Grover Cleveland

“ For Grover Cleveland there were no longer enemies to traduce and vilify. Perhaps no President had ever been so reviled by a hostile press throughout the country as this great man, and, strong as he was, these attacks quite naturally pained him. Public appreciation of men who struggle against the tide for righteous things is often deferred, sometimes until after death. ”

“ The people have entrusted Grover Cleveland with the executive power of the nation. At his hands they will expect the righting of those wrongs which these petty tyrants, sham aristocrats, believers in social distinction and “caste,” have inflicted upon the people. They have chosen representatives in Congress who control both branches of the legislature, through whom the people shall express their will and pleasure; and the people will expect of Grover Cleveland, as they did of Abraham Lincoln, Jackson, and Jefferson, the execution of their wishes. ”

“ The election of Grover Cleveland to the Presidency in 1892 was one of the most extraordinary events in our political history. During his first Administration he had estranged many of the leading politicians of his party. He had gone far enough in the line of civil service reform to alarm and disgust the believers in the doctrine that “to the victors belong the spoils”; and a large majority of the Democratic leaders and workers held to that belief. ”

“ A few weeks ago, the presiding officer of the United States Senate told his distinguished audience that no man was so mean or so obscure that he might not be President of the United States, now that Grover Cleveland held that place. Mr. Grover Cleveland was a lawyer in one of our smaller cities. He became, successively, Sheriff and Mayor of his town, Governor of his state, and President of the United States. In every office he has done his duty ‘in the old way of taking pains.’ He has had no hand in the corruption of political life; he has never been the pensioner of corporate monopolies. ”

“ It is really pitiful to contemplate the agony of Princeton; but the average tax-payer is likely to conclude that one Grover Cleveland is quite enough in any country. It is to be hoped that the son will not resemble the sire—that he will not have the beefy mug of the booze-sodden old beast who disgraced the presidency by playing that high office for his personal profit. Let it never be forgotten that G. Cleveland was the only man to enter the presidency a pauper and leave it a plutocrat. And he managed to do this at a time when millions of better men were going hungry to bed. ”

“ Such experience spread among the people a despairing feeling that American politics were hopelessly depraved, and at the same time it gave them a deep yearning for some strong deliverer. To this messianic hope of politics may be ascribed what is in some respects the most remarkable career in the political history of the United States. The rapid and fortuitous rise of Grover Cleveland to political eminence is without a parallel in the records of American statesmanship, notwithstanding many instances of public distinction attained from humble beginnings. ”

“ The Democrats, with considerable hesitation and ambiguity, pronounced against it, arraigned the Republican party for corruption, and named as their nominee Grover Cleveland, of New York.
Cleveland was born in New Jersey in 1837, the son of a clergyman whose early death threw him upon his own resources. He started west in search of employment, stopped at Buffalo, and afterwards made it his home. He studied law while working as a clerk and copyist, was admitted to the bar in 1859, and in the late seventies was elected mayor of Buffalo on a reform ticket. ”

“ And gran’daddy replied:
“So it is, Grover Cleveland, so it is.”
For two or three days the lives of our heroes ran along in the usual quiet channels, and then one morning Colonel Ledbetter drove up in front of Captain Sumter’s broken-spirited-looking dwelling-place. On the seat beside him was a “city-dressed fellow” and Grover Cleveland swung his legs over the pendant tail board.
[Pg 130]
In response to a call old man Sumter appeared.
“This yer man” (the mountaineer is apt to be off-hand in his introductions) , “is the owner of that veneerin’ mill in Kentucky. ”

“ I would rather at any time talk of love's encounters than of war's alarums —rather bask in the smiles of beauty than mount barbed steeds to fright the souls of fearful adversaries. I have ever had a sneaking respect for Grover Cleveland for sending a substitute to remonstrate with the Southern Confederacy while he played progressive euchre with the pretty girls. His patriotism may not have soared above par, but there were no picnic ants on his judgment. Much as I love my country, I would rather be a living president than a dead hero. ”

“ It was a settled tradition with such republican aristocrats that a son destined for a learned profession—usually the ministry—should be sent to college, and for that purpose heroic economies were practiced in the family. The opportunities which wealth can confer are really trivial in comparison with the advantage of being born and reared in such bracing conditions as those which surrounded Grover Cleveland. ”

“ Grover Cleveland never sought an office in all his life. He has consented to serve his fellow-citizens in public station only at their solicitation and command. He has served them faithfully and well so far as he has been called, and none need fear that, if called to still higher responsibilities and a broader field of duty, he will not prove equal to the emergency—equally true to himself and his trust.
Grover Cleveland is a man "cast in nature's noblest mould." ”

“ Miss Cleveland is a lawyer and political speaker, and has published a volume of lectures and essays under the title “George Eliot's Poetry, and other Studies” (New York, 1885) ; “The Long Run,” a novel (1886) ; “See Saw” (1887) ; and “His Honor” (1889) .
↑ Except Grover Cleveland, no president has been re-elected unless he was a military man, or held a chief executive office during a war period. Washington was a soldier of the Revolution; Jefferson, governor of Virginia during that war; Madison, president during the second war with Great Britain; Monroe, a revolutionary officer ”

“ And now, Grover Cleveland stands before the people of the whole country the duly nominated candidate of the Democratic party for the highest office in the gift of the Republic; while his candidacy is indorsed and enthusiastically supported by tens of thousands of pure and unselfish men of the opposite party, who see, through his election, the only hope of a return to constitutional methods and honest practices in the administration of the Federal Government, without which ere long the complete and irremediable subversion and destruction of the government itself will be accomplished. ”

“ Cleveland could be elected. I still think he owed his election, and Harrison his defeat, to the Homestead riots of the midsummer, which transferred the labor vote bodily from the Republicans to the Democrats. Mainly on account of this belief I opposed his nomination that year.
In the Kentucky State Convention I made my opposition resonant, if not effective. “I understand,” I said in an address to the assembled delegates, “that you are all for Grover Cleveland?” ”

“ President Arthur being a widower, the hostess of the White House during his term was his accomplished sister, Mrs. Mary Arthur McElroy.
Grover Cleveland, of New York, became President in 1885. The Republican party had been in power for twenty-five years, and when Mr. Cleveland was elected the change of officers was as great as in the days of Andrew Jackson. Cleveland was a man of the highest integrity and the most unfaltering courage, so that the change proved beneficial to the entire land. ”

“ Grover Cleveland has never been blindly subservient to party machinery, but has rather been predisposed against political manipulation. His nomination for governor in 1882 was brought about by a group of young men, many of whom were lieutenants of Samuel J. Tilden, impressed with his belief that Democratic national success could be obtained only by advocacy of the policy of rigid economy in public expenditures and low taxation. Mayor Cleveland's brief record made him the most conspicuous practical exponent in the state at the time of that policy. ”

“ The democratic national convention met at Chicago, July 8, 1884. Three days were devoted to organization, platform, and speeches in favor of candidates. In the evening of July 10 a vote was taken, in which, out of 820 votes, Grover Cleveland received 392. A two-thirds vote (557) was necessary to a nomination. On the following morning, in the first ballot, Cleveland received 683 votes, and, on motion of Thomas A. Hendricks (subsequently nominated for the vice-presidency) , the vote was made unanimous. ”

“ The time will come when other distinguished Democrats who have been mentioned in connection with this nomination will receive that consideration to which the great services they have rendered their party entitle them, but we stand to-day in the presence of the fact that the majority of the Democratic masses throughout the country, the rank and file, the millions of its voters, demand the nomination of Grover Cleveland. ”

“ The resources of the one little store at the village were meagre but the genius of the decorators was not versatile. Gran’daddy chivalrously intended for the old women to have [Pg 26] the best and in his eyes a new frock was a princely gift. As for the old men, what so appropriate and acceptable as a paper of plug tobacco. At this stage his ingenuity was exhausted and his grandson did the rest.
If there was anything that Grover Cleveland liked better than candy, it was more candy, and though he was unlearned in the letter of the Golden Rule its spirit was inherent in his nature. ”

“ Again, in 1884, he was a candidate for the Presidential nomination, and this time was successful, although the bitterness of opposition within the party was such that in some States, notably in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, large numbers of independent Republicans voted in the ensuing election for the Democratic nominee, Grover Cleveland, whose record as Governor of New York made it possible for him, by a small plurality, to carry that pivotal State and so secure the election, after a campaign remarkable for personal abuse and bitterness. ”

“ The canvass that followed was more remarkable for the discussion of the personal characters and qualifications of the candidates than for the prominent presentation of political issues. In the election (November 4) four candidates were in the field, viz.: Grover Cleveland, of New York, democratic; James G. Blaine, of Maine, republican; Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, labor and greenback; John P. St. John, of Kansas, prohibition. The total popular vote was 10,067,610, divided as follows: Cleveland, 4,874,986 ”

“ I am decidedly of the opinion that if a public building is to be located at Sioux City it had better be delayed until a better judgment can be formed of its future necessity and proper size.
I see some of the parties interested have such confidence in the growth and coming needs of the place that in their opinion the work ought not to be entered upon with a less appropriation than $500,000.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, September 1, 1888. ”

“ California has been opposed to Cleveland on every one of his great proposals (civil service reform, silver question, tariff reform) , and yet the Republicans must nominate a very strong man to get this State this year. The people admire old Grover's strength so much, he is a positive man and an honest man, and when the people see these two exceptional virtues mixed happily in a candidate they grow to love and admire him out of the very idealism of their natures. ”

“ The popular vote for Cleveland numbered 5,540,329, that for Harrison 5,439,853.
At the close of his administration, on March 4, 1889, Mr. Cleveland retired to New York city, where he re-entered upon the practice of his profession. As a private citizen he continued to exert a powerful influence upon his party and public sentiment by frequent expression of his opinions on important public questions. These expressions were always based upon an implicit belief that the integrity and justice of the people would not tolerate demagogism, but demanded of any leader the truth fearlessly spoken. ”

“ D. S. Alexander, "History and Procedure of the House of Representatives" (1916) ; C. R. Atkinson, "The Committee on Rules and the Overthrow of Speaker" Cannon (1911) . The debate of 1885-86 on revision of the rules is contained in the "Congressional Record," 49th Congress, 1st session, vol. 17, part I, pp. 39, 71, 87, 102 129, 182, 9,16, 216, 239, 304.
Of special importance from the light they throw upon the springs of action are the following works: Grover Cleveland, "Presidential Problems" (1904) ; F. E. Goodrich, "The Life and Public Services of Grover Cleveland" (1884) ”

“ In the following year (1888) , however, the Democrats renominated Cleveland, and the Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison of Indiana. The campaign turned on the tariff issue, and Harrison was elected, receiving 233 electoral votes to 168 for Cleveland, who however received a popular plurality of more than 100,000. Cleveland retired to private life and resumed the practice of the law in New York. He had married on the 2nd of June 1886 Miss Frances Folsom, a daughter of a former law partner in Buffalo. ”