bad results for which it is respon 
 sible. They are in the plain sight of every citizen of the State. 
 
 " I believe the change made by the provisions of this bill gives 
 opportunity for an improvement in the administration of municipal 
 affairs ; and I am satisfied that the measure violates no right of 
 the people of the locality affected, which they now enjoy. Hut the 
 best opportunities will be lost and the most perfect plan of city 
 government will fail, unless the people recognize their responsibil 
 ities and appreciate and realize the privileges and duties of citizen 
 ship. With the most carefully-devised charter, and with a l the 
 protection which legislative enactments can afford them, the people 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 139 
 
 of the city of New York will not secure a wise and economical 
 rule until those having the most at stake determine to actively in 
 terest themselves in the conduct of municipal affairs." 
 
 It was eminently necessary that Mr. Cleveland, 
 as a politician whose name and standing were of 
 value to his party, should present good reasons for 
 approving the Mayor s Bill. It was even more so 
 that he should be able to show ample cause for 
 vetoing the Five-Cent Fare Bill about two weeks 
 earlier in the season. If the former was said to 
 favor concentration of power in a single official 
 hand, the latter appealed to a very active and sensi 
 tive popular sentiment. 
 
 Jealousy of great corporations and of their in 
 creasing wealth and power is by no means confined 
 to the poorer people so often spoken of as " the 
 laboring classes" in a land where labor is honor 
 able and nearly all men are toilers. Great riches in 
 vite envy and anything human reacts with a feeling 
 of resentment from a corporate body with the 
 strength of a machine and the apparent heartless- 
 ness of a goblin. Subsequent events have demon 
 strated the correctness of the popular decision that 
 five cents was enough for a fare upon the elevated 
 railways of New York City. A restriction to that 
 rate, however, would in their beginning have pre 
 vented capital from taking the risks incurred in their 
 construction, and they had been given a more liberal 
 source of income by legislative enactments which 
 were as contracts between elevated railway corpo 
 rations and the State. When, therefore, public sen 
 timent expressed itself loudly through the press and 
 
140 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 in a bill passed through the Assembly by a vote of 
 one hundred and nine to six, and the Senate by a 
 vote of twenty-four to five, an uncommonly inter 
 esting study was thereby laid upon the crowded 
 table in the Executive Chamber. Hardly any bet 
 ter test could have been offered of either capacity 
 as a critic, sincerity as a guardian of law and of 
 rights under the law, or of that unconscious sincerity 
 which is really farsighted, and which delivers its pos 
 sessor from the ditches blundered into by mere dem 
 agogues. 
 
 Governor Cleveland returned the bill, March 2d, 
 1884, with an accompanying message which found 
 more readers and aroused a deeper interest than al 
 most any other public document of the day. He 
 presented a full but condensed history of the legis 
 lation under which the elevated railways had been 
 constructed, with references to action taken thereon 
 by the courts ; rehearsed the progressive construc 
 tion of the novel and important viaducts so provided 
 for, and added : 
 
 " I am of the opinion that in the legislation and proceedings 
 which I have detailed, and in the fact that pursuant thereto the 
 road of the company was constructed and finished, there exists a 
 contract in favor of this company, which is protected by that clause 
 of the Constitution of the United States which prohibits the passage 
 of a law by any State impairing the obligation of contracts." 
 
 Other legal points were set forth, and the message 
 concluded with : 
 
 " If I am mistaken in supposing that there are legal objections 
 to this bill, there is another consideration which furnishes to my 
 mind a sufficient reason why I should not give it my approval. 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 141 
 
 " It seems to me that to arbitrarily reduce these fares, at this 
 time, and under existing circumstances, involves a breach of faith 
 on the part of the State, and a betrayal of confidence which the 
 State has invited. 
 
 " The fact is notorious that for many years rapid transit was the 
 great need of the inhabitants of the city of New York, and was of 
 direct importance to the citizens of the State. Projects which 
 promised to answer the people s wants in this direction failed and 
 were abandoned. The Legislature, appreciating the situation, 
 willingly passed statute after statute, calculated to aid and encour 
 age a solution of the problem. Capital was timid, and hesitated to 
 enter a new field full of risks and dangers. By the promise of lib 
 eral fares, as will be seen in all the acts passed on the subject, and 
 through other concessions gladly made, capitalists were induced to 
 invest their money in the enterprise, and rapid transit but lately 
 became an accomplished fact. But much of the risk, expense, and 
 burden attending the maintenance of these roads are yet unknown 
 and threatening. In the mean time, the people of the city of New 
 York are receiving the full benefit of their construction, a great 
 enhancement of the value of the taxable property of the city has 
 resulted, and in addition to taxes, more than one hundred and 
 twenty thousand dollars, being five per cent in increase, pursuant 
 to the law of 1868, has been paid by the companies into the city 
 treasury, on the faith that the rate of fare agreed upon was secured 
 to them. I am not aware that the corporations have, by any de 
 fault, forfeited any of their rights ; and if they have, the remedy is 
 at hand under existing laws. Their stock and their bonds are held 
 by a large number of citizens, and the income of these roads de 
 pends entirely upon fares received from passengers. The reduc 
 tion proposed is a large one, and it is claimed will permit no div 
 idends to investors. This may not be true, but we should be sat 
 isfied it is not, before the proposed law takes effect. 
 
 "It is manifestly important that invested capital should be pro 
 tected, and that its necessity and usefulness in the development of 
 enterprises valuable to the people should be recognized by con 
 servative conduct on the part of the State government. 
 
 " But we have especially in our keeping the honor and good 
 faith of a great State, and we should see to it that no suspicion at 
 taches, through any act of ours, to the fair fame of the common 
 wealth. The State should not only be strictly just, but scrupu- 
 
142 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 lously fair, and in its relation to the citizen every legal and moral 
 obligation should be recognized. This can only be done by legis 
 lating without vindictiveness or prejudice, and with a firna deter 
 mination to deal justly and fairly with those from whom we exact 
 obedience. 
 
 " I am not unmindful of the fact that this bill originated in the 
 response to the demand of a large portion of the people of New 
 York for cheaper rates of fare between their places of employment 
 and their homes, and I realize fully the desirability of securing to 
 them all the privileges possible, but the experience of other States 
 teaches that we must keep within the limits of law and good faith, 
 lest in the end we bring upon the very people whom we seek to 
 benefit and protect a hardship, which must surely follow when 
 these limits are ignored." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Approval of Good Men Minor Vetoes Prisons 
 and Criminals The Pardoning Power Rising to a 
 Higher Level of Fame The Purity of Elections. 
 
 WHATEVER amount and degree of hollow popu 
 larity an aspiring politician might hope to gain by 
 assuming to be a champion of the people against 
 the greed and power of corporations had been put 
 away from himself by Governor Cleveland in his 
 veto of the Five-Cent Fare Bill. The vote of a 
 man whose mental darkness prevents him from dis 
 cerning a point of constitutional law, counts as 
 much in any ballot-box as does that of President 
 Andrew D. White, of Cornell University, or of the 
 venerable President Martin B. Anderson, of the 
 University of Rochester, who at once wrote to the 
 governor vigorous letters of approval. Neverthe 
 less, the public support of such men, not at all con 
 nected with partisan politics, went far toward neu 
 tralizing the effect of an unthinking uproar which 
 found its bitterest expression in journals tainted 
 with anarchism. 
 
 If it was worth something to an entirely new fame 
 to find its statesmanship sustained by the ablest 
 scholars and teachers in the State, perhaps it was 
 worth as much to be assailed by the avowed enemies 
 
144 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 of law and order, of all property, and of all vested 
 interests. 
 
 Men who might, indeed, read a veto message, if 
 its matter displeased them, but who could not in 
 any event appreciate its reasoning, were not likely to 
 be won back again by other vetoes more in accord 
 with their narrow prejudices. 
 
 On April 2d, 1883, a veto of an act extending the 
 already great privileges of gas-light companies in 
 the use they are permitted to make of the public 
 streets, contained the following : 
 
 "Another fatal objection to this bill is found in the provision 
 allowing the corporations therein named to enter upon private 
 property, and erect and maintain their structures thereon, without 
 the consent of the owner. It seems to me that this is taking pri 
 vate property, or an easement therein, with very little pretext that 
 it is for a public use. 
 
 " If a private corporation can, under authority of law, construct 
 its appliances and structures upon the lands of the citizen without 
 his consent, not only for the purpose of furnishing light, but in an 
 experimental attempt to transmit heat and power, the rights of the 
 people may well be regarded as in danger from an undue license to 
 corporate aggrandizement." 
 
 In returning another bill, framed and passed for 
 the benefit of the Utica Ice Company, he wrote : 
 
 " Our laws in relation to the formation of corporations are ex 
 tremely liberal, and those who avail themselves of their provisions 
 should be held to a strict compliance with their requirements. 
 There is manifestly no propriety in the passage of a special act to 
 .relieve a private corporation and its stockholders, as proposed in 
 this bill." 
 
 There was something peculiarly discouraging to a 
 large class of political party workers in the reasons 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 145 
 
 given, on April gth, 1883, for a very prompt return 
 of a bill proposing important changes in the organ 
 ization and management of the Fire Department of 
 the city of Buffalo. The assembled legislators of 
 the State were almost rudely informed that : 
 
 " The purpose of the bill is too apparent to be mistaken. A 
 tried, economical, and efficient administration of an important de 
 partment in a large city is to be destroyed, upon partisan grounds 
 or to satisfy personal animosities, in order that the places and 
 patronage attached thereto may be used for party advancement. 
 
 " I believe in an open and sturdy partisanship, which secures 
 the legitimate advantages of party supremacy ; but parties were 
 made for the people, and I am unwilling, knowingly, to give my 
 assent to measures purely partisan, which will sacrifice or endanger 
 their interests." 
 
 The best and purest corner-grocery statesmen lis 
 tened to such heretical doctrines with an inward 
 dread that the good old times were on the eve of 
 passing away. With it, however, came the com 
 forting assurance that this sort of thing, if lived up 
 to, would be the end of Grover Cleveland. He was 
 making enemies all over the State, and among them 
 were numbers of able-bodied citizens who knew a 
 great deal about the political anatomy of primaries 
 and the natural selection of delegates to party con 
 ventions. 
 
 Another broad subject which consumed many of 
 the toilsome hours spent in the Executive Chamber 
 was that of crime, and of criminals, and of the treat 
 ment of these after the hands of the law had been 
 laid upon them. It was a study more or less familiar 
 to every practising lawyer and peculiarly so to a 
 man who had been a county sheriff. To any ripe- 
 
146 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 ness of preparation or of conviction previously at 
 tained by Governor Cleveland, there were now added 
 whatever authority the State executive possesses 
 over the management of prisons and of their in 
 mates, and also the solemn responsibility of the par 
 doning power. 
 
 One of the first acts of the governor, after enter 
 ing upon the discharge of his duties, was an effort 
 in the direction of a more humane and intelligent 
 treatment of convicts. On February 2d, 1883, he 
 wrote to the Superintendent of State Prisons : 
 
 " I deem it proper to call your attention to the provisions of 
 Section 108 of chapter 460 of the laws of 1847, which prohibits 
 the infliction of blows upon any convict in the State prisons, by 
 the keepers thereof, except in self-defence or to suppress a revolt or 
 insurrection ; and also to chapter 869 of the laws of 1869, abolish 
 ing the punishment commonly known as the shower-bath, crucifix 
 or yoke, and buck. I suppose these latter forms of punishment 
 were devised to take the place of the blows prohibited by the law 
 of 1847. 
 
 " Both of the statutes above referred to seem to be still in force, 
 and, in my opinion, they are in no manner affected by the consti 
 tutional amendment giving the superintendent the superinten 
 dence, management, and control of the prisons, nor by Sections 
 I and 5 of chapter 107 of the laws of 1877, providing that the 
 superintendent shall have the management and control of the pris 
 ons and of the convicts therein, and of all matters relating to the 
 government, discipline, police, contracts, and fiscal concerns 
 thereof, and that he shall make such rules and regulations for the 
 government and punishment of the convicts as he may deem 
 proper. 
 
 " I especially desire to avoid any injurious interference with the 
 maintenance by the prison authorities of efficient discipline ; but I 
 insist that, in the treatment of prisoners convicted of crime, the 
 existing statutes of the State on that subject should be observed." 
 
 He afterward made persistent efforts to accom- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 14? 
 
 plish whatever good results were possible under the 
 laws providing for remission of penalties and short 
 ening of terms of imprisonment on account of good 
 behavior and indications of reform. At the same 
 time it became evident that mere petitions, their 
 number or their signatures or their urgency, had but 
 a moderate share in determining the effect of any 
 application for the pardon of a convicted criminal. 
 A large number of pardons were granted, but the 
 percentage was less than in the records of previous 
 governors. No hasty letting loose of a doubtful or 
 dangerous character was likely to occur, when each 
 act of pardon carried with it a written statement of 
 the governor s reasons, in evidence that he had fully 
 satisfied his own mind and had done his duty to the 
 general public as well as to mercy. 
 
 There were veto messages of several classes, not 
 indicative of anything especial, excepting, perhaps, 
 the general idea that the Legislature had too many 
 irons in the fire, and that some of these were nearly 
 ruined before being taken out and sent to the gov 
 ernor. One of these, and a fairly representative 
 specimen, was known as the Tenure of Office Bill, 
 particularly affecting certain officials of the city of 
 New York. To the Senate and Assembly provid 
 ing it with the requisite majority vote, the governor 
 remarked, in his message returning the bill : 
 
 " Of all the defective and shabby legislation which has been pre 
 sented to me, this is the worst and most inexcusable, unless it be 
 its companion, which is entitled An act to provide for a more 
 efficient government of the department of parks in the city of New 
 York. " 
 
148 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 The honorable body to which that assurance was 
 given, loudly, in the reading of the message by its 
 clerk, would have been entirely justified in asking 
 itself, " Does this man imagine that he is address 
 ing the Buffalo Board of Aldermen ?" 
 
 The worst of it was that the leading journals of 
 both parties appeared to agree with the governor, 
 while all the judges of all the courts said, " Amen." 
 
 The first year of Governor Cleveland s term of 
 office drew toward its close in the same untiring 
 routine of daily and hourly toil. He had done ab 
 solutely nothing which could be described as " brill 
 iant," in the sense in which that term may be ap 
 plied to fireworks or to a grand cavalry charge. It 
 seemed as if he must have made more enemies than 
 friends, and, so far as might be, he had been the 
 destruction of any " era of good feeling" among 
 the working politicians even of his own party. 
 There were strong indications that he had been too 
 busy to so much as think of them or of their impor 
 tant relations to his future advancement. 
 
 Politicians of a higher grade, men of experience 
 and acumen, deeply interested in great problems of 
 party management and success, looked on with bet 
 ter understanding of an important process which 
 was evidently going forward. They perceived that 
 Grover Cleveland was cutting loose from his former 
 position, and was becoming established upon the 
 level of rank and fame which belongs of right to a 
 successful governor of the greatest State of the 
 Union. He was no longer a new man ; no longer 
 an experiment ; all the voters in the land were now 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 149 
 
 able to answer promptly, if unexpectedly asked the 
 question : " What s the name of the Governor of 
 New York ?" There is no more severe and perfect 
 test of the standing and availability of any public 
 man, if a favorable response can also be obtained to 
 the next question : "Well, glad you know ; what 
 do you think of him ?" 
 
 The last public paper sent out in that year from 
 the Executive Chamber at Albany, was dated No 
 vember 2d, 1883. It was a proclamation by the 
 governor, and contained its own warranty. 
 
 " The constitution of the State directs that the governor shall 
 take care that the laws are faithfully executed. 
 
 " An appeal has been made to the executive, asking that the 
 laws relating to bribery and corruption at elections be enforced. 
 All must acknowledge that there is nothing more important in our 
 form of government than that the will of the people, which is ab 
 solutely the foundation upon which our institutions rest, should be 
 fairly expressed and honestly regarded. Without this our system 
 is a sham and a contrivance, which it is brazen effrontery to call a 
 Republican form of government. 
 
 "All this is recognized, in theory, by provisions in the consti 
 tution of our State, and by stringent penal enactments aimed at 
 the use of money and other corrupt means to unlawfully influence 
 the suffrages of the people and to thwart their will. And yet I am 
 convinced that a disregard of those enactments is frequent, and in 
 many cases shamelessly open and impudent. 
 
 " I, therefore, call upon all district-attorneys within this State, 
 and alt sheriffs and peace officers, and others having in charge the 
 execution of the laws, to exercise the utmost diligence in the dis 
 covery and punishment of violations of the statutes referred to, 
 and they are admonished that neglect of duty in this regard will be 
 promptly dealt with. 
 
 " And I request that all good citizens, in the performance of a plain 
 duty, for the protection of free institutions and in their own inter 
 ests, report to the proper authorities the commission of any offence 
 against the statutes passed to preserve the purity of the ballot." 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Hospitalities of the Executive Mansion Neglect of 
 Political Machinery Balanced Parties The Presi 
 dency Protection and Free Trade Second Annual 
 Message of Governor Cleveland Occasional Public 
 Speeches. 
 
 THERE have been governors of the State of New 
 York during whose terms of official residence in 
 Albany the Executive Mansion became a social 
 centre, a house of more or less brilliant hospitali 
 ties. It was not so during the time when it was oc 
 cupied as a " bachelor s hall " by Grover Cleve 
 land. Even as a small boy in Fayetteville Academy 
 he had been sociable and popular without deserting 
 his books for the company of other boys. The 
 earlier years of his manhood had been given to study 
 and toil in a manner which had impelled him to re 
 ject every effort made by his friends to draw him 
 out into society. His public duties and his law 
 practice had afterward confirmed the strong habits 
 already formed, and he carried them with him to 
 Albany. Had there been a Mrs. Cleveland in the 
 governor s house, all would have been different of 
 necessity, but, as it was, the ready welcome was 
 circumscribed by natural limitations, and Albany 
 society was more than a little disposed to resent the 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 151 
 
 temporary loss of one of its most important features 
 and resources. 
 
 Another and widely different characteristic of the 
 executive workshop was discernible with peculiar 
 distinctness, for Grover Cleveland was governor, 
 and he was very little more. There had been gov 
 ernors who undertook, at the same time, to act as 
 the chiefs and heads of the parties to which they 
 owed their election. Under their administrations 
 the executive office became the inner den of a vast 
 and busy political spider-web. They caught, or 
 failed to catch, all manner of partisan advantages, 
 not to speak of instances wherein the very net had 
 a ruined look at the sunset of some uncomfortable 
 November day. Governor Cleveland did not appar 
 ently avail himself of the official opportunity given 
 him to become the leader and manager of his nom 
 inal party in the State. Other eminent Democrats 
 were almost disposed to be pleased with the fact 
 that they could discover no purpose of dictation or 
 even of undue urgency in any of his conferences 
 with them. Now and then, however, he said and 
 did things which might well have reminded them of 
 the opening sentences of his address to the Manhat 
 tan Club and its guests. He himself apparently re 
 membered, at least, the substance of several perti 
 nent phrases. We stand to-night," he then re 
 marked, " in the full glare of a grand and brilliant 
 manifestation of the popular will, and in the light 
 of it, how vain and small appear the tricks of poli 
 ticians and the movements of partisan machinery ! 
 He must be blind who cannot see that the people 
 
152 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 well understand their power, and are determined to 
 use it when their rights and interests are threatened. 
 There should be no scepticism to-night as to the 
 strength and perpetuity of our Government. Par 
 tisan leaders have learned, too, that the people will 
 not unwittingly, blindly, follow, and that something 
 more than wavering devotion to party is necessary 
 in order to secure their allegiance. I am quite cer 
 tain that the late demonstration did not spring from 
 any pre-existing love for the party which has been 
 called to power, nor did the people put the affairs 
 of the State in our hands to be by them forgotten." 
 The Democratic Party acting by itself and for it 
 self could not have elected its candidate for gov 
 ernor. Its leaders had not selected Grover Cleve 
 land as their candidate because of " any pre-exist 
 ing love" for him, and he knew it. He and they 
 were still standing " in the full glare of a grand and 
 brilliant manifestation," of the real nature of the 
 strength and of the triumph which had been added 
 to the Democratic Party when it acquired the sud 
 den sagacity to become the servant of the people 
 and to nominate a man whom the people would 
 trust to serve them, rather than his party or his 
 ambition. If they should find their trust betrayed, 
 no amount of partisan manipulation of political 
 machinery would prevent the effects of their inevi 
 table resentment." So the party, or rather a selfish 
 and stupid mess of factions in the party, grumbled 
 and growled that it could not manage and direct its 
 own governor, manufactured by it out of a Buffalo 
 mayor, while at the same time its better and more 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 153 
 
 genuinely patriotic elements congratulated them 
 selves over the steady growth of a new political 
 force from which great things might be expected. 
 If the general public should go on in the process of 
 absorbing and digesting the idea that Grover Cleve 
 land was not only capable but honest, and likely to 
 continue so in office, there might be a future before 
 the Democratic Party. Otherwise, the political sit 
 uation had a gloomy look, for the Republican Party 
 was manifesting a tremendous vitality, and had not 
 the least intention of surrendering its long control 
 of the national authority. The best conditions for 
 wise and healthful administration of public affairs 
 were attained by the nation when its two great 
 parties were so nearly balanced, but several un 
 pleasant illustrations of the same political truth 
 were to be obtained by contrasts in States and 
 municipalities wherein the voice of but one party 
 could be distinctly heard. 
 
 The Presidential canvass for a successor to Gar- 
 field and Arthur began in 1882, and whatever pros 
 pect there might otherwise have been for a re-elec 
 tion of Mr. Arthur died away when the stunning 
 defeat of his candidate, Judge Folger, announced 
 that the electoral votes of the State of New York 
 could not be obtained for him. The Republican 
 list from which the party could select its standard 
 bearers was hardly narrowed by that conclusion, 
 since its long predominance in national affairs had 
 made it only too rich in names well known to all 
 men. An especial disadvantage was quickly appar 
 ent in the fact that, with reference to any eminent 
 
154 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 Republican spoken of as a probable candidate, the 
 Opposition outside of the party and the very free- 
 spoken contestants within it were able to announce 
 at once the weak points of that supposed nomi 
 nation. It was possible to say of man after man 
 that, in the presentation of his claims to the Presi 
 dency, the unwieldy strength of the organization 
 proposing him must submit to be shorn of the active 
 aid at least of this or that important faction and 
 factor. 
 
 The beginning of the year 1884 found the great 
 canvass fairly under way. As it progressed, evi 
 dence appeared continually that the issue was likely 
 to be of a personal nature first ; secondarily, one of 
 party name, and altogether lastly, of any direct 
 and immediate bearing upon great questions of 
 public policy, financial or otherwise. 
 
 The first issue could not be put into definite 
 shape before hearing from the respective party na 
 tional conventions. The second came to the minds 
 of a vast multitude very much in the form of the 
 question : " Has the Republican Party ruled long 
 enough ?" And there would have been a decidedly 
 sufficient negative response if the inquiry had been 
 permitted to go forth uncomplicated. There were 
 enough of voters whose dread of change, for its own 
 sake, would have turned the scale against the De 
 mocracy if the latter had not assumed an attitude of 
 the most cautious conservatism. 
 
 As to other matters, the issue of " protection" 
 and " free trade" offers the best example. It was 
 already before the people, under full and continu- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 155 
 
 ous discussion, from year to year, with reference to 
 Congressional elections. It had its place in the 
 Presidential canvass and in the party platforms. 
 Many men had ideas and convictions relating to it, 
 and a great many failed altogether to care much 
 about a matter which they did not at all under 
 stand. Moreover, there were many Protectionist 
 Democrats, as there had always been, and there were 
 many Free-Trade Republicans in like manner. The 
 result of the election might change the course of 
 legislation upon the tariff, whether a Democrat or 
 a Republican should be chosen President of the 
 United States, but no hope or expectation of such 
 a change in legislation actually turned votes enough 
 either way to have determined the result. So far 
 as the tariff was concerned, the November votes of 
 1884 were counted before any nominations were 
 made. 
 
 Very nearly all, if not all, of the governors of the 
 States of the Union prepared and sent in to the 
 several Legislatures their accustomed annual mes 
 sages in the Winter of 1884. In each common 
 wealth the message of its chief executive officer was 
 more or less a matter of general interest, and was 
 read and commented upon by all the public-spirited 
 citizens within the State boundary lines laid down 
 on the map. Just beyond those lines, the interest 
 and the reading ceased, with one notable exception. 
 All over the land there were men, of both political 
 parties, who took means to obtain an early copy of 
 the message of the Governor of the State of New 
 York. It was to be his second annual message, 
 
156 GROVE R CLEVELAND. 
 
 and, perhaps, it would contain something of which 
 use might be made in more ways than one. 
 
 Governor Cleveland was ready on January 1st, 
 1884, and it was almost painfully plain that the 
 document which he sent to the Legislature had 
 been patiently prepared for perusal by the members 
 of that body rather than for general readers in 
 search of sensational literature. With dry and 
 business-like minuteness, its condensed paragraphs 
 toiled from field to field of the several interests of 
 the Empire State. He had evidently mastered all 
 the details of the great case in which the people 
 had retained him, but there was no eloquence what 
 ever in the manner or matter of his summing up. 
 The legislators said that it was a good message. 
 People generally declared that the governor must 
 have spent a deal of hard work in putting all those 
 things together in that shape that is, unless he got 
 somebody to help him, and most likely he did. 
 Those whose keener vision read between the lines 
 recognized the important truth that this message 
 was written by a man who had expanded, percep 
 tibly, since November, 1882. Responsibility had 
 worked well with him, and he had manifestly risen 
 to a higher plane of thought and of character. That 
 he possessed the born strength to do so was one of 
 the marks which a party or a people might be glad to 
 find upon a public servant. Of only too many very 
 capable men it had been possible to discover almost 
 the date and day when they reached the limit of their 
 growth. Of some it was even possible to say, " Just 
 along here it seems as if they began to shrivel." 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 157 
 
 Whether or not Grover Cleveland was ever to ex 
 hibit signs of the uncertain quality gasped at as 
 " greatness," he was manifestly as yet advancing, 
 and the popular instinct acknowledged the personal 
 fact which it did not attempt to formulate. 
 
 The annual message concluded with a summary 
 of the past year s legislative and executive perform 
 ance, and with an earnest demand for attention to 
 one national subject nearly concerning the first com 
 mercial State of the Union. 
 
 " The people of the State are to be congratulated upon the prog 
 ress made during the last year in the direction of wholesome legis 
 lation. 
 
 " The most practical and thorough civil service reform has gained 
 a place in the policy of the State. 
 
 " Political assessments upon employes in the public departments 
 have been prohibited. 
 
 " The rights of all citizens at primary elections have been pro 
 tected by law. 
 
 " A bureau has been established to collect information and sta 
 tistics touching the relations between labor and capital. 
 
 " The sale of forest land at the source of our important streams 
 has been prohibited, thereby checking threatened disaster to the 
 commerce on our water-ways. 
 
 " Debts and obligations for the payment of money, owned 
 though not actually held within the State, have been made subject 
 to taxation, thus preventing an unfair evasion of liability for the 
 support of the Government. 
 
 " Business principles have been introduced in the construction 
 and care of the new Capitol and other public buildings, and waste 
 and extravagance thereby prevented. 
 
 " A law has been passed for the better administration of the 
 emigration bureau and the prevention of its abuses. 
 
 " The people have been projected by placing co-operative in 
 surance companies under the control and supervision of the insu 
 rance department. 
 
158 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 " The fees of receivers have been reduced and regifated in the 
 interests of the creditors of insolvent companies. 
 
 " A Court of Claims has been established where the demands of 
 citizens against the State may be properly determined. 
 
 " These legislative accomplishments, and others of less impor 
 tance and prominence, may well be cited in proof of the fact that 
 the substantial interests of the people of the State have not been 
 neglected. 
 
 " The State of New York largely represents within her borders 
 the development of every interest which makes a nation great. 
 Proud of her place as leader in the community of States, she fully 
 appreciates her intimate relations to the prosperity of the country ; 
 and justly realizing the responsibility of her position, she recog 
 nizes, in her policy and her laws, as of first importance, the free 
 dom of commerce from all unnecessary restrictions. Her citizens 
 have assumed the burden of maintaining, at their own cost and 
 free to commerce, the water-way which they have built and through 
 which the products of the great West are transported to the sea 
 board. At the suggestion of danger she hastens to save her North 
 ern forests, and thus preserve to commerce her canals and vessel- 
 laden rivers. The State has become responsible for a bureau of 
 emigration, which cares for those who seek our shores from other 
 lands, adding to the nation s population and hastening to the de 
 velopment of its vast domain ; while at the country s gateway a 
 quarantine, established by the State, protects the nation s health. 
 
 " Surely this great commonwealth, committed fully to the inter 
 ests of commerce and all that adds to the country s prosperity, 
 may well inquire how her efforts and sacrifices have been an 
 swered ; and she, of all the States, may urge that the interests 
 thus by her protected should by the greater government admin 
 istered for all be fostered for the benefit of the American people. 
 
 " Fifty years ago a most distinguished foreigner, who visited 
 this country and studied its condition and prospects, wrote : 
 When I contemplate the ardor with which the Americans prose 
 cute commerce, the advantages which aid them, and the success of 
 their undertakings, I cannot help believing that they will one day 
 become the first maritime power of the globe. They are bound to 
 rule the seas as the Romans were to conquer the world . . 
 The Americans themselves now transport to their own shores 
 nine tenths of the European produce which they consume, and they 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 159 
 
 also bring three fourths of the exports of the New World to the 
 European consumers. The ships of the United States fill the docks 
 of Havre and of Liverpool ; while the number of English and 
 French vessels which are to be seen at New York is comparatively 
 small. 
 
 " We turn to the actual results reached since these words were 
 written with disappointment. In 1840, American vessels carried 
 82 Q-IO per cent of all our exports and imports ; in 1850, 72 5-10 ; 
 in 1860, 66 5-10; in 1870, 35 6-10 ; in 1880, 17 4-10; in 1882, 
 15 5-io. 
 
 "The citizen of New York, looking beyond his State and all 
 her efforts in the interest of commerce and national growth, will 
 naturally inquire concerning the causes of this decadence of Amer 
 ican shipping. 
 
 " While he sternly demands of his home government the exact 
 limitation of taxation by the needs of the State, he will challenge 
 the policy that accumulates millions of useless and unnecessary 
 surplus in the national Treasury, which has been not less a tax 
 because it was indirectly but surely added to the cost of the peo 
 ple s life. 
 
 " Let us anticipate a time when care for the people s needs as 
 they actually arise, and the application of remedies, as wrongs 
 appear, shall lead in the conduct of national affairs ; and let us 
 undertake the business of legislation with the full determination 
 that these principles shall guide us in the performance of our 
 duties as guardians of the interests of the people." 
 
 The governor s message contained nothing which 
 could be made use of against either himself or his 
 party. It did not even claim the good legislation 
 accomplished as exclusively Democratic work, nor 
 did it assume credit for the crushing of evil and de 
 fective measures. The party press, indeed, asserted 
 all that was needful and opened the way for some 
 pretty keen rejoinders which the governor himself 
 had not invited. Republican journals commented 
 upon his appeal on behalf of American commerce 
 
160 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 that the disappearance of American shipping from 
 the ocean carrying-trade was an evil for which no 
 party was responsible, and for which no party was 
 prepared to provide a remedy. The operation of 
 causes set on foot by reason of the Civil War had 
 co-operated with the general change from ships of 
 wood to ships of iron, and from the use of side- 
 wheel steamers to the employment of propellers, 
 during a period when American shipyards were idle 
 by compulsion. Nevertheless, did the governor s 
 facts and figures bear an appearance of accusing the 
 dominant party of having done nothing and of 
 being responsible for the existing state of affairs. 
 
 When all criticisms had been made and when even 
 party editors had ceased to discuss the message, it 
 dawned upon a great many minds that Governor 
 Cleveland had somehow managed to place himself 
 before the people upon his record, without having 
 made any promises whatever concerning his future 
 course or conduct. It would, therefore, be neces 
 sary to go along with him, from day to day, with 
 out anything resembling what the railway managers 
 call a " time table." 
 
 The Senate and the Assembly settled down to 
 their business, and the Executive Chamber became 
 as much a mere workshop as ever. In both parts 
 of the Capitol a large amount of interesting and im 
 portant public service was performed during the 
 months immediately succeeding, but not any of it 
 was of a nature to throw new light upon the charac 
 ter or tendencies of the governor. With reference 
 to each and every bill presented to him for signa- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 161 
 
 ture, his action was thoroughly consistent with his 
 declared principles and previous action. Even par 
 tisan watchfulness failed to discern any new fea 
 tures. The large Roman Catholic element was 
 waked up once to listen to his reasons for vetoing 
 an appropriation for the New York Catholic Protec 
 tory, but his position was too strong to be disputed, 
 even if ultra-sectarianism winced over the following 
 passage : 
 
 " The name of this institution implies that only Roman Catholic 
 children are there provided for. If this be so, that fact furnishes 
 a good reason why public funds should not be contributed to its 
 support. A violation of this principle in this case would tend to 
 subject the State Treasury to demands on behalf of all classes of 
 sectarian institutions, which a due care for the money of the State 
 and a just economy could not concede, and which would yet have 
 a justification in precedent." 
 
 More than once was executive courage called for 
 in dealing with bills especially affecting the inter 
 ests of laboring men, but criticism was disarmed 
 when it was announced that the governor s action 
 was taken after prudent consultation with the recog 
 nized representatives of organized labor. In fact, 
 both the friends and enemies of Mr. Cleveland had 
 already learned to expect from him the constant 
 exercise of a very high degree of prudence, and this 
 expectation became a principal ingredient in the 
 partisan and popular confidence which he was more 
 and more acquiring. 
 
 It was a matter of course that the presence of the 
 governor of the State should be in demand upon 
 various occasions of public interest, but only a few 
 
1 62 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 of the many invitations received could be accepted 
 without irksomely diminishing the hours available 
 for the executive workshop. It was already well 
 understood that nothing like oratorical display was 
 to be expected of him, but he never failed to pre 
 sent in good shape for remembrance the one idea by 
 which he seemed to be possessed. 
 
 To the thousands assembled at the Oswegatchie 
 Fair, at Ogdensburg, for instance, he said : 
 
 " While I, in this manner, urge you to claim from the soil all it 
 has to yield, by the aid of intelligent efforts in its cultivation, I 
 cannot refrain from reminding you that, as citizens, you have 
 something else to do. You have the responsibility of citizenship 
 upon you, and you should see to it that you do your duty to the 
 State, not only by increasing its wealth by the cultivation and im 
 provement of the soil, but by an intelligent selection of those who 
 shall act for you in the enactment and execution of your laws. 
 Weeds and thistles, if allowed in your fields, defeat your toil and 
 efforts. So abuses in the administration of your government lead 
 to the dishonor of your State, choke and thwart the wishes of the 
 people, and waste their substance.* 
 
 The Principal of the Albany High School one day 
 invited the governor to come in and take a look at 
 the boys and girls. When there, it was almost of 
 course that he should be expected to say some 
 thing. The brief remarks which he made may seem 
 almost commonplace, but they were reported and 
 printed and were widely read, as offering one more 
 indication of the habitual thought of the man whose 
 qualifications for high position were fast becoming 
 so important a matter of national inquiry. Among 
 other things, he said : 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 163 
 
 " I never visit a school in these days without contrasting the 
 advantages of the scholar of to-day with those of a time not many 
 years in the past. Within my remembrance even, the education 
 which is freely offered you was only secured by those whose parents 
 were able to send them to academies and colleges. And thus, 
 when you entered this school very many of you began where your 
 parents left off. 
 
 " The theory of the State, in furnishing more and better schools 
 for the children, is that it tends to fit them to better perform their 
 duties as citizens, and that an educated man or woman is apt to be 
 more useful as a member of the community. 
 
 <; This leads to the thought that those who avail themselves of 
 the means thus tendered them are in duty bound to make such use 
 of their advantages as that the State shall receive in return the 
 educated and intelligent citizens and members of the community 
 which it has the right to expect from its schools. You, who will 
 soon be the men of the day, should consider that you have as 
 sumed an obligation to fit yourselves, by the education which you 
 may, if you will, receive in this school, for the proper performance 
 of any duty of citizenship and to fill any public station to which 
 you may be called. And it seems to me to be none the less im 
 portant that those who are to be the wives and mothers should be 
 educated, refined, and intelligent. To tell the truth, I should be 
 afraid to trust the men, educated though they should be, if they 
 were not surrounded by pure and true womanhood. Thus it is 
 that you all, now and here, from the oldest to the youngest, owe a 
 duty to the State which can only be answered by diligent study 
 and the greatest possible improvement. It is too often the case 
 that in all walks and places the disposition is to render the least 
 possible return to the State for the favors which she bestows." 
 
 There was an almost stern earnestness in the gov 
 ernor s response to his welcome before the Bar As 
 sociation, but no honest lawyer could have been 
 unwilling to hear him say : 
 
 " I reflected that there would be here an assemblage of my pro 
 fessional brethren, and the impulse was irresistible to be among 
 them for a time, though necessarily brief, and to feel about me the 
 
1 64 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 atmosphere from which, for a twelvemonth, I have been excluded. 
 I beg to assure you, gentlemen, that in the crowd of official duties 
 which for the past year have surrounded me, I have never lost 
 sight of the guild to which I am proud to belong, nor have I lost 
 any of my love and care for the noble profession I have chosen. 
 On the contrary, as I have seen the controlling part which the law 
 yers of the State assumed in the enacting of her laws, and in all 
 other works that pertain to her progress and her welfare, I have 
 appreciated more than ever the value and the usefulness of the 
 legal profession. And when I have seen how generally my pro 
 fessional brethren have been faithful to their public trusts, my 
 pride has constantly increased. 
 
 " And yet, from the outside world I come within the grateful 
 circle of professional life to say to you that much is to be done 
 before the bar of this State will, in all its parts, be what we all 
 could wish. We hold honorable places, but we hold places of 
 power if well used, to protect and save our fellows ; if prostituted 
 and badly used, to betray and destroy. It seems to me that a pro 
 fession so high and noble in all the purposes of its existence 
 should be only high and noble in all its results. But we know it 
 is not so. There is not a member of the bar in this assemblage 
 who has not shuddered when he thought of the wicked things he 
 had the power to safely do ; and he has shuddered again when he 
 recalled those, whom he was obliged to call professional brothers, 
 who needed but the motive to do these very things. 
 
 " An association like this to be really useful must be something 
 more than a society devoted to laudation of the profession. It 
 should have duties to perform earnest in their nature, and not the 
 less boldly met because they are disagreeable. Those who steal 
 our livery to aid them in the commission of crime should be de 
 tected and exposed ; and this association or branches of it should 
 have watchmen on the walls to protect the honor and fair fame of 
 the bar of the State." 
 
 There were other addresses, here and there, all 
 brief, none eloquent, yet each in succession adding 
 an unseen strength by reason of the evidence it con 
 tained that Mr. Cleveland was not in this way shal- 
 lowly fishing for partisan prominence or for electoral 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 165 
 
 votes. One solitary piece of manifest demagogism 
 would have shattered his prospects ; but his watch 
 ful critics vainly searched for that one greedy blun 
 der, and so the unsought-for effect was solidly at 
 tained. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Presidential Outlook in 1884 Looking for an 
 Available Candidate The New York Battleground 
 The Rival Chicago Conventions The Nomina 
 tions of Grover Cleveland and James G. Blaine. 
 
 THERE were exceedingly peculiar features in the 
 Presidential canvass of 1884. In that of 1880 the 
 Democratic and Republican parties proper had been 
 so nearly balanced that the popular national major 
 ity obtained by the latter was but three thousand 
 and thirty-three a margin to have been washed 
 away by a heavy rain. Outside of the two main 
 bodies, each a little under four and a half millions 
 of voters, there had been cast what some men called 
 a " crank ballot " of about three hundred and nine 
 teen thousand for impossible candidates. The re 
 sult, in 1884, might depend upon the drift and 
 division of that outside vote, or it might not, and 
 already there had been signs that its tendencies 
 were quite as much Republican as they were Demo 
 cratic. The puzzle grew deeper and yet more read 
 able upon an examination of the returns of the 
 electoral colleges of the several States. Of these, 
 Garfield and Arthur had received two hundred and 
 fourteen, and Hancock and English had received 
 one hundred and fifty-five. The former aggregate 
 had contained the thirty-five votes of the State of 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 167 
 
 New York, now entitled to thirty-six votes, under 
 the new apportionment. It was manifest that the 
 Republican Party had held its own fairly well in all 
 the States which it had carried in 1880. There 
 were several in which it had gained ground, and its 
 continued control of the National Government 
 seemed to be assured but for one arithmetical fact. 
 If the votes of New York were now to be transferred 
 from one column of electoral figures to the other, 
 with them would go the Presidency. New York 
 was, therefore, to be the battleground of the can 
 vass. Short-sighted > men, knowing really little of 
 the character of Republican strength in the State, 
 pointed at the returns for 1882, and declared that 
 Grover Cleveland could win by a hundred thousand, 
 after losing half of his then majority. No Demo 
 cratic leader of any prominence and no Republican 
 of any kind gave an assent to that wild calculation. 
 
 There were able men in other States who seri 
 ously questioned if the " tidal wave" of reform 
 energy which had lifted Mr. Cleveland into the gov 
 ernor s chair had not spent its force, and if it were 
 not perceptibly receding. 
 
 To these his friends responded, somewhat curtly : 
 " Not so ; but, at all events, you cannot name an 
 other Democrat who can rally votes enough to sweep 
 the State. You can take your choice between 
 Grover Cleveland and any first-rate man whom the 
 Republicans may name." 
 
 There were old and new ambitions in other parts 
 of the Union to whose ears this announcement had 
 a harsh and jarring sound, but before them were the 
 
1 68 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 facts concerning Hancock and English and some 
 other very interesting campaign information from 
 many recent local elections in the State of New 
 York. 
 
 The Democratic National Convention had been 
 summoned to meet at Chicago on July 8th, 1884. 
 
 The Republican National Convention had been 
 invited to assemble in the same city on June 3d, 
 and both bodies were to make use of the vast struc 
 ture erected, near the shore of Lake Michigan, for 
 the great " world s fair," and known as the " Ex 
 position Building." It was as if the striking simi 
 larities in the political situations of the opposed 
 organizations were in this manner represented. For 
 each was the great West required to sit in judgment 
 upon the same vital point of party policy. In each, 
 prior to the sitting of the conventions, the voice of 
 great masses of voters made itself heard in favor of 
 one name in preference to all others. Not in either 
 did the name mentioned receive beforehand the en 
 tire approval of all factions. There was one marked 
 difference, however. The discords in the Republi 
 can Party were open, bitter, and personal in their 
 nature, while the Democratic discontents were of a 
 minor and local character. As to the latter, how 
 ever, it was hardly surprising that men were found 
 who declared that Mr. Cleveland s course as gov 
 ernor had made enemies for him of important inter 
 ests in the State of New York. It was roundly as 
 serted that under no circumstances could he obtain 
 the same vote from his own party which had been 
 given to him in 1882, and the declaration was rig- 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 169 
 
 idly correct. There were badly vetoed men who 
 were eager to take revenge, and there were consid 
 erable squads of voters who were ready to express 
 their condemnation of a party ruler from whose 
 hands they had received no loaves and fishes what 
 ever. 
 
 The Republican leaders watched the drift of these 
 disorderly forces with unconcealed satisfaction, 
 overestimating some of them and acquiring a some 
 what exaggerated idea of the reaction which was 
 going on in favor of their own party. They be 
 lieved, correctly, that they had recovered the greater 
 part of the vote which had " bolted " from them in 
 1882, and they also believed themselves about to 
 recover the remainder of it, with the addition of sev 
 eral small but important factions of anti-Cleveland 
 Democrats. It was under such impressions, in the 
 minds of many of its ablest men, that the Repub 
 lican Convention assembled at Chicago. At least a 
 quorum of its membership were on the ground two 
 or three days before the appointed time, feverishly 
 discussing the important business to be transacted, 
 and each new arrival was promptly captured and 
 drawn into the discussion. Whatever decision was 
 to be reached would surely be, therefore, the ver 
 dict of a grand jury which had heard the case fully 
 argued. They were an exceedingly able body of 
 men, and their Democratic opponents read the re 
 ports of their proceedings with keen and even anx 
 ious interest, hoping that they would make a blun 
 der. Some said that they made one, but it was not 
 so. They were forced to determine a knotty point 
 
170 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 of policy, and they were forced to run a known risk. 
 Sober and careful review compels the admission that 
 the popular voice of the Republican Party and the 
 recorded action of its convention of delegates was 
 both instinctively and deliberately wise. One re 
 sult of its debates and votes was felt with tremen 
 dous force in the Democratic National Convention 
 held soon after, compelling the latter, as a player 
 upon a political chess-board, to make the precise 
 counter-move called for to avoid inevitable check 
 mate and loss of the game. 
 
 Days were consumed in the preliminary and com 
 pleted organization processes and in the preparation 
 and adoption of a party platform. The name which 
 seemed to elicit most enthusiasm, whenever men 
 tioned, was that of Mr. James G. Elaine, of Maine. 
 Next to him in apparent strength was President 
 Arthur himself, who was personally popular and 
 had during many years held a strong hand upon the 
 very effective machinery of the party organism. 
 There were other Republican leaders with strong 
 personal followings, but none with any prospect of 
 success except in case of something like a tie be 
 tween Blaine and Arthur. There were delegates 
 from New York who asserted Mr. Arthur s ability 
 to carry that State, in spite of the disastrous defeat 
 of his friend Folger, but to these it was significantly 
 responded : " Not if the Democrats nominate 
 Grover Cleveland and if the men who voted for 
 him then do it once more." 
 
 On the other hand, it was discovered that many 
 of the anti-Folger and anti- Arthur delegates from 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 171 
 
 New York, with their sympathizers elsewhere, were 
 also opposed to Mr. Elaine. It might be that the 
 party would have to go on without them, and a not 
 very prudent attempt was made to ascertain the 
 strength of their independent tendencies. On the 
 5th, for this purpose, the following resolution was 
 offered : 
 
 " Resolved, As the sense of this convention, that every member 
 of it is bound in honor to support its nominee, whoever that nomi 
 nee may be, and that no man should hold a seat here who is not 
 ready so to agree." 
 
 A fiercely vehement opposition, largely from New 
 York, at once revealed the state of feeling in the 
 convention, and the resolution was withdrawn. 
 
 The platform of resolutions at last reported and 
 adopted rehearsed the record of the party which, 
 during twenty-four years of war and peace, had con 
 trolled the executive department of the National 
 Government, and confidently asserted its claim to 
 the continued confidence of the people. Clear and 
 distinct was its utterance upon the issue of protec 
 tion and free trade, for its fourth " plank" was as 
 follows : 
 
 " It is the first duty of a good government to protect the rights 
 and promote the interests of its own people. The largest diversity 
 of industry is the most productive of general prosperity and of the 
 comfort and independence of the people. We, therefore, demand 
 that the imposition of duties on foreign imports shall be made not 
 for revenue only, but that in raising the requisite revenues for the 
 Government, such duty shall be so levied as to afford security to 
 our diversified interests and protection to the rights and wages of 
 the laborer, to the end that active and intelligent labor, as well as 
 
172 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 capital, may have its just reward and the laboring man his full 
 share in the national prosperity." 
 
 It was not until June /th that the convention was 
 prepared for a first ballot of inquiry into the relative 
 strength of the candidates, whose names were under 
 discussion through all the larger and smaller gather 
 ings in the crowded city, as well as in the journals 
 of all parties and places in all parts of the Union. 
 
 Mr. Elaine s first vote gave him nearly a majority, 
 and upon the second and third ballots more and 
 more strength came to him from the rival candidates, 
 while the direct opposition to his nomination became 
 more and more vehement as it narrowed. On the 
 fourth ballot he obtained five hundred and forty- 
 one out of eight hundred and thirteen ballots cast, 
 and his nomination was declared in a storm of 
 tumultuous applause. When this had subsided, 
 however, it was evident that a unanimous vote 
 could not even then be secured for him. The con 
 vention adjourned, and the party press generally 
 expressed a hope that the discontented faction 
 would soon cool down into a silent acquiescence in 
 the will of the majority. 
 
 So far as the great mass of the party was con 
 cerned, this hope was likely to be verified. In New 
 York especially, however, the very element which 
 had resented the nomination of Judge Folger de 
 clared a rebellion against that of Mr. Elaine. What 
 ever might now be its numerical strength, there was 
 but one Democrat known for whom its active sup 
 port could be reasonably anticipated, and the friends 
 of Grover Cleveland asserted that the " Scratchers" 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 173 
 
 and the Mugwumps of his own State were as his 
 personal following. 
 
 The representatives of the Democratic Party met, 
 at Chicago, on July 8th, in the vast auditorium 
 afforded by the Exposition Building. There were 
 present eight hundred and twenty delegates, from 
 forty-seven States and Territories and from the 
 District of Columbia. Under the established rule 
 governing the party, a two-thirds vote would be re 
 quired for a nomination, and preliminary inquiries 
 revealed the fact that this could not be accomplished 
 upon the first ballot. 
 
 A large number of the delegates, especially from 
 the West and South, arrived in Chicago under the 
 impression, variously derived, that the nomination 
 of Mr. Elaine had been a fatal blunder on the part 
 of their opponents, leaving a clearer field before the 
 Democracy. They were very firmly informed by 
 their New York brethren that such was not the 
 case and that Republican gains and losses in the 
 Empire State would be so nearly balanced that a 
 full vote might be counted upon by that party for 
 Elaine and Logan. If the Democratic Convention 
 should present any other name than that of Grover 
 Cleveland, they would, it was positively asserted, at 
 the same time present thirty-six New York electoral 
 votes to the Republican nominees. 
 
 It was an imposing assemblage of the representa 
 tives^ of the people, for men to whom a great party 
 had intrusted its affairs were fully entitled to be so 
 designated. 
 
 The preliminary organization was not attained 
 
174 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 until after noon of the first day, and the temporary 
 chairman selected was Governor Hubbard, of Texas, 
 in a distinct acknowledgment of the relations be 
 tween the reconstructed South and the Democratic 
 Party. Almost the first perceptible variation from 
 the routine processes of preparing for the work of 
 the convention came from the New York malcon 
 tents. Previous conventions had established what 
 was known as the " unit rule," compelling State 
 delegations to cast their votes as one body when so 
 instructed. That of New York had been instructed 
 by its State convention to cast its seventy-two votes 
 solidly, and now one of its members moved to sus 
 pend the " unit rule." There was something al 
 most ominous in the fact that his motion, though 
 lost, was sustained by three hundred and twenty- 
 two votes. None of the New York men, therefore, 
 could give full effect to their insubordination, but 
 Mr. Cleveland s friends took warning and became 
 more vehement than ever in asserting that their 
 candidate was the only hope of the party. All the 
 arithmetic of the situation argued with them, and 
 they made rapid advances during the remainder of 
 that day. Their labors continued almost through 
 the night, and when the convention reassembled, 
 on the morning of July 9th, the Cleveland fever was 
 spreading rapidly. 
 
 The completion of a permanent organization was 
 followed by an eloquent address from its chairman, 
 Colonel W. F. Vilas, of Wisconsin, and it was then 
 agreed that no nomination ballot should be taken 
 until after the adoption of a platform of resolutions. 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 175 
 
 While, however, the committee to whom that im 
 portant task had been assigned should be in con 
 sultation, with a heap of offered resolutions before 
 them, opportunity was given for the presentation of 
 candidates by State delegations. State after State 
 responded, as the call of the roll of commonwealths 
 proceeded, and each well-known and honored name 
 was greeted with a generous tribute of applause. 
 
 New York was called last, and the name of Grover 
 Cleveland was presented, eloquently, by Hon. 
 Daniel N. Lockwood, of Buffalo, who had in like 
 manner nominated him for mayor and for governor. 
 There was nothing of enthusiasm lacking in the 
 rounds of applause called forth by the speech of 
 Mr. Lockwood, and the nomination was heartily sec 
 onded by eminent gentlemen from other States ; but 
 after that the convention was forced to listen to the 
 men of New York who had formed opinions adverse 
 to Governor Cleveland. What they said was not 
 altogether pleasant to his friends, but it had a very 
 peculiar effect, for it somehow strengthened him 
 before the convention. If this were, indeed, all 
 that could be said against him by his enemies, 
 argued delegates from a distance, he must be one 
 of the very safest men in the whole country. Just 
 such a candidate was needed, and that fact was 
 presented by Mr. Edgar K. Apgar, of New York, 
 in a speech which gave a somewhat rose-colored 
 view of the strength of the party in that State, but 
 held before the convention, nevertheless, a possible 
 adverse majority of eighty thousand, in case of a 
 blundering nomination. After presenting forcibly 
 
176 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 some facts and figures from the history of previous 
 Democratic National Conventions and New York 
 State election returns, Mr. Apgar gave a startling 
 analysis, sufficiently near to arithmetical truth, of 
 the reasons why the nomination of Governor Cleve 
 land was demanded. He concluded as follows : 
 
 " We have in the State, probably, about six hundred thousand 
 voters who will vote for the Democratic Party nominee whom you 
 may nominate. We have about five hundred and eighty thousand 
 voters who will vote the Republican ticket under any and all cir 
 cumstances. Now, outside of both these organizations there are a 
 hundred thousand men in the State of New York who do not care 
 a snap of their finger whether the Republican Party or the Demo 
 cratic Party, as such, shall carry the election. They vote in every 
 election according to the issues and the candidates presented. 
 These men absolutely hold the control of the politics of New York 
 in their hands. They are the balance of power. You must have 
 their vote, or you cannot win. Every time for ten years past when 
 we have appealed to this element victory has perched upon our 
 banners. "When we have failed to do so defeat has come. These 
 men unitedly, to a man, implore you to nominate to the office of 
 President Governor Tilden s successor, elected governor for the 
 same causes. They ask you to place him in nomination in order 
 that all the elements opposed to the longer continuance of the Re 
 publican Party in power may be united and make its defeat entirely 
 certain." 
 
 He did not put into words the assertion plainly 
 implied : "If you decide otherwise, you destroy 
 the hope of the Democratic Party, and make its de 
 feat entirely certain. " The convention heard that 
 warning plainly, however, and at once adjourned to 
 take so great a fact into careful and general consid 
 eration. 
 
 Rarely has any such deliberative body been en 
 abled to discuss and decide such a point so entirely 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 177 
 
 unembarrassed by any influence other than its con 
 victions of sound policy and prudence. Even Gov 
 ernor Cleveland s warmest advocates were not con 
 fused by any false sentiment, the glamour of a pop 
 ular name, such as has on several occasions de 
 termined the selection of Presidential candidates. 
 No military fame, no brilliant oratory, no towering 
 eminence as a jurist, no personal magnetism, no 
 position as the index ringer of a great policy, was 
 claimed for Grover Cleveland. He was neither 
 Andrew Jackson, nor Henry Clay, nor Daniel Web 
 ster, nor Stephen A. Douglas, nor James K. Polk. 
 They, nevertheless, asserted for him that he rep 
 resented public confidence and Democratic suc 
 cess, without any useless analysis of the personal 
 character which attracted to him all but one jar 
 ring faction of so tumultuous a political constitu 
 ency. 
 
 The convention came together on the morning of 
 July loth, with a long and hard and hot day s 
 work before it. There were other names to be pre 
 sented, as the call of the roll was resumed, other 
 eulogistic speeches were to be made, and at their 
 close there was an adjournment until eight o clock 
 in the evening, to hear the report of the platform 
 committee. 
 
 The resolutions composing the platform were 
 many in number and covered the entire field of con 
 troversy between the two great parties. It was 
 said, indeed, by critical journalists, that more space 
 was given to the sins and shortcomings of the party 
 in power than to any prospective blessing offered to 
 
178 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 the country by the party proposing to take the 
 power into its own hands. At all events, the plat 
 form was thoroughly Democratic, and after its 
 adoption the convention almost nervously ap 
 proached what was well understood to be a ballot of 
 inquiry. It was midnight when it was taken, and 
 when its perplexing figures were announced, the 
 delegates were instantly ready to adjourn. Each 
 carried away with him for studious examination the 
 following unexpected tabulation : 
 
 Whole number of votes 820 
 
 Necessary for a choice 547 
 
 Grover Cleveland 392 
 
 Thomas F. Bayard 170 
 
 Allen G. Thurman 88 
 
 Samuel J. Randall , 78 
 
 Joseph E. McDonald 56 
 
 John G. Carlisle 27 
 
 R. P. Flower 4 
 
 George Hoadly 3 
 
 Thomas A. Hendricks I 
 
 Samuel J. Tilden I 
 
 It was true that Mr. Cleveland had failed of re 
 ceiving even a majority of the ballots and that he 
 seemed far away from obtaining the required two 
 thirds ; but the one phenomenal feature was that in 
 thirty-nine out of the forty-seven States and Terri 
 tories he had a following. No other name had at 
 tracted support from so many widely separated and 
 various constituencies. The old, familiar fames of 
 statesmen to whose life-long labors the party owed 
 its very existence seemed everywhere to be almost 
 slighted in favor of this new man, who had never 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 179 
 
 made stump speeches, never had held a legislative 
 office, and who never had been elected to any posi 
 tion except by the aid of Republican bolters. The 
 latter fact was referred to with wry faces by old- 
 time Democrats of the strictest sect, only to be an 
 swered by some eager New Yorker : " Why, bless 
 your soul, my dear fellow, that s what we ve got to 
 have now, or we might as well turn around and 
 nominate Jim Blaine. " 
 
 The convention gathered on the nth, with its 
 mind very nearly made up. Perhaps the only re 
 maining question with a number of State delega 
 tions was as to the precise time and manner of their 
 making known the determination at which they had 
 arrived. Not many waited long after the process 
 of changing votes from other names to that of 
 Grover Cleveland began. At the end of one ballot 
 ing he was found to have received six hundred and 
 eighty-three votes, against one hundred and thirty- 
 seven for all others. His nomination was declared, 
 as had been that of his competitor, Mr. Blaine, 
 amid storms of enthusiastic and hopeful applause ; 
 and the Democratic National Convention adjourned, 
 the discontented delegates from New York carrying 
 home with them rebellious hearts in a remarkably 
 close resemblance to a number of angry Republicans 
 who had visited Chicago in June. 
 
 The utterances of the Democratic platform with 
 reference to the tariff did not meet the views of the 
 extreme school of free-trade advocates. These 
 gentlemen criticised sharply the uncertain tone of 
 the following paragraphs, and declared a determina- 
 
180 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 tion to obtain greater precision of doctrine at the 
 next opportunity : 
 
 " But in making reduction in taxes, it is not proposed to injure 
 any domestic industries, but rather to promote their healthy 
 growth. From the foundation of this Government, taxes collected 
 at the custom-house have been the chief source of Federal revenue. 
 Such they must continue to be. Moreover, many industries have 
 come to rely upon legislation for successful continuance, so that 
 any change of law must be at every step regardful of the labor and 
 capital thus involved. The process of reform must be subject in 
 the execution to this plain dictate of justice. 
 
 " All taxation should be limited to the requirements of econom 
 ical government. The necessary reduction in taxation can and 
 must be effected without depriving American labor of the ability 
 to compete successfully with foreign labor, and without imposing 
 lower rates of duty than will be ample to cover any increased cost 
 of productions which may exist in consequence of the higher rate 
 of wages prevailing in this country. Sufficient revenue to pay all 
 the expenses of the Federal Government, economically adminis 
 tered, including pensions, interest, and principal of the public 
 debt, can be got under our present system of taxation from custom 
 house taxes on fewer imported articles, bearing heaviest on articles 
 of luxury, and bearing lightest on articles of necessity. 
 
 " We, therefore, denounce the abuses of the existing tariff, and, 
 subject to the preceding limitations, we demand that Federal taxa 
 tion shall be exclusively for public purposes, and shall not exceed 
 the needs of the Government, economically administered." 
 
 Whatever might be the precise views held by Mr. 
 Cleveland, he had not as yet formulated and pub 
 lished them. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Great Fight for the New York Vote Governor 
 Cleveland s A cceptance Partisan Virulence The 
 Rip Van Winkle Vote An Astonishing Result 
 Triumph of the Democratic Party After the 
 Election. 
 
 THE result obtained at Chicago had been gener 
 ally expected, and the press and the public were 
 prepared to express their opinion of it. As to its 
 political wisdom, there was hardly a dissenting voice 
 in either party outside of the discontented faction 
 in New York. As to that State, there were very 
 erroneous impressions prevailing, and many men re 
 garded it as altogether sure to give Mr. Cleveland 
 its electors. It was anything but sure, and the Re 
 publican leaders at once entered upon a canvass 
 unsurpassed for its ability and thoroughness. They 
 were confronted, at the outset, by the avowed de 
 fection of prominent men and of influential jour 
 nals, but the main body of the party seemed dis 
 posed to rally with all the greater devotion around 
 the very able chief it had selected. 
 
 During the days of the sitting of the Democratic 
 National Convention Governor Cleveland remained 
 at Albany, in the steady performance of the routine 
 duties of his office, and nobody succeeded in elicit 
 ing from him any important remark with reference 
 
1 82 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 to the prospects at Chicago. Shortly after the ar 
 rival of the telegraphic despatch announcing his 
 nomination, the Executive Chamber was thronged 
 with men of all ranks eager to offer congratulations, 
 but not one of them seemed to be so little excited 
 as was the governor himself. The stream of visit 
 ors swelled and poured on during nearly three hours, 
 and so did a torrent of friendly telegrams from all 
 parts of the country. There could be no question 
 but what the convention had succeeded in meeting 
 the wishes of the people to whom its work must 
 look for support and success. 
 
 In the evening of that day a throng gathered in 
 front of the Executive Mansion, and the governor 
 was peremptorily called upon for a speech. He had 
 not as yet received official notice of his nomination, 
 and his habitual prudence was testified to by the 
 guarded phrases of his brief response. Among them 
 were these : 
 
 " The American people are about to exercise, in its highest 
 sense, their power of right and sovereignty. They are to call in 
 review before them their public servants and the representatives of 
 political parties, and demand of them an account of their steward 
 ship. 
 
 " Parties may be so long in power, and may become so arrogant 
 and careless of the interests of the people, as to grow heedless of 
 their responsibility to their masters. But the time comes, as cer 
 tainly as death, when the people weigh them in the balance. 
 
 " The issues to be adjudicated by the nation s great assize are 
 made up and are about to be submitted. 
 
 " We believe that the people are not receiving at the hands of 
 the party which for nearly twenty-four years has directed the 
 affairs of the nation the full benefits to which they are entitled, of 
 a pure, just, and economical rule ; and we believe that the ascen- 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 183 
 
 dancy of genuine Democratic principles will insure a better gov 
 ernment and greater happiness and prosperity to all the people. 
 
 " To reach the sober thought of the nation and to dislodge an 
 enemy intrenched behind spoils and patronage involve a struggle, 
 which if we underestimate, we invite defeat. I am profoundly 
 impressed with the responsibility of the part assigned to me in this 
 contest. My heart, I know, is in the cause, and I pledge you that 
 no effort of mine shall be wanting to secure the victory which I 
 believe to be within the achievement of the Democratic hosts. 
 
 " Let us, then, enter upon the campaign now fairly opened, each 
 one appreciating well the part he has to perform, ready, with solid 
 front, to do battle for better government, confidently, coura 
 geously, always honorably, and with a firm reliance upon the in 
 telligence and patriotism of the American people." 
 
 The committee appointed by the convention to 
 convey to Governor Cleveland the formal announce 
 ment of his nomination did not arrive in Albany 
 until July 28th. Quite a large number of well- 
 known Democratic politicians got there several days 
 in advance of them. The committee was headed 
 by Colonel W. F. Vilas, Chairman of the Conven 
 tion. It was received, accompanied by a distin 
 guished escort, in the drawing-room of the Execu 
 tive Mansion. 
 
 The governor was surrounded by personal and 
 political friends and by members of his family and 
 guests. His sisters, Mrs. W. E. Hoyt and Miss 
 Rose E. Cleveland ; his nieces, the Misses Mary 
 and Carrie Hastings, were with him. Mrs. Folsom, 
 widow of his old friend, Oscar Folsom, and her 
 daughter Frances, guests of his sister at the time, 
 and Mrs. Lament, wife of his private secretary, 
 assisted them in adding to the occasion the one 
 element of refinement and dignity which is too 
 
1 84 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 often absent upon occasions of a similarly important 
 character. 
 
 The speech of Colonel Vilas was eminently appro 
 priate. Uttered as the voice of such a body as the 
 Democratic National Convention at Chicago had 
 been, it formulated the highest commendation 
 which can be given to an American by his fellow 
 citizens. It concluded as follows : 
 
 44 The National Democracy seek a President, not in compliment 
 for what the man is or reward for what he has done, but in a just 
 expectation of what he will accomplish as the true servant of a free 
 people, fit for their lofty trust. Always of momentous conse 
 quence, they conceive the public exigency to be now of transcen 
 dent importance, that a laborious reform in administration, as well 
 as legislation, is imperatively necessary to the prosperity and 
 honor of the Republic, and a competent chief magistrate must be 
 of unusual temper and power. They have observed with atten 
 tion your execution of the public trusts you have held, especially 
 of that with which you are now so honorably invested. They 
 place their reliance for the usefulness of the services they expect 
 to exact for the benefit of the nation upon the evidence derived 
 from the services you have performed for the State of New York. 
 They invite the electors to such proof of character and competence 
 to justify their confidence that in the nation, as heretofore in the 
 State, the public business will be administered with commensurate 
 intelligence and ability, with single-hearted honesty and fidelity, 
 and with a resolute and daring fearlessness which no faction, no 
 combination, no power of wealth, no mistaken clamor can dismay 
 or qualify. In the spirit of the wisdom, and invoking the benedic 
 tion of the Divine Creator of men, we challenge from the sov 
 ereignty of the nation his words in commendation and ratification 
 of our choice Well done, thou good and faithful servant ; thou 
 hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over 
 many things. In further fulfilment of our duty, the secretary will 
 now present the written communication signed by the committee." 
 
 When this duty had in like manner been per 
 formed, Mr. Cleveland responded : 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 185 
 
 " MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE : Your 
 formal announcement does not, of course, convey to me the first 
 information of the result of the convention lately held by the 
 Democracy of the nation ; and yet when, as I listen to your mes 
 sage, I see about me representatives from all parts of the land of 
 that great party which, claiming to be the party of the people, asks 
 them to intrust to it the administration of their Government, and 
 when I consider, under the influence of the stern reality which the 
 present surroundings create, that I have been chosen to represent 
 the plans, purposes, and the policy of the Democratic Party, I am 
 profoundly impressed by the solemnity of the occasion and by the 
 responsibility of my position. Though I gratefully appreciate it, I 
 do not at this moment congratulate myself upon the distinguished 
 honor which has been conferred upon me, because my mind is full 
 of anxious desire to perform well the part which has been assigned 
 to me. Nor do I at this moment forget that the rights and inter 
 ests of more than fifty millions of my fellow citizens are involved 
 in our efforts to gain Democratic supremacy. 
 
 " This reflection presents to my mind the consideration which, 
 more than all others, gives to the action of any party in convention 
 assembled its most sober and serious aspect. The party and its 
 representatives which ask to be intrusted at the hands of the peo 
 ple with the keeping of all that concerns their welfare and their 
 safety should only ask it with the full appreciation of the sacred- 
 ness of the trust and with a firm resolve to administer it faithfully 
 and well. I am a Democrat because I believe that this truth lies 
 at the foundation of true Democracy. I have kept the faith be 
 cause I believe, if rightly and fairly administered and applied, Demo 
 cratic doctrines and measures will insure the happiness, content 
 ment, and prosperity of the people. If in this contest upon which 
 we now enter we steadfastly hold to the underlying principles of 
 our party creed, and at all times keep in view the people s good, 
 we shall be strong because we are true to ourselves and because 
 the plain and independent voters of the land will seek by their 
 suffrages to compass their release from party tyranny, where there 
 should be submission to the popular will, and their protection from 
 party corruption, where there should be devotion to the people s 
 interests. These thoughts lend a consecration to our cause, and 
 we go forth not merely to gain a partisan advantage, but pledged 
 to give to those who trust us the utmost benefits of a pure and 
 
1 86 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 honest administration of national affairs. No higher purpose or 
 motive can stimulate us to supreme effort or urge us to continu 
 ous and earnest labor and effective party organization. Let us not 
 fail in this, and we may confidently hope to reap the full reward of 
 patriotic services well performed. I have thus called to mind 
 some simple truths. Trite though they are, it seems to me well 
 to dwell upon them at this time. I shall soon, I hope, signify in 
 the usual formal manner my acceptance of the nomination you 
 have tendered me, In the mean lime I gladly greet you all as co- 
 workers in a noble cause." 
 
 It was a public acceptance of the nomination, but 
 it did not contain anything which diminished a very 
 general and increasing curiosity as to what would 
 be the tenor and effect of the formal response prom 
 ised to the voice of the convention. The platform 
 of resolutions adopted at Chicago was felt to be 
 altogether incomplete until it could be printed with 
 an appendix from the cautious pen of the Governor 
 of New York. Meantime the great campaign went 
 busily forward. When the formal letter of accept 
 ance reached the committee, and was by them placed 
 before the Democratic Party and the people, it was 
 found to contain a great deal of matter for reflec 
 tion and for future reference. It received the 
 prompt and hearty approval of all the men of all 
 varying political complexions who had been ex 
 pected to vote for Mr. Cleveland. They were held 
 together admirably, and the letter itself at once as 
 sumed permanent rank as an important State paper. 
 It was as follows : 
 
 " ALBANY, August 18, 1884. 
 
 " GENTLEMEN : I have received your communication, dated July 
 28th, 1884, informing me of my nomination to the office of Presi- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 187 
 
 dent of the United States by the National Democratic Convention 
 lately assembled at Chicago. 
 
 " I accept the nomination with a grateful appreciation of the 
 supreme honor conferred and a solemn sense of the responsibility 
 which, in the acceptance, I assume. 
 
 " I have carefully considered the platform adopted by the con 
 vention, and cordially approve the same. So plain a statement of 
 Democratic faith and the principles upon which that party appeals 
 to the suffrages of the people needs no supplement of explanation. 
 
 " It should be remembered that the office of President is essen 
 tially executive in its nature. The laws enacted by the legislative 
 branch of the Government the Chief Executive is bound faithfully 
 to enforce. And when the wisdom of the political party which 
 selects one of its members as a nominee for that office has outlined 
 its policy and declared its principles, it seems to me that nothing 
 in the character of the office or the necessities of the case requires 
 more from the candidate accepting the nomination than the sug 
 gestion of well-known truths, so absolutely vital to the safety and 
 welfare of the nation that they cannot be too often recalled or too 
 seriously enforced. 
 
 " We proudly call ours a government by the people. It is not 
 such when a class is tolerated which arrogates to itself the man 
 agement of public affairs, seeking to control the people instead of 
 representing them. 
 
 " Parties are the necessary outgrowth of our institutions ; but a 
 government is not by the people when one party fastens its control 
 upon the country, and perpetuates its power, by cajoling and be 
 traying the people instead of serving them. 
 
 " A government is not by the people when a result which should 
 represent the intelligent will of free and thinking men is, or can 
 be, determined by the shameless corruption of their suffrages. 
 
 " When an election to office shall be the selection by the voters 
 of one of their number, to assume for a time a public trust instead 
 of his dedication to the profession of politics ; when the holders of 
 the ballot, quickened by a sense of duty, shall avenge trusts be 
 trayed and pledges broken, and when the suffrage shall be alto 
 gether free and uncorrupted, the full realization of a government 
 by the people will be at hand. And of the means to this end, not 
 one would, in my judgment, be more effective than an amendment 
 to the Constitution disqualifying the President from re-election. 
 
1 88 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 When we consider the patronage of this great office, the allure 
 ments of power, the temptation to retain public place once gained, 
 and, more than all, the availability a party finds in an incumbent 
 whom a horde of office-holders, with a zeal born of benefits re 
 ceived and fostered by the hope of favors yet to come, stand ready 
 to aid with money and trained political service, we recognize in 
 the eligibility of the President for re-election a most serious dan 
 ger to that calm, deliberate, and intelligent political action which 
 must characterize a government by the people. 
 
 " A true American sentiment recognizes the dignity of labor, 
 and the fact that honor lies in honest toil. Contented labor is an 
 element in national prosperity. Ability to work constitutes the 
 capital and the wages of labor the income of a vast number of our 
 population ; and this interest should be jealously protected. Our 
 workingmen are not asking unreasonable indulgence, but as intel 
 ligent and manly citizens they seek the same consideration which 
 those demand who have other interests at stake. They should re 
 ceive their full share of the care and attention of those who make 
 and execute the laws, to the end that the wants and needs of the 
 employers and the employed shall alike be subserved and the pros 
 perity of the country, the common heritage of both, be advanced. 
 As related to this subject, while we should not discourage the im 
 migration of those who come to acknowledge allegiance to our 
 Government, and add to our citizen population, yet, as a means of 
 protection to our workingmen, a different rule should prevail con 
 cerning those who, if they come, or are brought to our land, do 
 not intend to become Americans, but will injuriously compete with 
 those justly entitled to our field of labor. 
 
 " In a letter accepting the nomination to the office of governor, 
 nearly two years ago, I made the following statement, to which I 
 have steadily adhered : 
 
 " The laboring classes constitute the main part of our popula 
 tion. They should be protected in their efforts peaceably to assert 
 their rights when endangered by aggregated capital, and all stat 
 utes on this subject should recognize the care of the State for hon 
 est toil, and be framed with a view of improving the condition of 
 the workingmen. 
 
 " A proper regard for the welfare of the workingmen being in 
 separably connected with the integrity of our institutions, none of 
 our citizens are more interested than they in guarding against any 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 189 
 
 corrupting influences which seek to pervert the beneficent purposes 
 of our Government, and none should be more watchful of the art 
 ful machinations of those who allure them to self-inflicted injury. 
 
 " In a free country, the curtailment of the absolute rights of the 
 individual should only be such as is essential to the peace and 
 good order of the community. The limit between the proper sub 
 jects of government control and those which can be more fittingly 
 left to the moral sense and self-imposed restraint of the citizen 
 should be carefully kept in view. Thus, laws unnecessarily inter 
 fering with the habits and customs of any of our people which are 
 not offensive to the moral sentiments of the civilized world, and 
 which are consistent with good citizenship and the public welfare, 
 are unwise and vexatious. 
 
 " The commerce of a nation, to a great extent, determines its 
 supremacy. Cheap and easy transportation should therefore be 
 liberally fostered. Within the limits of the Constitution, the gen 
 eral Government should so improve and protect its natural water 
 ways as will enable the producers of the country to reach a profit 
 able market. 
 
 " The people pay the wages of the public employes, and they 
 are entitled to the fair and honest work which the money thus paid 
 should command. It is the duty of those intrusted with the man 
 agement of their affairs to see that such public service is forthcom 
 ing. The selection and retention of subordinates in government 
 employment should depend upon their ascertained fitness and the 
 value of their work, and they should be neither expected nor al 
 lowed to do questionable party service. The interests of the people 
 will be better protected ; the estimate of public labor and duty will 
 be immensely improved ; public employment will be open to all 
 who can demonstrate their fitness to enter it ; the unseemly 
 scramble for place under the Government, with the consequent 
 importunity which embitters official life, will cease, and the public 
 departments will not be filled with those who conceive it to be 
 their first duty to aid the party to which they owe their places, in" 
 stead of rendering a patient and honest return to the people. 
 
 " I believe that the public temper is such that the voters of the 
 land are prepared to support the party which gives the best promise 
 of administering the Government in the honest, simple, and plain 
 manner which is consistent with its character and purposes. They 
 have learned that mystery and concealment in the management of 
 
1 90 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 their affairs cover tricks and betrayal. The statesmanship they 
 require consists in honesty and frugality, a prompt response to the 
 needs of the people, as they arise, and the vigilant protection of 
 all their varied interests. 
 
 " If I should be called to the Chief Magistracy of the nation, by 
 the suffrages of my fellow citizens, I will assume the duties of that 
 high office with a solemn determination to dedicate every effort to 
 the country s good, and with an humble reliance upon the favor 
 and support of the Supreme Being, who, I believe, will bless honest 
 human endeavor in the conscientious discharge of public duty." 
 
 They were old Jackson Democrats who read with 
 thoughtful care the suggestion of a system of inter 
 nal improvements under the direction of the Federal 
 Government, but they were willing to wait. They 
 also remembered that General Jackson himself had 
 been strongly in favor of disqualifying any President 
 of the United States for re-election. 
 
 Eager politicians of both parties asserted that 
 there were several doubtful States and that the 
 electoral vote of New York might yet be found not 
 absolutely the turning point. It had been counter 
 balanced by an aggregate of smaller votes in 1876, 
 and had failed to elect Mr. Tilden. It might now 
 be possible to repeat that process upon one side or 
 the other. The best judges, however, studied with 
 care the election returns of the year 1883, and de 
 cided that neither Mr. Cleveland nor Mr. Elaine had 
 any hope for important changes elsewhere, and that 
 the former must manage to call out every man who 
 had voted for him for governor in 1882. 
 
 With this state of things clearly asserted, if not 
 actually accepted, the campaign assumed a viru 
 lently personal nature. The public and private life 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 191 
 
 of each candidate was searched literally by keen de 
 tectives. Every error of judgment or of conduct 
 was hunted down and dragged out into unmerciful 
 publicity and partisan rancor, as prosecuting attorney 
 called upon the people as a jury to pass verdicts of 
 utter condemnation of the two distinguished men 
 selected as representatives by the conventions of the 
 great parties. The result was a remarkable illustra 
 tion of the general capacity of the nation to com 
 prehend and estimate correctly the value of any in 
 dictment so presented. The reaction against the 
 tides of abuse seems to have been about equally 
 strong for both Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Blaine. The 
 balance of power between the two parties, so well 
 developed prior to the sitting of their national con 
 ventions, was in a striking manner transferred to the 
 individual popularity of their candidates. It is not 
 too much to say that there was a nicely equalized 
 amount of very bad mud thrown either way, but it 
 is not needful to preserve any part of it biographi- 
 cally. 
 
 The New York State elections of the year 1883 
 had not been of an exciting nature and had not 
 called out a full vote. Of that which was cast, the 
 Democratic Party could show a majority of over 
 sixteen thousand, and they said : " Grover Cleve 
 land can add a hundred thousand votes to those 
 figures." They were less than correct, for the re 
 sult largely exceeded that estimate, and yet it was 
 barely sufficient to pull him through. 
 
 During the stirring weeks of the canvass Mr. 
 Cleveland studiously avoided furnishing any note- 
 
192 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 worthy material for the newspaper press reporters. 
 He was not an orator, like his brilliant rival, Mr. 
 Elaine, whose vigorous championship of his party 
 formed so marked a feature of the campaign. The 
 routine business of the governor s office went on as 
 usual, varied only by the continual necessity of at 
 tending to enthusiastic political pilgrims. The day 
 of decision came, at last, and when the November 
 polls were closed there was a surprise and a puzzle 
 ready for the American people. 
 
 Almost everywhere excepting New York the re 
 sult was very much what had been looked for. The 
 Republicans had secured one hundred and eighty- 
 two electoral votes, and the Democrats one hundred 
 and eighty-three, but the Empire State, with its 
 thirty-six votes, was in doubt, and only full returns 
 and careful counting could determine the fate of 
 the Presidential election. 
 
 The New York Democrats had brought out their 
 last man ; they had apparently lost but moderately 
 by any disaffection ; they had received a large re-en 
 forcement, as in 1882, from the rebellious faction of 
 the Republican Party, and they had piled up an 
 aggregate of five hundred and sixty-three thousand 
 one hundred and fifty-four votes for their leading 
 elector. It was truly a magnificent tribute to Mr. 
 Cleveland, exceeding by twenty-seven thousand 
 eight hundred and thirty-six votes his colossal tri 
 umph in 1882. It was a full and complete justifica 
 tion of the wisdom of the convention which nomi 
 nated him, and yet it was hardly and narrowly suffi 
 cient. While a large number of Republicans had 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 193 
 
 openly voted for Mr. Cleveland, many more had re 
 frained from going to the polls, and several thou 
 sands had joined the Prohibition Party, which cast 
 over twenty-five thousand votes. The Greenback 
 Party, with seventeen thousand, drew about equally 
 from both of the greater bodies, but it was not so 
 with the Temperance men. Nevertheless, Mr. 
 Elaine s foremost elector received, upon a final 
 count, five hundred and sixty-two thousand and five 
 ballots, and was only eleven hundred and forty-nine 
 behind his corresponding competitor. The Repub 
 licans had not regained the men they had lost in 
 1882, yet had brought forward two hundred and 
 nineteen thousand five hundred and forty-one to 
 take their places. Where had these all come from ? 
 Some said they were young men just arriving at 
 the voting age and full of enthusiasm for the his 
 toric party. Others said that the tariff and labor 
 questions had performed the apparent miracle. A 
 very good explanation as to much the larger part of 
 it may be found in a story that is told of a traveller 
 in Illinois just before the Civil War. He was a 
 Whig, and he said to a gentleman who was of the 
 same persuasion : 
 
 " I wish you would explain one thing. I ve been 
 all over the State, and almost every man I have met 
 is a Whig. How is it that Illinois always goes 
 Democratic ?" 
 
 Well," replied his friend, "you ought to be 
 here on election day. They begin to come in just 
 after the polls open. You never see them at any 
 other time. They come from somewhere away out 
 
194 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 on the prairie nobody knows where. They kind o* 
 rise from the dead on election day. They don t 
 often come afoot, but every man rides in on a 
 switch-tailed mare, with a rope halter and no saddle, 
 and comes along a-whooping, Git up, Sal ! Hurrah 
 for Jackson ! He votes the straight Democratic 
 ticket, and takes a drink sometimes more n one 
 and rides off, and you won t see him again till the 
 end of another four years." 
 
 It is so elsewhere, and in New York, away back 
 among the rural districts and all around among the 
 haunts of trade, there is an unknowable mass of men 
 who rarely wake up to an interest in political affairs, 
 but who can hear the sounds of a national campaign. 
 They keep still until election day, and then, if they 
 say anything at all before they vote, it is " Hurrah 
 for Abraham Lincoln ! What s his ticket this 
 time ?" Mr. Elaine was wisely chosen by the Re 
 publican National Convention because of the cer 
 tainty that he would call out the " Lincoln Vote." 
 Had he been opposed by a Democrat upon whom 
 the several elements voting for Mr. Cleveland could 
 not have been concentrated, there would have been 
 an ample vindication of Mr. Apgar s argument be 
 fore the Democratic National Convention. It was 
 too late, after the election, for any Republican to 
 find fault with the nomination of Mr. Elaine, and 
 the Mugwump faction, as it continued to be called, 
 professed itself entirely satisfied with the result. 
 
 Governor Cleveland received the first election re 
 turns, and endured the few days of apparent uncer 
 tainty with undisturbed composure. His support- 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 195 
 
 ers throughout the country refused to believe that 
 any uncertainty remained, and gave themselves up 
 to a kind of political triumph. It was as if some 
 thing like a revolution had been accomplished, to 
 the minds of those upon whom no especial respon 
 sibility had thereby been imposed. There was, 
 however, much to steady the enthusiasm of the 
 more thoughtful leaders of the Democratic Party, 
 and among these was their chosen chief. The Sen 
 ate of the United States was still Republican, its 
 party vote standing forty-one to thirty-four, and 
 was likely to furnish a dignified balance wheel to 
 the coming Democratic administration. The old 
 party so long in power had become deeply rooted 
 in all the executive departments, and interference 
 with these roots was hindered by whatever of Civil 
 Service Reform had already been accomplished. 
 There could not now be any such sweeping change 
 of office-holders as had taken place, for instance, 
 upon the accession of Andrew Jackson or of Abra 
 ham Lincoln. 
 
 The House of Representatives was Democratic 
 by a nominal vote of one hundred and eighty-two 
 to one hundred and forty, but all of the majority 
 votes would not endure too searching analysis with 
 reference to quite a number of possible questions, 
 while the minority was likely to act as a well-discip 
 lined unit. At all events, the executive and legis 
 lative branches of the National Government were in 
 excellent condition, considering also the composi 
 tion of the judiciary, to prevent any perilously rapid 
 changes in the internal affairs of the Republic. 
 
196 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 The remainder of the month of November and all 
 of December, 1884, were required for completing 
 the unfinished State business in the hands of the 
 governor. On January 5th, 1885, ne sent m his last 
 message to the Legislature. It had been waited for 
 with no little curiosity, for it was expected to con 
 tain a review and, perhaps, a glorification of his 
 course as governor, with something in the nature of 
 a foretaste of his Inaugural Address at Washington. 
 When it came, however, it was in these words : 
 
 " EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, January 5, 1885. 
 " To the Legislature. 
 
 " I hereby resign the office of Governor of the 
 State of New York. 
 
 " GROVER CLEVELAND." 
 
 Quite a number of witty journalists busied them 
 selves in their next day s prints with experimental 
 inquiries as to the possibility of shortening that 
 message. One man asserted that all he really 
 needed to have said or written was : " Good-by, 
 boys." 
 
 The two months following were no more time 
 than was required for preparing to assume the bur 
 dens of the national Executive, but an extraordinary 
 number of persons volunteered their advice and as 
 sistance. Mr. Cleveland s mail swelled to enormous 
 proportions, and his private secretary was com 
 pelled to employ a corps of assistants. The oppo 
 sition press, with not many marked exceptions, 
 manifested an unexpectedly good spirit under their 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 197 
 
 very trying circumstances, but it was evident that 
 every step taken and every word uttered by the 
 President-elect would be watched and studied with 
 an ability and keenness which a nervous or self- 
 doubtful man might well have dreaded to encounter. 
 Grover Cleveland had no nerves, as he had already 
 proved, and quiet self-reliance was, perhaps, his 
 most marked characteristic. He had finished his 
 great case for the State of New York, and had ob 
 tained exceedingly remarkable approval of the man 
 ner in which he had managed it. Another and greater 
 case had been placed in his hands, and he was prepar 
 ing for it, but its nature was not as yet thoroughly 
 defined. In one aspect, it included the old suit of the 
 combined Opposition, mainly consisting of the 
 Democratic Party, v. the Republican Party, but there 
 was peril of defeat in making too much of that issue. 
 The first real statesmanship called for from Mr. 
 Cleveland was in the demand upon him that in some 
 way he should appear as " for the People of the 
 United States v. Whomsoever-it-may-concern." If 
 he could accomplish that, a sure triumph was be 
 fore him and before his party, and so he had pointedly 
 assured the committee of the Democratic National 
 Convention, in his oral response accepting the nom 
 ination. 
 
 For various reasons, a more than ordinary Euro 
 pean interest had been taken in the Presidential 
 election of 1884. 
 
 In England especially, a marked degree of favor 
 was extended to the party having free-trade ten 
 dencies, and English journals now offered vigorously 
 
198 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 their congratulations upon the triumph of the 
 Democracy. It is true that some of their utter 
 ances were eagerly reprinted by Republican Party 
 journals in America, but the intention of the writers 
 was to strengthen the hands of the " Reform Presi 
 dent," as, in imitation of his American admirers, 
 they hopefully described Mr. Cleveland. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The Main Question Old Parties and Oppositions 
 New Parties out of Old Old and New Washing 
 ton City The White House The Inauguration of 
 President Cleveland The Inaugural Address. 
 
 AN outline map, giving the general features of 
 any country, is likely to be judged as incorrect by 
 those who have not been accustomed to study the 
 region as a whole. Dwellers in especially interest 
 ing localities may even be indignant that no sign is 
 given of their favorite river or of their picturesque 
 range of hills. It is, nevertheless, true that the polit 
 ical history of the United States of America, from 
 early colonial times till now, adjusts itself perfectly 
 to the varying phases of one long contest, which is 
 not ended and which cannot end. 
 
 It is the effort to obtain and establish a working 
 equilibrium between the three great essentials of 
 our political organism. These are individual free 
 dom, local self-government, and national vigor the 
 man, the State, the Union. All questions upon 
 which parties have been formed and ballots counted 
 relate to this one long backbone of American poli 
 tics. Whether the immediate issue has been one of 
 war or peace, of taxation, of territorial extension, 
 of internal improvements, of finance, or of slavery, 
 it has not been and could not be separated from its 
 
200 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 proper place in the great conflict. A very natural 
 result of human selfishness and short sightedness 
 has been the plainly manifest fact that the great 
 mass of the people have been able, from the begin 
 ning, to perceive and care for their individual rights 
 and interests first ; secondarily, the supposed rights 
 and interests of their local governments, State or 
 municipal ; thirdly, the righteousness and the im 
 portance of the powers vested in the central, federal 
 authority. Part of this very result has been the 
 perception attained concerning the grouped and 
 mutual interests of neighboring States and munici 
 palities. The Civil War of 1861-65 is a sufficient il 
 lustration, and indicates the next possible improve 
 ment and readjustment of our system of represen 
 tative self-government. 
 
 The indistinctness with which the men of 1776-83 
 discerned the national idea was manifested in their 
 indifference to the sufferings of Washington s army 
 and their subsequent neglect and refusal to so much 
 as pay the money due to the war-worn Continentals. 
 The outside pressure exercised by Great Britain and 
 "other European powers, on the one side, and by the 
 Indian tribes on the other, aided materially in creat 
 ing the state of mind required for George Washing 
 ton s apparently unanimous election and re-election, 
 and the parties of the future took form while he held 
 the fragmentary nation together, the respective 
 party chiefs, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas 
 Jefferson, being members of his own Cabinet. As 
 the outside pressure afterward diminished, the Fed 
 eral Party, representing the idea of central author- 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 201 
 
 ity, faded away. By the end of four years after the 
 retirement of Washington, the Republican Party, 
 jealously guarding the idea of local self-government, 
 was ready to put Thomas Jefferson into the seat 
 vacated by John Adams. During a quarter of a 
 century, under Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, 
 the Republican Party retained control, its own fac 
 tions and the remnant of Federalism answering fairly 
 well the understood public necessity for an active 
 and watchful Opposition. During the administra 
 tion of John Quincy Adams a long-threatened change 
 came. The old party broke up and its place was 
 taken by the Democratic Party, rallying around An 
 drew Jackson and ruled by him, but owing much of 
 its discipline and efficiency to the masterly manage 
 ment of Martin Van Buren. The opposition to the 
 new party was fierce enough from the first, but it 
 required time for its combination and organization 
 as the Whig Party. It never served any other dis 
 tinct purpose than that of modifying and restricting 
 Democratic supremacy, for even questions of tariffs 
 and taxes, of sectional jealousy, of popular ambition 
 for territorial extension, and of the legal right to 
 own slaves, fought as allies of the extreme idea of 
 local self-government, taking form in State rights. 
 Twice only during the period between 1828 and 1860 
 was a member of the Whig Opposition elected Presi 
 dent. In 1840 General Harrison was chosen, only 
 to hold power during one month of 1841, and to be 
 succeeded by John Tyler. It was hardly a break in 
 the long succession. In 1848 General Taylor was 
 chosen, but before his death, in 1850, the great Com- 
 
202 GROVE R CLEVELAND. 
 
 promise measures were approaching their adoption, 
 and afterward the administration of President Fill- 
 more did not contain many features to distinguish it 
 from that of the Democratic President Pierce, which 
 followed. During this and the succeeding adminis 
 tration of President Buchanan, there were four or 
 ganized elements of opposition to the party in power, 
 and this itself was breaking up. The first opponent, 
 in numbers and importance, was the Republican 
 Party, containing many able men, but with no ac 
 knowledged chief before its selection of Abraham 
 Lincoln. The second opponent, not in manifest 
 numerical strength but in real importance, was the 
 Secession Party, best represented, even then, by 
 Jefferson Davis. The third opponent, second in 
 numbers, was the Democratic faction led by Stephen 
 A. Douglas. The fourth was a remnant of the old 
 Whig Party, best represented by Millard Fillmore. 
 
 The election of Abraham Lincoln came, the Civil 
 War followed, and it is easy to defend the assertion 
 that the old Democratic Party, and each and all of 
 its opponents, disappeared from the political field 
 forever before the close of the year 1861. 
 
 There was not an exhalation left of the Whig 
 Party. The Secession Party became the Southern 
 Confederacy. The Republican Party fell very little 
 short of becoming all that remained of the Union 
 and of any hope for the national life. The two 
 wings of the old Democratic Party at the North split 
 into fragments in a manner well illustrated by the 
 subsequent careers of old Democrats like Edwin M. 
 Stanton, Ulysses S. Grant, and John A. Logan. 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 203 
 
 During the years of the Civil War, the inevitable 
 opposition to the party in power retained the name, 
 but not by any means exclusively the membership, 
 of the Democratic Party. It was kept in very effi 
 cient working order, and was ready, when peace 
 came, to receive whatever fragmentary re-enforce 
 ments might be developed in the new era. In 
 1864 it had been able to carry but three States, with 
 twenty-one electoral votes, but in 1868 it controlled 
 eight States, with eighty votes, the ten seceding com 
 monwealths not being represented in the electoral 
 college of either year. In 1872 the Opposition 
 seemed to have lost ground, for although there were 
 now only two States not counted, it could give its 
 candidates but sixty-six votes from seven States. 
 
 During the following four years the several ele 
 ments of the new Democratic Party flowed into it 
 rapidly, and in 1876 it swept seventeen States, with 
 one hundred and eighty-four electoral votes, lacking 
 only one vote of a complete victory. In 1880 sev 
 enteen States again declared for the Democracy, but 
 even with five votes added by a divided State, they 
 had but one hundred and fifty-five in all, having lost 
 New York. Perhaps the points most noticeable in 
 these later elections were the extreme compactness 
 and healthful solidity of the two great parties, and 
 the large mass of voters who were acting indepen 
 dently outside of them. The Democratic National 
 Convention nominating Mr. Cleveland, and the Re 
 publican National Convention nominating Mr. 
 Elaine, gave their most anxious attention to these 
 points, and governed their action accordingly. 
 
204 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 The core of the latter organization consisted of 
 men who had voted for Abraham Lincoln, but the 
 core of the Democratic opposition was made up 
 from all of the several political bodies voting against 
 him. That the old Democratic Party supplied the 
 greater number was doubtless true, but Grover 
 Cleveland knew that he had been elected President 
 of the United States by the ballots of voters who 
 had not been born when George B. McClellan was 
 appointed to the command of the Army of the Po 
 tomac. He was now going to Washington, there 
 fore, not as the political successor of James Bu 
 chanan, but as the chosen representative of a recently 
 created power, not yet formulated with absolute 
 perfection, and which was, as he again and again 
 forcibly declared, upon its trial before the people. 
 Whether or not his party associates understood the 
 situation, he was in no doubt or darkness whatever. 
 In his speech before the Manhattan Club, in his oral 
 acceptance of the Presidential nomination, and in 
 his carefully worded written response to the Com 
 mittee of the Chicago Convention, he had stated the 
 plain, unvarnished truth. His party might not like 
 it or might be willing to put it out of sight, but 
 neither he nor they could escape from it. 
 
 When, in March, 1861, James Buchanan went 
 away from Washington, he left behind him a queer, 
 ungainly, old-fashioned, straggling village, shortly 
 to become a frontier garrison town, surrounded by 
 long lines of fortifications. During the twenty-four 
 years following his departure, a very remarkable city 
 had been substituted for the old village. The forti- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 205 
 
 fications disappeared soon after the war. Unfinished 
 public buildings were completed, and a number of 
 new and costly structures arose to answer the needs 
 of the increasing volume of national business. The 
 streets and avenues, once existing only upon the 
 elaborate map which had occupied so many of the 
 leisure hours of Thomas Jefferson, were now to a 
 great extent laid out, graded, paved, and lined with 
 residences, hotels, and buildings of a business char 
 acter. Washington had become also a social as well 
 as a political centre, attracting wealth and fashion 
 from all parts of the country. It had grown into a 
 very respectable representative of the Federal idea, 
 and of the new stability which the national charac 
 ter had assumed. 
 
 The political changes which had taken place had 
 added little to the express and manifest power of the 
 President, and the Executive Mansion, the White 
 House, had not lost its original simplicity. Exter 
 nally it was in excellent repair, and its grounds and 
 shrubbery had been laid out with better taste than 
 formerly, losing the shabby and half-kept look which 
 they had worn in Lincoln s time. Internally the 
 entire building, without any change of plan, had 
 been expensively renewed, making it every way a 
 more commodious and appropriate business office 
 for the Chief Magistrate of the Republic. No art 
 could change it into a comfortable residence. 
 
 Rooms had been secured for Mr. Cleveland at the 
 Arlington Hotel, and here his friends pretty success 
 fully defended him from all would-be interviewers 
 during the closing hours of President Arthur s term. 
 
206 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 By the courteous invitation of the latter, the Presi 
 dent-elect went over to the White House upon the 
 morning of March 4th, 1885, and at noon the out 
 going President and his successor were carried in the 
 same carriage to the Capitol. They rode along the 
 avenue between enthusiastic throngs of citizens, a 
 narrow lane for the carriage being kept open by a 
 brilliant military array, contributed by the uniformed 
 militia of several of the nearer States. At the Capi 
 tol they were waited for by the exceedingly dignified 
 assembly which is accustomed to attend the solemn 
 occasion of the inauguration of an American Presi 
 dent. The Supreme Court, with representatives of 
 other courts ; the Senate and the House of Repre 
 sentatives ; heads of executive departments and 
 officers of high rank in the army and the navy ; rep 
 resentatives of foreign powers ; distinguished men 
 from all parts of the country, by special invitation 
 all combine to constitute an array of witnesses, which 
 is completed by the thousands of citizens gathered 
 in front of the grand " east front" of the Capitol, at 
 the head of whose flight of steps the temporary plat 
 form is erected. 
 
 There was, perhaps, but one small incident to dis 
 tinguish this occasion from either of several of its 
 predecessors. A custom, beginning with George 
 Washington s first taking of the oath in New York, 
 has prepared a table, upon which lies open a large 
 Bible, such as he knelt to kiss. It was not so at the 
 inauguration of President Cleveland. Many long 
 years before, when an ambitious boy went out from 
 his widowed mother s house in the village of Hoi- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 207 
 
 land Patent, going to find for himself a way in the 
 thronged, hard-working world, he carried with him a 
 little book, not too large to be put into his pocket. 
 It had been his mother s, and it was stamped with 
 her name. It was the Book, and now it was held 
 in the hand of Chief Justice Waite, of the United 
 States Supreme Court, who was to administer the 
 oath of office, as President of the United States, to 
 that very boy, now raised to the chief magistracy of 
 a great nation. 
 
 The dignified procession which came out from the 
 Capitol upon the platform assumed its places in si 
 lence, the ten thousand citizens before them hushed 
 their tumultuous cheering, and Mr. Cleveland spoke, 
 as follows : 
 
 " FELLOW CITIZENS : In the presence of this vast assemblage of 
 my countrymen, I am about to supplement and seal, by the oath 
 which I shall take, the manifestation of the will of a great and free 
 people. In the exercise of their power and right of self-govern 
 ment, they have committed to one of their fellow citizens a supreme 
 and sacred trust ; and he here consecrates himself to their service. 
 
 " This impressive ceremony adds little to the solemn sense of 
 responsibility with which I contemplate the duty I owe to all the 
 people of the land ; nothing can relieve me from anxiety lest by 
 any act of mine their interests may suffer, and nothing is needed 
 to strengthen my resolution to engage every faculty and effort in 
 the promotion of their welfare. 
 
 " Amid the din of party strife the people s choice was made ; 
 but its attendant circumstances have demonstrated anew the 
 strength and safety of a government by the people. In each suc 
 ceeding year it more clearly appears that our Democratic prin 
 ciple needs no apology, and that in its fearless and faithful appli 
 cation is to be found the surest guarantee of good government. 
 
 " But the best results of the operation of a government wherein 
 every citizen has a share largely depend upon a proper limitation 
 of purely partisan zeal and effort, and a correct appreciation of the 
 
2o3 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 time when the heat of the partisan should be merged in the patri 
 otism of the citizen. 
 
 " To-day the executive branch of the Government is transferred 
 to new keeping. But this is still the Government of all the people, 
 and it should be none the less an object of their affectionate solici 
 tude. At this hour the animosities of political strife, the bitterness 
 of partisan defeat, and the exultation of partisan triumph, should 
 be supplanted by an ungrudging acquiescence in the popular will, 
 and a sober, conscientious concern for the general weal. More 
 over, if, from this hour, we cheerfully and honestly abandon all 
 sectional prejudice and distrust, and determine, with manly confi 
 dence in one another, to work out harmoniously the achievements 
 of our national destiny, we shall deserve to realize all the benefits 
 which our happy form of government can bestow. 
 
 " On this auspicious occasion we may well renew the pledges of 
 our devotion to the Constitution, which, launched by the founders 
 of the Republic and consecrated by their prayers and patriotic de 
 votion, has for almost a century borne the hopes and the aspira 
 tions of a great people, through prosperity and peace, and through 
 the shock of foreign conflicts and the perils of domestic strife and 
 vicissitudes. 
 
 " By the Father of his Country our Constitution was commended 
 for adoption as the result of a spirit of amity and mutual conces 
 sion. In that same spirit it should be administered, in order to 
 promote the lasting welfare of the country, and to secure the full 
 measure of its priceless benefits to us and to those who will suc 
 ceed to the blessings of our national life. The large variety of 
 diverse and conflicting interests subject to Federal control, persist 
 ently seeking the recognition of their claims, need give us no fear 
 that the greatest good to the greatest number will fail to be ac 
 complished if, in the halls of national legislation, that spirit of 
 amity and mutual concession shall prevail in which the Constitu 
 tion had its birth. If this involves the surrender or postponement 
 of private interests and the abandonment of local advantages, 
 compensation will be found in the assurance that thus the common 
 interest is subserved and the general welfare advanced. 
 
 " In the discharge of my official duty I shall endeavor to be 
 guided by a just and unstrained construction of the Constitution, a 
 careful observance of the distinction between the powers granted 
 to the Federal Government and those reserved to the State or to 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 209 
 
 the people, and by a cautious appreciation of those functions 
 which, by the Constitution and laws, have been especially assigned 
 to the executive branch of the Government. 
 
 11 But he who takes the oath to-day to preserve, protect, and de 
 fend the Constitution of the United States, only assumes the sol 
 emn obligations which every patriotic citizen on the farm, in the 
 workshop, in the busy marts of trade, and everywhere, should 
 share with him. The Constitution which prescribes his oath, my 
 countrymen, is yours ; the Government you have chosen him to 
 administer, for a time, is yours ; the suffrage which executes the 
 will of freemen is yours ; the laws and the entire scheme of our 
 civil rule, from the town meeting to the State capitols and the 
 National Capitol, is yours. Your every voter, as surely as your 
 Chief Magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a differ 
 ent sphere, exercises a public trust. Nor is this all. Every citizen 
 owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public 
 servants, and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and 
 usefulness. Thus is the people s will impressed upon the whole 
 framework of our civil polity municipal, State, and Federal and 
 this is the price of our liberty and the inspiration of our faith in 
 the Republic. 
 
 " It is the duty of those serving the people in public place to 
 closely limit public expenditures to the actual needs of the Gov 
 ernment economically administered, because this bounds the right 
 of the Government to exact tribute from the earnings of labor or 
 the property of the citizen, and because public extravagance begets 
 extravagance among the people. We should never be ashamed 
 of the simplicity and prudential economies which are best suited 
 to the operation of a Republican form of government, and most 
 compatible with the mission of the American people. Those who 
 are selected for a limited time to manage public affairs are still 
 of the people, and may do much by their example to encourage, 
 consistently with the dignity of their official functions, that plain 
 way of life which among their fellow citizens aids integrity and 
 promotes thrift and prosperity, 
 
 " The genius of our institutions, the needs of our people in their 
 home life, and the attention which is demanded for the settlement 
 and development of the resources of our vast territory, dictate the 
 scrupulous avoidance of any departure from that foreign policy 
 commended by the history, the traditions, and the prosperity of our 
 
210 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 Republic. It is the policy of independence, favored by our posi 
 tion and defended by our known love of justice and our power. 
 It is the policy of peace, suitable to our interests. It is the policy 
 of neutrality, rejecting any share in foreign broils and ambitions 
 upon other continents, and repelling their intrusion here. It is the 
 policy of Monroe, and Washington, and Jefferson Peace, com 
 merce, and honest friendship with all nations ; entangling alliances 
 with none. 
 
 " A due regard for the interests and prosperity of all the people 
 demands that our finances shall be established upon such a sound 
 and sensible basis as will secure the safety and confidence of busi 
 ness interests and make the wages of labor sure and steady ; that 
 our system of revenue shall be so adjusted as to relieve the people 
 of unnecessary taxation, having a due regard to the interests of 
 capital invested and workingmen employed in American industries, 
 and preventing the accumulation of a surplus in the Treasury to 
 tempt extravagance and waste. Care for the property of the nation 
 and for the needs of future settlers requires that the public domain 
 should be protected from purloining schemes and unlawful occu 
 pation. 
 
 " The conscience of the people demands that the Indians within 
 our boundaries shall be fairly and honestly treated as wards of the 
 Government, and their education and civilization promoted, with 
 a view to their ultimate citizenship, and that polygamy in the Ter 
 ritories, destructive of the family relation and offensive to the moral 
 sense of the civilized world, shall be repressed. The laws should 
 be rigidly enforced which prohibit the immigration of a servile 
 class to compete with American labor, with no intention of ac 
 quiring citizenship, and bringing with them and retaining habits 
 and customs repugnant to our civilization. 
 
 " The people demand reform in the administration of the Gov 
 ernment, and the application of business principles to public 
 affairs. As a means to this end, Civil Service Reform should be 
 in good faith enforced. Our citizens have the right to protection 
 from the incompetence of public employes, who hold their places 
 solely as the reward of partisan service, and from the corrupting 
 influence of those who promise and the vicious methods of those 
 who expect such rewards. And those who worthily seek public 
 employment have the right to insist that merit and competency 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 211 
 
 shall be recognized instead of party subserviency or the surrender 
 of honest political belief. 
 
 " In the administration of a government pledged to do equal 
 and exact justice to all men, there should be no pretext for anxiety 
 touching the protection of the freedmen in their rights or their 
 security in the enjoyment of their privileges under the Constitu 
 tion and its amendments. All discussion as to their fitness for the 
 place accorded to them as American citizens is idle and unprofit 
 able, except as it suggests the necessity for their improvement. 
 The fact that they are citizens entitles them to all the rights due to 
 that relation, and charges them with all its duties, obligations, and 
 responsibilities. 
 
 " These topics, and the constant and ever-varying wants of an 
 active and enterprising population, may well receive the attention 
 and the patriotic endeavor of all who make and execute the Federal 
 law. Our duties are practical, and call for industrious application, 
 an intelligent perception of the claims of public office, and, above 
 all, a firm determination, by united action, to secure to the people 
 of the land the full benefits of the best form of government ever 
 vouchsafed to man. And let us not trust to human effort alone ; 
 but humbly acknowledging the power and goodness of Almighty 
 God, who presides over the destiny of nations, and who has, at all 
 times, been revealed in our country s history, let us invoke His aid 
 and His blessing upon our labors." 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Executive Business Offices A Coat of Arms The 
 Cabinet The Commission of General Grant Office 
 Seekers A Working President Death of Vice- 
 President Hendricks The First Annual Message to 
 Congress. 
 
 THE grandly simple ceremonial of the inaugura 
 tion being ended, the new President re-entered his 
 carriage and drove back through the shouting 
 throngs to the Executive Mansion. Whether or 
 not the vista presented by Pennsylvania Avenue, 
 lined from the Capitol to the White House with cit 
 izen soldiery and an enthusiastic multitude of his 
 admirers, seemed to Grover Cleveland at all like a 
 dream of swift and most improbable elevation above 
 the quiet place he had occupied only a few months 
 before, his calm, undisturbed, cheerful, yet very 
 business-like demeanor gave no indication. All the 
 critics admitted that he bore himself admirably well, 
 and the Republican press, now become for the time 
 the organs of the Opposition, frankly commended 
 the exceeding prudence of the inaugural address. 
 Some of them said that, with a few improvements 
 and variations, it would have answered equally well 
 for a Republican President. There was nothing 
 Democratic about it, they declared, and his real 
 meaning would not be known until he should send 
 
C ROVER CLEVELAND. 213 
 
 in his first message to Congress, although some 
 things might be learned from his Cabinet nomina 
 tions. 
 
 It was already generally understood that the Presi 
 dent s younger sister, Miss Rose Cleveland, was to 
 become the lady of the White House, and that Mr. 
 Daniel S. Lamontwas to continue his well-tried and 
 entirely capable services as private secretary, with 
 such assistants as might afterward be named. 
 
 The lower story of the White House consists 
 mainly of reception rooms and the state dining 
 room. The upper floor is given to business offices, 
 with the exception of a few rooms reserved for a 
 cramped private residence which is not very private. 
 It was all in readiness to receive its new occupant, 
 and his own rooms were now as near his workshop 
 as ever they had been in the old days of his Buffalo 
 law practice. The work before him now required 
 also that he should retain with him at least one arti 
 cle of faith which he had then declared. Above the 
 bed in the sleeping-room of the suite of apartments 
 over his law offices hung an illuminated allegorical 
 device, representing Life, Duty, and Death. Under 
 this, in letters not legible without attentive exam 
 ination, was inscribed, 4< As thy days are, so shall 
 thy strength be." Once, when asked the meaning 
 of it all, Mr. Cleveland replied : "If I have any 
 coat of arms and emblem, it is that. It is a motto 
 I chose years ago, and I devised that form to keep 
 it with me." 
 
 The uninterrupted course of public business re 
 quires that an incoming President shall speedily send 
 
214 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 to the Senate the names of his Cabinet. This, 
 therefore, was the first official act of President Cleve 
 land, and all men scrutinized the names with care. 
 A long list of his predecessors had each named his 
 most prominent rival in his own party to be Secre 
 tary of State, and the example was followed when 
 Thomas Francis Bayard, of Delaware, was now 
 placed in charge of the foreign affairs of the United 
 States. Equally satisfactory was the selection of 
 Mr. Cleveland s old Albany friend, Daniel Manning, 
 to be Secretary of the Treasury. People outside of 
 Massachusetts knew little about Mr. William C. 
 Endicott, made Secretary of War, but recognized 
 the name better as belonging to old colonial history. 
 William C. Whitney, of New York, was made Sec 
 retary of the Navy. Lucius Q. Lamar, of Missis 
 sippi, was named Secretary of the Interior, and the 
 fact that he had been an officer in the Confederate 
 Army was mentioned by some men only to arouse a 
 gust of indignant approval/ William F. Vilas, of 
 Wisconsin, appointed Postmaster-General, had been 
 an officer in the Union Army, and also Chairman of 
 the Democratic National Convention. Augustus 
 H. Garland, of Arkansas, was appointed Attorney- 
 General, and he, too, had been a Confederate officer. 
 The great fact that the South was unreservedly re 
 instated in its old place as an integral part of the 
 Union was amply recognized, and even the political 
 enemies of President Cleveland had not expected 
 less of him. The Senate promptly confirmed the 
 nominations, and the Administration was ready to 
 take up the executive business of the nation. 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 215 
 
 There was something melodramatic and striking 
 in a duty which awaited the return of the President 
 from the Capitol to the White House, and which 
 stood mournfully by while he made out the nomi 
 nations of his Cabinet officers. The soldier who had 
 earned and worn the highest military fame and rank 
 ever accorded to an American citizen, and who had 
 twice been President of the United States, now in 
 his old age, poor and in debt, was toiling heroically, 
 between the recurring spasms of a surely fatal 
 malady, that he might earn bread for his family. 
 The last act of the Congress which came to a final 
 adjournment at noon of March 4th, 1884, had been 
 to pass a bill placing General Ulysses S. Grant upon 
 the retired list of the army, and the last official act 
 of President Arthur had been the signature of that 
 bill. The War Office made out the commission at 
 once, and it was the first parchment signed by 
 Grover Cleveland as President of the United States. 
 
 If the country contains a citizen, otherwise of 
 sound mind but not in favor of the tenure of public 
 offices required by Civil Service Reform and its 
 advocates, there is a possible operation by means of 
 which he might be thoroughly converted to the doc 
 trines in that relation laid down by President Cleve 
 land in his inaugural address and elsewhere. Such 
 an unbeliever might, for experiment, be made Presi 
 dent of the United States, with the old office-seek 
 ing floodgates thrown wide open. That was first 
 done at the accession of Andrew Jackson, and not 
 even his famous Creek Indian campaign offered a 
 more severe test of his " hickory" toughness of fibre 
 
216 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 than did the manner in which he endured the assaults 
 of the swarm which poured in upon him. One Whig 
 statesman asserted that " they came like the Goths 
 and Vandals upon old Rome." Nothing like it oc 
 curred again, of course, until another change in party 
 supremacy ; but there was something more than mere 
 bitterness in the assertion made concerning Presi 
 dent Harrison, that " the office seekers worried him 
 into his grave in just four weeks time." It was 
 much to the credit of President Tyler that the 
 process of removals and appointments terminated 
 shortly after the executive authority passed to him. 
 There was another rush of all hungry Whig poli 
 ticians to Washington when General Taylor was in 
 augurated, and once more it was asserted that the 
 hearing and decision of their multitudinous claims 
 had much to do with the rapid exhaustion of his 
 vitality. There were many reasons why the pressure 
 upon President Pierce was less severe, and the next 
 great and complete change of political party rule 
 was postponed until the inauguration of Abraham 
 Lincoln. The memories of Jackson s day were 
 dwarfed then, for the office seekers packed the lower 
 floor of the White House all day, and a full battal 
 ion of them literally camped in the East Room. 
 Appointments, military and civil, formed no small 
 part continually of the burden under which the iron 
 strength of Mr. Lincoln wore away. Under his suc 
 cessors the evil could not expand to its widest pro 
 portions, because all the offices were already in Re 
 publican hands, and at last the growing reform of 
 the civil service gradually closed the gates. They 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND, 217 
 
 were not securely shut in the spring of 1884, but 
 President Cleveland was not a very encouraging sort 
 of office giver. He was extremely difficult of ap 
 proach upon such business, and no pressure could 
 make him promise anything. He assisted greatly 
 in perfecting his own deliverance, and the old-time 
 disgrace was not re-enacted. There were official 
 changes, many, and the Opposition journals made 
 the most of them, charging upon the President per 
 sonally every defect discovered, through all the vast 
 machinery of the departments, in the practical en 
 forcement of the reform principles to which he had 
 declared his devotion. The fact that they found 
 fault might fairly be confronted with the narrow 
 dimensions of such fault as they were able to find. 
 Neither the law nor the methods of its application 
 were as yet perfect, but there had been a vast and 
 plainly manifest improvement. 
 
 The old, hard-toiling habits of the Executive 
 Chamber in the State Capitol at Albany were at 
 first transferred, almost in a minute repetition, to the 
 offices of the Executive Mansion at Washington. 
 President Cleveland set himself at work upon a pa 
 tient and careful study of all the varied features of 
 the vast responsibility placed upon him. The 
 papers in the case," as prepared for his examination 
 by the heads of departments and their trained subor 
 dinates, were all in excellent order and well con 
 densed, or even his habitual diligence would have 
 been insufficient for the task. He had been a work 
 ing Governor and he now became a working Presi 
 dent. Even the legislative branch of the Govern- 
 
218 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 ment was yet to discover how faithfully, during the 
 remaining months of 1885, he prepared himself for 
 dealing intelligently and promptly with the subjects 
 which Congress was afterward likely to put before 
 him. An examination of his first Annual Message, 
 December, 1885, reveals to any practised eye the fact 
 that it grew, paragraph by paragraph, as one after 
 another he reached and grappled with the long list of 
 subjects embraced by it. 
 
 While the President went forward steadily with 
 his work, however, a large class of his fellow citizens 
 awoke from a previous misconception of the political 
 situation. The year 1 884 had been a time of unusual 
 business depression, and this had been rightly 
 enough connected, in the minds of most men, with 
 the current political canvass and its uncertainties. 
 Of those who suffered from the depression, some 
 had voted one way and some another, in a sort of 
 blind superstition that the elect, on of Mr. Blaine on 
 the one hand, or of Mr. Cleveland on the other, 
 would increase the general volume of business trans 
 actions, raise the prices of everything sold, lower 
 the prices of everything bought, make wages higher, 
 rents lower, and bring about good times generally. 
 Mr. Cleveland was elected and inaugurated, and the 
 country was prospering fairly well, but as yet no 
 body could see that he had done a solitary thing 
 except to. mind his business as President. Business 
 and pleasure, toil and rest, night and day, jogged on 
 as before, and the whole land was at peace, and 
 Grover Cleveland was not so much as heard from. 
 There was a universal air of stability returning, in- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 219 
 
 stead of the long turmoil of the campaign, and the 
 class of men referred to failed to see that in this fact 
 was brilliantly manifested the genuine conservatism 
 of Republican institutions. Perhaps some of them 
 did begin to grasp the situation, for one intelligent 
 voter is reported assaying : " Never mind, Bill, my 
 boy ; he s nothing but a President, after all, and he 
 can t do much. Just you wait till Congress meets. " 
 One important change took place just before the 
 arrival of that event, for Vice-President Thomas A. 
 Hendricks died, November 25th, 1885. ^ e was a 
 veteran statesman and legislator, an old-time leader 
 of the Democratic Party, and his loss at this junc 
 ture left a peculiar condition of affairs. The Senate 
 of the United States was Republican, and its presi 
 dent pro tempore was John Sherman, of Ohio, who 
 now became, ex officio, Vice-President. He would 
 become President in case of the death of Grover 
 Cleveland, and so the will of the people, declared at 
 the polls in 1884, would be defeated. Men who 
 looked at the robust form of Mr. Cleveland, or 
 grasped his firm, vigorous hand, felt a serene confi 
 dence that he would live at least four years more, 
 but the position held by Mr. Sherman had its pos 
 sibilities, and it emphasized the fact that the old Re 
 publican Party had not been altogether driven from 
 power. It still controlled the Senate, and could mus 
 ter pretty safe majorities in no less than twenty of the 
 States of the Union, with what its captains signifi 
 cantly described as a " good fighting chance" in 
 several more. Never before in the history of the 
 country had two great parties faced each other in 
 
220 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 precisely such a manner, and there had never before 
 been so very little danger that either would attempt 
 any rash experiments in legislation. The President s 
 own position called for the wary exercise of the most 
 unwavering prudence, and for the repression of any 
 ambitious impulse which might arise to impress his 
 own will too obviously upon the course of Congres 
 sional action. 
 
 His first Annual Message, waited for so long and 
 with so deep a public interest, was sent to the Cap 
 itol upon December 8th, 1885. It opened with a 
 brief tribute to the memory of Vice-President Hen- 
 dricks, and, nearly at its close, the following recom 
 mendation was offered : 
 
 " The present condition of the law relating to the succession to 
 the Presidency in the event of the death, disability, or removal of 
 both the President and Vice-President is such as to require imme 
 diate amendment. This subject has repeatedly been considered 
 by Congress, but no result has been reached. The recent lamen 
 table death of the Vice-President, and vacancies at the same time 
 in all other offices the incumbents of which might immediately ex 
 ercise the functions of the Presidential office, has caused public 
 anxiety, and a just demand that a recurrence of such a condition of 
 affairs should not be permitted." 
 
 Proper legal provision was made, and the question 
 of the Presidential succession was removed. 
 
 In the second paragraph of the Message the Presi 
 dent definitely withdrew from the mistaken idea en 
 tertained by too many of his fellow citizens with 
 reference to his part and responsibility in the man 
 agement of their affairs. It was an expression of the 
 notable fact that little material for a biographer is 
 offered by the official years in the life of any Presi- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 221 
 
 dent of the United States. His individuality has 
 been sometimes almost lost from sight in the vast 
 complication of duties and of consequent actions, in 
 which his share cannot be distinguished from that of 
 men in other departments of the public service. 
 Generals in the field, orators before the people, and 
 leaders in Congress, have seemed to exercise more 
 important functions than those of the national Ex 
 ecutive. It has not always been a false appearance. 
 President Cleveland s definition of his position, with 
 reference to the record about to be made, was as 
 follows : 
 
 " The Constitution which requires those chosen to legislate for 
 the people to annually meet in the discharge of their solemn trust, 
 also requires the President to give to Congress information of the 
 state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such 
 measures as he shall deem necessary and expedient. At the thresh 
 old of a compliance with these constitutional directions, it is well 
 for us to bear in mind that our usefulness to the people s interests 
 will be promoted by a constant appreciation of the scope and char 
 acter of our respective duties as they relate to Federal legislation. 
 While the Executive may recommend such measures as he shall 
 deem expedient, the responsibility for legislative action must and 
 should rest upon those selected by the people to make their laws." 
 
 Somewhat more than one fourth part of the long 
 and closely condensed document was devoted to 
 foreign affairs. The relations of the United States 
 with other nations were uniformly friendly and for 
 the greater part entirely satisfactory. Probably the 
 greater public interest was attracted by his manner 
 of dealing with interoceanic canals, involving the 
 Monroe doctrine, and with Chinese diplomatic rela 
 tions, involving the threatened if not growing evil 
 of Chinese immigration. 
 
222 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 The heaped condition of the National Treasury, 
 with its continuing accumulation of useless silver 
 dollars, was depicted in figures with which all men 
 were familiar, but with which no Congressional ma 
 jority had yet found courage and wisdom to deal. 
 Enormous imports and exports, unmeasured internal 
 trade, and almost measureless production and con 
 sumption, in what has become the richest country 
 on the earth, have made even the huge volume of 
 the national debt and the swollen millions of the 
 revenue seem of less importance than formerly. The 
 public mind is hardly agitated over an item of a 
 hundred millions or so, equal to the entire private 
 fortune of either of several of its richest men. There 
 was much, however, of the shrewdness of the " coun 
 sel for the people" in the manner in which the lead 
 ing question resultant from the figures was handled : 
 
 " The fact that our revenues are in excess of the actual needs of 
 an economical administration of the Government, justifies a reduc 
 tion in the amount exacted from the people for its support. Our 
 Government is but the means established by the will of a free peo 
 ple, by which certain principles are applied which they have 
 adopted for their benefit and protection ; and it is never better ad 
 ministered and its true spirit is never better observed than when 
 the people s taxation for its support is scrupulously limited to the 
 actual necessity of expenditure, and distributed according to a just 
 and equitable plan. 
 
 " The proposition with which we have to deal is the reduction 
 of the revenue received by the Government, and indirectly paid 
 by the people from custom duties. The question of free trade is 
 not involved, nor is there now any occasion for the general discus 
 sion of the wisdom or expediency of a protective system. 
 
 " Justice and fairness dictate that in any modification of our 
 present laws relating to revenue, the industries and interests which 
 have been encouraged by such laws, and in which our citizens 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 223 
 
 have large investments, should not be ruthlessly injured or de 
 stroyed. We should also deal with the subject in such manner as 
 to protect the interests of American labor, which is the capital of 
 our workingmen ; its stability and proper remuneration furnish 
 the most justifiable pretext tor a protective policy. 
 
 " Within these limitations a certain reduction should be made in 
 our customs revenue. The amount of such reduction having been 
 determined, the inquiry follows, Where can it best be remitted, 
 and what articles can best be released from duty, in the interest of 
 our citizens ? 
 
 " I think the reduction should be made in the revenue derived 
 from a tax upon the imported necessaries of life. We thus directly 
 lessen the cost of living in every family of the land, and release to 
 the people in every humble home a larger measure of the rewards 
 of frugal industry." 
 
 The silver coinage question was examined at great 
 length and in a manner which met the entire ap 
 proval of the best financiers of all parties. 
 
 Army and navy matters, the affairs of the national 
 police, were presented in a way which proved that 
 they had been in no manner neglected, the related 
 subject of pensions receiving caustic references which 
 were a sure promise of veto messages yet to come. 
 The army required legislation as to minor details, 
 but previous utterances of the President, while yet 
 only Governor of New York, had shown that he was 
 even angrily aroused concerning the condition of 
 the navy, as well as of American commercial ship 
 ping interests generally. Whether as to ships of 
 war or ships of peace, the Stars and Stripes had been 
 all but forgotten upon the high seas. The message 
 lost its dry and business-like tone at this place, and 
 acquired a wholesome ring, as it declared : 
 
 " All must admit the importance of an effective navy to a nation 
 like ours, having such an extended sea coast to protect. And yet 
 
224 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 we have not a single vessel of war that could keep the seas against 
 a first-class vessel of any important power. Such a condition 
 ought not longer to continue. The nation that cannot resist ag 
 gression is constantly exposed to it. Its foreign policy is of neces 
 sity weak, and its negotiations are conducted with disadvantage, 
 because it is not in condition to enforce the terms dictated by its 
 sense of right and justice. 
 
 " Inspired, as I am, by the hope, shared by all patriotic citizens, 
 that the day is not very far distant when our navy will be such as 
 befits our standing among the nations of the earth, and rejoiced at 
 every step that leads in the direction of such a consummation, I 
 deem it my duty to especially direct the attention of Congress to 
 the close of the report of the Secretary of the Navy, in which the 
 humiliating weakness of the present organization of his depart 
 ment is exhibited, and the startling abuses and waste of its present 
 methods are exposed. The conviction is forced upon us with the 
 certainty of mathematical demonstration, that before we proceed 
 further in the restoration of a navy we need a thoroughly reorgan 
 ized Navy Department. The fact that within seventeen years 
 more than seventy-five millions of dollars have been spent in the 
 construction, repair, equipment, and armament of vessels, and the 
 further fact that, instead of an effective and creditable fleet, we 
 have only the discontent and apprehension of a nation undefended 
 by war vessels, added to the disclosures now made, do not permit 
 us to doubt that every attempt to revive our navy has thus far, for 
 the most part, been misdirected, and all our efforts in that direction 
 have been little better than blind gropings, and expensive, aimless 
 follies. 
 
 " Unquestionably if we are content with the maintenance of a 
 Navy Department simply as a shabby ornament to the Govern 
 ment, a constant watchfulness may prevent some of the scandal 
 and abuse which have found their way into our present organiza 
 tion, and its incurable waste may be reduced to the minimum. 
 But if we desire to build ships for present usefulness instead of 
 naval reminders of the days that are past, we must have a depart 
 ment organized for the work, supplied with all the talent and in 
 genuity our country affords, prepared to take advantage of the 
 experience of other nations, systematized so that all effort shall 
 unite and lead in one direction, and fully imbued with the convic 
 tion that war vessels, though new, are useless unless they combine 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 225 
 
 all that the ingenuity of man has up to this day brought forth re 
 lating to their construction. 
 
 " I earnestly commend the portion of the Secretary s report de 
 voted to this subject to the attention of Congress, in the hope that 
 his suggestions touching the reorganization of his department may 
 be adopted as the first step toward the reconstruction of our navy." 
 
 The Republican Opposition was afterward enabled 
 to point some pretty sharp arrows with its criticisms 
 upon the administrative efforts made in the direction 
 indicated, and the reform in the navy of the United 
 States was of slow advancement, in spite of the offi 
 cial zeal with which it was undertaken. The zeal 
 was an excellent thing, nevertheless, and the efforts 
 were by no means unfruitful. The obstacles in the 
 way were largely such as would have been swept out 
 of existence by the sound of a hostile gun in Ameri 
 can waters, and it may be that there is no other 
 sufficient stimulus to the national pride. The peo 
 ple seem to be indifferent to the mere cash losses 
 consequent upon leaving the ocean carrying trade, 
 with all its shipbuilding, in the hands of other na 
 tions. 
 
 The Post Office Department and the National 
 Judiciary offered each important subjects for legis 
 lation. When the Department of the Interior was 
 reached, there was again evidence that something 
 more than a sense of official duty had been at work. 
 
 " The most intricate and difficult subject in charge of this de 
 partment is the treatment and management of the Indians. I am 
 satisfied that some progress may be noted in their condition as a 
 result of a prudent administration of the present laws and regula 
 tions for their control. 
 
 " But it is submitted that there is lack of a fixed purpose or 
 
226 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 policy on this subject, which should be supplied. It is useless to 
 dilate upon the wrongs of the Indians, and as useless to indulge 
 in the heartless belief that because their wrongs are revenged in 
 their own atrocious manner, therefore they should be exterminated. 
 
 " They are within the care of our Government, and their rights 
 are, or should be, protected from invasion by the most solemn 
 obligations. They are properly enough called the wards of the 
 Government ; and it should be borne in mind that this guardian 
 ship involves, on our part, efforts for the improvement of their 
 condition and the enforcement of their rights. There seems to be 
 general concurrence in the proposition that the ultimate object of 
 their treatment should be their civilization and citizenship. Fitted 
 by these to keep pace in the march of progress with the advanced 
 civilization about them, they will readily assimilate with the mass 
 of our population, assuming the responsibilities and receiving the 
 protection incident to this condition. 
 
 " The difficulty appears to be in the selection of the means to be 
 at present employed toward the attainment of this result. 
 
 " Our Indian population, exclusive of those in Alaska, is reported 
 as numbering two hundred and sixty thousand, nearly all being 
 located on lands set apart for their use and occupation, aggregat 
 ing over one hundred and thirty-four millions of acres. These lands 
 are included in the boundaries of one hundred and seventy-one 
 reservations of different dimensions, scattered in twenty-one States 
 and Territories, presenting great variations in climate and in the 
 kind and quality of their soils. Among the Indians upon these 
 several reservations there exist the most marked differences in 
 natural traits and disposition and in their progress toward civiliza 
 tion. While some are lazy, vicious, and stupid, others are indus 
 trious, peaceful, and intelligent ; while a portion of them are self- 
 supporting and independent, and have so far advanced in civiliza 
 tion that they make their own laws, administered through officers 
 of their own choice, and educate their children in schools of their 
 own establishment and maintenance, others still retain, in squalor 
 and dependence, almost the savagery of their natural state. 
 
 " In dealing with this question, the desires manifested by the 
 Indians should not be ignored. Here, again, we find a great 
 diversity. With some the tribal relation is cherished with the 
 utmost tenacity, while its hold upon others is considerably re- 
 Jaxed ; the Jove of home is strong with all, and yet there are those 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 227 
 
 whose attachment to a particular locality is by no means unyield 
 ing ; the ownership of their lands in severally is much desired by 
 some, while by others, and sometimes among the most civilized, 
 such a distribution would be bitterly opposed. 
 
 " The variation of their wants, growing out of and connected 
 with the character of their several locations, should be regarded. 
 Some are upon reservations most fit for grazing, but without flocks 
 or herds ; and some, on arable land, have no agricultural imple 
 ments ; while some of the reservations are double the size neces 
 sary to maintain the number of Indians now upon them, in a few 
 cases, perhaps, they should be enlarged. 
 
 " Add to all this the difference in the administration of the 
 agencies. While the same duties are devolved upon all, the dispo 
 sition of the agents, and the manner of their contact with the Ind 
 ians, have much to do with their condition and welfare. The agent 
 who perfunctorily performs his duty and slothfully neglects all 
 opportunity to advance their moral and physical improvement, and 
 fails to inspire them with a desire for better things, will accomplish 
 nothing in the direction of their civilization ; while he who feels 
 the burden of an important trust, and has an interest in his work, 
 will, by consistent example, firm yet considerate treatment, and 
 well-directed aid and encouragement, constantly lead those under 
 his charge toward the light of their enfranchisement. 
 
 " The history of all the progress which has been made in the 
 civilization of the Indian, I think will disclose the fact that the be 
 ginning has been religious teaching, followed by or accompanying 
 secular education. While the self-sacrificing and pious men and 
 women who have aided in this good work by their independent 
 endeavor have for their reward the beneficent results of their labor 
 and the consciousness of Christian duty well performed, their val 
 uable services should be fully acknowleged by all who, under the 
 law, are charged with the control and management of our Indian 
 wards." 
 
 General and specific information and recommenda 
 tions were added, and the President had evidently 
 relieved his conscience concerning his duty to the 
 red men. 
 
 The condition and management of the public lands, 
 
228 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 the railway grants of them, the frauds and extrava 
 gances of the past and the prudences demanded in 
 the present were duly set forth, but the Message did 
 not again arise above the dry level of a legal argu 
 ment until it reached the besmirched boundaries of 
 the hapless Territory of Utah. After saying that 
 during the later history of that region the laws of 
 the United States had been measurably better en 
 forced than formerly, the Message went on : 
 
 " The Utah Commissioners express the opinion, based upon 
 such information as they are able to obtain, that but few polyga 
 mous marriages have taken place in the Territory during the last 
 year. They further report that while there cannot be found upon 
 the registration lists of voters the name of a man actually guilty of 
 polygamy, and while none of that class are holding office, yet at 
 the last election in the Territory all the officers elected, except in 
 one county, were men who, though not actually living in the prac 
 tice of polygamy, subscribe to the doctrine of polygamous mar 
 riages as a divine revelation and a law unto all, higher and more 
 binding upon the conscience than any human law, local or na 
 tional. Thus is the strange spectacle presented of a community 
 protected by a republican form of government, to which they owe 
 allegiance, sustaining by their suffrages a principle and a belief 
 which set at naught that obligation of absolute obedience to the 
 law of the land, which lies at the foundation of republican institu 
 tions. 
 
 " The strength, the perpetuity, and the destiny of the nation 
 rest upon our homes, established by the law of God, guarded by 
 parental care, regulated by parental authority, and sanctified by 
 parental love. 
 
 " These are not the homes of polygamy. 
 
 " The mothers of our land, who rule the nation as they mould 
 the characters and guide the actions of their sons, live according to 
 God s holy ordinances, and each, secure and happy in the exclu 
 sive love of the father of her children, sheds the warm light of true 
 womanhood, unperverted and unpolluted, upon all within her pure 
 and wholesome family circle. 
 
GROVE R CLEVELAND. 229 
 
 " These are not the cheerless, crushed, and unwomanly mothers 
 of polygamy. 
 
 " The fathers of our families are the best citizens of the Repub 
 lic. Wife and children are the sources of patriotism, and conjugal 
 and parental affection beget devotion to the country. The man 
 who, undefiled with plural marriage, is surrounded in his single 
 home with his wife and children, has a stake in the country which 
 inspires him with respect for its laws and courage for its defence. 
 
 " These are not the fathers of polygamous families. 
 
 " There is no feature of this practice, or the system which sanc 
 tions it, which is not opposed to all that is of value in our institu 
 tions. 
 
 " There should be no relaxation in the firm but just execution 
 of the law now in operation, and I should be glad to approve such 
 further discreet legislation as will rid the country of this blot upon 
 its fair fame. 
 
 " Since the people upholding polygamy in our Territories are 
 re-enforced by immigration from other lands, I recommend that a 
 law be passed to prevent the importation of Mormons into the 
 country." 
 
 The paragraphs with reference to the subject of 
 Civil Service Reform added nothing of special impor 
 tance to the President s previous utterances ^in the 
 same relation, but were a very fair statement of the 
 measurable progress already made. 
 
 The needs of the Congressional library were pre 
 sented, and the affairs of the District of Columbia 
 were not forgotten. The Message concluded as 
 follows : 
 
 " In conclusion, I commend to the wise care and thoughtful 
 attention of Congress the needs, the welfare, and the aspirations 
 of an intelligent and generous nation. To subordinate these to 
 the narrow advantages of partisanship or the accomplishment of 
 selfish aims is to violate the people s trust and betray the people s 
 interests. But an individual sense of responsibility on the part of 
 each of us, and a stern determination to perform our duty well, 
 
230 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 must give us place among those who have added in their day and 
 generation to the glory and prosperity of our beloved land." 
 
 A more thoroughly business-like, conservative, and 
 unsensational document had never been transmitted 
 to Congress by a President of the United States. 
 If Grover Cleveland had been in office during nine 
 years, instead of only during nine months, there 
 could not have been a more utter absence of any 
 sense of newness or awkwardness. He seemed to 
 feel entirely at home, and to take up the affairs of 
 the nation, with reference to other nations, even, 
 very much as he had taken up the affairs of the city 
 of Buffalo. Unseen at first, but more keenly per 
 ceived and openly acknowledged afterward, was this 
 peculiar element of the strength of his individual 
 character and position. He all but compelled men 
 to take him as a matter of course, unless their par 
 tisan relations and purposes brought them into op 
 position. It was an equally inevitable result that 
 all opposition should find its place unreservedly and 
 unalterably, time being given for its development 
 and adjustment. Nothing but the occurrence of 
 some great and unexpected occasion could arouse 
 any fervor of mere enthusiasm for or against such 
 an embodiment of fixed and unimpassioned purposes. 
 
 The Message was sifted carefully by the Opposi 
 tion press, but even the Republican journals praised 
 it, and Congress, in both Houses, settled down to 
 its huge volume of legislative work. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The Political Situation The Chinese Question The 
 Labor Commission The Butter Bill The Social 
 Season A Wedding at the White House The 
 Home at Oak View. 
 
 NEITHER the details of Congressional legislation 
 nor the correspondent action of the President have 
 any place in a biography, except in so far as they 
 offer some illustration of individual character. The 
 first Message of President Cleveland sufficiently set 
 forth the political fact that he had no great revolu 
 tion to propose or to lead. The United States did 
 not offer any field for startling innovations, and Mr. 
 Cleveland was not an inventive genius of startling 
 statesmanship. As between the two great political 
 parties, the margin of numerical strength was too nar 
 row to encourage hysterical experiments. Outside of 
 them was a large popular vote, controllable by nei 
 ther, a sort of unknown sea in which all sorts of social 
 theorists were cruising around upon more or less ad 
 venturous voyages of discovery. If anything worth 
 having should be found by these explorers, it would 
 surely be seized and occupied by some responsible 
 power, just as all the geographical western world had 
 been, or just as the work of the old abolition ex 
 tremists had been absorbed by the Republican Party 
 and by the course of events. 
 
232 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 It soon became evident that the President was as 
 yet making no special effort to impress himself upon 
 current legislation. He gave, however, a very care 
 ful and toilsome attention to his constitutional duty 
 of examining before signature whatever bills were 
 sent to him. 
 
 No other class of legislative work presented him 
 with such a continuous and varied series of oppor 
 tunities for expressing his opinion, as did the long 
 procession of enactments conferring or increasing 
 pensions. Veto followed veto, each accompanied 
 by its own compact explanation, and each explana 
 tion sufficient to satisfy any Congressman that he 
 should not have voted for that particular draft upon 
 the Treasury. Some of the vetoes, in all their seri 
 ousness, had a sound of fun in them, so grotesquely 
 improper or so manifestly fraudulent were the pen 
 sions granted. In due course of time the number 
 of these vetoes grew to what the grocers call a 
 gross, with a baker s dozen or so to spare, and it 
 may well be that the list could have been honestly 
 increased. 
 
 If there had been some critics who were disposed 
 to attribute the President s repeated utterances upon 
 the Chinese question to mere race prejudice, or to a 
 demagoguish fishing for popularity among the re 
 cently imported part of our voting population, he 
 removed that false impression by the matter and 
 manner of a special message, March 2d, 1886. This 
 message was accompanied by full copies of diplo 
 matic correspondence between the United States 
 and China, and with tabulated statements of the 
 
GROVE R CLEVELAND. 233 
 
 number, nature, and pecuniary amount of claims and 
 counter-claims existing between the two countries. 
 It appeared that Americans in China had fared badly 
 enough, and that Chinese in America had been gen 
 erally well treated, except in specified cases as little 
 within the control of our Government as were the 
 independent acts of Chinese pirates in their own 
 seas. The President quoted liberally from his pre 
 vious Annual Message, and added, speaking of the 
 most serious cause of Chinese complaint : 
 
 " The facts, which so far are not controverted or affected by 
 any exculpatory or mitigating testimony, show the murder of a 
 number of Chinese subjects in September last at Rock Springs, 
 the wounding of many others, and the spoliation of the property 
 of all when the unhappy survivors had been driven from their hab 
 itations. There is no allegation that the victims, by any lawless 
 or disorderly act on their part, contributed to bring about a col 
 lision. On the contrary, it appears that the law-abiding disposi 
 tion of these people, who were sojourners in our midst under the 
 sanction of hospitality and express treaty obligations, was made 
 the pretext for the attack upon them. This outrage upon law and 
 treaty engagements was committed by a lawless mob. None of 
 the aggressors, happily for the national good fame, appear by the 
 reports to have been citizens of the United States. They were 
 aliens, engaged in that remote district as mining laborers, who be 
 came excited against the Chinese laborers, as it would seem, 
 because of their refusal to join them in a strike to secure higher 
 wages. The oppression of Chinese subjects by their rivals in the 
 competition for labor does not differ in violence and illegality from 
 that applied to other classes of native or alien labor. All are 
 equally under the protection of law, and equally entitled to enjoy 
 the benefits of assured public order. 
 
 " Were there no treaty in existence referring to the rights of 
 Chinese subjects, did they come hither as all other strangers who 
 voluntarily resort to this land of freedom, of self-government, and 
 of laws, here peaceably to win their bread and to live their lives, 
 there can be no question that they would be entitled still to the 
 
234 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 same measure of protection from violence and the same free forum 
 for the redress of their grievances as any other aliens." 
 
 With reference to the future politics of the United 
 States, a much more important, although extremely 
 conservative message, was sent to Congress upon 
 April 22d, 1886. It proposed that the existing La 
 bor Bureau should be increased to a Board of Com 
 missioners, with powers of arbitration, capable of fur 
 ther increase and extension. Among other things, 
 he said : 
 
 " I am satisfied, however, that something may be done under 
 Federal authority to prevent the disturbances which so often arise 
 from disputes between employers and the employed, and which at 
 times seriously threaten the business interests of the country ; and 
 in my opinion the proper theory upon which to proceed is that of 
 voluntary arbitration as the means of settling these difficulties. 
 
 " But I suggest that, instead of arbitrators chosen in the heat of 
 conflicting claims, and after each dispute shall arise, for the pur 
 pose of determining the same, there be created a Commission of 
 Labor, consisting of three members, who shall be regular officers 
 of the Government, charged among other duties with the consider 
 ation and settlement, when possible, of all controversies between 
 labor and capital." 
 
 President Cleveland s toilsome experiences as ex 
 ecutive editor and State critic for the Albany Leg 
 islature were forcibly suggested, August 2d, 1886, 
 by the message with which he accompanied his 
 approval of what was called the Butter Bill. It pur 
 ported to be " An act defining butter, also imposing 
 a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, 
 importation, and exportation of oleomargerine. " 
 There had been fun in Congress over that bill, and 
 the President was not alone in questioning the con 
 stitutionality of some of its provisions. He could 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 235 
 
 not, as at Albany, have it mended before signing, 
 so he signed it and asked to have it mended after 
 ward. 
 
 With the return of Congress for the Winter ses 
 sion of 1885-86, the regular social season of the 
 capital also began, but the story of the bachelor s 
 hall at the Governor s House in Albany was not to 
 be repeated. It was not the first time in American 
 history that the White House had been occupied 
 by a wifeless President. Thomas Jefferson, for in 
 stance, had been compelled to appeal to Mrs. Mad 
 ison and her sister to aid him in dispensing his lib 
 eral hospitalities. Andrew Jackson had been pro 
 vided for by Mr. and Mrs. Donelson. James Bu 
 chanan had been entirely satisfied with the social 
 success attained by his dashing niece, Miss Harriet 
 Lane. President Cleveland turned over that entire 
 branch of his executive responsibilities to his sister, 
 Miss Rose Cleveland, and Washington society de 
 clared itself satisfied. There were those, indeed, 
 who quoted the remark of Uncle Lewis F. Allen, 
 and declared that " she inherited the brains of the 
 family," but they may have been ultra-protection 
 ists. The season, social and legislative, went on to 
 an end much more smoothly than had been antici 
 pated. The crowds who attended public receptions 
 at the White House came away with almost invari 
 ably pleasant reminiscences of their burly, hearty 
 Chief Magistrate. It was exceedingly agreeable to 
 any poor man or woman to be greeted so well, for 
 even Grover Cleveland s enemies were fair enough 
 to confess that he made a point of honor, so to 
 
236 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 speak, of his dealings with Abraham Lincoln s 
 " plain people/ Lincoln himself was hardly more 
 fond of children. 
 
 Possibly for some things are beyond ready read 
 ing Mr. Cleveland s kindly way toward the very 
 young had something to do with another change 
 which drew nearer and nearer through all the months 
 of that Winter and Spring. When, in July, 1875, 
 his former law partner and intimate personal friend, 
 Oscar Folsom, of Buffalo, was so suddenly and sadly 
 removed from the bright career seemingly before 
 him, he left a widow and a daughter. The latter 
 was then a school girl of about eleven years of age 
 a very pretty, bright, vivacious little lady, and she 
 grew up with a strong liking for the exceedingly kind 
 and smiling gentleman who had been so warm a 
 friend to her father. The family property was also 
 said to owe much to the intelligent care he had be 
 stowed upon its management, and her mother, Mrs. 
 Folsom, was upon terms of close intimacy with Mr. 
 Cleveland s sisters. The bright girlhood expanded 
 into a brighter womanhood, and nobody knows or 
 has any business to know when or how one form of 
 liking ripened into another. At last, however, 
 everybody did know, or said they knew, that there 
 would one day be a wedding at the White House, 
 and that the bride would be Miss Frances Folsom. 
 
 Rumor was right for once. There had never been 
 a wedding in the quaint old dwelling of the Presi 
 dents, but at last the day was set for one, and grand 
 preparations were made by a host of interested peo 
 ple. The newspaper reporters, in particular, worked 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 237 
 
 hard, and the artists who cut wooden portraits for 
 illustrative purposes. 
 
 The wedding took place at the Executive Man 
 sion, June 2d, 1886, with the roses in full bloom, 
 and the occasion passed brilliantly, without one un 
 toward incident. The entire nation joined in hearty 
 expressions of good will, and, for a. few days, there 
 seemed to be no party lines in existence. There is 
 a vast deal of genuine, kindly human nature among 
 the American people, and they intensely approve of 
 weddings. 
 
 The bridegroom and bride, with a merry party of 
 friends, made a wedding trip to a picturesque sum 
 mer resort called Deer Park, among the Maryland 
 mountains. For a few days only, however, could 
 the President just then be spared from his pressing 
 official duties, and on June 8th he was once more in 
 Washington. Even in his return, however, he had 
 accomplished an important reform. During an en 
 tire generation it had been sufficiently well under 
 stood that the White House was imperfectly suited 
 to the uses of a family residence. It had been little 
 more than endurable, and plan after plan had been 
 proposed for the selection of a more retired locality, 
 and the construction of such a dwelling as the good 
 taste and self-respect of a great people might induce 
 them to provide for their chosen Chief Magistrate. 
 Every such suggestion had been choked to death, 
 however, by the more or less malicious employment 
 of the word "palace," and nothing definite had 
 been done. Grover Cleveland was not the man to 
 wait for the action of other people. He looked 
 
238 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 around Washington while he was getting ready to 
 be married, found a house that suited him, struck a 
 bargain for it, and bought it in May, 1886. " Oak 
 View," as it is called, is a part of the old Greene 
 estate. The house is somewhat old fashioned, but 
 well built, of stone. The ground floor contains re 
 ception rooms, dining room, library, kitchen, and so 
 forth, the sleeping rooms being all in the second 
 story. There are about twenty-eight acres of land, 
 of good quality, part under cultivation. The gar 
 den and out buildings are good. There are noble 
 oaks and other shade trees, and the view from the 
 commanding ridge upon which the house stands war 
 rants and explains its name. It is a very pleasant 
 place, especially for a summer residence to which a 
 hard-worked President may escape from the mere 
 business office into which the White House was in 
 this manner wisely turned ; but there is no sugges 
 tion of a palace nothing but ordinary common sense 
 reaching out after such every-day comfort as belongs 
 to any citizen. There is a morning and evening 
 drive to and from the White House of about four 
 miles, through Georgetown and along the Tenally- 
 town road. It is a pleasant highway, and even the 
 newspaper reporters have never succeeded in break 
 ing through the guarded retirement provided for the 
 President s family at the Oak View end of the morn 
 ing and evening drive. 
 
 In that first summer of their married life, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Cleveland did not remain long at Oak View. 
 As soon as the business of the nation permitted, on 
 August i6th, they left Washington for the North. 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 239 
 
 A month was spent among the Adirondacks, where 
 the President could indulge to the uttermost his life 
 long fondness for fishing and hunting. There were 
 brief visits to other places, with everywhere an en 
 thusiastic heartiness of popular welcome. The greet 
 ing given at Harvard University included the honor 
 ary degree of Doctor of Laws, conferred with much 
 more zeal and heartiness than had attended the 
 memorable occasion when Andrew Jackson received 
 a similar honor. 
 
 The scholarly reasons for its bestowal in the pres 
 ent instance were eloquently expressed by James 
 Russell Lowell. 
 
 That was early in November, and shortly after 
 ward the President and his young wife were once 
 more at home in the substantial stone cottage on 
 the Tenallytown road, north of Washington. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The New Management of Social Affairs The Oppo 
 sition The Dependent Pension Bill The Texas 
 Aid Bill Second Annual Message An Island 
 Queen A Centennial Year Slimmer Vacation 
 Tours West and South Annual Message to the 
 Fiftieth Congress The Mills Bill. 
 
 THE society side of life at the White House, 
 when the new season opened, was found to have un 
 dergone a change. There was something of a change 
 perceptible also in the manner and methods of the 
 transaction of executive business. While the public 
 receptions were more brilliant and enjoyable than 
 before, it was understood that the President was not 
 permitted to give quite so many hours of each day to 
 unremitting toil. His old work-a-day habits were 
 strong upon him and could not be altogether broken 
 up, but there was not so much need for hard study. 
 He had very thoroughly mastered the great case in 
 his hands, so far as it was in his hands, shrewdly 
 marking the limits of his possible control and re 
 sponsibility. There was need for prudence, since 
 there was no feature of the political situation more 
 noteworthy than the activity and capacity displayed, 
 in and out of Congress, by the compact and per 
 fectly organized Republican Opposition. No de- 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 241 
 
 feet, real or apparent, in the enforcement of the Civil 
 Service Reform measures ; no error or delay of any 
 sort in the conduct of the executive departments ; 
 no bad generalship on the part of the Democratic 
 majority in Congress ; not even manifestations of 
 the President s well-understood desire to heal any 
 remaining irritation in the Southern section of the 
 country, escaped the most searching analysis and 
 the most caustic commentary. Hardly during the 
 Mexican War, when a Whig Opposition in Congress 
 superintended President Folk s management of 
 armies led by Whig generals, had there been a more 
 incisive treatment of every step taken, or not taken, 
 by the Administration. Long before the close of 
 1887 it was plainly manifest that both parties were 
 preparing for the Presidential campaign of 1888. 
 The course taken by the Republican leaders and 
 press could have but one result, for it steadily took 
 away from the party in nominal power any suppos- 
 able right to name its own representative, and the 
 very persistency and steadiness of the President s 
 action from day to day unified and sealed the 
 process. 
 
 The stream of pension act vetoes flowed on, in 
 a succession of smaller and larger ripples, until, on 
 February nth, 1887, all minor messages of this sort 
 were forgotten in the stir occasioned by the Presi 
 dent s reasons for returning unsigned what was 
 known as the Dependent Pension Bill. The Mes 
 sage began : 
 
 " I herewith return without my approval House bill No. 10,457, 
 entitled An act for the relief of dependent parents and honorably 
 
242 CROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 discharged soldiers and sailors who are now disabled and depen 
 dent upon their own labor for support. 
 
 " This is the first general bill that has been sanctioned by the 
 Congress since the close of the late Civil War, permitting a pension 
 to the soldiers and sailors who served in that war upon the ground 
 of service and present disability alone, and in the entire absence of 
 any injuries received by the casualties or incidents of such service." 
 
 The history of United States pension legislation 
 was briefly but pointedly reviewed ; the operative 
 and legal defects of the bill were set forth at length, 
 and the Message concluded with a paragraph which 
 did honor to the President s fidelity to his trust : 
 
 " I adhere to the sentiments thus heretofore expressed. But the 
 evil threatened by this bill is in my opinion such that, charged 
 with a great responsibility in behalf of the people, I cannot do 
 otherwise than to bring to the consideration of this measure my 
 best efforts of thought and judgment, and perform my constitu 
 tional duty in relation thereto, regardless of all consequences, ex 
 cept such as appear to me to be related to the best and highest in 
 terests of the country." 
 
 Perhaps another and equally important declaration 
 that President Cleveland was as far as ever from any 
 willingness to sacrifice constitutional law to personal 
 or party popularity was given February i6th, 1887, 
 in his veto of the act to enable the Commissioner 
 of Agriculture to make a special distribution of seeds 
 in the drought-stricken counties of Texas. He was 
 sorry for all who suffered, but he said : 
 
 " I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Consti 
 tution ; and I do not believe that the power and duty of the Gen 
 eral Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual 
 suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public ser 
 vice or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited 
 mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly 
 resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 243 
 
 that though the people support the Government, the Government 
 should not support the people." 
 
 It was an utter repudiation of the paternal idea 
 of human government, which from time to time 
 comes creeping in to effect some kind of adminis 
 trative compromise with the opposite idea expressed 
 by American institutions. 
 
 The Message sent by the President to Congress 
 at the opening of the second session of the Forty- 
 ninth Congress, December 6th, 1886, was very full 
 and elaborate, but it was strictly supplementary to 
 his first Annual Message to the same body in 1885. 
 Its individual features, however interesting, do not 
 require quotation. As a whole, however, it sug 
 gested to those who read it a second time the truth 
 that there had somehow been an advance, a growth, 
 during the twelve months, and that the writer of 
 this Message had obtained a better grasp of the sub 
 jects with which he was dealing. 
 
 Among the minor vetoes which from time to time 
 came drifting in upon the table of either House of 
 Congress, were a number preventing the establish 
 ment, here and there, of ports of entry, and the 
 erection of public buildings which did not, in the 
 President s view of requisite economies, appear to 
 be warranted by any business requirement. Per 
 haps one way of disposing of a small and trouble 
 some local demand was to pass its bill and send it to 
 the White House for execution by the former 
 Sheriff of Erie County. 
 
 Among the varied foreign affairs in which Presi 
 dent Cleveland had manifested especial interest from 
 
244 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 the beginning were the relations of the United 
 States to Hawaii. They were closely connected 
 with the great subject of American commerce, and 
 its future prosperity upon the Pacific Ocean. He 
 had requested the especial attention of Congress to 
 the existing state and apparent promise of this im 
 portant interest. 
 
 In May, 1887, Queen Kapiolani, of Hawaii, visited 
 the United States, and Mrs. Cleveland was the first 
 lady of the White House to receive there, as a guest, 
 an actual crowned ruler of any country, large or 
 small. She afterward returned the call of the Ha 
 waiian queen at her hotel, and paid every needed 
 attention to the dusky representative of the ancient 
 race of islanders. Miss Harriet Lane, in her day, 
 had received the Prince of Wales, but he had been 
 only a very young Englishman, sent out by his 
 mother to see the world, and had not been a crowned 
 head at all. 
 
 The Summer and Autumn of 1887 were employed 
 largely in what bore a semblance of a prolonged va 
 cation from the toils of office, but it had been clearly 
 perceived by other Presidents that a public use might 
 be served in a laborious tour of the country. Mr. 
 Cleveland himself had seen but little of it outside 
 of the State of New York prior to the year 1887. 
 
 It was a year of general prosperity, and there were 
 several marks by which it became notable in the 
 chronology of the United States, as well as in the 
 life of Grover Cleveland. 
 
 In May the President discharged acceptably the 
 duties assigned to him at the unveiling of the me- 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 245 
 
 morial statue of President Garfield, at Washington. 
 Later still there was international importance in his 
 presence and participation in the grand ceremonial at 
 tending the unveiling of the Bartholdi statue of Lib 
 erty Enlightening the World, in New York Harbor. 
 July found him at the old homestead in Holland 
 Patent, now, since his mother s death, the home of 
 his sister Rose. He had visited it when mayor and 
 when governor. The old doorway through which 
 he went out to seek his fortune, with nothing in his 
 pocket but a borrowed twenty-five dollars and his 
 mother s Bible, had thickly clustering -memories 
 around it for the mind and heart of the busy states 
 man and party leader. Clinton and other places 
 known to his earlier days were also visited, and 
 then there were weeks of rest at Marion, on the 
 Massachusetts sea coast. 
 
 The year 1887 was the centennial year of the Con 
 stitution of the United States, and the citizens of 
 Philadelphia invited all Americans to join with them 
 in a suitable commemoration of that marvellous 
 triumph of far-seeing statesmanship. The middle 
 of September, therefore, found the President in that 
 city. The i6th, upon which, as the first citizen of 
 the Republic, he reviewed the great procession 
 gathered in honor of national law and liberty, was a 
 sort of climax in the remarkable career of Grover 
 Cleveland. There was something noteworthy by 
 all in the fact that, at the end of a hundred years, 
 the guarded working of the Constitution found all 
 the executive power which it conferred and limited 
 entrusted by the people to the son of a village pas- 
 
246 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 tor. His immediate predecessor, Arthur, had been 
 also the son of a rural minister, and just before him 
 had been Garfield, himself a preacher and teacher. 
 Not from the great wealth and the influential fam 
 ily connections had the searching eyes of parties and 
 popular majorities picked out their ruling men. 
 
 President Cleveland spent a few days in Wash 
 ington after the centennial celebration, but on Sep 
 tember 3<Dth he began another tour westward, vis 
 iting Indianapolis, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, 
 Madison, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Omaha, Kansas 
 City, Memphis, Nashville, Montgomery in Alabama, 
 Atlanta, and intermediate places, returning to Wash 
 ington about the middle of October. The people 
 of many States had seen and heard the President 
 whom they had elected, and everywhere they had 
 welcomed him with tumultuous cordiality. His tour 
 had been in some respects much more like that of 
 Andrew Jackson than like the almost uncriticised 
 pilgrimage of James Monroe, for the Opposition 
 press was busy all the while, and not altogether 
 good naturedly. During the following Winter, in 
 February and March, 1888, a Southern trip was 
 made as far as Jacksonville, Fla., and return, with 
 everywhere enthusiastic receptions. 
 
 The Fiftieth Congress of the United States as 
 sembled and organized for business in the first week 
 of December, 1887, and notified the President that 
 it was ready to receive any communication which 
 he might deem it his duty to make. His Message, 
 sent accordingly to the Senate and House of Rep 
 resentatives, bore date December 6th, and might al- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 247 
 
 most equally well have been described as a message 
 to the Democratic and Republican parties, outlining 
 to both of them the political battlefield selected by 
 Field Marshal Grover Cleveland for the great Presi 
 dential battle of 1888. There was hardly any re 
 semblance between this Annual Message and those 
 which had been sent to the Forty-ninth Congress 
 from the same hand, and there were not lacking a 
 score or so of sharp-tongued Republican orators who 
 expressed what they called their pleasure at the 
 manner in which the President was calling his Dem 
 ocratic majority to account for not having done its 
 duty. Some of them even went farther than that, 
 but they were wrong, for the President was thor 
 oughly in earnest. If his own party had indeed 
 been derelict, he was the last man to hesitate in 
 any utterance calculated to bring it up to the 
 line. 
 
 The entire mass of miscellaneous public business, 
 at home and abroad, was put out of sight, and the 
 Message dealt with one subject only. That it did 
 so was a master stroke of political wisdom, and in 
 the manner of the act there came out prominently the 
 individual characteristics which account for every step 
 of the swift successes thus far obtained by Grover 
 Cleveland. He appeared as the chosen and official 
 counsel and advocate of the people, for the removal 
 of an evil which he proceeded to define. To do this 
 he was fully entitled, under the Constitution, and 
 his position was to this extent unassailable. A 
 wrong state of things existed, as all men knew, and 
 he described it forcibly. 
 
248 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 " You are confronted at the threshold of your legislative duties 
 with a condition of the national finances which imperatively de 
 mands immediate and careful consideration. 
 
 " The amount of money annually exacted, through the opera 
 tion of present laws, from the industries and necessities of the 
 people, largely exceeds the sum necessary to meet the expenses of 
 the Government. 
 
 " When we consider that the theory of our institutions guaran 
 tees to every citizen the full enjoyment of all the fruits of his in 
 dustry and enterprise, with only such deduction as may be his 
 share toward the careful and economical maintenance of the Gov 
 ernment which protects him, it is plain that the exaction of more 
 than this is indefensible extortion, and a culpable betrayal of 
 American fairness and justice. This wrong inflicted upon those 
 who bear the burden of national taxation, like other wrongs, mul 
 tiplies a brood of evil consequences. The public treasury, which 
 should only exist as a conduit conveying the people s tribute to its 
 legitimate objects of expenditure, becomes a hoarding place for 
 money needlessly withdrawn from trade and the people s use, thus 
 crippling our national energies, suspending our country s develop 
 ment, preventing investment in productive enterprise, threatening 
 financial disturbance, and inviting schemes of public plunder." 
 
 The Message proceeded to give Treasury facts and 
 figures, stating that no sufficient measures of relief 
 from current and threatening evils were within the 
 scope of any lawful authority possessed by the Ex 
 ecutive. The defects of several proposed or suppos- 
 able measures were also presented, and this part of 
 the important paper concluded as follows : 
 
 " I have deemed it my duty to thus bring to the knowledge of 
 my countrymen, as well as to the attention of their representatives 
 charged with the responsibility of legislative relief, the gravity of 
 our financial situation. The failure of the Congress heretofore to 
 provide against the dangers which it was quite evident the very 
 nature of the difficulty must necessarily produce, caused a condi 
 tion of financial distress and apprehension since your last adjourn 
 ment, which taxed to the utmost all the authority and expedients 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 249 
 
 within executive control ; and these appear now to be exhausted. 
 If disaster results from the continued inaction of Congress, the 
 responsibility must rest where it belongs." 
 
 The failure of the Congress," composed as it 
 was of intelligent and patriotic men, had not been 
 caused by any disposition to neglect its duties. One 
 large part of its membership did not believe a Treas 
 ury surplus to be the great evil which it appeared to 
 the President and to some other men. Another 
 considerable cohort averred that the present system, 
 nominally taxing four thousand articles of import 
 and a few luxuries raised and manufactured at home, 
 as whiskey and tobacco, did not really tax anybody 
 in a perceptible or burdensome manner. Yet an 
 other argued that any known evil now existing was 
 of minor importance compared to such as might be 
 created by tinkering the tariff. There were those 
 who wanted free trade or nothing. There were 
 quite a number who did not at all know what they 
 wanted, and up to that hour there had been no 
 leader capable of rallying and cementing a majority 
 for a bold and determined forward movement. Pre 
 cisely the required leader upon one side had now 
 come, having a ready-made majority, and he had 
 spoken, and it might be of less or more importance 
 that in concentrating his own forces he also indi 
 cated to the Opposition its own inevitable rallying 
 point. His attempt to discuss the questions of the 
 tariff and the revenue without relation to those of 
 protection and free trade was, of course, a failure. If 
 he indeed succeeded in separating them in his own 
 mind, he could not separate them in the minds of 
 
250 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 other men. In paragraph after paragraph he en 
 ergetically fought over the old fight which has been 
 from the beginning. He said, for instance : 
 
 " But our present tariff laws, the vicious, inequitable, and illogi 
 cal source of unnecessary taxation, ought to be at once revised and 
 amended. These laws, as their primary and plain effect, raise the 
 price to consumers of all articles imported and subject to duty, by 
 precisely the sum paid for such duties. Thus the amount of the 
 duty measures the tax paid by those who purchase for use these 
 imported articles. Many of these things, however, are raised or 
 manufactured in our own country, and the duties now levied upon 
 foreign goods and products are called protection to these home 
 manufactures, because they render it possible for those of our peo 
 ple who are manufacturers, to make these taxed articles and sell 
 them for a price equal to that demanded for the imported goods 
 that have paid customs duty. So it happens that while compara 
 tively a few use the imported articles, millions of our people, who 
 never use and never saw any of the foreign products, purchase and 
 use things of the same kind made in this country, and pay therefor 
 nearly or quite the same enhanced price which the duty adds to 
 the imported articles. Those who buy imports pay the duty 
 charged thereon into the public treasury, but the great majority of 
 our citizens, who buy domestic articles of the same class, pay a 
 sum at least approximately equal to this duty to the home manu 
 facturer. This reference to the operation of our tariff laws is not 
 made by way of instruction, but in order that we may be con 
 stantly reminded of the manner in which they impose a burden 
 upon those who consume domestic products as well as those who 
 consume imported articles, and thus create a tax upon all our 
 people." 
 
 After a further and more detailed discussion of 
 the general subject, he added : 
 
 " Our progress toward a wise conclusion will not be improved 
 by dwelling upon the theories of protection and free trade. This 
 savors too much of bandying epithets. It is a condition which 
 confronts us not a theory. Relief from this condition may in 
 volve a slight reduction of the advantages which we award our 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 251 
 
 home productions, but the entire withdrawal of such advantages 
 should not be contemplated. The question of free trade is abso 
 lutely irrelevant ; and the persistent claim made in certain quar 
 ters that all efforts to relieve the people from unjust and unneces 
 sary taxation are schemes of so-called free traders, is mischievous 
 and far removed from any consideration for the public good." 
 
 Almost in conclusion, rather than at the begin 
 ning of the Message, the absence of any presenta 
 tion of other national affairs was referred to : 
 
 " The Constitution provides that the President shall, from time 
 to time, give to the Congress information of the state of the 
 Union. It has been the custom of the Executive, in compliance 
 with this provision, to annually exhibit to the Congress, at the 
 opening of its session, the general condition of the country, and to 
 detail, with some particularity, the operations of the different ex 
 ecutive departments. It would be especially agreeable to follow 
 this course at the present time, and to call attention to the valu 
 able accomplishments of these departments during the last fiscal 
 year. But I am so much impressed with the paramount impor 
 tance of the subject to which this communication has thus far been 
 devoted, that I shall forego the addition of any other topic, and 
 only urge upon your immediate consideration the state of the 
 Union as shown in the present condition of our treasury and our 
 general fiscal situation, upon which every element of our safety 
 and prosperity depends. 
 
 The Message created a profound sensation in 
 Congress, and was read with interest throughout the 
 country. Republican journalists pulled it in pieces, 
 divided it, and were even honestly gratified that it 
 had been written and sent precisely in that manner. 
 Not at first was it so plain as it soon grew to be that 
 President Cleveland had " forced the fighting." 
 Men might disagree with him as to the nature and 
 extent of the evil, and they might altogether dissent 
 from his ideas of a possible remedy, but there the 
 
252 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 disagreement in a manner ended, for all men of all 
 parties were compelled to perceive that something 
 practical must be done. Just behind that percep 
 tion loomed up another, that the President asked 
 the country whether or not it would trust the 
 Democratic Party, led by him, as a potential Com 
 mittee of Ways and Means in the matter of all 
 financial remedies and their application. 
 
 The Democratic majority in the House of Repre 
 sentatives at once accepted the situation, and moved 
 into line under the direction of its leader. The 
 President s Message was duly referred to the Com 
 mittee of Ways and Means, and, during the four 
 months following, a bill was constructed in accord 
 ance with his recommendations. The Mills Bill, 
 taking its name from the chairman of the commit 
 tee, "A bill to reduce taxation and simplify the 
 laws in relation to the collection of the revenue," 
 was but the declared policy of the President, care 
 fully elaborated in the form of practical legislation. 
 Behind it the Democratic Party became a unit, and 
 against it the Republican Opposition arrayed itself 
 with a distinctness which was well expressed in the 
 language of the report presented by the minority of 
 the Committee of Ways and Means at the same time 
 with the report of the majority and the bill itself, as 
 follows : 
 
 " The bill is a radical reversal of the tariff policy of the country 
 which for the most part has prevailed since the foundation of the 
 Government, and under which we have made industrial and agri 
 cultural progress without a parallel in the world s history. If 
 enacted into law it will disturb every branch of business, retard 
 manufacturing and agricultural prosperity, and seriously impair 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 253 
 
 our industrial independence. It undertakes to revise our entire 
 revenue system ; substantially all of the tariff schedules are af 
 fected ; both classification and rates are changed. Specific duties 
 are in many cases changed to ad valorem, which all experience 
 has shown is productive of frauds and undervaluations. It does not 
 correct the irregularities of the present tariff, it only aggravates 
 them. It introduces uncertainties in interpretation, which will 
 embarrass its administration, promote contention and litigation, 
 and give to the customs officers a latitude of construction which 
 will produce endless controversy and confusion. It is marked 
 with a sectionalism which every patriotic citizen must deplore." 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 An Undisputed Leadership The Democratic National 
 Convention Grover Cleveland Renominated for 
 President by Acclamation Allen G. Thurman for 
 Vice- President The National Republican Conven 
 tion Harrison and Morton. 
 
 THERE had been changes in the Cabinet of Presi 
 dent Cleveland, in the Senate, and in the House of 
 Representatives. Able men of his party were rising 
 to prominence and almost to fame, and there were 
 yet remaining many of the old leaders whose names 
 were part of the political history of the country. 
 Nevertheless there was hardly a voice of dissent to 
 the continually reiterated assertion, made by jour 
 nals of every shade of party affiliation, that his nom 
 ination for a second term was inevitable. There had 
 been no change which removed the political neces 
 sity so pointedly presented to the Chicago Demo 
 cratic National Convention of 1884, while his every 
 public act since taking the oath of office had added 
 to the solid strength of his individual position. Not 
 since the day of Andrew Jackson s second nomina 
 tion had one American citizen so completely em 
 bodied and represented his party. It was a matter 
 of course that upon him should be concentrated 
 every possible criticism and assault of the Opposition. 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 255 
 
 The Mills Tariff Bill, reported in April, was but 
 an explanatory preface of the platform to be adopted 
 by the National Democratic Convention, and this 
 had been summoned to meet in St. Louis on June 
 5th, 1888. 
 
 The intervening weeks passed rapidly, and the 
 delegates came together according to the summons, 
 but only as a species of grand, national ratification 
 meeting. Every State and Territory was represent 
 ed, and it was not altogether an easy task to bring 
 so enthusiastic an assemblage to order for the formal 
 transaction of its business. All preliminaries were 
 completed by half past ten o clock of June 6th. 
 After that there were speeches made, resolutions 
 offered, motions by the do^en and amendments by 
 the score, but all these were of small importance. 
 The real business of the day, the usual call of States 
 breaking down after the voice of New York had 
 been conceded the first utterance and had been heard 
 consisted of the nomination of Grover Cleveland, 
 by acclamation. There was no useless and tiresome 
 balloting, for there was no possible competition. It 
 was as if the convention of 1884, after an adjourn 
 ment of four years, had reassembled to congratulate 
 itself upon the wisdom and success of the action 
 which it then had taken. Something to that effect 
 was expressed in the first paragraph of the platform, 
 which also contained a full adoption of the Presi 
 dent s Message to the Fiftieth Congress and of the 
 Mills Tariff Bill. It read : 
 
 " The Democratic Party of the United States, in national con 
 vention assembled, renews the pledge of its fidelity to Democratic 
 
256 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 faith, and reaffirms the platform adopted by its representatives in 
 the convention of 1884, and endorses the views expressed by Presi 
 dent Cleveland in his last Annual Message to Congress as the cor 
 rect interpretation of that platform upon the question of tariff re 
 duction, and also endorses the effort of our Democratic representa 
 tives in Congress to secure a reduction of excessive taxation." 
 
 The third section of the platform was as follows : 
 
 " The Democratic Party welcomes an exacting scrutiny of the 
 administration of the executive power which four years ago was 
 committed to its trust in the election of Grover Cleveland for 
 President of the United States, and it challenges the most search 
 ing inquiry concerning its fidelity and devotion to the pledges 
 which then invited the suffrages of the people. During a most 
 critical period of our financial affairs, resulting from overtaxation, 
 the anomalous condition of our currency and a public debt unma- 
 tured, it has, by the adoption of a wise and conservative course, 
 not only averted a disaster, but greatly promoted the prosperity of 
 the people." 
 
 Whatever else was added in assertion of legislative 
 attainments or in criticisms of the past and present 
 course of the Republican Party, these two " planks" 
 and the nomination itself constituted the platform 
 upon which the party was prepared to go before the 
 people. Its political history prior to 1884 was well 
 represented by the nomination of the veteran states 
 man, Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio, for Vice- President. 
 
 The convention adjourned, having fully and sat 
 isfactorily accomplished its duty, but it had not 
 placed any new or unexpected problem before the 
 keen eyes of its watchful antagonist. Every Re 
 publican in the land had been prepared for precisely 
 this result, and most of the editorial comments had 
 been carefully written out beforehand. The cam 
 paign had been going on for a long time, hardly 
 
G ROVER CLEVELAND. 257 
 
 lacking the element of party platforms and opposing 
 candidates. In fact, so far as current discussion 
 went, that had been sufficiently supplied. The issue 
 in 1888 was so manifestly the same as in 1884, now 
 more clearly presented and personified, that the sit 
 uation at last created seemed to demand, for its per 
 fection, the renomination of Mr. Elaine. Even after 
 that gentleman had very positively declared his 
 aversion to becoming again a candidate, there were 
 indications of a combative disposition to name him 
 also by acclamation. He was travelling in Europe, 
 however, and every word which came from him as 
 sured his party that it must choose some other leader. 
 The Republican National Convention had been sum 
 moned to meet at Chicago on June iQth, 1888, as 
 if this also were an adjourned gathering of the dele 
 gates of 1884. To a remarkably large number it did 
 consist of the same men, as resolute as ever, and 
 prepared to deal thoughtfully and coolly with the 
 problem which Grover Cleveland had put before 
 them. Indeed, the air of deliberation which pre 
 vailed when the convention met and organized for 
 business was in marked contrast with the stormy 
 enthusiasm which had prevailed at St. Louis. The 
 platform adopted was in full accord with the Re 
 publican platform of 1884, and with the report of 
 the minority of the Committee of Ways and Means 
 against the Mills Tariff Bill. It discredited every 
 Democratic claim to executive or legislative reform 
 or advancement, and it took an entirely opposition 
 view of President Cleveland s administration. 
 
 The platform having been adopted, the conven- 
 
258 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 tion proceeded to ballot for a candidate, and here 
 again there was the same spirit of thoughtful inquiry. 
 There were rivalries between old party leaders, as 
 usual, but there was a noteworthy absence of discord 
 on the eve of such a struggle as was evidently be 
 fore them. Ballot after ballot was taken without 
 reaching a result, and on Saturday, June 23d, the 
 convention adjourned until Monday, to give its 
 members an opportunity to goto meeting and think 
 the matter over. On Monday they met again, and 
 nominated General Benjamin Harrison, of Indiana, 
 for President, and Levi P. Morton, of New York, 
 for Vice-President. 
 
 One curious uncertainty as yet seemed to hover 
 over the political battlefield. When, on June 6th, 
 Private Secretary Lamont carried to President Cleve 
 land the telegram announcing the result at St. Louis, 
 it is said that he found him in his library, examining 
 some text-books designed for use in the schools for 
 little Indians, upon the Western reservations. The 
 President turned for a moment from his collection 
 of school literature, glanced at the telegram, nodded, 
 turned back again, and made no sign. He had not 
 heard any news truly, and twenty days more went 
 by without any other American hearing what he pro 
 posed doing with reference to the nomination. All 
 the while his own friends and most of his enemies 
 took his acceptance for granted, the latter adding, in 
 print, italicized quotations of all his public declara 
 tions concerning the advisability of limiting United 
 States Presidents each to a single term in office. 
 The Republicans, therefore, had nominated Harri- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 259 
 
 son and Morton without feeling sure that, after all, 
 the Democratic ticket would be Cleveland and Thur- 
 man. They were not longer kept in suspense, for it 
 was almost as if the party in power had waited for 
 their action before putting the finishing touch upon 
 its own. At two o clock in the afternoon of June 
 26th, the day following the adjournment of the Na 
 tional Republican Convention, the committee ap 
 pointed by the National Democratic Convention ar 
 rived at the Executive Mansion to present to Pres 
 ident Cleveland the formal announcement of his 
 renomination. The committee consisted of Hon. 
 Patrick Collins, of Massachusetts, and delegates from 
 thirty-four States and eight Territories. They were 
 received in the spacious East Room, and were ac 
 companied by a number of gentlemen of distinction 
 and representatives of the press. The President was 
 attended by the members of his Cabinet and by per 
 sonal friends. He seemed in excellent health and 
 spirits, but wore the air of guarded reserve which 
 had latterly been more and more noticed by all who 
 approached him. 
 
 The Chairman of the Committee discharged, as 
 follows, the duty assigned to him : 
 
 "SiR: The delegates to the National Democratic Convention, 
 representing every State and Territory of our Union, having as 
 sembled in the city of St. Louis on June 5th, for the purpose of 
 nominating candidates for the offices of President and Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the United States, it has become the honorable and pleas 
 ing duty of this committee to formally announce to you that with 
 out a ballot you were by acclamation chosen as the standard bearer 
 of the Democratic Party for the Chief Executiveship of this coun 
 try at the election to be held in November next. 
 
260 G ROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 " Great as is such a distinction under any circumstances, it is 
 the more flattering and profound when it is remembered that you 
 have been selected as your own successor to an office the duties of 
 which, always onerous, have been rendered of an extraordinarily 
 sensitive, difficult, and delicate nature, because of a change of 
 political parties and methods after twenty-four years of uninter 
 rupted domination. This exaltation is, if possible, added to by 
 the fact that the declaration of principles based upon your last 
 Annual Message to the Congress of the United States, relative to a 
 tariff reduction and a diminution of the expenses of the Government 
 throws down the direct and defiant challenge for an exacting 
 scrutiny of the administration of the executive power, which four 
 years ago was committed in its trust to the election of Grover 
 Cleveland, President of the United States, and for the most search 
 ing inquiry concerning its fidelity and devotion to the pledges which 
 then invited the suffrages of the people. 
 
 " An engrossed copy of that platform, adopted without a dis 
 senting voice, is herewith tendered to you. 
 
 " In conveying, sir, to you the responsible trust which has been 
 confided to them, this committee beg, individually and collectively, 
 to express the great pleasure which they have felt at the results 
 attending the National Convention of the Democratic Party, and to 
 offer to you their best wishes for official and personal success and 
 happiness." 
 
 Mr. Thomas S. Pettit, one of the secretaries of 
 the convention, stepped forward and delivered the 
 engrossed copy of the platform, and President Cleve 
 land very deliberately and emphatically responded : 
 
 " I cannot but be profoundly impressed when I see about me the 
 messengers of the National Democracy, bearing its summons to 
 duty. The political party to which I owe allegiance both honors 
 and commands me. It places in my hand its proud standard, and 
 bids me bear it high at the front, in a battle which it wages, 
 bravely, because conscious of right, confidently, because its trust 
 is in the people, and soberly, because it comprehends the obliga 
 tions which success imposes. 
 
 " The message which you bring awakens within me the liveliest 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 261 
 
 sense of personal gratitude and satisfaction, and the honor which 
 you tender me is in itself so great that there might well be no room 
 for any other sentiment. And yet I cannot rid myself of grave 
 and serious thoughts when I remember that party supremacy is 
 not alone involved in the conflict which presses upon us, but that 
 we struggle to secure and save the cherished institutions, the wel 
 fare and happiness of a nation of freemen. 
 
 " Familiarity with the great office which I hold has but added 
 to my apprehension of its sacred character and the consecration 
 demanded of him who assumes its immense responsibilities. It is 
 the repository of the people s will and power. Within its vision 
 should be the protection and welfare of the humblest citizen, and 
 with quick ear it should catch from the remotest corner of the land 
 the plea of the people for justice and for right. For the sake of 
 the people, he who holds this office of theirs should resist every 
 encroachment upon its legitimate functions, and for the sake of 
 the integrity and usefulness of the office, it should be kept near to 
 the people and be administered in full sympathy with their wants 
 and needs. 
 
 " This occasion reminds me most vividly of the scene when, 
 four years ago, I received a message from my party similar to that 
 which you now deliver. With all that has passed since that day, I 
 can truly say that the feeling of awe with which I heard the sum 
 mons then is intensified many fold when it is repeated now. 
 
 41 Four years ago I knew that our Chief Executive office, if not 
 carefully guarded, might drift little by little away from the people 
 to whom it belonged, and become a perversion of all it ought to 
 be ; but I did not know how much its moorings had already been 
 loosened. I knew four years ago how well devised were the prin 
 ciples of true Democracy for the successful operation of a govern 
 ment by the people and for the people ; but I did not know how 
 absolutely necessary their application then was for the restoration 
 to the people of their safety and prosperity. I knew then that 
 abuses and extravagances had crept into the management of public 
 affairs ; but I did not know their numerous forms, nor the tenacity 
 of their grasp. I knew then something of the bitterness of partisan 
 obstruction ; but I did not know how bitter, how reckless, and 
 how shameless it could be. I knew, too, that the American peo 
 ple were patriotic and just, but I did not know how grandly they 
 loved their country, nor how noble and generous they were. 
 
262 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 11 I shall not dwell upon the acts and the policy of the Adminis 
 tration now drawing to its close. Its record is open to every cit 
 izen of the land. And yet I will not be denied the privilege of as 
 serting at this time that in the exercise of the functions of the high 
 trust confided to me, I have yielded obedience only to the Consti 
 tution and the solemn obligation of my oath of office. I have done 
 those things which, in the light of the understanding God has given 
 me, seemed most conducive to the welfare of my countrymen and 
 the promotion of good government. I would not if I could, for 
 myself nor for you, avoid a single consequence of a fair interpre 
 tation of my course. 
 
 " It but remains for me to say to you, and through you to the 
 Democracy of the nation, that I accept the nomination with which 
 they have honored me, and that I will in due time signify such 
 acceptance in the usual formal manner." 
 
 The political business in their hands being com 
 pleted, the members of the committee were invited 
 into the Blue Room, to be received by Mrs. Cleve 
 land, Mrs. Lament, Mrs. Hoyt, the President s sis 
 ter, Mrs. William Cleveland, his brother s wife, Mrs. 
 Endicott, and other ladies. 
 
 When the similar committee of the National Dem 
 ocratic Convention of 1884 announced to Governor 
 Cleveland, in the Executive Mansion at Albany, his 
 first nomination to the Presidency, his oral response 
 had been regarded as incomplete. The country 
 waited with more than a little curiosity for the full 
 text of his formal letter of acceptance, imagining 
 that it might contain fresh matter of importance. 
 It was hardly so in 1888. When the thoughtfully 
 measured sentences of his reply to the address of 
 Chairman Collins were printed in the journals of 
 both parties, and read by all Americans who knew 
 how to read, there was an universal feeling that lit- 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 263 
 
 tie or nothing could be added. The parties and 
 their nominations and their record were before the 
 nation for judgment, with a thoroughness of presen 
 tation, on either side, which h ad never been surpassed 
 in the political history of the United States. 
 
THE LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 
 
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 UNITED STATES. 
 
 A new series of importance, which -will be completed in about ten 
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 BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD, 
 
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