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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
RENOMINATION 
 
 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
The Case of Cleveland 
 
 CONSIDERED IN TWO LETTERS, BEARING DATE MAY 26, 1888, 
 AND MAY 26, 1892. 
 
 Originally Published in the ''New York Sun.'' 
 
 -BY- 
 
 JosEPH O'Connor, Of Rochester, N. Y. 
 
 UVi . 
 
 >iJi2LSHiNCTON.o:5>"' i/'M 
 
 ROCHESTER, N. V.: 
 
 POST-EXI'RESS PkINTING ChmFANY, 101 AND 103 East Main Street. 
 i8q2. 
 
ETqos 
 
 .0\5 
 
 Coi'VRKIHTEl) 1892 
 KV 
 
 Joseph O'Connor. 
 
Cb 
 
 
 
 ARGUMENT AGAINST A SECOND NOMINATION. 
 
 LETTER DATED MAY 26, 1888. 
 
 As the reader commonly likes to learn the 
 standpoint of an unknown writer, it maj- be 
 well to say, at the outset of this argument 
 against the renomination of Mr. Cleveland, 
 that I supported him for mayor of Bul¥alo 
 in 1881, for governor of New York in 1882, 
 and for president in 1881; that although the 
 the enthusiasm with which I regarded him 
 six years ago has cooled rapidly, I still look 
 upon his success in the past as a good thing 
 for the country, on the whole, as a political 
 change was needed ; that there is no other 
 man in whose rival fortunes I take the 
 slightest interest ; that I am not a politician 
 myself ; and that I have never asked a favor 
 at the president's hands, nor expected any 
 favor without the asking, so that his alleged 
 lack of gratitude is not to me, as to some 
 others, a personal grievance. 
 
 Nor do I oppose Mr. Cleveland's renomina- 
 tion on the theory that a president should 
 not be eligible to re-election. To be sure 
 the framers of the constitution, in failing to 
 provide against the re-election of a president, 
 left open a breach through which ruin might 
 have come upon the republic ; but in accept- 
 ing a second term and refusing a third term 
 George Washington established a tradition 
 which is better than the text of the constitu- 
 tion as it stands, and better than any amend- 
 ment declaring a president ineligible to re- 
 election. The people may now elect a sec- 
 ond time a great president whom they wish 
 to honor further or whose guidance they re- 
 Ciuire through a serious crisis ; they may per- 
 mit a commonplace or unworthy president 
 to retire to private life after four years, and 
 they must in loyalty to the Father of his 
 Country refuse to choose any man for a third 
 term. 
 
 THE USE OF A SECOND TERM. 
 
 It is often asserted that a president eligi - 
 ble to re-election will be temi^ted to pander 
 to vulgar prejudices for the sake of populari- 
 ty and employ the patronage of his office to 
 control the action of his party and secure re- 
 nomination and re-election. But only mean 
 men and shortsighted ijoliticiaus are apt to 
 fall into this error. To high-minded men 
 and wise politicians, the hope of a second 
 term becomes a powerful motive to act in 
 such a way as to deserve it. And up to this 
 point in our history, the people have rarely 
 failed to discriminate between those who 
 fairly earned a re-election and those who 
 merely inti-igued for it. The simple facts 
 are enough to show how admirably the 
 present system has worked. The presi- 
 dents chosen for a second term 
 were George Washington, Thomas 
 Jefferson, , James Madison, James 
 
 Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, 
 and Ulysses S. Grant: and the mere re- 
 hearsal of these names is enough to overturn 
 the theory that unworthy men may compass 
 their own re-election and worthy men fail to 
 win it. The people have often made a mis- 
 take in choosing a man for one term, but 
 they have seldom n^ade a mistake in choosing 
 a man for two terms: and it is because I be- 
 lieve so thoroughly in the eligibility of a 
 Ijresident for a second term as a means 
 of rewarding exceptional gi'eatnes.s, 
 that I think Mr. Cleveland ought 
 not to be renominated or re-elected. 
 He belongs in the category with Ruth- 
 erford B. Hayes, James Buchanan, Franklin 
 Pierce, Millard Fillmore, John Tjder, and 
 James K. Polk — the men who did not de- 
 serve a second term and did not get it: and 
 
4 
 
 ARGUMENT AGAINST A SECOND NOMINATION. 
 
 his re-election might go far to persuade me 
 that there is a necessity for a constitutional 
 amendment restricting the jiresident to one 
 term. It would destroy the prestige of a 
 second term altogether. 
 
 cleat:land committed agai.vst it. 
 Curiously enough, it is the opinion of Mr 
 Cleveland, although he seems to be seeking a 
 second term, that the president should not be 
 eligible to re-election; and out of this fact 
 has arisen a most obvious objection to his 
 nomination. That he should strive for a sec- 
 ond term, while holding that it should be 
 made unlawful, is not altogether inconsis- 
 tent. To be sure, George Washington, be- 
 lieving a third term to be dangerous to the 
 republic, did not require a constitutional 
 amendment to brace him against the tempta- 
 tion to accept it : but it is not fair to expect 
 a man like Cleveland to live up to the stand- 
 ard of George Washington. Unfortunately 
 for himself, however, he has so stated the 
 grounds of his opposition to the eligibility of 
 the president to re-election, that he cannot 
 seek a second term without being pronounced 
 guilty of dishonor, iinder a more common- 
 place code of ethics. 
 
 The renewal of the movement against a 
 second term, in our generation, rose out of 
 opposition to the re-election of General 
 Grant. The republicans who revolted from 
 their party in 1872 were estimable gentle- 
 men of the class that requires a high moral 
 sanction for everything it does. They were 
 not content with saying that the president 
 they opposed should not be renominated, but 
 they insisted that it was unpatriotic to re- 
 elect any president, making use of a consti- 
 tutional principle to shelter a purely per- 
 sonal and political movement. Though badly 
 beaten in 1S7'2, they had infliience 
 enough four years later to induce Mr. 
 Hayes to put into his letter of accept- 
 ance, July 6, 1876, a promise not to run 
 for the presidency a second time, if elected ; 
 an act that has been criticised as a piece of 
 contemptible self-abasement. Being in a 
 charitable mood I am willing to concede that 
 Mr. Hayes was honest, though mistaken in 
 his action, and also that Mr. Tilden was sin- 
 cere in the more judicious position which he 
 
 took in his letter of acceptance, July 31, 
 1876. He did not pledge himself to refuse a 
 renomination, but he declared the eligibility 
 of the president to re-election to be a constant 
 source of corruption, and asserted that a 
 genuine reform of the civil service would be 
 impossible until he was made ineligible. The 
 passage on the subject, in Mr. Cleveland's 
 letter, is modeled on that in Mr. Tilden "s let- 
 ter, though I am inclined to think that I rec- 
 ognize a familiar hand in both. It is as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 "When an election to office shall be the selec- 
 tion by the voters of one of their number to as- 
 sume for a time a public trust instead of his ded- 
 ication to the profession of politics ; when the 
 holders of the ballot, quickened by a sense of 
 duty, shall avenge truth betrayed 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 amend- 
 ment to the constitution disqualifying the presi- 
 dent from re-election. When we consider the pat- 
 ronage of this great office, the allurements of 
 power, the temptation to retain 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 
 danger to that calm, deliberate and intelligent 
 political action which must characterize a gov- 
 ernment by the people." 
 
 The plain meaning of all this strong lan- 
 guage is that every president, m the nature 
 of things, will do what he can to bring about 
 his own renomination and re-election, even 
 in spite of the popular will. If we suppose 
 that Mr. Cleveland acted at the dictation of 
 Mr. Tilden "s friends and the remnant of the 
 independent republicans who gathered to his. 
 support, and that he wrote against a second 
 term merely to delude the people with the 
 idea that he would be content with one tefm, 
 and would refrain from seeking, through the 
 presidential patronage, to secure a renewal 
 of power for himself or for his party, then 
 his action was that of a deceitful demagogue. 
 If he believed what he said, then he cannot. 
 
ARGUMENT AGAINST A SECOND NOMINATION. 
 
 honestly seek a secoud term. He has made 
 his condemuatiou so sweeping that he cannot 
 himself evade it. He has \>y implication cast 
 suspicion on the men of the past who have 
 aspired to a second term, and the men of the 
 future who may aspire to it, and he cannot 
 plead exemption for himself as higher and 
 holier than the rest of humanity. In 
 deliberately pursuing an end which he 
 thinks dangerous to the republic and declares 
 attainable only through corrupt means, he 
 becomes a transgressor conscious of his 
 wrong-doing. Under any interpretation, 
 the essence of siich conduct is fraud, and it 
 does not soften the ugly aspect of the case 
 that Mr. Cleveland, since his election, has 
 never called the attention of congress to the 
 necessity of a constitiitional amendment, 
 which he deemed so essential in the canvass 
 of 1SS4. 
 
 EVIL RESULT OF HIS DUPLICITY. 
 
 I am disposed to think that when Mr. 
 Cleveland wrote his letter of acceptance he 
 did not mean to run for the presidency a 
 second time; but the temptations of the 
 great office, the intrigues of politicians whose 
 fortunes depend upon his continuance in 
 power, the anxiety of the South, and, let it 
 be said with all diae respect, the natiiral 
 desire of the woman whom he has 
 married to spend a few more of the 
 years of her youth in the high social position 
 she now holds, all have united to overcome 
 hib resolution. It looks as if he had given 
 waj', knowing the meanness of weakness, 
 and as if there had been something like a 
 breaking down of his manhood, if not of his 
 moral nature, in consequence. At any rate, 
 through his duplicity in this matter, his 
 whole administrntion has become tainted 
 with falsehood. 
 
 The chief result was the failure of the 
 non partisan policy which the president pro- 
 claimed at the outset ; but it did not fail 
 until after the most desperate struggle ever 
 made by political hypocrisy to keep up ap- 
 pearances. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland, just after his nomination 
 for the governorship, in 188'2, was 
 preparing for an aggressive demo- 
 ci-atic canvass and had begun to 
 
 compose a speech upon the ras- 
 calities of the republican party, to be deliv- 
 ered in New York city, when the revolt 
 against Judge Folger, the republican candi- 
 date, assumed startling proportions. It be- 
 came clear at once that partisanship would 
 have to be put in the backgroxind ; and it 
 was accordingly thrust aside and remained 
 discredited to some extent until long after 
 the presidential election. Mr. Cleveland, as 
 governor, incurred the enmity of a strong 
 faction of his own party, and kept the 
 friendship of a strong element of the repub- 
 lican party : and when he was chosen presi- 
 dent, he had reason to believe that the hos- 
 tility of the former would have beaten him, 
 had it not been offset by the support of the 
 latter, though no doubt democratic defection 
 and republican assistance were both greatly 
 overestimated. 
 
 It was with full faith in non-partisanship as 
 the best policy, and some resentment against 
 his own party, that Mr. Cleveland gave to the 
 public his letter to George William Curtis, as 
 president of the National Ci\'il Service Re- 
 form association, dated December 25, 188-1. 
 The writing of that letter, after the election 
 had been won on the simple issue of the 
 maintenance of the civil service law, wa?* 
 something like a betrayal of the democracy, 
 whether the pledges it contained were free 
 will offerings to ReiJublican allies or the re- 
 sult of an ante-election bargain with them ; and 
 it was plain to disinterested observers that 
 the president could not make good his prom- 
 ises without giving up all hope of a renomi- 
 nation by his own party. 
 
 CIVIL SERVICE PLEDGES. 
 
 Though there are many equivocal phrases 
 in the letter, the admirers of the presi- 
 dent have no right to ask that it 
 shall be interpreted as a piece of 
 duplicity, as some of them now do, say- 
 ing that there is a mental reservation un- 
 derlying it to the effect that the writer does 
 not mean to do all that he promises, but all 
 that he can get his party to assent to. In 
 judging of the letter we must remember 
 that the civil service law had been passed 
 and was in successful operation, and that 
 Mr. Cleveland, as president, would be bound 
 
ARGUMENT AGAINST A SECOND NOMINATION. 
 
 by his oath of oflB.ce to enforce it ; therefore, 
 pledges were needless as to whatsoever the 
 law covered. Moreover, no suggestions 
 were made as to fxirther legislation, and 
 neither then nor subsequently did Mr. 
 Cleveland bring forward a new idea 
 in regard to civil service reform, 
 or ijropose to crystallize public senti- 
 ment on the subject into any new enact- 
 ment guiding the executive power in ap- 
 pointment, much less into a constitutional 
 amendment restricting it. What he pro- 
 posed was to be purely personal — a step in 
 the way of reform depending upon his own 
 discretion and redounding to his own glory ; 
 and. therefore, we must take his professions 
 in their broadest sense as binding upon him. 
 He said: 
 
 ' -There is a class of government positions which 
 are not within the letter of the civil service 
 statute, but which are so disconnected with the 
 policy of an administration that the removal 
 therefrom of present incumbents, in my opin- 
 ion, should not be made during the term for 
 which they were appointed, solely on partisan 
 grounds, and for the jjurpose of putting in these 
 places those who are in political accord with the 
 appointing power. 
 
 This is a specific pledge which the adminis- 
 tration has broken over and over again. He 
 said also: 
 
 ' -The lessons of the past should be unlearned, and 
 such ofRcials, as well as their successors, should 
 l)e taught that efficiency, fitness and devotion to 
 public duty are the conditions of their continu- 
 ance in public place, and that the quiet and un- 
 obtrusive exercise of individual political rights 
 is the reasonable measure of their party ser- 
 vice." 
 
 This is the statement of a general principle 
 which has been ^^olated in both letter and 
 spirit so commonly that its observance in any 
 quarter wotdd now be regarded as a ctirious 
 divergence from established political custom. 
 How fairly a man may talk when there is 
 not the slightest moral sequence or causality 
 between his words and his actions! To speak 
 bluntly, the Curtis letter, though its pledges 
 may have been honestly meant when made, 
 cannot now be regarded as anything better 
 til an the first in a series of astonishing false 
 pretences. It would be tedious to review 
 them all in detail, but let us look at some of 
 
 the most noteworthy. In his inaugural ad- 
 dress, March 4, 188.5, Mr. Cleveland said: 
 
 " The people demand reform in the administra- 
 tion of the government and the application of 
 business principles to public affairs. As a 
 means to this end, civil service reform should be 
 in good faith endorsed. Our citizens have the 
 right to protection from incompetency of public 
 employees who hold their places solelj' as the re- 
 ward of partisan service and from the corrupt- 
 ing influence of those who promise and the 
 vicious methods of those who expect such re- 
 ward : and those who worthily seek employment 
 have the right to insist that merit and competency 
 shall be recognized instead of party subservienc5' 
 or the surrender of honest i^olitical beliet." 
 
 This declaration, following the promises 
 made in the Curtis letter, was clearly in- 
 tended as oittlining a general policy, and not 
 as a supplemental pledge, after the oath of 
 office, to enforce a jjarticular statute. It 
 implied a promise, given coram pojiulo; and 
 the president falsified it by his subsequent 
 action. 
 
 In his letter to Dorman B. Eaton, the ci^^l 
 service commissioner, September 11, 1885, 
 Mr. Cleveland dwelt upon this theme in the 
 same tone, but with an air of righteous sat- 
 isfaction which the mere enforcement of an 
 established law would hardly jitstify. And 
 in his first annual message, December 8, 
 1S85, he again dealt unctuously and elo- 
 qi;ently with the subject of reform; but he 
 called attention to the fact that there had 
 been some complaints in regard to remo- 
 vals from office, and made this significant 
 remark: •• Parties seem to be necessary, and 
 will long continue to exist : nor can it be now 
 denied that there are legitimate advantages, 
 not disconnected with officeholding, which 
 follow party supremacy.'" It was natural 
 these complaints should be made, in cases 
 not covered by the civil service law, after 
 the president's non-partisan professions; 
 and in the attempt to avoid the consequences 
 of his actions as interpreted by his words, 
 Mr, Cleveland took a deeper plunge into 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 THE PLEDGES BROKEX. 
 
 The pledges given to the people, as to mak- 
 ing merit the only test in the public service, put 
 an imputation itpou the character of every re- 
 
ARGUMENT AGAINST A SECOND NOMINATION. 
 
 7 
 
 publican susiieuded from office, and though all 
 such officials expected to be turned out for 
 political reasons, few of them were willing 
 to be turned out, not simply as partisans, 
 but as men who had betrayed a public trust. 
 The administration had to oust them ; it did 
 not dare to make charges against them; and 
 it hated to confess its own deceit and dis- 
 miss them with a certificate of good character. 
 
 Issue was joined on the case of George M. 
 Diiskin, actornej' of the United States for the 
 Northern district of Alabama, whom the 
 president suspended July IT, 1885, designating 
 John D. Burnett to take his place. On De- 
 cember l-t, 1885, he nominated the latter to 
 the office; and the senate Jauiaary 25, 1886, 
 asked for the papers on file in the depart- 
 ment of justice in regard to the matter. On 
 January 28th the attorney general, by di- 
 rection of the president, refused to submit 
 such papers. Febriiary 18th the majority of 
 the senate judiciary' committee made an 
 elaborate report, maintaining the right to 
 ask for papers on file . in the 
 government departments, and on 
 
 March 1st the president sent a mes- 
 sage to the senate on the subject. He de- 
 nied that the papers in the Duskin case were 
 in any sense official documents ; he charged 
 the senate with a design of reviewing his 
 executive action and abridging the presi- 
 dential prerogative ; and. finally, he came to 
 the real point at issue, that he was making 
 suspensions from office in violation of his 
 pledges in the Curtis letter, the inaiigural, 
 and the firfet annual message, and that siicli 
 suspensions cast iipon worthy officials an im- 
 putation of misconduct injurious to •■char- 
 acter and reputation. ■■ 
 
 The president was irritated into protesta- 
 tions. He intimated loftily that there was 
 '• a defense against lanjust suspension in the 
 justice of the executive," when the only real 
 defence was the ])opular belief that he was 
 not keeping his word. He said; -'Every 
 pledge I have made by which I have placed 
 a limitation upon my exercise of executive 
 power has been redeemed. ' ' The statement 
 was not true when it was made ; though 
 many people believed it then ; but now no- 
 body woald pretend to believe it. He ac- 
 
 knowledged that he might be mistaken in 
 particular cases, but added : ' ' Not a sus- 
 pension has been made except it api^eared 
 to my satisfaction that the public welfare 
 would be improved thereby." How easy 
 it must iiave been to convince him on this 
 l^oint 1 He said: "The pledges I have made 
 were made to the people and to them I am 
 resijonsible for the manner in which I have 
 redeemed them. " ' The public has a short 
 memory, and yet it can scarcely forget how 
 the performance has compared with the 
 promises. He said : "I have not constantly 
 refused to suspend officials and thus incurred 
 the displeasure of political friends, and yet 
 wilfully broken faith with the people for the 
 sake of being false to them. ' ' His political 
 friends make no complaint against him on 
 this score now ; nay, more, they are so thor- 
 oughly satisfied with his zeal that they want 
 to elect him for a second term. He said 
 that neither ' ' the discontent of party 
 friends ' ' nor ' ' the allurement constantly 
 offered ' ' by the senate, nor ' ' the threat ' ' 
 recently made by that body, would deter 
 him from the path leading " to better gov- 
 ernment for the people " : To all of which no 
 comment is more appropriate than the old- 
 fashioned sneer: -'The lady x)rotests too 
 much, methinks. " 
 
 It is an amusing fact that the president 
 was not content with these misstatements ou 
 the issue between him and the senate, but 
 threw into this remarkable document a new 
 pledge, which he broke not long aftei' in the 
 case of the marshal of the District of Colum- 
 bia: "'Upon a refusal to confirm I shall not 
 assume the right to ask the reasons for the 
 action of tlie senate, nor question its deter- 
 mination." And it is significant that the 
 secretary of the treasury about this time 
 agreed with a senate committee that the re- 
 moval of collectors of internal revenue would 
 not be considered in any way an imputation 
 on their official character, which agreement, 
 thovigh these officials were not technically 
 within the limits of the controversy with the 
 senate, let daylight through the presiden tial 
 pretences. 
 
 COLLAPSE OF THE POLICY. 
 
 The extraordinary appetite of the people 
 
s 
 
 ARGUMENT AGAINST A SECOND NOMINATION. 
 
 for fine professions in the early clays of the 
 administration stimulated Mr. Cleveland to 
 test still further ■' the undeveloped capabili- 
 ties of the vi'ord reform " ' as a refuge for 
 the political adventurer. On July 14, 
 1886,he issued the formidable order to offlce- 
 liolders, which was regarded by his most 
 enthusiastic admirers as more than a com- 
 pensation for any occasional forgetfulness of 
 pre\'ious pledges. It is a fine piece of politi- 
 cal idealism, but a few sentences only need 
 te quoted: 
 
 • • I deem this a proper time to especially warn 
 all subordinates in the several departments and 
 all office-liolders under the general government 
 against the use of their official positions in at- 
 tempts to control political movements in their 
 localities. . . . The influence of federal of- 
 fice-holders should not be felt in the manipula- 
 tion of political primary meetings and nomina - 
 ting conventions. The use by officials of their 
 positions to compass their selection as delegates 
 to political conventions is indecent and unfair, 
 and ijroper regard for the proprieties and re- 
 quirements of official place will also prevent their 
 assuming the conduct of political campaigns. '" 
 
 Of course, no Federal official now pays the 
 slightest attention to this order, and every 
 one who watches the progress of public 
 affairs, knows of instances in his own neigh- 
 borhood in which it was violated. In the 
 city of Rochester, where I live, the Federal 
 officials have made an open fight to prove 
 that the administration controls the party, 
 and they do not hesitate to talk of their 
 victory with fz-ank pride; but even in the 
 fall of 1886 the order was disregarded, and 
 the hostile critics declared it to be no better 
 than a gelatinous fraud. The president, 
 however, nettled by the taunts of the 
 newspapers, determined to prove his 
 good faith by two singularly cheap 
 sacrifices. The grateful victims chosen 
 were W. A. Stone, attorney of the United 
 states for the Western district of Pennsyl- 
 vania, and M. E. Benton, attorney of the 
 United States for the Western district of 
 Missouri, the former a republican who made 
 two speeches for his party, without being 
 absent a single working hour from his office, 
 and the latter a democrat, who had in the 
 course of the canvass spoken in derision of 
 the president's civil ser\dce reform p r of e s- 
 
 sions, and his opinions on the silver question. 
 A more lovely opportunity could not be 
 imagined for satisfying party and personal 
 feeling, on high moral grounds, and with 
 great cheerfulness the president suspended 
 Messrs. Benton and Stone for pernicious 
 political activity. 
 
 But the result was one of the worst humil- 
 iations of his life. The democrats of Mis- 
 souri at once grew furious and demanded the 
 reinstatement of Mr. Benton; and after 
 endeavoring to avoid the issue by arranging 
 to give him another office, the president, 
 November 16, 1886, wrote an insincere and 
 canting letter, restoring that gentleman, on 
 high moral grounds, to his post. Then Mr. 
 Stone came forward and demanded reinstate- 
 ment, presenting a much stronger case for 
 lenient treatment than Mr. Benton's, 
 and the president, forgetting that hypocrisy 
 has its obligations as well as nobility, wrote 
 November 23, 1886, another insincere 
 and canting letter, severely rebuk- 
 ing Mr. Stone and refusing, on 
 high moral grounds, of course, to 
 reinstate him. No man with a sense of 
 humor could have written those two letters 
 in one week ; and no man troubled with a 
 doubt as to the gullibility of his fellow 
 citizens would have mentioned civil service 
 reform again after writing them. 
 
 And yet Mr. Cleveland dwelt lightly but 
 lovingly on the theme in his second annua 1 
 message, December 6, 1886, and it was not 
 until the party change in the civil ser^^ce 
 was pretty well completed, and the fact 
 notorious, that he could forego the familiar 
 subject. He had the grace to drop it in his 
 third annual message, December 6, 1887. 
 
 THE ELEMENT OF PERSONAL PROFIT. 
 
 In the hope of republican support. Mr. 
 Cleveland made his pledges; in the 
 necessity for democratic support he 
 violated them. He found the cause 
 of civil service reform in good con- 
 dition; he added nothing to it through 
 legislation; he discredited it by his hypo- 
 crisy. It is a cause whose success depends 
 upon the good faith of all officials and the 
 support of both parties; and yet its especial 
 champions, the independent republicans, 
 
ARGUMENT AGAINST A SECOND NOMINATION. 
 
 jeoparded it by seeking to identify it with 
 the political fortunes of one man. Nothing 
 was gained by them but a brief delay in till- 
 ing the federal offices with democrats ; but 
 Mr. Cleveland, through keeping up for a 
 time the pretence of not rewarding party 
 loyalty, was enabled to make loyalty to him- 
 self the condition of appointment, and so be- 
 came, as no man for many years has been, 
 the absolute master of the democratic organ- 
 ization. He played the reformer exclusively 
 at the expense of democratic politicians that 
 he wanted to get out of his way. For the 
 sake of a second term he tried non-partisan- 
 ship ; and when he found that the charm 
 was broken, and he could no longer conjure 
 with it, he fell back on partisanship for the 
 sake of a second term. 
 
 THE XEW ISSUE. 
 
 In rearranging the political game it was 
 necessary for Mr. Cleveland to identify him- 
 self in a speciaj way with some distinctly 
 democratic doctrine in order to make the 
 issue in his second canvass, to a great extent 
 a partisan one. And so, for want of a bet- 
 ter, he chose revenue reform as the tradi- 
 tional issue on which to go before the na- 
 tional convention of his partj' and before 
 the country. In this matter, too, he was 
 forced by stress of circumstances into cow- 
 ardly duplicity. 
 
 The declaration of principles made by the 
 national democratic convention of 1884 was 
 very cautiously worded, in so far as it dealt 
 with the reform of the tariff, as it was the 
 opinion of politicians generally that the brief 
 demand for '"a tariff for revenue only "" made 
 in 1880, had led to the defeat of the democratic 
 candidate of that year. General Hancock. Mr. 
 Cleveland carefiiUy avoided any allusion to 
 the subject in his letter of acceptance; and 
 there was a great anxiety throughout the 
 canvass to keep democratic speakers and edit- 
 ors from discussing it. In some quarters, the 
 tariff terror was pitiable. In the inaugural 
 address Mr. Cleveland merelj- mentioned the 
 tariff demanding ' ' that our sj-stem of revenue 
 shall be so adjusted as to relieve the people 
 from unnecessary taxation, ha\'ing a due re- 
 gard to the iutereajp of capital invested and 
 workingmen emploj'ed in American indus- 
 
 tries, and preventing the accumulation of a 
 surplus in the treasury to tempt extrava- 
 gance and waste. ' ' 
 
 The staiinchest protectionist could not 
 quarrel with this statement. In his fii'st 
 message Mr. Cleveland said of revenue re- 
 duction: 
 
 '• 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 customs duties. The question of free 
 trade is not involved, nor is there now any oc- 
 casion for the general discussion of the wisdom 
 or expediency of a protective system. 
 
 •' Justice and fairness dictate that in any mod- 
 ification of our present laws relating to revenue 
 the industries and interests which have been en- 
 couraged by such laws, and in which our citi- 
 zens have large investments, should not be 
 ruthlessly injured or destroyed. We should 
 also deal with the subject in such a 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 for a protective policy." 
 
 A brief statement that there should be some 
 reduction on import duties within these limi- 
 tations, and that the reduction should be on 
 the necessaries of life, followed. Evidently 
 from the admission that a protective system 
 keeps up wages, and that without it certain 
 great industries and interests would be de- 
 stroyed, the political evolution of the presi- 
 dent was proceeding very slowly. He was 
 careful beyond the verge of caution. In the 
 second annual message, more space was 
 given to the subject, but,although there was 
 marked progress in the direction of tradi- 
 tional democracy, it was discussed with the 
 same timidity, not to say equivocation. Re- 
 commending revenue reduction, he threw 
 out, to use the phrase of another famous 
 political sailor, " an anchor to windward": 
 
 " The relation of 4he workingman to the rev- 
 enue laws of the country, and the manner in 
 which it palpably influences the queistion of 
 wages, should not be forgotten in the justifiable 
 prominence given to the proper maintenance of 
 the supply and protection of well-paid labor : 
 and these considerations suggest such an ar- 
 rangement of government revenues as shall re- 
 duce the expense of living while it does not cur- 
 tail the opportiinity for work, nor reduce the 
 compensation of American labor and unfavor- 
 
JO 
 
 ARGUMENT AGAINST A SECOND NOMINATION. 
 
 ably affect its condition and the dignified place 
 it holds in the estimation of our people." 
 
 The third annual message was devoted 
 altogether to tariff reform, and shaped the 
 issue for the canvass of ISSS. It is an 
 elaborate and powerful argument for tariff 
 reduction on free trade lines ; and yet at in- 
 tervals the old terror of offending protected 
 manufacturers and laborers manifests itself. 
 As in various other papers by Mr. Cleveland, 
 there are signs of a struggle between two 
 minds — a shifting from side to side, as if one 
 man were trying to say something bold and 
 definite, and another were constantly inter- 
 fering with provisos and modifications. For 
 instance : 
 
 ••Onr progress toward a wise conclusion will 
 not be imi^roved by dwelling on the themes of 
 protection and free trade. This savors too much 
 of bandying epithets. It is a condition which 
 confronts us, not a theory. Relief from the con- 
 dition may involve a slight reduction in the ad- 
 vantages which we award our home productions, 
 but the entire withdrawal of such advantages 
 should not be contemplated. The question of 
 free trade is absolutely irrelevant, and the per- 
 sistent claim made in certain quarters that all 
 efforts to relieve our people from unjust taxa- 
 tion are schemes of the so-called free traders, is 
 mischievous and far removed from any consid- 
 eration of the public good." 
 
 Of course this wavering affords to the 
 weaker brethren some comfort. "It is a 
 condition which confronts us, not a theory," 
 is a taking phrase, which democi'ats with- 
 out the courage of their convictions are foud 
 of quoting : but it is a merely rhetorical sub- 
 terfuge. The theory lies behind the condi- 
 tion, and it makes all the difference in the 
 world whether the free trader or the pro- 
 tectionist cuts down the revenue from im- 
 port duties. So vital is the question of 
 theory in the matter that the one might in- 
 crease the revenue by reducing tariff rates, 
 and the other reduce it by increasing them. 
 If it were only a condition which confronts 
 us, the simplest and best remedy would be 
 to repeal the internal revenue laws. 
 
 COURAGE OR COWARDICE. 
 
 The independent press hailed the annual 
 message of December 6, 1887, as a new 
 revelation in political economy, praised it as 
 
 a strange manifestation of courageous states- 
 manship, and accepted the issue which it 
 presented in place of the civil service reform 
 policy which had so long been their single 
 idea in politics. If Mr. Cleveland's action 
 was so important a matter, why did he de- 
 lay it so long? Why was he silent in his let- 
 ter of acceptance, equivocal in his inaugural 
 address, and pusillanimous in his first annual 
 message? 
 
 "Why did he not fling himself frankly into 
 the fight for revenue reform at the beginning 
 of his administration and carry it to a suc- 
 cessful issue, instead of waiting until the 
 third year, and then urging upon congress, at 
 the eve of a national election, action which 
 it was hardly possible for it to take? Why 
 did it require nearly three years for the 
 democratic president to advance beyond the 
 position in favor of revenue reform which 
 President Arthur held in 1882 ? It is con- 
 ceded that the tariff law ought to be recast, 
 and that the work ought not to be done in a 
 partisan spirit ; and that point Mr. Cleveland 
 cunningly urged. Bt;t why did he put the 
 matter into such a shape that it would be 
 almost impossible to keep partisanship out 
 of the discussion of it ? Simply because, at 
 the threshold of his first 3'ear, Mr. Cleveland 
 did not care for re-election, or hoped to com- 
 pass it through non-partisanship ; while at 
 the threshold of 1888 he was eager for re- 
 election and saw no chance for attaining it ex- 
 cept through forcing tariff reform as a party 
 issue. And so he took up tariff revision as a 
 political charlatan and not as a statesman. 
 
 PEXSION INCONSISTENCY. 
 
 Of course, the president could not hope for 
 a renomination or re-elction, except as the 
 favorite of the South ; and he has done what 
 he could safely do and more than he could 
 decently do to preserve the good will of 
 that section. I speak with no ani- 
 mosity to the South, for the strong- 
 est feeling that ever influenced me 
 in politics was the wish that the re- 
 bellious states might be restored to their 
 place in the Union without a rag of political 
 disability festering in their wounds; and it is 
 only lately that I have bq^n disposed to hold 
 the Southern people to strict accountability 
 
ARGUMENT AGAINST A SECOND NOMINATION. ii 
 
 for the use of the peculiar political power 
 which the South holds iu the Union. I do 
 not care to make the charge that Mr. Cleve- 
 land was too partial to the Southerners in 
 tha bestowal of offices ; or that he was too 
 complacent to them in some of the polite ex- 
 cuses which he sent for not attending 
 Southern festivals. Nor do I think his 
 course in vetoing so many pension bills, and 
 the bitterness in which many of the veto 
 messages were conceived and written, largely 
 due to a desire to propitiate the South. There 
 was a personal element involved. 
 
 If the president forgets benefits he does 
 not forgive injuries, and certain associations 
 of Union veterans had attacked him unfair- 
 ly, nay. meanly, in the canvass of 1884, and 
 he took satisfaction out of the beneficiaries 
 of the private pension bills. Many of them 
 were fair game ; but the inaccuracy, the 
 malice, the harshness verging on brutality, 
 with which even deserving claimants were 
 treated in some of these veto messages, 
 showed that indi\'idual spite, rather than 
 any consideration of policy, guided the pen. 
 No, it was the president's action on the gen- 
 eral pension bills that made his subserviency 
 to the South clear. Let us take a passage 
 from his second annual message. In the 
 course of an argument against special 
 pension bills, he said that there was 
 inequality, and consequemly injustice, in 
 such measures; and in illustration he cited 
 the fact that only 13 per cent, of »,000 vet- 
 erans supported by charity outside of sol- 
 diers' homes, and presiimably without social 
 or political influence, were pensioners, while 
 as many as 20 per cent, of the whole num- 
 ber of men in the service, or their widows, 
 were drawing pensions. Touching dependent 
 veterans living on local charity, and power- 
 less to rush special acts through congress, he 
 said : 
 
 " Every consideration and fairness to our ex- 
 soldiers, and the protection of the patriotic in- 
 stinct of our citizens from perversion and viola- 
 tion, point to the adoption of a pension system, 
 broad and comprehensive enough to cover every 
 contingency which shall make unneee.ssary an 
 objectionable volume of special legislation. As 
 long as we adhere to the principle of 
 granting pensions for service and dis- 
 
 ability as a result of service the allow- 
 ance of pensions shoiild be restricted to cases 
 presenting these features. Every patriotic 
 heart responds to a tender consideration for 
 those who, having served their country long 
 and well, are reduced to destitution and de- 
 pendence, not as an incident of their service, 
 but with advancing age or through .sickness or 
 misfortune. We are all tempted l>y the contem- 
 plation of such a condition to supply reHef. and 
 are often impatient of limitations of public duty. 
 Yielding to no one in the desire to indulge this 
 feeling of consideration, I cannot rid myself of 
 the conviction that if these ex-soldiers are to be 
 relieved they and their cause are entitled to the 
 benefit of an enactment under which relief may 
 be claimed as a right, and such relief be granted 
 under the sanction of the law. not in evasion of 
 it; nor should such worthy objects of care to 
 which all are equally entitled be remitted to the 
 unequal operation of sympathy or tender mer- 
 cies of social and political influence, with their 
 unjust discrimiuatons. '■ 
 
 When this was written, the dependent 
 pension bill and the Mexican pension bill 
 were under consideration in congress. This 
 passage was an argument for the former, or 
 it was a piece of unaccountable deceit. The 
 dependent pension biil was virtually passed 
 January 17, 1887, thougn delayed until Jan- 
 uary 29th, on accotmt of the senate's hesita- 
 tion in acting on the house substitute. It 
 provided for a pension for every man that 
 served three mouths in any war of the coun- 
 try and had come to be dependent upon the 
 charity of others for support, 
 
 through no personal fault or vice. 
 The measure, though sweeping in its 
 terms, was considered as specially designed 
 to benefit the Union soldiers of the civil war. 
 A strong sentiment had been worked up in 
 the North against the policy of it; the 
 Southerners, though afraid to oppose it, were 
 anxious to have it vetoed : and so the Presi- 
 dent disapproved of it Febriiary 11, 1887, in 
 a long veto message full of special plead- 
 ing. The veto was a popular one, on the 
 whole, and Mr. Cleveland, no doubt, took 
 satisfaction in shifting the position which he 
 had assumed in his previous annual message, 
 under an erroneous impression as to the real 
 state of public sentiment. 
 
 The Mexican pension bill was passed by 
 congress January 17, 1887. It was less dis- 
 
12 
 
 ARGUMENT AGAINST A SECOND NOMINATION. 
 
 crimiiiatiug within its sphere than the 
 depeudent pension bill, since it provided a 
 pension for everybody who had served two 
 months in the Mexican war, whether depend- 
 ent or not, if he had passed the age of 62 
 years; and few of the sur^^ving veterans 
 could be less than that age. This measure 
 had been long in congress, had been fre- 
 quently put upon its passage and frequently 
 fallen by the way. It was a Southern meas- 
 ure, as it provided for the soldiers of a war 
 in which the South had been specially inter- 
 ested, and in which many Southerners 
 had served. This bill the President 
 signed. Setting aside all mere quibbling 
 about details, it was not possible for Mr. 
 Cleveland honestly to approve of one of these 
 measures aud veto the other. There was an 
 inconsistency in his course so gross that it 
 cannot be explained away. Will it do to 
 say that he thought the Mexican veterans 
 more worthy of help than the Union vete- 
 rans of the civil war? Certainly not. Is it 
 a good plea that the government should wait 
 until a certain proportion of those who need 
 its bounty have died off before granting it:-' 
 By no means, if we acknowledge the duty of 
 aiding them at all. What can we suppose 
 then, save that the president thought the 
 Southerners in lome way or other should 
 have a share of the federal bounty in the 
 shape of pensions, or that he was compelled 
 to sacrifice his own consistency rather than 
 run counter to the Southern will? 
 
 Let any one who doubts the simple mean- 
 ing of his acts in regard to these bills con- 
 sider the order restoring the rebel battle 
 flags, in which the administration plainly 
 undertook to pander to what it supposed to 
 be Southern sentiment. That action was 
 politically evil because it tended to cherish at 
 the South the war feeling that the admirers 
 of the president had been urging the North- 
 ern people to forget ; it was illegal because 
 it attempted to dispose of public property 
 that the president had no right to touch ; it 
 was absurd iuasmiich as it assumed to re- 
 turn Confederate flags to states that could not 
 l)e regarded as their owners ; it was scan- 
 dalous because it put the Union flags in the 
 possession of the government in the same 
 
 category with the rebel flags ; and it was dis- 
 honestly defended on the false plea that it 
 had been the custom of the war department 
 to give away the flags. Not less significant 
 than the issuing of the order was the presi- 
 dent's letter of June 19, 1887, withdrawing 
 it in the face of the sudden and furious pop- 
 ular protest that was made. That act showed 
 that while he would go far to keep the South 
 loyal to his fortunes, he was perfectly ready- 
 to retreat at the first unmistakable sign that 
 he had gone too far for the patience of the 
 North. I have too often deplored republi- 
 can sectionalism as the evil weakness of an 
 otherwise noble party, to condone democratic 
 sectionalism. In this, as in other things, 
 the duplicity in regard to a second term 
 involved subsequent cowardice in opinion 
 and policy. 
 
 A WEAK AND WORTHLESS RECORD. 
 
 I shall pursue this discussion no further in 
 detail. The reader will see that I have 
 dwelt only on those things which the admir- 
 ers of the president regard as his peculiar 
 glories, and that my argument against his 
 renomination is based on what are consid- 
 ered his strongest points. I do not care to 
 pick out for censure whatever bad appoint- 
 ments he has made, or to ridicule his attack 
 on journalists, while keeping a court reporter 
 to tell how many flsh he caught every day in 
 the North woods, or to laugh at his constant 
 whining, under criticism, for special cour- 
 tesy, though unwilling to treat the motives 
 of others with ordinary charity. Let us pass 
 over the presidential electioneering trips and 
 the artless sjjeeches got up for every impor- 
 tant town, out of Appleton's Cyclopaedia. 
 Let us lay no emphasis on telephone or on 
 real estate scandals : or on petty inconsis- 
 tencies like the veto of Mrs. Hunter's pension 
 after the approval of Mrs. Hancock's, and 
 the increasing of the revenue by signing the 
 bill taxing oleomargarine, while clamoring 
 for a reduction of the surplus. And let us 
 fling the mantle of charity over a weak and 
 pompous foreign policy. 
 
 Put the case on broad aud simple grounds. 
 Mr. Cleveland, so far as he was the repre- 
 sentative of the democracy, went into 
 office on the theory that republican adminis- 
 
AR G UMEiVT A GAINST A SE COND NOMINA TION. 
 
 tration was full of corruptiou, that republi- 
 can methods shoixld be c-hanged, and that re- 
 publican policy should, in some important 
 matters, be reversed. From a party stand- 
 point, what is his record ? It is plain as the 
 i-esult of his administration that his republi- 
 can predecessor could account for the public 
 money to a single cent ; that not a repub- 
 lican official could be charged with dis- 
 honor; that republican methods were 
 too good to be discarded, and that 
 there was no new policy which a democratic 
 administration could adopt and carry 
 through. Mr. Cleveland has not said a single 
 great thing, or done a single great thing, or 
 even conceived of a single great thing since 
 March -t, 1885 — except that, after the man- 
 ner of many another well-to-do old bachelor, 
 he has married a charming young wife. Biit 
 that achievement alone does not constitute a 
 valid claim to renomination and re-election. 
 If he represents the best that democracy can 
 do, the republican party is entitled to a new 
 lease of power. 
 
 THE PARADISE OF HYPOCRITES. 
 
 And while denying to the administration 
 special accomplishment in great matters, it is 
 not possible to concede. to it what may be, in 
 peacseful times, a better thing in man or gov- 
 ernment — general nobility of character. It 
 has rendered no service to good government 
 save lip service ; and its most marked charac- 
 teristic is a certain moral dishonesty that 
 rouses in me a feeling akin to disgust. It is 
 preeminently the canting administration of 
 the republic. Excessive piety and super- 
 abundant self-righteousness leak out of it at 
 every pore. It drops fine sentiments 
 faster than the Arabian trees their medicinal 
 gums. It cannot sneeze without a truism, 
 or go on a vacation except to slow 
 music, or dismiss a fourth-class 
 Xjostmaster save with an appeal 
 to the eternal verities. It cants in dreams 
 and snores pj^eans to that reform which never 
 was on laud or sea. One might imagine its 
 
 political hypocrisy studied out of Mach- 
 iavelli's "Prince " save for certain crudities 
 which characterize it as the natural pro- 
 duct of a rich but uncultivated cunning. It 
 was a peculiarity of Henry VIII. that the 
 pricking of a sensitive conscience always 
 prompted him to whatever rascality he set 
 his mind upon ; and there is something of the 
 same propensity to justify wrong-doing by 
 righteous scruples in this administration. It 
 does the most commoni^lace act of meanness 
 with the air of Curtius leaping into the gulf in 
 the Forum. It is like the tribes along the 
 Arabian coast, described by Sir John Malcolm 
 who " give you the most pious I'easons for 
 every villainy they commit ' ' and quote a 
 text of the Koran for every transgression. 
 Before he became pi-esident, Mr. Cleveland 
 was regarded as a blunt, straightforward 
 man, of executive ability and honest pur- 
 pose, disposed to work much and say little; 
 but, as often happens to men exalted to 
 rulership, he has degenerated in the face of 
 supreme opportunities. He has become a 
 poseur, a model letter writer, a maker of 
 phrases, a dealer in doiible-ended opinions, a 
 sort of political Tartuffe. He keeps on the 
 ragged edge of every difficult question, 
 and rehearses platitudes as if they 
 were profound and original convictions; so 
 that one is disposed, after three j'ears of this 
 sort of thing, to turn on his heel, like Sir 
 Peter Teazle, and exclaim: " Damn your 
 sentiments ! ' ' 
 
 In Mr. Cleveland's case we see clearly 
 what Mr. Tilden called ' ' the futility of self- 
 imposed restrictions by candidates or incum- 
 bents; " and I oi^pose his renomination be- 
 cause there is nothing in the world to recom- 
 mend it save ' ' the availability a party finds 
 in an incumbent whom a horde of office-hold- 
 ers, with a zeal born of beufits received and 
 fostered by the hope of favors yet to come, 
 stand ready to aid with money and trained 
 politica.l service. ' ' 
 
ARGUMENT AGAINST A THIRD NOMINATION. 
 
 LETTER DATED MAY 26, 1892. 
 
 Under date of May 26. 1888, a letter of mine 
 was published setting forth the reasons why 
 the democratic ])arty should not renominate 
 Mr. Cleveland for the presidency. The letter 
 was not written with any notion that it was 
 possible to prevent his renomination, then a 
 foregone conclusion, but for the purpose of 
 stating the case against him, as clearly and 
 strongly as might be, before the opening 
 of the presidential canvass. It was 
 clear that the party was going to com- 
 mit the folly of making him its candidate for 
 a second time ; it deserved defeat for taking 
 such a course ; the prospects of defeat were 
 plain, and it was a duty to put a protest on 
 record. It seemed as if a rain like that de- 
 scribed in one of Pierre Cardinal's sirventes. 
 making crazy whomsoever it touched, had 
 fallen on the party : and it was fitting that 
 one who had not been wetted by the shower 
 and still preserved his political senses, should 
 speak a word of warning, though the 
 drenched lunatics might regard him as a 
 fool. 
 
 The event justified the protest. It is now 
 the pretence of Mr. Cleveland and his friends 
 that the canvass of 1888 was made in full 
 expectation of political disaster, and out of 
 naere devotion to principle. That genrleman 
 said in his speech in Pro\'ideuce on the 2d 
 of last April : "It .surely was not policy nor 
 expediency that induced us defiantly to carry 
 the banner of tarift" reform as we went forth 
 to meet a well-organized and desperately de- 
 termined army on the disastrous field of 
 1 888. ' ' Like most persons who have taken 
 pains to avoid the smell of burned gunpow- 
 der, Mr. Cleveland is a " brave soldado ' ' in 
 his rhetoric, affects a martial and 
 military style, and abounds in 
 
 blood-thirsty metaphors; but, disen- 
 tangling his meaning from the armies, 
 the banners, and the war cries that surround 
 and confuse it all through the passage w^here- 
 in this sentence occurs, the modest sugges- 
 tion meets us that the candidate was all 
 right, but that the issue, in the nature of 
 things, involved a preliminary reverse. This 
 pretence of challenging defeat deliberately 
 in 1888 is the sort of afterthought that can 
 be spelled with three letters. The issue was 
 good enough. It had been with the demo- 
 cratic party for more than two generations 
 in sunshine and shadow. The trouble lay in 
 the forsworn and double-dealing candidate, 
 and in the weak and contemptible adminis- 
 tration upon whose record the people were 
 called to pass judgment. 
 
 The indications are that certain democratic 
 politicians intend to nominate Mr. Cleveland 
 for a third time, and the old impulse comes 
 upon me to make another protest against the 
 reiterated and redoubled folly. 
 
 Before beginning this letter I have read 
 over that of May 26, 1888, and find noth- 
 ing therein to retract or modify. The points 
 made have never been refuted. They were 
 good against a second nomination of Mr. 
 Cleveland, and they are better against a 
 third nomination. What was said on that 
 occasion may stand, and this letter is simply 
 a sequel to that. 
 
 THE DIFFERENCE. 
 
 When Mr. Lincoln was renominated in the 
 crisis of the civil war, there was a republi- 
 can faction bold enough to challenge his right 
 to the honor: and when General Grant, with 
 the laurels of his great victories still un- 
 withered, claimed a second term, many re- 
 publican leaders withstood the policy of 
 
ARGUMENT AGAINST A THIRD NOMINATION. 
 
 15 
 
 conceding it; but not a prominent 
 democrat, except one, dared to mur- 
 mur against the renomination of Mr. Cleve- 
 land, though the times were peaceful, though 
 he was committed against a second terna 
 in the pre\ious canvass and could be a can- 
 didate only in falsehood and dishonor, 
 though he began his administration by an at- 
 tempt to betraj' his party, and though he was 
 about to close it without accomplishing anj*- 
 thing for the country. If the independence of 
 the republicans savored of ingratitude, the 
 subjection of the democrats had in it a touch 
 of servility that was not only meaner in it- 
 self but more dangerous to our politics. 
 
 BRAGG AND BLARNEY. 
 
 As the renomination of Mr. Cleveland was 
 assured before the meeting of the democratic 
 national convention at St. Louis. June 5, 
 1888, great pains were taken with the .set- 
 ting of the stage for the scene ; and yet there 
 was an element of burlesque in the perform- 
 ance. 
 
 At the democratic national convention in 
 Chicago in 1884, the opposition was led by 
 Tammany Hall : and it was taken for granted 
 that Irish-American democrats as a class 
 were hostile to Mr. Cleveland ; so that when 
 G-eneral Bragg, of Wisconsin exclaimed: 
 ' • We love him for the enemies he has 
 made ! ' ' the declaration was interpreted as a 
 defiance to Tammany Hall and Irish- Amer- 
 ican generally, and it was cheered to the 
 echo ; for there is more of the old Know- 
 Nothmg spirit survi\ing in the democratic 
 party than elsewhere. The phrase was a 
 bold and potent one ; and the incident made 
 some votes for the candidate ; but when the 
 ballots of November 4. 1884, were counted 
 in this state it was found that Mr. 
 Cleveland's plurality of 192,854 in 
 1882 has fallen to 1,047, and that even that 
 pitiful surplus was tainted with suspicion. 
 As Mr. Cleveland and his friends were i;nder 
 the delusion that independent republicans 
 by the myriad had voted for him, they fell 
 into the converse delusion that Irish- Ameri- 
 can democrats by the mj-riad had voted 
 against him. Resentment at the supposed 
 defection kept Mr. Cleveland from granting 
 any Federal patronage to Tammany Hall 
 
 and from giving an important position 
 to any Irish- Americnn democrat, though 
 he was liberal to Germans, Jews, 
 Norwegians, and even colored men. 
 The class he had favored at the beginning of 
 his term as governor he discountenanced as 
 president, for Secretary Manning, though 
 belonging to it, was not regarded as repre- 
 .sentiug it. But at the dawn of another 
 presidential canvass there came a sudden 
 dread of " the enemies he had made; '" and 
 the pains taken to conciliate them were so 
 awkward as to be amusing. 
 
 The democratic party then remembered 
 the Irish-American, to whom it owes 
 so much, as the republican party 
 sometimes remembers the negro, 
 who owes so much to it. The man 
 chosen to preside over the national demo- 
 cratic convention was a rejected candidate 
 for a cabinet office, Patrick A. Collins, of 
 Massachusetts, an Irish- American Catholic, 
 formerly president of the national land 
 league. The man chosen to present the 
 name of Mr. Cleveland to the convention 
 was Daniel Dougherty, another Irish-Ameri- 
 Qan Catholic; and, to give a still more 
 grotesque touch to the affair, that gentle- 
 man, who had emigrated from Philadelphia 
 to New York and joined Tammaiay Hall, 
 presented the candidate in behalf of that 
 body. So clumsy an attempt at political 
 blarney would not be worth serioiis notice, 
 if it were not interlaced with an important 
 episode in the presidential canvass. 
 
 THE SOURCE OF ANXIETY. 
 
 The fisheries article of the treaty of 1871 
 with Great Britain terminated June 30, 
 188.5, and the Canadians, angry because so 
 great a source of profit was ciit off, and 
 eager to secure new concessions, undertook 
 to harass this country into making another 
 treaty. They began at once a policy of an- 
 noyance and aggression which proved a 
 thorn in the side of the Cleveland adminis- 
 tration. The convention of October 20, 
 1818. having revived through the lapse of 
 subsequent agreements, the president asked 
 for authority to appoint commissioners 
 to meet commissioners from Great Britain 
 and Canada to settle the interpretation of 
 
i6 
 
 ARGUMENT AGAINST A THIRD NOMINATION. 
 
 that treaty. Congress refiised to sanction 
 such a commission ; but Mr. Cleveland ap- 
 pointed one, nevertheless, which met with 
 that appointed by Great Britain in Novem- 
 ber. 1887, at the city of Washington. And 
 as the Canadian cruisers were impudent, un- 
 scrupulous, and ugly, there was much public 
 interest as to the result of the proposed ne- 
 gotiation. 
 
 Though there was no Irish sentiment in- 
 volved, and no Irish interest, it suited the 
 Salisbury government to bring the irrepres- 
 sible Irishman into the negotiation of a fish- 
 eries treaty. Joseph Chamberlain, the liberal 
 leader, who had turned renegade to his party 
 rather than support Mr. Gladstone's measure 
 for home rule, was made chief commissioner 
 on the part of Great Britain ; and that gen- 
 tleman took pains to proclaim before leaving 
 England that nothing interfered \\ith the 
 friendly relations of Great Britain and the 
 United States but Irish hostility, and that he 
 was going to Washington for the purpose of 
 bra\'ing Irish influence and thwarting Irish 
 intrigue. In a speech at Islington, October 
 26th, just before sailing, he said, as reported 
 in the press despatches : 
 
 ■ ■ There had never been a time, during the last 
 thirty years, when the Irish in America had not 
 been willing to use the privileges conceded to 
 them by their adopted country in order to sow 
 dissension and promote ill-feeling between 
 Great Britain and America. More than once 
 they had shown readiness to endanger the best 
 interests of their country in order to avenge real 
 or fancied injuries. He was not sanguine enough 
 to anticipate that on the present occasion they 
 would change their pohcy. but he was encour- 
 aged by the belief that the vast majority of 
 Americans and every Englishman and Scotch- 
 in the United Kingdom would regard fratricidal 
 conflicts between the two countries as a crime 
 of the deepest dye." 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain came, saw, and over- 
 came. He was as insinuating and as pen- 
 etrating as one of his own patent screws. 
 He became a favorite of Washington soci- 
 ety and a pet of the administration, was 
 engaged to the daughter of the secretary 
 of war, and negotiated a treaty in which 
 every right belonging to the United States by 
 the law of nations was made the siibject 
 of special stipulation and bestowed with an 
 
 air ot condescension as a privilege granted 
 out of the bounty and beneficence of Great 
 Britain. Not much was known as to Mr. 
 Chamberlain's social triumphs at Washing- 
 ton until after the presidential election, but 
 on his return home he could not re- 
 strain his exultation because the imaginary 
 Irishman, who is supposed by the average 
 British statesmen to rule the destinies of 
 America, fled from him "like quicksilver:" 
 and he boasted that every prominent Ameri- 
 can whom he met had assured him in confi- 
 dence that his countrymen were opposed to 
 home rule for Ireland and detested the Irish 
 element in the United States. Had Mr. Cleve- 
 land been re-elected, no doubt Mr. Chamber- 
 lain would have been over here every year 
 since as the son-in-law of the administration, 
 challenging the elusive Irishman to tread on 
 the tail of his coat: but happily another ruler 
 arose which knew not Joseph. 
 
 These things were pleasant enough early 
 in 1888; but they became a source of 
 anxiety later on when the presidential can- 
 vass opened, when the public began to un- 
 derstand the diplomatic result of the little 
 love feast in which Mr. Chamberlain had 
 been the hero, and when the " adverse, per- 
 nicious" Irishman might insist on an innings 
 at any moment. 
 
 ALL FOR PE.'VCE AND HARMONY. 
 
 The proposed fisheries treaty was signed 
 on February 18, 1888, at Washington: and 
 on the 20th of that month Mr. Cleveland 
 sent it to the senate. In the accompanying 
 message he extolled it as a great achieve- 
 ment. He rejoiced in delimitation as 
 an inestimable privilege, gloried in the free 
 navigation of the Gut of Canso as an 
 unexpected boon, exulted in the con- 
 cession of the right of refuge to American 
 vessels in distress, and was touched \Ndth un- 
 accustomed gratitude over the benevolence 
 of the British commissioners in granting a 
 modus Vivendi and restraining the fierce Can- 
 adian cruisers in the leash. The following 
 passage shows the spirit of the whole docu- 
 ment : a bit of gush precedes it about the 
 growth of intercourse ' ' with those popula- 
 tions who have been placed upon our borders 
 and made forever our neighbors, " a foolish 
 
AR G UMENT A GAINST A THIRD NOMINA TION 
 
 and unhappy phrase for any American poli- 
 tician to utter, since sound statesmanship 
 looks to the day when they will cease to be 
 neighbors and become fellow citizens: 
 
 '• The treaty now submitted to you has been 
 framed in a spirit of liberal equity and recipro- 
 cal benefits, in the conviction that material ad- 
 vantage and convenience are the only permanent 
 foundation of peace and friendship between 
 states, and that with the adoption of the 
 agreement now placed before the senate a bene- 
 ficial and satisfactory intercourse between the 
 countries will be established, so as to secure 
 perpetual peace and harmony. 
 
 "In connection with the treaty here submitted 
 I deem it also my duty to transmit to the senate 
 a written offer or arrangement in the nature of 
 a modus vivendi. tendered after the conclusion 
 of the treaty on the part of the British plenipo- 
 tentiaries, to secure kindly and peaceful rela- 
 tions during the period that may be required for 
 the consideration of the treaty by the respective 
 governments, and for the enactment of the 
 necessary legislation to carry its provisions into 
 effect if approved." 
 
 It is necessary to bear these professions in 
 mind for comparison. Mr. Cleveland, confi- 
 dent in his case at that time, made use of 
 the popular prejudice against secret sessions 
 of the senate, and asked that publicity be 
 given to the whole subject. " I therefore 
 beg leave respectfully to suggest that such 
 treaty and all correspondence, messages, and 
 documents regarding the same as may be 
 deemed important to accomplish these pur- 
 poses be at once made piablic by yoiir honor- 
 able body." This cunning overreached 
 itself, for the senate accepted the 
 challenge and not only published the 
 treaty, but discussed it in open session 
 after May 28th. The republican senators 
 attacked it with dash and vigor, with ridi- 
 cule as well as with serious argument ; and 
 the result was that public opinion set 
 strongly against it, so that even among 
 democrats a feeling of impatience with the 
 cowardice of the administration grew up. 
 The republican majority of the senate re- 
 jected the treaty August 21st, in spite of 
 the solemn declaration of certain democratic 
 senators, speaking for the administration, 
 that such a course would lead to immediate 
 war with Great Britain. 
 
 FOR RETALIATION AT RISK OF WAR. 
 
 The presidential canvass was then in full 
 swing, and Mr. Cleveland was startled into 
 the sudden conviction that the treaty was 
 unpopular, and that his subservient foreign 
 policy was endangering his re-election. To 
 him his personal fortunes are the first consid- 
 eration at all times, and with his usual des- 
 perate selfishness he made a rapid change of 
 front, though that meant the discrediting of 
 various democratic senators and the ruin 
 of the canvass in Maine, where one of the 
 commissioners that negotiated the treaty 
 was running for governor with it as 
 an issue. "Brethren," said a California 
 preacher, as his congregation showed signs 
 of restlessness at the first shock of an earth- 
 quake, '"why this uneasiness? Let us be 
 calm in our reliance upon ProAidence. And 
 if we are to die, what better place for death 
 is there than this holy house 'i ' ' Just then 
 a second shock came, and the preacher re- 
 marked, as he took a fiying leap through the 
 wmdow : ' ' But outside is good enough for 
 me ! " With no less alacrity, at the repeated 
 rumble of popular displeasure, Mr. Cleve- 
 land skipped out of the little temple of inter- 
 national friendship and national meekness, 
 in praise of wliich he had raised his 
 pious voice. He lost all interest in ' ' perpet- 
 ual peace and harmony;" and on August 23d 
 he sent to congress a message asking for ampler 
 powers to tmdertake retaliation against Can- 
 ada. By a resolution passed March 3, 188T, 
 congress had given to the president author- 
 ity to adopt retaliatory measures, excluding 
 Canadian vessels from our ports, and Mr. 
 Cleveland had never availed himself of that 
 authority. Now, so mild a method suited 
 not his new-born zeal. He said : 
 
 " Our citizens engaged in fishing enterprises 
 in waters adjacent to Canada have been .sub- 
 ject to numerous vexatious interferences and 
 annoyances: their vessels have been seized 
 upon pretexts which appeared to be entirely 
 inadmissible, and they have been otherwise 
 treated by the Canadian authorities and of- 
 ficials in a manner inexcusably harsh and op- 
 pressive.'" 
 
 After a slight reference to the rejected 
 treaty in the way of excuse and justification, 
 he declared in favor of the policy of retalia- 
 
iS ARGUMENT AGAINST A THIRD NOMINATION. 
 
 tiou. .saying: "I am not unmindful of the 
 gravity of the responsibility assumed in 
 adopting this line of conduct, nor do I fail in 
 the least to appreciate its serious consequen- 
 ces." In a word, the ambitious demagogue, 
 after committing himself to a policy of con- 
 cession and finding it unpopular, was eager 
 to risk war in order to recover lost ground. 
 He added : 
 
 •■ Plainly stated, the policy of national retalia- 
 tion embraces the infliction of the greatest harm 
 upon those who have injured us, with the least 
 possible damage to ourselves. There is also an 
 evident propriety, as well as an invitation to 
 moral support, found in visiting upon the of- 
 fending party the same measure or kind of 
 treatment of which we complain, and as far as 
 possible within the same lines. And above all 
 things the plan of retaliation, if entered upon, 
 should be thorough and vigorous. These con- 
 siderations lead me at this time to invoke the aid 
 and counsel of the congress and its support in 
 such further grant of power as seems to me nec- 
 essary and desirable to render effective the 
 policy I have indicated." 
 
 Mr. Cleveland, after this ponderous re- 
 statement of the doctrine of "an eye for an 
 eye and a tooth for a tooth, " " went on to ar- 
 gue at great length that the pro^^sions of the 
 treaty of 1871 no longer stgod in the way of 
 retaliation, and he interspersed the argument 
 with aspersions on the unneighborly and un- 
 friendly conduct of Canada. In conclusion 
 he said: 
 
 " The course I have outlined, and the recom- 
 mendations made,relate to the honor and dignity 
 of oxir country and the protection and preserva- 
 tion of all our people. A government does but 
 half its dutv when it protects its citizens at 
 home and permits them to be imposed upon and 
 humiliated by the unfair and overreaching dis- 
 po.sitiou of other nations." 
 
 The republican majority in the senate, 
 which had refused to be frightened into 
 adopting the treaty, refused to be cajoled 
 into granting Mr. Cleveland's trucadent de- 
 mand for retaliation. 
 
 Is it possible to regai\l the message of 
 February '2Uth, and that of August 23d, as 
 the work of an honest man ? Certainly not. 
 The attitude of Canada had not changed, 
 save for the better ; and if there was any sin- 
 cerity in the first message, the second was 
 the device of a politician in soi-e distress ; 
 
 If the first represented the genuine policy of 
 the administration, the second was a 
 fraud to catch votes. Considering the 
 pitiful trick after a lapse of four years 
 of peace, one is inclined to wonder that it 
 could deceive anybody, but the most success- 
 ful devices in history are by no means the 
 most adroit ; and this one served its turn. 
 The mass of democrats refused to pry into 
 motives or go back six months for compari- 
 sons ; and they gloried in the last message as 
 a bold defiance. The popularity of the ad- 
 ministration, which had been on the wane, 
 seemed to revive. There was partisan gain 
 at the cost of national disgrace ; the promise 
 of personal prosperity for official dishonor. 
 
 THE MURCHISON LETTER. 
 
 But an ingenious and unscrupulous repub- 
 lican in California hit upon a device that put 
 Mr. Cleveland's fortimes once more in jeop- 
 ardy. Representing himself as an American 
 citizen of English birth, he wrote a letter 
 under the name of Charles F. Murchison to 
 the English minister, Sackville-West, asking 
 for information as to the real attitude of the 
 a'dministration. The letter was dated Po- 
 mona, Cal., September i, 1888. It began 
 with a statement that many naturalized 
 Englishmen had been strongly in favor 
 of Mr. Cleveland, because his admin- 
 istration had been "so favorable and 
 friendly toward England, so kind in not 
 enforcing the retaliation act passed by 
 Congress, so sound on the free trade question 
 and so hostile to the dynamite school of Ire- 
 land. ' ' But the recent message of Mr. Cleve- 
 land on the fisheries question, it continued, 
 had filled the writer and his friends -^ith 
 alarm. 
 
 •' I am unable to understand for whom I shall 
 cast my ballot, when but one short month ago 
 I was sure Mr. Cleveland was the man. If 
 Cleveland was pursuing a new policy toward 
 Canada temporarily only, and for the sake of 
 popularity and continuance in his oflace four 
 years more, but intends to cease his policy when 
 his re-election is secured in November, and again 
 favor England's interest, then I should have no 
 further doubts but go forward and vote for 
 for him." 
 
 The letter, after dwelling on the probable 
 importance of a few votes, went on : 
 
ARGUMENT AGAINST A THIRD NOMINATION. 
 
 ^9 
 
 ' ' As you are the f ovmtaiu head of knowledge 
 on the question, and know whether Mr. Cleve- 
 land's present policy is temporary only, and 
 whether he will, as soon as he secures another 
 term of four years in the pi'esidency, suspend it 
 for one of friendship and free trade, I apply to 
 you personally and confidentially for informa- 
 tion which would jiut me at rest myself, and, if 
 favorable to Mr. Cleveland, enable me on my 
 own responsibility to assure many of our 
 countrymen that they would do England ser- 
 vice by voting for Cleveland, and against the 
 republican system of tariff." 
 
 The British minister may have been foolish 
 to answer this letter, but he thought it 
 genuine, i>iit faith in its promise of secrecy, 
 and ^vrote a reply which it is well to give iu 
 full : 
 
 Beverly, Mass., Sept 13, 1888. 
 
 Sir : I am in receipt of your letter of the -tth 
 instant, and beg to say that I fully appreciate 
 the difficulty in which you find yourself in cast- 
 ing your vote. You are probably aware that 
 any political party which openly favors the 
 mother country at the present moment would 
 lose its popularity, and that the party in power 
 is fully aware of this fact. The party, however, 
 is, I believe, desirous of maintaining friendly 
 relations with Great Britain, and is still as 
 desirous of settling all questions with Canada 
 which have been unfortunately reopened 
 since the rejection of the treaty by 
 the republican majority in the senate, and 
 by the president's message to which you allude. 
 All allowances must therefore be made for the 
 political situation as regard.s the presidential 
 election thus created. It is, however, irupossi- 
 ble to predict the course which President Cleve- 
 land will pursiie in the matter of retaliation 
 should he be re-elected ; but there is every rea- 
 son to believe that, upholding the position he 
 has taken, he will manife.st a spirit of concilia- 
 tion in dealing with the question involved in his 
 message. I enclose an article from the New 
 York Times of August 22d. and remain. 
 Yours faithfully. 
 
 L. S. Sackville-West. 
 
 The thing that strikes one who reads this 
 letter now is the truth and simplicity of it, 
 iu every sentence, separately, and as a whole. 
 It was true that a ' ' party which openly 
 favored the mother country ' ' iu the contro- 
 versies then existing would lose popularity. 
 It was true that the party in power, which 
 had been favoring the mother country, was 
 afraid to avow its policy any longer. It was 
 
 true that the suddeu hostility to Canada was 
 a mere pretence to cover the rebuked sub- 
 serviency to Great Britain. It was true 
 that Mr. Cleveland meant nothing by his re- 
 taliation message but to deceive his fellow 
 citizens into voting for him. Many men may 
 have been hoodwinked at the time, btit it is 
 safe to say that there is no one oiitside of the 
 lunatic asj-lums to-day who is fool enough to 
 take any other view than the one Sackville- 
 West took. 
 
 Moreover, the British minister clearly 
 wrote in no critical spirit. He wanted to 
 favor the administration, to excuse it, to 
 justify it. as far as might be. He stated 
 facts as he judged them to be, but he gave 
 no advice about voting, and interfered in no 
 way with American politics, though what he 
 said, considering the character of his cor- 
 respondent's questions, might be taken as an 
 encouragement to vote the democratic ticket. 
 
 JEOPARDIXG THE XATIOX. 
 
 The pectiliar force of the Murchison letter 
 and the answer to it lay in the accuracy with 
 which they siiggested the real attitude of 
 the administration. In seeking excuses for 
 Cleveland's knavery they exposed it. People 
 who were deceived by the clumsy retaliation 
 message, were precisely the sort to be unde- 
 ceived by the artful suggestions of Murchi- 
 son and the artless siinuises of the 
 British minister, and they were not 
 slow to manifest their distrust. The 
 moss-back democrat, troublea with a lin- 
 gering doubt of Mr. Cleveland s conversion 
 miittered with Sir Anthony Absolute : • ' I 
 thought it was damned sudden!" The lead- 
 ers of the party fell into a panic, and the 
 usual needless anxiety about the Iri.sh-Ameri- 
 can vote, which no indignity or neglect seems 
 to drive away from the democracy, began to 
 worry the politicians. As the rumors of de- 
 fection spread there was a clamor for the 
 punishment of the British minister, and the 
 frightened administration demanded his 
 recall, and finally, to make good 
 a fraud, determined upon an in- 
 jtistice and dismissed him! To un- 
 derstand the motives that influenced Mr. 
 Cleveland to take this step it is only neces- 
 sary to recall a single incident. He attended 
 
20 
 
 ARGUMENT AGAINST A THIRD ABOMINATION 
 
 a great meeting in New York near the close 
 of the canvass, and encountered there Pat- 
 rick A. Collins and John Boyle O'Reilly. 
 They told him. so the story ran, that votes 
 were tailing away rapidly on account of the 
 hesitation to dismiss Sackvalle-West. and 
 ■on his return to Washington he made this 
 explanation. October 29th. as to what took 
 place at the interview — and this promise ; 
 
 '• The letter of Lord Sackville was only briefly 
 referred to. I brought the matter up myself, 
 and took occasion to assure them that they 
 would have no faiilt to find with what had been 
 done and the future course to be pursued in the 
 matter. I told Mr. Collins and Mr, O'Reilly 
 that I thought that the people hardly regarded 
 me as a coward in those matters, and, when the 
 facts in the case should be known, the people 
 of the nation would be satisfied with the course 
 of the state department." 
 
 On the same day the secretary of state 
 Avrote his letter dismissing Sackville-West. 
 The right to dismiss him as an unacceptable 
 person was clear: but the pretence put for- 
 ward for dismissing him was a false one ; 
 and the argument in support of it does not 
 ri.se to the level of an honest man's contempt. 
 It is sad to think that Thomas Francis 
 Bayard put his name to such a production : 
 but everybody brought into close relation 
 with Mr. Cleveland is required, sooner or 
 later, to do something in his service that 
 tends to degradation. The main accusation 
 against the British minister was this : 
 
 "That under the correspondent's assurance 
 of secrecy in which the minister concui'red by 
 making his answer • private. ' he undertook to 
 advi.se a citizen of the United States how to ex- 
 ercise the franchise of suffrage in an election 
 close at hand for the presidency and vice-presi- 
 dency of the United States ; and through him, 
 as the letter suggested, to influence the votes of 
 many others.'' 
 
 Mr. Cleveland repeated this charge even 
 more harshly in his last annual message. 
 There is not a word of truth in it. No adA-ice 
 ab(mt voting is given in the letter of the Brit- 
 ish minister: and he was not dismissed for 
 inaking a statement secretly that might lead 
 English -born citizens to vote for Mr. Cleve- 
 land, Imt for making a statement secretly 
 which, when published, might lead Irish-born 
 citizens to vote against Mr. Cleveland. We 
 
 have had presidents before who, as candidates 
 for re-election, were under temptation, but 
 never one who stooped so low as this. The 
 negotiation of the fisheries treaty was weak- 
 ne.ss ; the sending of the retaliation message 
 to congress was demagogism; the dismissal 
 of the British minister on a false plea 
 was little short of direct villainy. As we 
 fling aside the last link in this chain of 
 shameful circumstances, no doubt remains 
 that Mr. Cleveland, to secure his election, 
 would have stopped at nothing, not even 
 provoking a war with England. He rolled 
 himself and the laresidential office in the 
 gutter at the feet of ' ' the enemies he had 
 made. ' ' 
 
 THE INSULT TO CHINA. 
 
 Is it necessary to illustrate further the dis- 
 position of the administration to make use of 
 its responsibilities for electioneering pur- 
 poses? Take the case of China. There was 
 a desperate struggle between parties in 1S88 
 for the Pacific states.especially for California, 
 which lay at the western extremity of the 
 rainbow that spanned the democratic can- 
 vass, and each endeavored to outdo the 
 other in zeal for the exclusion of the 
 Chinese, who are so obnoxious there. On 
 March 1st the senate passed a resolu- 
 tion asking the president to negotiate 
 a treat.y with China providing that no 
 Chinese laborer should enter this country, 
 and such a treaty was negotiated and siib- 
 mitted March 17th. The senate amended it 
 by adding a provision that Chinese laborers 
 formerly resident in this country and hold- 
 ing certificates of such residence shoiild' be 
 excluded if attempting to return. The treaty 
 was then approved as amended, and legisla- 
 tion for carrying it into effect was adopted. 
 On Sunday, September 2d. after the treaty 
 as amended had been submitted to the Chi- 
 nese government for ratification, there came 
 a groundless report in the press despatches 
 from London to the effect that 
 that government had rejected the 
 treaty. That day, according to 
 press despatches from Washington, the late 
 William L. Scott, member of congress from 
 Pennsylvania, the confidential friend of Mr. 
 Cleveland';'^pent some time at the White 
 
AR G UMENT A GAINST A THIRD NOMINA TION. 
 
 House: and on Monday he introduced in 
 the hotise of representatives a bill for the ex- 
 clusion of all Chinese laborers whether with 
 or without certificates. - It was represented 
 as an administration measure, prepared with 
 the personal cooperation of the president. It 
 dealt with the subject matter of the 
 treaty then awaiting the approval or 
 disapproval of the Chinese govern- 
 ment, and it was designed to show the 
 people of California that Mr. Cleveland was 
 the alert and watchful foeman of the 
 ' ' heathen Chinee, ' ' for whom Mr. Harrison 
 was supposed to cherish some remnant of 
 Christian consideration. The republicans, 
 of course, were afraid to oppose the meastire, 
 and it passed the house of representatives 
 without a division. It was disciissed at 
 some length in the senate and passed that 
 body September 7, by a vote of thirty-seven 
 to three, no less than thirty-six senators 
 being absent. There was a motion to recon- 
 sider, as some of the senators had 
 the grace to be ashamed of this act, 
 and Senator Sherman said in the debate on 
 the subject, September 10th, that he had al- 
 lowed the measure to be hurried through 
 the senate because he supposed the presi- 
 dent had accurate and correct information 
 that the treaty negotiated with China would 
 not be ratified. Knowing then that no such 
 information had been received, he 
 favored a reconsideration of the question. 
 as he regarded the passage of the 
 bill as a violation of all honorable precedent. 
 ' • It is, " he said, ' ' a departure from the 
 u.sages of civilized nations. It is a departure 
 from all considerations of national honor. ' ' 
 The motion to reconsider failed by a %'ote of 
 '20 to 21 ; and after some well-managed delay, 
 the bill was sent to the president, and he aia- 
 proved it October 1st, the Chine.se govern- 
 ment in the meantime ha^^ng rejected the 
 treaty, and so relieved him of the necessity 
 of A'etoing his own measure or signing it 
 while the fate of the treaty was still in doubt. 
 The republicans, with a few honorable 
 exceiJtions, played a cowardly part in this 
 transaction: but it has been asserted 
 often and never denied that the original re- 
 sponsibility for the unseemly haste in intro- 
 
 ducing the measure lay with Mr. Cleveland. 
 Could Dennis Kearney, acting in any official 
 capacity, with the national honor in his 
 keeping, have done a meaner thing? 
 
 These incidents are set forth in detail to 
 show that the Cleveland adniiuistratii>n was 
 prompt to betray national interests for parti- 
 san ends in an important political canvass: 
 and they lead to the conclusion that the man 
 who was at the head of that administration 
 is not fit be intrusted with the responsibili- 
 ties of president again. 
 
 THE BELATED TARIFF POLICY. 
 
 Of course the great issue in the canvass of 
 1888 was tariff reform. Four years before 
 that subject was kept in the background. 
 Mr. Cleveland, previous to his first nomina- 
 tion, told T. C. Crawford that •• he didn't 
 know a damned thing about it" : he made no 
 allusion to it in his first letter of acceptance, 
 and he did not take it up in earnest until the 
 third year of his presidential term. Though 
 civil service reform, which had been the great 
 theme of 1884, had lost ground, it was set 
 aside in 1888 with a mere passing allusion. It 
 had served its turn in helping the professional 
 reformers into office : it had lost its popular- 
 ity and they had no further use for it, and 
 hardly cared to keep up even a decent show 
 of sham devotion. The new universal polit- 
 ical solvent had taken its place. It was 
 tariff reform, and that alone, which was to 
 purify our civilization, pull down the rich 
 and exalt the lowly, wipe away all tears 
 from all eyes — and last, but not least, give 
 them a new lease of powder. 
 
 No doubt the policy of the Cleveland ad- 
 ministration on this civiestion was first shaped 
 by Daniel Manning, secretary of the treasury, 
 in his report dated December (j, 1886. It 
 was a masterly argument for revenue reform 
 on free trade lines : and members of the staff 
 of the Worlds Consule Planco, have their 
 own opinion as to who wrote it. Few pub- 
 lic documents have been more generally 
 praised; and the reception it met with 
 probably emboldened Mr. Cleveland to 
 adopt its positions a year later, when 
 it became necessary to do something on 
 which to appeal to the democratic party for 
 a renomination. But he followed Mr. Man- 
 
ARGUMENT AGAINST A THIRD NOMINATION. 
 
 niug's lead with some misgivings and based 
 his demaud for tariff reform, not on the 
 evils arising out of a protective system, but 
 on the evils arising out of an excess of reve- 
 nue and the accumulation of the surplus. 
 This pretext was considered very clever at 
 the time ; but it is never wise to substitute 
 an incident in a controversy for the real 
 points at issue. 
 
 THE SURPLUS. 
 
 There was, of course, a surplus in the 
 treasury after providing for the regular ex- 
 peuditiire of the government and for the 
 requirements of the sinking fund; but, after 
 all, it was oulj- a siirplus in a technical sense. 
 The country owed a heavy f auded debt and 
 had outstanding .?;3-t6,000,000 of unfunded 
 debt in the shape of legal tender 
 notes: the land is new, and there were 
 many public works that might be under- 
 taken ; there were harbors and rivers 
 to improve ; there was a navy to be built ; 
 there were coast defences to be provided. 
 It was folly, therefore, to worry about 
 the surplus as a thing bad in itself if there 
 was any method in which it could be spent 
 to advantage. At the very beginning of the 
 Cleveland administration the ablest demo- 
 crat in the country, Samuel J. Tilden, saw 
 the danger of hoarding the surplus and mak- 
 ing it a political issue, when there were good 
 uses to which it might be put. Remember- 
 ing that we were in no condition to risk a 
 quarrel on the sea, or defend New York, 
 Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New 
 (Jrleaus. and other great seaport 
 cities from foreign attack, he wrote his 
 famous letter dated December 1, 1885, to 
 John G. Carlisle, speaker of the house of 
 representatives. He showed that a great 
 mass of population, of wealth, of business 
 lay exposed at various points along the sea- 
 coast, and that even a weak nation, with a 
 few strong ships, might force a quarrel on 
 us, destroy five thousand million dollars' 
 worth of property, or lay enormous tribute 
 by way of ransom. He urged spending 
 the surplus in fortif jing our seaports. He 
 said : 
 
 •' In considering the state and management of 
 the public revenues, the subject involves the 
 
 questions whether we shall extinguish the sur- 
 plus by reducing the revenue, or whether we 
 shall api)ly the surplus to payments on the pub- 
 lic debt, or whether we shall seize the occasion 
 to provide for our seacoast defences, which have 
 been too long neglected. I am of the opinion 
 that the latter is a paramount necessity which 
 ought to precede the reduction of the revenue, 
 and ought also to precede an excessive rapidity 
 in the payment of the public debt 
 
 ' ' The present time is peculiai-ly favorable for 
 providing for this great national necessity, too 
 long neglected. Not only does the surplus in 
 the treasury supply ample means to enable us to 
 meet this great public want without laying new 
 burdens upon the people, but the work can now 
 be done at a much lower cost than has ever be- 
 fore been possible. The defensive works would 
 consist almost entirely of steel and iron. These 
 materials can now be had at an unprecedentedly 
 low price. A vast supply of machinery and of 
 labor called into existence by a great vicissitude 
 in the steel and iron industries offers itself to 
 our service. We should have the satisfaction of 
 knowing that while we are availing ourselves of 
 the supplies which would ordinarily be unat- 
 tainable, we are setting in motion important in- 
 dustries and giving employment to labor in a 
 period of depression." 
 
 In other words, he set forth as the duty 
 of the democratic party the spending of the 
 surplus for a great public purpose. In his 
 judgment revenue reduction and the antici- 
 pation of bond purchases could wait until a 
 proper system of coast defences was con- 
 structed. If the scheme which he outlined 
 had been adopted, the republican party 
 would have been compelled to acquiesce in it, 
 the administration would have achieved at 
 once a reputation for prompt and patriotic 
 action, the patronage incident to large ex- 
 penditures would have been a source of 
 popularity, a great work would have been 
 accomplished, and the democracy might have 
 remained in power for years. 
 
 The policy of hoarding the surplus, which 
 Mr. Tilden did not think worthy of consid- 
 eration, Mr, Cleveland adopted. He con- 
 sented, with reluctance and under great 
 pressure, to apply a portion of the surplus 
 to the payment of the public debt, affecting 
 to doubt the authority of the secretary of 
 the treasury in the premises; and it was not 
 until his last vear in office that he advocated 
 
ARG UMENT A GAINST A THIRD NOMINA TION. 
 
 decisively the reduction of the revenue; but, 
 as the senate was against the proposed 
 measure for a reform of the tariff, 
 it was clear that no reduction by that 
 means could take jilace even then. This 
 point must be kept clearly in mind. The 
 Cleveland administration was unwilling to 
 use the surplus to diminish the public debt ; 
 it delayed any effort to reduce the revenue ; 
 it refused to undertake the construction of a 
 system of coast defences, and to spend the 
 surplus for the nation's security. It simply 
 hoarded the superabundant money. This 
 was the worst conceivable course to take. 
 There might be something said in behalf of 
 every other policy, but nothing to excuse 
 hiding the surplus in the treasury as an old 
 woman hides her coins in a .stocking. Mr. 
 Cleveland described the evils of the financial 
 policy of his administration with something 
 of his usual exaggeration in his message of 
 December 6th, 1887: 
 
 '• The public treasury, which should exist only 
 as a conduit conveying the people's tribute to 
 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 
 develepment, preventing investment in produc- 
 tive enterprises, threatening financial disturb- 
 ance and inviting schemes of public plunder." 
 
 Why did the administration adopt so in- 
 iquitous a policy ? There were several rea- 
 sons. The accumulation of the surplus car- 
 ried with it an idea of economical manage- 
 ment, and it formed a vantage ground from 
 which to inveigh against extravagance. It 
 furnished an excuse for tariff reform to men 
 too cowardly to take up the policy on its 
 merits. It gave men closely connected with 
 the administration money influence and the 
 opportunity of making vast profits out of the 
 piablic funds without \nolatiug the law. At 
 times there was close to 860,000,000 of the 
 surplus lent to banks "without interest." 
 Mr. Cleveland gravely stated his disapproval 
 of such a policy, in a general way, but ex- 
 cused the resort to it as '"a temporary ex- 
 pedient to meet an urgent necessity. " Of 
 course millions of money are not .scattered 
 around in this way on purely altruis- 
 tic motives, and men identified 
 
 with the administration who went to Wash- 
 ington poor were ranked as millionaii'es 
 within a year after they left the capital. 
 And whatever else the movement for the re- 
 nomination of Mr. Cleveland maj' have lacked, 
 it has never languished for want of money. 
 There was a deal of talking about public 
 office as a public trust ; but, unless all signs 
 fail, it was made a private El Dorado. 
 
 The Cleveland administration heaped up 
 the surplus, deplored its existence, talked 
 about reducing it by tariff reform, and lent 
 it out ' ' without interest. ' ' The Harrison 
 administration has spent it for public uses 
 and prevented such accumulation in the 
 future by cvitting down the revenue. The 
 surplus, therefore, is gone ; and so much of 
 the canvass of 1888 as was based on it is 
 gone with it. It is no longer a condition 
 which confronts us but a theory. And, as- 
 suredly, if the existence of the surplus was 
 so great an evil as the democrats declared 
 four years ago, the Harrison administration, 
 in doing away with it, has solved the only 
 dilficiilty about which the Cleveland admin 
 istration professed to be worried. 
 
 Had Mr. Cleveland been re-elected, rev- 
 enue reduction on either free trade or pro- 
 tection lines would have been impossible 
 with the executive and at least one branch 
 of congress at variance. The surplus would 
 have kept on increasing: the banks would 
 have had the use of the public money with- 
 out interest: and certain politicians, who 
 grew rich during the first term, would have 
 grown far richer during the second. 
 
 THE PROPOSED MEASURE. 
 
 The practical measure of relief which rep- 
 resented in a specific form the democratic 
 tariff policy was the Mills bill, passed by 
 the house of representatives July 2 1st. It 
 had some good points and some bad ones, 
 and may be fairly described as ' • ower bad 
 for blessing and ower gude for banning, 
 like Rob Roy. " It is difficult to say whether 
 it would have increased or diminished the 
 revenue if it had become a law. 
 The most noteworthy thing about it 
 was the fact that it left a heavy 
 protective duty on sugar, a great Southern 
 staple, and maintained that tax, therefore, 
 
?^ 
 
 ARGU3IENT AGAINST A THIRD NOMINATION. 
 
 which contributed far more than any other 
 to the growing surplus. To make sugar 
 free woitld have cut down the customs re- 
 ceipts at a single stroke by a sum equal to 
 the reduction sought in the whole measure 
 and it would have cheapened to every home 
 in the country one of the necessaries of life. 
 The McKinley bill, which became a law two 
 years later, adopted that policy which has 
 served in part to cover a multittide of sins. 
 
 THE COURSE OF DISCUSSION. 
 
 But while the demand for tariff reform 
 was made on the pretext of a surplus, and 
 while the measure for carrying out the re- 
 form was not altogether true to free trade 
 principles in its details, the arguments for 
 the movement took a wider scope. They 
 were of every grade, from that of expedi- 
 ency to that of principle — from the plea for 
 incidental protection to that for absolute 
 free trade. It is hardly worth while to con- 
 sider Mr. Cleveland's utterances at that pe- 
 riod seriously. They were too eqitivocal for 
 discussion. In his letter of acceptance, Sep- 
 tember 8. 1888, he rehearsed the stock argit- 
 ment for free trade, btit nearly every one of 
 them was followed by some modification or 
 pi-oviso in favor of protection, and the 
 writer, like a ferryraan, kept crossing from 
 one side to the other and landing on neither. 
 It is easy to see that he was in no com- 
 fortable frame of mind, and a perusal of 
 the letter leads one to put faith in the story 
 that he made an effort to hedge before the 
 democratic national convention, and sent his 
 confidential agent to induce that body to 
 adopt the declaration of the Chicago con- 
 vention of 1884 on this subject and avoid any 
 step in advance. It took the defeat on the 
 tariff reform issue to settle his opinions, at 
 least until the convention of 1892. But it 
 may be worth while to say a word as to the 
 general discussion that characterized the 
 canvass. 
 
 It has been called fondly ' ' the campaign 
 of education; '" but very often it seemed, in 
 the cotirse of it, more like the campaign of 
 misinfoi-mation. The assertions on both 
 sides were commonly inaccurate, and very 
 seldom got beyond half truths at the best. 
 The alignments were nearly always fallacies. 
 
 The whole spirit of the discus.sion 
 was false and exaggerated. It was 
 like the conduct of a lawsuit in 
 which the lawyers on each side main- 
 tain what is untrue by the most unscrupu- 
 lous methods, and out of the clash of their 
 injustice it is expected that substantial jus- 
 tice will come. The process is perhaps the 
 only one for getting at practical results in 
 politics; but there are occasions when it 
 seems to work under special disadvantage, 
 and the settlement of an old controversy in 
 political economy is one of them. It is apart 
 from the purj^ose of this letter to enter upon 
 any discussion of this world- worn theme. To 
 either system, free trade or protection, the 
 business of the country adapts itself. With 
 either, public sentiment, unexcited by politi- 
 cal discussion, would be inclined to deal in a 
 leisurely way; and probably sudden change 
 would involve for a time something of com- 
 mercial derangement and disaster. But the 
 influence of both has been greatly magnified 
 in all political convasses. In that of 1888 it 
 was asserted that protection is a violation of 
 the principles of the Christian religion ; that 
 it is unconstitutional ; that it is robbery ; that 
 it plunders the poor for the benefit of the 
 rich ; that it raises the prices of all commodi- 
 ties; that it tends to retard natural develop- 
 ment ; that it leads to the formation of trusts : 
 that it causes agricultural depression ; that it 
 multiplies strikes; in a word, that all evil 
 things that have occurred for a quarter of a 
 century, 
 
 •• Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and 
 spring. ' ' 
 Its malign influence was traced every- 
 where, from the failure of the peach crop in 
 New Jersey to a ghost dance among the 
 Sioux Indians. On the other hand, it was 
 maintained that every gain in the lapse of a 
 generation had its origin in the protective 
 system. The rapid increase of the country 
 in wealth and poiDulation, the advance in 
 industrial arts, the progress in science, the 
 multiplication of the comforts and the lux- 
 uries of life, were all atti-fbuted to its benign 
 power. The sunlight that shone on the 
 wheatfields of Minnesota was its gentle 
 agent; the breeze that rustled amid the 
 
ARG UAIENT A GAINST A THIRD NOMINA TION 
 
 ^5 
 
 corn on the prairies of Illinois was its rapid 
 messenger; and the raindrops that glit- 
 tered on the grape leaves of California 
 were sprinkled from the hyssop of its benedic- 
 tion. 
 
 There is no issue more difficult to under- 
 stand than that between free trade and pro- 
 tection ; none on which men are so apt to be 
 misled bv mere glimpses of light ; none on 
 which general statements are so subject to 
 particular exception; none on which illustra- 
 tratious from recent history are so deceptive 
 unless drawn with critical discrimination; 
 none on which the honest inquirer is so liable 
 to change his mind. Discussing it is like 
 tilting at a qviintain. The slightest variation 
 to right or left in the lance "s stroke swings 
 round the whole subject, and the assailant, 
 while passing on to apparent victory, finds 
 himself unhorsed by some reactionary argu- 
 ment. The protectionist as.serts that protec- 
 tion insures high wages : but the wages are 
 much higher in free trade England 
 than in protected Germany. The free 
 trader asserts that the duty is 
 added to the cost of the article, 
 and that protection makes products dearer — 
 which may be true as to particular things 
 for limited periods; but prices on many pro- 
 tected articles have fallen rapidly in this 
 country during the last twenty-five years. 
 The ijrotectionist avers that his system is for 
 the benefit of the workman; but it has 
 helped capitalists to amass millions. The 
 free trader asserts that protection robs the 
 poor: but the masses of the people in the 
 United States are prosperous, intelligent and 
 happy. I need not multiply instances of 
 fallacy on either side ; but these illustrations 
 serve to show the folly of forcing every 
 event into relation with free trade or protec- 
 tion, simply because they form a political 
 issue for a presidential canvass. There are 
 scores of elements apart from either that 
 have determined modern indiistrial progress, 
 such as the multiplication of machinery, 
 the employment of new natural forces, the 
 adoption of economic methods, the increase 
 of capital and the curious facility in the con- 
 centration and combination of it, and the 
 improvement in transportation. I am now, 
 
 and have been for years, in an humble way, 
 an advocate of tariff reform, and laughed as 
 a boy at the pretension that protection was 
 to renew the golden age ; and it was some- 
 thing of a surpri.se to me when the free 
 traders took up in 1888 the prophetic strain 
 of their opponents in IStiO. The most that 
 can be said for the system of hdssez fa ire i& 
 that it gives a scope to natural influences; 
 but not a few of my party friends magnified 
 it on a sudden into a mysterious and benefi- 
 cent policy that was to change the face of 
 society, if not that of nature. The familiar 
 old democratic doctrine was transformed 
 into a sort of political deity. We were 
 asked to hail the new Pollio and sing how 
 the goats would come home with distend- 
 ed udders of theii- own accord to be milked, 
 how the serpent would perish and the poison 
 lose its venom ; how the blushing grape 
 should hang from the wild thorn ; how the 
 rams would choose their pasturage to nour- 
 ish fleeces of purple, and the lambs crop 
 herbs to dye their wool a saffron yellow — ac 
 toto surgef gens aurea mundo! But conspic- 
 uous beyond any mere democratic zeal was 
 the enthusiasm of the recent republicans. 
 They had belonged to the party of protection 
 for nearly thirty years: they had left it in 
 devotion to civil service reform which they 
 made haste to abandon when free trade was 
 declared unto them ; and as the tariff refonn 
 policy was brought up with shouting and 
 with the sound of the trumpet, they went 
 leajjing and dancing with all their might, 
 like David before the ark. And after the 
 manner of the Hebrew poet and the Scottish 
 witches they paid little attention to decorum : 
 They reeled, they set. they crossed, they cleekit, 
 Till ilka carlin swat and reekit. 
 And coost her duddies to the wark, 
 And linket at it in her sark, 
 
 THE DISASTER. 
 
 But, alas, even their bacchantic fury or 
 pious fervor, call it which you will, was of 
 no avail, and the deznocratic party was 
 beaten. The pluralitj' of Mr. Cleveland in 
 Connecticut dropped from 1,276 in 1884 to 
 336 in 1888; the plurality of 6,527 in his 
 favor in Indiana in 188-1 was changed to a 
 plurality of 2. 34S against him in 1888; the 
 
26 
 
 ARGUMENT AGAINST A THIRD NOMINATION. 
 
 plurality of 1,047 in his favor iu New York 
 ill 1884 was converted into a plurality of 
 13,002 against him in 1888; the plurality 
 of 6,141 in his favor in Virginia 
 in 1884 dwindled to 1,539 in 1888, and that 
 of 4,221 in his favor in West Virginia in 
 1884 almost disappeared in the plurality of 
 506 in 1888. There was loss also in Dela- 
 ware, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, 
 and Maryland. The only close states in 
 which he gained were California and New 
 Jersey. The election returns show a decline 
 iu his popularity nearly everywhere except 
 in those Southern states where there is virtu- 
 ally no republican party ; yet the election re- 
 turns are but a poor criterion of that de- 
 cline. The number of democrats who voted 
 for him out of mere partisan feeling, disap- 
 proving him and despising themselves for 
 supporting him, was sim^jly enormous. In 
 the locality where I live I seldom met, dur- 
 ing the canvass of 1888, a democrat of ten 
 years service who did not justify a vote for 
 Mr. Cleveland purely on the ground of 
 partisan loyalty, and declare indifference or 
 hostility to the candidate. 
 
 WHICH WAS THE TRAITOR 'i 
 
 The canvass in New York has been 
 the subject of much controversy and 
 not a little misrepresentation; so 
 that a few words in regard to it will 
 not be out of place; and I can say them 
 without auv bias in favor of Mr. Hill as a 
 presidential candidate. It has been charged 
 throughout the country that the defeat of 
 ]\Ir. Cleveland was due to the treachery of 
 Mr. Hill, who was running for governor in 
 1888, and was elected by a i^lurality of 
 19,171. It is not known whether Mr. Cleve- 
 land himself has made the accusation, but 
 many of the men who are regarded as his 
 special champions have made it — among 
 them Mr. Endicott, secretary of war in his 
 cabinet. No proof has ever been produced 
 to show the disloyalty of Mr. Hill and his 
 friends ; but the disloyalty of Mr. Cleveland 
 and his friends has never been denied. They 
 hated Mr. Hill before 1888: they hated him 
 then; they hate him now; and they 
 liave never let an opportunity for showing 
 their hatred slip. Their scheme was to 
 
 defeat him in 1888 and elect Mr. Cleveland, 
 and they made no concealment of it. Men 
 like Mr. Godkiii of the Evening Post, Mr. 
 Jones of the Times, and Mr. Grace advocated 
 the election of the democratic candidate for 
 president and the defeat of the democratic 
 candidate for governor, and they sent agents 
 through the state to organize their followers 
 for that purpose. Throughout the canvass, 
 while the treachery of the men closest to the 
 president was known, that gentleman re- 
 fused to say a single word in behalf of the 
 governor. It was urged that under the cir- 
 cumstances a decent appearance of party 
 loyalty required him to ask his supporters 
 to stand by the democratic ticket as a 
 whole, but he maintained a silence which 
 could only mean hostility. What a con- 
 trast the condiict of Mr. Hill presented! 
 There were democrats determined to vote 
 for him and against Mr. Cleveland, either 
 because they disliked his character or be- 
 cause they disapproved of his policy; but 
 Mr. Hill neither encouraged them in that 
 course nor acquiesced in it. He made many 
 speeches during the canvass, and he always 
 tooJi imins to advocate the interests of the 
 party, not his own interests. He declared 
 more than once that he wanted the national 
 ticket elected, whatever became of the state 
 ticket ; and he urged those who disliked him 
 not to hesitate on that account about cast- 
 ing a ballot for Mr. Cleveland. This is a 
 matter of record, and my memory of it is 
 clear, moreover, as I criticised Mr. Hill's 
 course at the time as altogether too 
 generous toward a man who aimed 
 at the ruin of his political career 
 and never felt the slightest sense of loyal 
 obligation to an associate on the party 
 ticket. But Mr. Hill could afford to be 
 generous, as he was altogether stronger in 
 the state for general and for special reasons 
 than Mr. Cleveland ; and had the latter been 
 a whit less the dupe of his own conceit, or a 
 whit more susceptible to the sentiment of 
 comradeship, he might have identified him- 
 self with his associate, and jjossibly the pop- 
 ular governor might have carried the un- 
 popular president under the wire a winner 
 — by a plurality at least as respectable as 
 
ARGUMENT AGAINST A THIRD NOMINATION 
 
 27 
 
 that of 1884. The story of the canvass of 
 1888 in New York is briefly this: On the 
 part of Mr. Cleveland, undisguised and un- 
 denied hostility to Mr. Hill ; on the part of 
 Mr. Hill, open and apparently sincere effort 
 in support of Mr. Cleveland ; on the part 
 of Mr. Cleveland's special friends, active ani- 
 mosity and organized endeavor to defeat 
 Mr. Hill; on the part of Mr. Hill's 
 special friends, the suspicion of 
 secret movements in retaliation. 
 
 Now let us go behind the facts and consider 
 the probabilities. Neither man liked the 
 other ; which would be the more apt to be- 
 tray the other ? Mr. Cleveland began his 
 administration with a distinct avowal of 
 non-partisanship, and carried it on for nearly 
 two years on that pretence. It was the 
 fashion to consider as disreputable anything 
 urged on the theory that it was democratic. 
 But while the president was scheming for 
 the leadership of a new party to be organ- 
 ized out of the elect in the two old ones, the 
 governor of New York exclaimed ' ' I am a 
 democrat, ' ' and with the latterance of that 
 phrase party sentiment throughout the 
 country asserted itself and assumed control 
 of the policy of the administration. The 
 democratic masses ansvrered the declaration 
 with a yell of exultation. That 
 phrase represents Mr. Hill fairly. 
 He is a party man through 
 
 and through, loyal to the democracy from 
 head to heel; and he has the defects as well 
 as the virtues of that quality. He is con- 
 stantly criticised for the former; let him 
 have full credit for the latter. How is it 
 with his revilers ? As I have said elsewhere, 
 not one of the men who accuse him of 
 party treachery in 1 888 pretends to any such 
 loyalty or considers it anything better than 
 a reproach. Mr. Cleveland has not got it ; 
 Mr. Fairchild, his secretary of the treasury, 
 has not got it ; Mr. Endicott, his secretary 
 of war, has not got it; Mr. Grace has 
 not got it; Mr. Godkin has not got 
 it. Not one of them imderstands the 
 sentiment. All of them have traded, 
 more or less, in politics on the lack of it. 
 Each one of them would betray party obli- 
 gations or party associates as a matter of 
 
 course — indeed each has done so; and, natur- 
 ally they find it difficult to believe that an- 
 other would sink j^ersonal considerations for 
 the sake of party interests. Even now they 
 are in revolt against the action of the dem- 
 ocracy of the state regularly taken in full 
 convention. The denial of the duty of party 
 loyalty is the only title of these men to 
 political glory; and if that characteristic 
 were taken away, not a single trait would 
 remain to distinguish them from the general 
 obscurity. Not even in 1888, with every- 
 thing at stake, could they deviate into honest 
 partisanship. 
 
 PERPETI'AL CANDIDATE. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland must have determined to 
 become a candidate for the presidency in 
 1892 very shortly after his defeat in 1888. 
 His design is clear from his fourth annual 
 message, dated December 3d of that year. 
 It dealt with tariff reform, and was different 
 in tone from his previous utterances on the 
 subject, not simply from his first message, 
 which conceded the most important protec- 
 tionist doctrines, but from his message of 
 the preceding year, in which he made a new 
 departure. It flung aside all reserves and 
 qualifications. It was for tariff reform on 
 free trade lines, and aimed to commit the 
 party to that policy beyond recall. The 
 protective system was denounced as a denial 
 of " eqiial and exact justice" to all 
 our citizens ; it was described as discrimi- 
 nating in favor of the manu- 
 facturers, enriching the wealthy and impov- 
 erishing the poor ; it was characterized as a 
 partnership of the government with a fa- 
 vored few for their benefit ; it was stigma- 
 tized as oppressing the farmer and ruining 
 country life ; it was considered as dooming 
 the workingman to perpetual servitude ; it 
 was declared to be the ' 'communism of com- 
 bined wealth and capital:" and it was held 
 responsible for all manner of public and pri- 
 vate demoralization. Perhaps it is a waste 
 of time to run down Mr. Cleveland's incon- 
 sistencies and hypocrisies; but it may be 
 worth while to recall the passage quoted in 
 my letter four years ago from the first an- 
 nual message and contrast it with a few sen- 
 eences selected from the last annual message : 
 
2S 
 
 ARGUMENT AGAINST A THIRD NOMINATION. 
 
 ' ' We discover that the fortunes realized by 
 our manufacturers are no longer solely the re- 
 ward of sturdy industry and enlightened fore- 
 sight, but they result from the discriminating 
 favor of the govei-nment. and are largely built 
 lip on undue exactions from the masses of our 
 people."" 
 
 "As we view the achievements of aggregated 
 capital, we discover the existence of trusts, com- 
 binations and monopolies, while the citizen is 
 struggling far in the rear or trampled to death 
 beneath an iron heel. Corporations which 
 should be the carefully restrained servants of 
 the people are fast becoming the people"s mas- 
 ters.'" 
 
 " But to the extent that the mass of our citi- 
 zens are inordinately burdened beyond any use- 
 ful public purpose, and for the benefit of a 
 favored few. the government, under pretext of 
 an exercise of its taxing power, enters gratui- 
 tously into partnership with these favorites, to 
 their advantage and to the injury of a vast ma- 
 jority of our people.'" 
 
 ■• The grievances of those not included within 
 the circle of these beneficiaries, when fully 
 realized, will surely arouse indignation and dis- 
 content."" 
 
 "Our worliingmen. enfranchised from all de- 
 lusions and no longer frightened by the cry that 
 their wages are endangered by a just revision 
 of our tariff laws, will reasonably demand 
 through such revision steadier employment, 
 cheaper means of living in their homes, freedom 
 for themselves and their children from the doom 
 of perpetual servitude and an open door to their 
 advancement beyond the limits of a laboring 
 class." 
 
 If auytliing could be funnier than this hos- 
 tility to protected industries in 1888, after 
 the solicitude for their prospei'ity in 1885. it 
 is the cry for the eufrauchisemeiit of the 
 workingman from delusions as to the effect 
 of protection on his wages, which Mr. Cleve- 
 land shared three years before. Let us add 
 a touch to the general absurdity by setting 
 beside the remark in regard to corporations 
 this sentence from the veto of the Five-cent 
 Fare bill, March 3, 1883: " It is manifestly 
 important that invested capital should be- 
 protected, and its necessity and usefulness in 
 the development of enterprises valuable to 
 the people be recognized by conservative 
 conduct on the jmrt of the state govern- 
 ment." • 
 
 In this message Mr. Cleveland said in clos- 
 
 ing his plea for tariff reform : ' ' The cause 
 for which the battle is waged is comprised 
 within lines clearly and distinctly defined. 
 It should never be compromised. It is the 
 people's cause." With the instinct of baffled 
 ambition he sought to identify himself with 
 the policy of free trade and assert his right 
 to represent it for the future. Seeking to 
 confound loyalty to a party principle with 
 loyalty to himself, he has stuck to that 
 scheme ever since. He has written much, 
 but nothing so clear and strong as his last 
 annual message, though all tending to the 
 same end. He has skulked in important 
 campaigns and paraded himself at banquets; 
 but he has never ceased to be a candidate ; 
 never failed to assert that there is but one 
 cause, and never hesitated to declare that he 
 is its prophet. Some of his acts and some of 
 his utterances are tempting subjects for 
 comment : but the latter are no more than 
 tri\'ial repetitions of the manifesto of Decem- 
 ber 3, 1888. 
 
 ambition's false pretenses. 
 
 Though posing always as a candidate and 
 scheming to secure a renomination, Mr. 
 Cleveland did not avow his candidacy iintil 
 March 9th of the present year. It was 
 thought best that he should declare himself 
 at that time, and the half-forgotten General 
 Bragg was brought forward and wrote a let- 
 ter, under date of March 5th, appealing to 
 the ex-president to announce himself as a can- 
 didate. That gentleman had been defeated 
 for a renomination to congress in 1883; there 
 was an ugly scandal in regard to his private 
 as well as his political conduct, and 
 he cut no great figure in public 
 life for a time. In the beginning of 1888 Mr. 
 Cleveland gave him his long deferred reward 
 in the shape of the mission to Mexico, but as 
 harmony prevailed and Tammany Hall was 
 to present Mr. Cleveland's name to the na- 
 tional convention, General Bragg was kept 
 sedulously in the background. This year, as 
 the New York democracy is against Mr. 
 Cleveland, it was considered a cunning de- 
 vice to recall the contest in the convention 
 of 1884 and suggest to the national dem- 
 ocracy the policy of honoring Mr. Cleveland 
 
ARGUMENT AGAINST A THIRD NOMINATION. 
 
 29 
 
 ■again for '"the enemies he has made."' 
 Bragg is once more a good dog. 
 
 The mo.st noteworthy thing about Mr. Cleve- 
 land's letter to Gen. Bragg is the fact that, al- 
 though it means that he is a candidate, it 
 does not say so. It was easy for Mr. Cleve- 
 land, in answer to the request made to him, 
 to .say that he would allow his name to be 
 presented to the national democratic conven- 
 tion and would accept a nomination for the 
 presidency cheerfully. Why did he prate 
 and palaver and avoid a manly declaration? 
 His natural duplicity may have had some- 
 thing to do with the sneaking way in which 
 he behaved ; but it is possible that he had 
 the grace to be ashamed to confess his own 
 selfishness — that after having secured 
 two nominations he shrank from de- 
 manding a third. And so, to meet a plain 
 question plainly put, he made several false 
 pretences. He said : " If in answering your 
 questions I might only consider my personal 
 desires and my individual ease and comfort, 
 my response would be promptly made and 
 without the least reservation or difficulty." 
 The implication is that the answer would be 
 Xolo cpiscopari. "But what hinders Mr. 
 Cleveland from considering his own "indi- 
 vidual ease and comfort?'" He insisted on a 
 notable occasion that John Kelly should re- 
 gard his " personal comfort " as a decisive 
 consideration in political action, and the 
 standard which he asked the boss 
 of Tammany Hall to adopt has 
 ever been his own. Is there an 
 instance in which he acted on any other — 
 either in ijrivate or public life* He added: 
 ' ' But if you are right in supposing that the 
 subject is related to a duty that I owe to the 
 country and to my party, a condition exists 
 which makes such private and personal con- 
 siderations entirely irrelevant. ' ' The only 
 time when the United States ever laid its 
 hand on Gruver Cleveland's shoulder and 
 said. "You are needed," was when he was 
 drafted for service in the Union army. He did 
 not go, but sent a substitute. That was well 
 enough ; but why should the man who re- 
 fused to shoulder a musket and march to the 
 front at a crisis, when the lot fell on him to 
 go, insist that his only motive in seeking pub- 
 
 lic office is a sense of duty and a desire for 
 self-sacrifice ? Before the drafted man there 
 was danger, toil, suffering: and Mr. Cleve- 
 land preferred not to face the.se things. No 
 doubt he had good grounds, as mam* other 
 men who took a like course had, for his de- 
 cision; but the fact remains that he had no 
 scruples about delegating the duty of fight- 
 ing for his country. And now, when the 
 highest, the best paid, and one of the easiest 
 situations in the country is in question, it is 
 no better than arrant falsehood for him to pre- 
 tend that only a sense of patriotic obligation 
 would induce him to accept it. Mr. Cleveland 
 has been seeking or holding honorable and 
 well-paid public offices all his life ; and the 
 naked truth is that he has been seeking them 
 because they are honorable and well paid. 
 The public service that was without pres- 
 tige, that was poorly paid, that was danger- 
 ous, and that was thrust upon him he re- 
 fused to undertake. Mr. Cleveland remarked, 
 also : "I speak of these things solely for the 
 purpose of advising you that my conception 
 of the nature of the presidential office and 
 my conviction that the voters of our party 
 should be free in selection of their candi- 
 dates, precludes the possibility of my leading 
 and pushing a self-seeking canvass for the 
 presidential nomination, even if I had the 
 desire to be again a candidate.'' Mr. Cleve- 
 land became a presidential candidate in 
 1888, after declaring in his letter of accept- 
 ince in 1884 that the greatest danger to the 
 country lay in the ambition of a president 
 to secure a renominatiou. Could a more 
 conclusive proof of unscrupulous self-seeking 
 be desired than his intrigue for a renomina- 
 tiou in the face of his assertions on this 
 point ? If so, the present political con- 
 dition furnishes it. There could be no 
 phase of self-seeking possible, beyond grasp- 
 ing for a third nomination, except the desire 
 for a dictatorship or a Life tenure of the 
 |n-esidency. And the men united by ■ • a 
 zeal born of benefits received and fostered 
 by the hope of favors yet to come, ' ' who 
 rallied about him four years ago, are push- 
 ing on his fortunes now. No man ever 
 made the Federal xiatronage so distinctly' a 
 personal perquisite. His self-.seeking is so 
 
70 
 
 ARGUMENT AGAINST A THIRD NOMINATION. 
 
 uimatnral that it sets aside even the obliga- 
 tion of party loyalty. To the democracy of 
 this state he owes what fortiine he has won 
 and what distinctioi; he has achieved. It 
 made him sheriff, maj'or, and governor, and 
 it presented him twice to the democracy of 
 the nation as its choice for the presidency ; 
 but the moment it declared a preference for 
 another candidate he flung himself into a 
 movement to discredit, disgrace, and disrupt 
 it. An ambition so greedy and so gross 
 hardly preserves about it the decency of 
 ordinary hiiman selfishness. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS AGAINST THE CLAIMANT. 
 
 These discussions of special points lead us 
 naturally to a certain set of general conclu- 
 sions. 
 
 It is claimed that Mr. Cleveland should be 
 nominated once more because he is an 
 available candidate: but his defeat in 1888 
 proved that he was not an available candi- 
 date then, and he has done nothing whatso- 
 ever since beyond making a few labored at- 
 tempts at after-dinner speaking — the oratory 
 of insincerity and display. He won by a 
 fluke in 1884: he lost in 1888; and ne is 
 weaker now than ever before. There is no 
 reason whatsoever to suppose that he will 
 win this year a single state that he lost at 
 the last election, and he will no doubt lose 
 several close states that he carried then. It 
 is confessed that the democratic party can 
 hardly succeed in the nation without win- 
 ning in New York; and with him as a can- 
 didate the regular democratic organiza- 
 tion of the state will have to be overturned 
 and a mere faction set in its place, so that 
 victory here will be out of the question. In 
 1888 he had the Federal patronage to sustain 
 him and ' ' a horde of officeholders " ' ready to 
 aid him ' ' with money and trained political 
 service;" this year he has the same horde, 
 discredited by defeat and iinpopular for their 
 intrigues. In 1888 the republicans were dis- 
 heartened and doubtful ; this year they are 
 full of old-time hope, courage and determina- 
 tion. In 1888 the fight on tariff reform took 
 them somewhat by surprise; this year they 
 are ready at all points, and not an available 
 argument or a plausible sophistry will be 
 lacking. In 18SS there was a surplus 
 
 accumulated ; this year there is none wortli 
 ciuarreling aboiit. In 1888 there was an old 
 tariff law to attack, whose workings were 
 well understood : this year there is a new 
 law, for which full trial will be demanded. 
 In 1888 the democrats made compact with 
 calamity and threatened us with disaster; 
 this year the republicans have national pros- 
 perity for their ally. In 1888 there was a. 
 weak democratic administration, neutral at- 
 home, cowardly abroad ; this year there is a 
 strong reijublican administration, successfitl 
 at nearly all points save the management of 
 the xaension bureau, and singularly brilliant 
 in its foreign policy. The task of attempting 
 to vindicate Mr. Cleveland will be more 
 hopeless than ever. 
 
 It is claimed that Mr. Cleveland should be 
 renominated because he represents the move- 
 ment for tariff reform ; but in this matter 
 be was long a laggard and never a leader. 
 There are scores of democrats more entitled 
 to be identified with that iiolicy and abler 
 to expound it. To make tariff reform de- 
 pend upon his fortunes is to jeopard its 
 success; for the man is by no means so 
 strong in ijopular favor as the policy. He 
 gains votes through it and it loses votes 
 through him. And granting that he might 
 win on that issue, what guarantee is there 
 that he would carry out the policy ? He 
 abandoned civil service reform; he may 
 abandon tariff reform. If he were elected 
 this year he might find it convenient to try 
 another issue for 1896, possibly the exclusion, 
 of European immigrants, which has great 
 promise of becoming a fashionable political 
 fad. The worst traitor to tariff reform is 
 the man who advocates it simi^ly to help 
 Mr. Cleveland to a renomination. 
 
 It is claimed that Mr. Cleveland should be 
 renominated because he is in some mysteri- 
 oi;s and general way a ' ' reformer. ' ' Gen- 
 uine reform of any evil is a desperate and 
 dangerous task; and the real reformer is 
 commonly a man of siiffering, self-sacrifice and 
 tmrewarded labor. It is fair to assume that 
 he who prospers on " reform" is a fraud. 
 Mr. Cleveland has talked '• reform" a great 
 deal, and made it the source of profit and 
 power, but what did he ever reform ? He 
 
ARG UMENT A GAINST A THIRD NOMINA TION. 
 
 lias the faculty of taking up a cause that has 
 been won already and availing himself of its 
 prestige ; but he has never originated or even 
 carried out to a successful issue any benefi- 
 cent policy whatsoever. His career in im- 
 portant public offices has been fairly tested 
 by time, and what are the results 
 of it?^ He was governor of New York 
 for two years; the commissions that he 
 appointed have proved worthless, and he 
 left less impression on the administration of 
 the state than any of the summer breezes 
 that blew over it in 1884. His most notable act, 
 the veto of the Five-cent Fare bill on a plea 
 that a change in the charter of a corporation 
 by a state that granted it violates the United 
 States constitution, and on the plea that the 
 elevated railroads of the metropolis could 
 not afford to reduce their rates of fare, 
 was rendered ridiculous during his presiden- 
 tial term by the action of the railroad com- 
 panies, which reduced the fare of their own 
 accord. Samiael J. Tilden was governor of 
 New York for two years, and he changed 
 the whole spirit and method of our state 
 administration, and left several import- 
 ant reforms embodied in the state consti- 
 tution. It might be said almost that the 
 shadowy hand of his spirit is still on the 
 helm of the commonwealth. No greater 
 contrast could be presented between the 
 man who brings things to pass and the man 
 who merely babbles about bringing them to 
 pass. Mr. Cleveland was President of the 
 United States for foiir years, and he did 
 nothing worthy of his great opportunities. 
 He did not leave an idea or an achievement 
 behind him. The civil ser\ace reform policy 
 on which he was elected he betrayed. The 
 revenue policy he advocated at the last 
 moment he could not carry out. The treaties 
 he negotiated were rejected; and the impor- 
 tant measures that he vetoed became laws 
 after his retirement from office. The tax on 
 oleomargarine, nullifying his plea for revenue 
 reduction, and the Mexican pension bill 
 nullifying his plea for economy in dealing 
 with veteran soldiers, are the greatest re- 
 sults of his term. And the only thing he set 
 himself to do with all his energies, securing 
 -a re-election, he failed to accomplish. There 
 
 was plenty of pledges, promises, and pro- 
 fessions, but a strange barrenness of per- 
 formances. Mr. Cleveland has now carried 
 on two national canvasses, each in the inter- 
 est of a great reform. In 1 884 he would 
 recognize nought '-under heaven's wide 
 hollowness" but civil service reform, though 
 the tariff was in a worse state than it is in 
 now. In 1888 he refused to see anything but 
 tariff reform on the face of the earth, though 
 civil ser\ace reform was in worse plight than 
 in 1884. He was. therefore, a cheat in 1884 
 and a cheat in 1888; and he is a cheat now. 
 He is ready for au.y " reform" that will i)ut 
 him into office. 
 
 It is claimed that Mr. Cleveland should be 
 nominated because he represents in an es- 
 pecial way the best elements of the demo- 
 cratic party ; but so far as he represents its 
 best policy and its best men he is not at all 
 singular. If the claim means that he repre- 
 sents certain cliques, coteries, and classes 
 more than any other candidate would repre- 
 sent them, the peculiarity is a disqualifica- 
 tion rather than a recommendation. 
 
 It is claimed that Mr. Cleveland should be 
 nominated because he is the favorite of the 
 people, but there is no reason to suppose 
 that the masses care for him. The election 
 returns indicate that, while he seldom fails 
 to carry conventions of politicians, he has 
 become a weak candidate with the people. 
 
 It is claimed that Mr. Cleveland should be 
 nominated again becau.se he is an honest 
 man. But honesty is not rare, and, com- 
 mon as it is," there is no certainty that Mr. 
 Cleveland has it. The purchase of Red 
 Top was a transaction that throws a shadow 
 of suspicion back on many things in his 
 career. He bought the place for 838.000 
 in the spring of 1886, and expended about 
 $10,000 on it for improvements; and he 
 sold it in the spring of 1890 for 8140,000. 
 It is plain, therefore, that the purchase was 
 not to secure a home, but to make money. 
 The prestige ot the president and his influ- 
 ence over the commissioners of the District 
 of Columbia were thrown in as elements in 
 rushing up the value of certain suburban 
 property. It was not an ordinary real estate 
 speculation, since Mr. Cleveland took no risk. 
 
3'^ 
 
 AR G UMENT A GAINST A THIRD NOMINA TION. 
 
 He had the power, through his official posi- 
 tion, to make his investment good, and it 
 more than tripled in value within four years. 
 The most lenient criticism on such a transac- 
 tion is that it was indecent ; and a severe 
 moralist must pronounce it dishonest. From 
 a public point of view it was turning an 
 official trust to private opportunity; and 
 from a private point of view it was a swin- 
 dle on less favored holders of real estate. 
 
 It is claimed that Mr. Cleveland should be 
 renominated because he is the favorite of 
 men outside of the democratic party ; but no 
 party can make that the overmastering con- 
 sideration in choosing a candidate. A party 
 exists to maintain its own principles, carry 
 out its own policy and put its own favorites 
 into positions of power and responsibility, 
 not to maintain the principles, advocate the 
 policy, or elect the champion of others. The 
 first requisite for a party candidate, there- 
 fore, is that he shall represent the party — 
 and^ command the party vote. If beyond 
 that he can attract outsiders, so much the 
 better. But that party which 
 
 risks alienating friends to conciliate 
 enemies ceases to subserve the ends of its or- 
 ganization, and ought to perish. Mr. Cleveland 
 will not command the full democratic vote 
 in the close states. He will attract the votes 
 of a few outsiders, but their help will not 
 come as a good-will offering, but in the 
 guise of an alliance on conditions. They are 
 recruits of a peculiar character that repel 
 more voters than they muster. They have a 
 contempt for common loyal democrats that 
 they do not attempt to disguise : and the dis- 
 like is reciprocated cordially. They want to 
 dictate candidate, policy, and the division of 
 the spoil, and they say to the democratic 
 masses, "You cast the ballots, we'll do the 
 rest. ' ' In such a transaction the democratic 
 party does not gain strength by absorbing 
 new elements ; it simply enters into a coali- 
 tion and weakens itself by the expedient as 
 it did in 1ST2. 
 
 Finally, it is claimed that Mr. Cleveland 
 should be nominated a third time because he 
 is the hero of the age, the savior of society. 
 '■ the logical candidate," the man essential to 
 democratic prosperity and necessary to the 
 
 safety of the country ; and it is this claim be- 
 yond all other things that should bar his re- 
 election to the presidency. If Mr. Cleveland 
 were all that his fondest admirer supposes 
 him to be, such a plea for his renomination 
 would be not simply worthless, but pernicious. 
 It is against the very essence of a common- 
 wealth — that by which it is, and is what it is. 
 It is the cardinal doctrine of personalism as 
 against party, and imperialism as against 
 democracy; and if this man becomes a can- 
 didate a third time that will be the real 
 issue in the canvass ; for ' ' the logical candi- 
 date ' ' brings it with him as ' 'the logical issue. " ' 
 A stanch democrat w^ho voted for Mr. Cleve- 
 land in 1884 and in 1888 said to me not long 
 ago : "I shall not vote for him this year 
 should he be renominated. I will not vote 
 for the same man for the presidency three 
 times in succession, on any plea whatsoever 
 or under any circumstances whatsoever. ' ' It 
 is a good rule for every citizen to adopt - 
 There is no attempt made to disguise per- 
 sonalism in the Cleveland movement as 
 distinguished from democracy. He is 
 praised as superior to his party; 
 every policy is judged with reference to 
 its bearing on his fortunes, and not on its 
 merits ; a canditate for speaker is advocated 
 or opjDOsed, not because of his qualifications or 
 disqualifications for the office, but as a friend 
 or enemy of the " Perpetual President. " If 
 an editor refuses to praise him, pressure is 
 brought to bear by the Cleveland managers 
 on the owners of the paper for his dismissal ; 
 if a professor in a college says a good word 
 for somebody else, the mugwump press threat- 
 ens to boycott the institution ; if a democratic 
 leader dares to cherish an honorable ambi- 
 tion for the presidency, the literary and po- 
 litical henchmen that surround the Claim- 
 ant, like bravos about a nobleman in medieval 
 Italy, waylay and attack his possible rival 
 for the assassination of his character. Terse- 
 ness has gone out of fashion because he is 
 verbose ; the rules of rhetoric are in disfavor 
 because he mixes his metaphors ; and two of 
 the ten commandments are put in abeyance 
 to accommodate the Decalogue to the defects 
 of his moral character. It may be said that 
 a third nomination of Mr. Cleveland is not 
 
AR G UMENT A GAINST A THIRD NOMINA TION. 
 
 33- 
 
 like a nomination for a third term ; but while 
 it is not so in fact it is so in spirit. The 
 plea in his behalf is that which Washing- 
 ton discredited forever when made to .iustify 
 a third nomination of himself; and it is that 
 which the democratic party attacked so fu- 
 riously when it was made as a pretext for 
 the third nomination of General G-rant. Sncli 
 a nomination would be the abandonment of 
 democratic tradition. Defeat on that issue 
 would close the long career of the party in dis- 
 grace; victory on' it would transform the 
 partj' into a purely personal and imperial 
 organization, and Mr. Cleveland would be 
 the logical candidate once more in 1896. The 
 ambition of such a man never turns into 
 moderation; the slavishness of his followers 
 never changes to independence. What coiild 
 be more significant than the fact that we are 
 called upon to argue, in 1893, against the 
 third nomination of one who declared in 1884 
 that the eligibility of the president to re- 
 election is a serious danger to the repub- 
 lic and that he should be disqualified for a 
 second term by a constitutional amendment? 
 On this ground alone he should be beaten ; 
 and on this ground alone the party that 
 nominates him should die a dog"s death. This 
 much is said as if Mr. Cleveland were the 
 ideal hero and statesmen of our history; but 
 what is he in realitj'? Who is this man to 
 whom we are asked to give the supremacy 
 which the Father of the Country denied to 
 himself, and which we deuiea to the piTre- 
 minded and simple-hearted soldier who was 
 the foremost champion of the nation in the 
 ci\'il war? I take no pleasure in the theme, 
 seldom touch it except on public considera- 
 tions, and never without regret, when what 
 I say has in it a touch of harshness. He is a 
 man of ordinary capacities, defective train- 
 ing, selfish disposition, and somewhat coarse 
 nature, who met with unexpected success; 
 who was minded to take great honors sober- 
 ly, but lost his head; who had an instinct to- 
 ward integrity, bvit failed to follow it ; who was 
 constrained by circiimstances to profess 
 many things he did not believe and some he 
 did not understand ; who put off simplicity 
 and its freedom and piit on hypocrisy and 
 
 its obligations: who met with oppt)rtunity 
 before he was ready to use it and is eager for 
 another encounter; who lives without an 
 ideal and true to the simple plan of getting 
 for himself all the money, honor, power and 
 gratification out of life that he can. A more 
 unheroic figure never posed for popular ad- 
 miration. His career is unmarked by any 
 act of self-sacrifice or by any brilliant 
 achievement ; and it is stained by faults of 
 conduct, many of which it is difficult 
 to excuse, and some of which it is im- 
 possible to palliate. The best that can be 
 said of him is that he has done well for him- 
 self, and probably means to do better. It is 
 sometimes asked : How, then, do you ac- 
 count for the fact that so many men of char- 
 acter and ability profess to admire him and 
 make his cause their own:-* Some of these 
 men are renegade republicans. They think 
 it due to their self-respect to maintain that 
 a new revelation was made for their conver- 
 sion. An angel of the Lord met them in 
 the way ; and he is disguised in the portly 
 form of Mr. Cleveland. Some of these 
 men are democratic politicians who know 
 their own fortunes are bound up in his suc- 
 cess, and magnify him to exalt themselves. 
 Some of these men are members of the 
 learned professions, and others are snobs in 
 society and cads in club houses, who regard 
 themselves as the classes, and think that Mr, 
 Cleveland represents their cause against that 
 of the masses. Some of these men are un- 
 touched by either selfishness or conceit in 
 their homage. Their honest delusion, to 
 which, for instance, a man like Mr. Lowell 
 has given expression, I do not pretend to 
 explain. I accept it as a fact in life and na- 
 ture and use it to explain other curious 
 things. It is the key to many a problem in 
 history that has puzzled me for years. See- 
 ing from actual observation and personal 
 knowledge of the j^rocess how easily a false 
 ideal arises and is puffed out \vith bombast 
 to heroic proportions, I no longer wonder 
 over Mohammed, or Joe Smith, or J^apoleon 
 the Little, or General Boulanger, or the 
 Tichborne claimant.