CHAPTER XXI.

PRESIDENT GROVER CLEVELAND (Continued).

AFFAIRS had reached such a pitch in the United States that the best men of the country of all parties felt that it was time for a change. The Republican party had grown incurably corrupt and the nation feared that, if Mr. James Blaine, the choice of the party, were elected to the Executive the corruption instead of lessening would only be increased. There was no more active partisan in the country, and his aim had ever been to hold power by the ordinary political and unscrupulous methods. When the Democratic National Convention met in Chicago, it was soon evident that Grover Cleveland would be the choice of the party. He had won the esteem of many of the best minds of the Republican party and with their strength added to the ordinary Democratic vote it was thought that he would be able to carry the country. As a consequence he received 683 votes on the second ballot, and his nomination was then made unanimous.

His letter of acceptance was characteristic of the man. In it he divests himself almost entirely of party bias and stands for truth and good government.

"The party and its representatives," he said, which ask to be entrusted at the hands of the

people with the keeping of all that concerns their welfare and safety should only ask it with the full appreciation of the sacredness 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 because I believe, if rightly and fairly administered and applied, democratic doctrines and measures will insure the happiness, contentment, and prosperity of the people.

"If, in the 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 honest administration of national affairs. No higher purpose or motive can stimulate us to supreme effort or urge us to continuous and earnest labour and effective party organisation. Let us not fail in this, and we may confidently hope to reap a full reward of patriotic services well performed."

There were four candidates in the field, Mr. James G. Blaine of Maine, Republican; Mr. Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts, Labour and Greenback candidate; John P. St. John of Kansas, Prohibition candidate; and Grover Cleveland, Democrat. The fight, however, was between Governor Cleveland and

Mr. Blaine. On the part of the Republicans it was waged with a good deal of bitterness; they saw the strength of the man opposed to them and they endeavoured by every means, fair and foul, to defeat him. They did not hesitate to use the strained feeling still existing between the North and the South to help them defeat their opponents. The Democrats were the friends of the South; to give the government into their hands would be to place the men who tried to tear the Union asunder in power. Mr. Blaine was of all Republicans the most ungenerous to the Democrats. However, their campaign had but little force; such men as Henry Ward Beecher and George William Curtis, and such papers as Harper's Weekly, The Times and The Post stood by the man who had done so much for the State of New York.

Harper's Weekly well voiced the feeling of the best men in the State when it said of the governor : His name has become that of the especial representative among our public men of the integrity, purity, and economy of administration which are the objects of the most intelligent and patriotic citizens. The bitter and furious hostility of Tammany Hall and of General Butler to Cleveland is his passport to the confidence of good men, and the general conviction that Tammany will do all it can to defeat him will be an additional incentive to the voters who cannot support Mr. Blaine, and who are unwilling not to vote at all, to secure the election of a candidate whom the political rings and the party traders instinctively hate and unitedly oppose......

"The nomination of Governor Cleveland is due not so much to the preference of his party as to the general demand of the country for a candidacy which

stands for precisely the qualities and services which are associated with his name."

As a result of this strong support the Democrats carried the country. Perhaps it is hardly just to say that it was as a result of this support, it was rather due to the methods adopted by Governor Cleveland's opponents in their canvass against him. Attacks were made on his personal character. He was denounced as an enemy of the labouring man largely on account of his action on the five cent fare bill. The cry, too, was raised, through the lack of wisdom of one Dr. Burchard, that the Democratic party was synonymous with "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." They were hoist with their own petard; the injustice of this cry gave Governor Cleveland many Republicans who very probably would have refrained altogether from voting. It was due to it very largely that New York State was carried by the Democrats, and the winning of New York State meant the winning of the country. When the vote was counted Cleveland had 4,874,986, Blaine 4,851,981, Butler 175,370, St. John 150,369, and Cleveland received. 219 electoral votes to Blaine's 182.

During the heated campaign Governor Cleveland had continued to work quietly in his office at Albany. The abuse that was heaped upon him he ignored with a dignity and reserve that gained him many friends and admirers, and after his election he continued to maintain the same reserve, refusing to let the world at large know what course he intended to pursue; although before his inauguration in March he expressed himself once more strongly in favour of civil service reform and against increased silver coinage.

In January he resigned the governorship into the

hands of Mr. D. B. Hill the deputy-governor, and on March 4 the inaugural celebrations took place. There was great rejoicing in the South over the return of the Democrats to power. It was, indeed, a triumph for the solid South, and thousands who had kept away from the Capital since the war now visited it to take part in the inaugural parade, in which, it is said, there were over 100,000 people.

It had long been the custom of the presidents to deliver a written address, but Grover Cleveland decided to be an exception to the rule. He was an orator of considerable power and thought that his words would have greater force if spoken to the assembled multitude. As in his previous utterances he aimed at laying before his country noble ideals; truth, justice, economy, were the burden of his speech on this occasion.

"In the discharge of my official duty," he said, "I shall endeavour 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 States or to 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......

"It is the duty of those serving the people in public place to closely limit public expenditures to the actual needs of the government, economically administered, because this bounds the right of the government to exact tribute from the earnings of labour 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 economy which are best suited