)N1VER!

CLEVELAND'S
LAST MESSAGE

"When it became apparent that Mr. Taft would
be the nominee of his party, * * conjecture
as to the result of the November conclusions
could be of but one sort among sensible men."
—Grover Cleveland.

293

Cd3C Z5D

jf-U.ST before his death Mr. Cleveland planned
J the writing of three articles on the Presi
dential campaign of ipo8. The first ar
ticle was to be a general discussion of the politi
cal field, the issues and the men; the second was
to deal with the issues developed by the con
flict of the two parties, to appear in September;
and the third was to deal with the doubtful States,
this to be published shortly before the election.
The first article was finished. Whether he made
a beginning on either of the other articles is
doubtful, as no trace of either has been found
among his papers. The following article, the first
of the proposed series, was published in the
New York Times of August 30.

CLEVELAND'S LAST MESSAGE.

(Copyright, 1908, by The New York Times Company.)
EACH quadrennial campaign is a recrudescent crisis in the
affairs of the American people, formative of new
endeavors in our National life from the mass of the old
mingled with new and untried. We are overfohd of
change and amendment, and at times reckless of underlying prin
ciples, which are not susceptible of change, and to antagonize
which may mean disaster and at least is certain to entail stultifica
tion and impairment of the best of our past and present.
The campaign on which we are entering signalizes the
crystallization of more that is new than any other within forty
years, and is not so important for the policies that it will fix for
the next four years as for the greater changes that its results
will be found to foreshadow. Over our horizon lift the blunt
heads of clouds of storm, and the low mutter of distant thunder
is heard beneath the basic roar of our eighty millions moving
on. It is the earnest wish of one whose heart has long been
engrossed with his country's greatest and best in the ultimate
that the men who shall take over her ward and keep shall fail
not nor falter in that day more than those statesmen of the past
whose giant figures loom in the vista of our history mutely
monitive to emulation. PEOPLE BETTER AND WISER.
For a time there were those who feared that there was' an
obliquity in the standard of our civic morality which marked a
degeneracy not to be averted, and greed, disintegrity and mal
feasance strode unabashed through the courses of our official
functions. But we have lived to realize that it was merely an
excrescence of the- times, that it was something transitory, like

unto the slough of a wound, and that its prevalence and persis
tency were needed to rouse the opposition necessary to its final
obliteration. So, it seems to me, as I review the last half cen
tury, that from the mental vision I may draw this certain con
clusion : We as individuals and citizens are better, wiser, cleaner
handed than we were, and are rising steadily to planes higher than
we have yet known. It is true in one way that the "evil that
men do lives after them ; the good is oft interred with their
bones," but that survival is more in effect than in popular con
sciousness. We are prone to think of the past as better than the present
and to forget that which was publicly discreditable in the last
decade or the last generation. Considering these matters and
conditions of which I have had some opportunities of being
informed, no hesitancy comes in saying that the agitation in
behalf of common honesty in the past few years has had a notable
effect, not only in the immediate conditions that underlie the
agitation, but in the broader things of our intimate life as a peo
ple. Never has a more intelligent body of voters prepared to .go
to the polls, and never one more thoroughly awakened to its
moral responsibilities, SOUTH HOSTILE TO OWN INTERESTS.
It is unfortunate at all times, of course, that a rigid partisan
spirit should hold certain sections of the country to whatever
course of action is provided for them by the leaders of the party
to which they are committed, no matter whether that principle
defining the course be some innocent sophistry or some danger
ous obsession of a set of blatant demagogues. To be specific,
the population of some of the New England States is so inher
ently Republican that the fallacy would be palpable indeed that
would not earn their support just so it had the approval of the
leaders of the Republican Party. On the other hand, the South
has long taken a stubborn, foolish pride in its enlistment under
the Democracy and has stood like a rock in its partisanism at
times when there are now few who would not admit that had
its stand been one in the grounds of victory the consequences to
the country, and particularly to the South itself, with her unde-

veloped industries dependent in their young growth on stable
and favorable conditions at large, would have been direly unfor
tunate and productive of injury that cannot be estimated.
NOT DISLOYAL TO REAL DEMOCRACY.
There is no suggestion of a sentiment of disloyalty on my
part to the older principles of Democracy under which I have
striven always to do my public duty in matters large and small
when I say that there is a large indication that the coming years
will bring forth a new ascendency of those" same principles, per
haps under a different panoply, and perhaps with a reincorpora
tion of the decayed fragments of an organization that failed to
serve its purpose. No political party in any country has ever
been wrecked by continued consistency with the principles that
originally made it a power, the rocks on which it fell invariably
being the errors of opportunists. The present campaign as a side
feature will have a long step in the progress to the readjustment
to first principles, and it is propitious indeed that there is no
issue of such gravity that those principles are needed to determine
it. Never has there been a safer time for the rehabilitation to
proceed. PREDICTS ELECTION OF MR. TAFT,
When it became apparent that Mr. Taft would be the
nominee of his party, that Mr. Hearst and his party would make
a clean-cut effort for emplacement as a National factor and not
endeavor to gain any immediate advantage for themselves by
any such process as fusion, in fact, would seek to destroy Bryan-
ism, or rather Mr. Bryan's hold on the Democratic Party, not
by forcing the hold to relax, but by lessening that which he had
to hold, conjecture as to the result in the November conclusions
could be of but one sort, among sensible men. With the several
other parties disorganizing, redeveloping and pro-creating, the
Republican Party is certain, though with a considerably lessened
strength, to move on to a safe victory sustained by the popular
support of reforms which should not redound to its glory solely,
those reforms having been the work of decent men of all parties.

PRAISES REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE.
There is fear on my part of being misunderstood in what
I am about to say, but surely the fair-minded man must realize
when he considers my attitude toward my own party, all now
a matter of immutable record, that it is prompted by a sense
of simple fairness. Personally and officially I have had the
opportunity of knowing many things concerning Mr. Taft that
were not a matter of general knowledge, and with a keen inter
est I have watched his large share in the conduct of our
National affairs in very recent years. His excellence as a
Federal Judge in Cincinnati is something not to be under
estimated or overemphasized, for should he come to the Presi
dential chair the qualities which made him a Judge of high
ability, which I know him to have been, will be the most need
ful to him as President of the United States. His high ideals
of honesty and of relative justice, his great capacity for severe
labor and his humorous wisdom in the face of the serious
problem are attributes equally valuable and commendatory to
a people seeking him in whom they may repose the trust of
their collective interests while they turn their increased atten
tion to their pressing individual demands.
TREATMENT OF INSULAR TERRITORY.
Whatever may be said as to the events of the past ten years
which are alleged to have made us a world power, there remains
small opportunity for controversy over the essential features of
our conduct in the face of the problems brought to face us by
those happenings. Now, from being self-contained and compact
in our political geography and federated in our common interests
wherever our dominion was established, we have become extended
and have increased the span of the arch of our structure, and
must undertake to equate the widely different concerns of indi
viduals and communities antithetical as to race, traditions and
modes of life and antipodal as to location on the face of the
earth. Dwelling on the unwisdom of prematurely acquiring
colonies is fatuous, the National duty is neither to help those
colonies for their exploitation nor to cast them off to avoid the
burden of their responsibilities. The questions involved are no

more matters to be harrowed through the mill of politics than is
the policy of the Panama Canal something to be stamped either
as Republican or Democratic.
TAFT'S CLAIM TO ENDURING FAME.
These questions are fruitful of trouble and perturbation, and
the primary requisite of the man or men who must deal with them
is an abundant knowledge of the people of the outlying domain.
That Mr. Taft is possessed of this knowledge as is no other man
in the country is hardly to be denied; granted that he has had
extraordinary opportunities, he has shown himself able to improve
those opportunities in a manner which it is not extravagant to
say will be his broadest claim so far to enduring fame when
the acute visual distortion of the present and opportune shall
have given place to the inexorable perspective of history in
which the relative values of public deeds to public duties are
completely clarified and announced to posterity. The misery and
misfortune which an ignorant or obstinate administrator, no
matter how high the ethical standard of his motives, could entail
upon our wards of the Pacific and Carribean are appalling to
contemplate ; were his administration to be at fault in any other
particular, in those things Mr. Taft's record shows him to be
entirely dependable.
POLITICAL QUESTIONS OF POPULAR INTEREST.
Since the last Presidential election there have been the
following large movements of public sentiment which have a
bearing either remotely or immediately pertaining to the present
campaign : The temperance sentiment has developed marvelously
and extended to a greater scope, than anything else in our history
since the abolition of slavery ; the evils of the various forms of
gambling have provoked a smaller though considerable reform ;
the manifest wrongs of the tariff system have excited clamor,
based on anger and resentment throughout the business world ;
the growing power of corporate interests have met a 'stubborn
retaining wall in the resistance of the individual to domination
or disadvantage, and the doctrines of Socialism, long looked upon
as an excrescence of economic friction, have entered deeply into
the thought of a disturbed people, and must be reckoned with.

*' HONESTY NEVER CAUSED A PANIC.*'
In the policies of the present Administration, which are
announced as to be continued should Mr. Taft receive both
nomination and election, there is an effect on the present cam
paign of a very puzzling nature indeed. If there were three'
large parties, one Liberal, one Radical and the third Conservative,
there is no doubt that the East and the manufacturing West would
assemble its forces behind the Conservative standard and would
carry them forward to a meager victory, but this is to be a cam
paign in which the vested interests can have no candidate and
in which they can best secure their selfish ends by taking the
safer choice. It is not likely that the business interests of the
country would be disturbed by the victory of either party, and
certainly Mr. Taft's reiterated attitude toward corporations of
all sorts contains no hint that fair dealing on their part will be
met with anything but conservative and discriminating generosity
on the part of his Administration. From impressions gathered
among men with much at stake, it is .clear to me that the cor
porate interests of the country, though convinced that illegal
combinations, illegal repression of competition and illegal exploi
tation of the public are things which the public intends to make
no longer possible, have no fear of the outcome, knowing that
honesty, whether compulsory or voluntary, never caused a panic
or a decline in genuine values.
ACTIVITY OF SOCIALISTS.
Gravely different, however, are the facts underlying the
social movement. It must be realized that this is no agitation
for a fairer adjustment of matters between capital and labor; it
is something which attacks with the idea of destruction, the fun
damental idea of property, and the plain principle of wage
employment. With Socialism in the ascendency, capital and labor
cease to be things which their terms now signify. It is not within
my province to discuss, controvert, or even elucidate the opposed
conditions ; rather should the political effect be considered.
Quite as the average citizen viewed with astonishment the
total figures of the last election, seeing that even against the tide
of Mr. Roosevelt's personal popularity Mr. Debs had polled
nearly half a million votes, so will they contemplate the results

in November. If Mr. Hearst's party were not in the field, and
therefore should not draw to it a large body of disaffected voters
who will- be chary of advocating radical Socialism, and the
Socialist and Socialist Labor parties were to mark the full count
of those who have become imbued with the fallacies of the non
competitive state of society they would be found 'to be more than
a million strong, and it will be no matter of surprise to me if
the returns show more than that up to the point of having
tripled the record made four years ago.
" LABOR VOTE INDETERMINATE."
The union labor vote is an indeterminate quality and never
will be more in America. In the first place, the causes that make
a union are usually local and conflict with broader interests, as is-
quickly found when an effort is made to treat them as' general.
The mere fact of being federated on the basis of a single interest,
that of common employment as skilled laborers for wages, can
never force the mass of union men to act politically with any
thing like solidarity. We have seen the labor vote of a district
crush a Congressman, or the labor men of a State make a Gov
ernor or control a Legislature, but never will it be possible for
the National labor vote to be anything more than a myth, except
when workingmen, no matter whether union or non-union, indi
vidually determine that a vote for a National candidate and his
party platform means a continuance of their prosperous estate,
or an improvement in one that is bad.
WISE STATESMANSHIP NEEDED.
Preponderating in its importance to the future as to peace
or war, and .international relations and commerce, is the integrity,
sanity and perspicacity of the new Congress. It would be an
evasion for me to conclude this paper without taking cognizance
of our international situation and its relation to the campaign.
As I have intimated, there is no more reason to consider our
selves a world power now than in the days when our fleet met
the British on equal terms or when we went into the Mediter
ranean to punish pirates or, though young and raw, dared to
balk the European programme that made Maximilian Emperor of
Mexico. ii

While it is true that our powers have multiplied many times
since then, it must be remembered that the military establish
ments and colonial activities of Europe have more than quad
rupled. We are merely returning to our own in some things,
though taking on a new importance in others. We are palpably
drifting into a set of relations toward other powers, especially
in the matters of China, Hawaii and the Philippines, from which
we can emerge without war only through the strongest and
wisest statesmanship; nevertheless, the justice and humanitari-
anism of our acts and policies will serve us in the highest degree,
and we may be able to surmount the crisis without those certain
results which would be deplorable in the extreme,
WARNING AGAINST FALSE LEADERS.
It is not often that Congress has shown itself fitted to deal
wisely with conditions outside our borders, compared with its
handling of domestic affairs, and our political economy places
such a potentiality for mischief in our deliberative assemblage
that it might undo all the craft of State and the wisdom and
conservatism of the Executive. For months the indications have
been that the next Congress would see many new faces, and the
country may look for Republicans from the South and Demo
crats from New England at a rate and with a diffusion that will
'be truly surprising.
But when the misadventures of parties, misled by sophisti
cated, sympathy-mad leaders, trumpet false calls to reform,
treacherous distortions of sentiment subordinating private inter
ests and the well-meaning but overheated blundering of the
impetuous are all met and ordinated, there must rise the final
good, for the Hand of the Almighty lies to hold and guide,
steadily, unwavering and eternally secure, and through His
infinite mercy we shall come .to the fulfillment of our mission,
foretold with our birth, nobly begun in our youth, for the uplifting
of our race and our brothers of the favors not our own.
GROVER CLEVELAND.

12

BOLTS THE BRYAN TICKET.

Baltimore Sun, a Leading Democratic Paper,
for Taft, Saying His Election Will Better
Promote the Public Welfare.
(From the Baltimore Sun, Dem.) '
On July 10 Mr. W. J. Bryan was nominated for President
by the Democratic National Convention at Denver. Yesterday
he received .formal notification at Lincoln, Neb., of the action
of that convention. In his speech accepting the nomination,
which we publish in full on another page, Mr. Bryan said :
"Our platform declares that the overshadowing issue which
manifests itself on all the questions now under discussion is,
'Shall the people rule?' Shall the people control their own gov
ernment and use that government for the protection of their
rights and the promotion of their welfare? Or shall the repre
sentatives of predatory wealth prey upon a defenceless public,
while the offenders secure immunity from subservient officials
whom they raise to power by unscrupulous methods?"
The master hand in the construction of the Democratic plat
form was Mr. Bryan's. He was consulted about every item. It
is understood that he formulated the most important declarations.
It is probable that in quoting from the platform Mr. Bryan is
literally quoting himself. If, as the Democratic nominee asserts,
the paramount issue in this campaign is "the rule of the people,"
the use of their government "for the protection of their rights
and the promotion of their welfare," the proposition submitted
to the voter is not only a very practical one, but a very simple
one. It is the judgment of The Sun that the material welfare
of the people of the United States— industrial and financial—

would be promoted to a greater degree by the election of
Mr. Taft than by the election of Mr. Bryan; that their rights
would be safeguarded as carefully by Mr. Taft as by Mr. Bryan.
MAN LIKE MR. TAFT NEEDED.
Mr. Taft's experience in important administrative posts, his
judicial temperament, his patience and thoroughness in investi
gation, justify the belief that as President he would execute the
law faithfully and well, but not spectacularly. And while this
type of man ought to be in the White House all the time, he
seems to be especially needed now, when the country is emerg
ing from an industrial and financial depression which brought
distress and suffering into many homes.
The greater part of the wealth of this nation is- not "preda
tory." It is invested in lawful enterprises, and upon the success
of these enterprises depends the prosperity of the nation. The
Sun believes that "predatory wealth," so far as that phrase means
capital engaged in combinations that oppress the public, should
be curtailed by proper regulations and punished whenever it is
lawless. The thoughtful voter should vote his honest convic
tions, with intelligent regard for his own welfare in the economic
as well as the political sense. Fine phrases do not multiply the
avenues of employment. Epigrams butter no bread and start no
factories. Repartee and ready debate do not raise the scale of
wages. The products of the farm are not marketed by eloquence
or fine diction. MR. TAFT SAFER THAN MR. BRYAN.
We do not question Mr. Bryan's sincerity or his devotion to
the interests of the people. But we believe that the material
welfare of the nation would be safer in the hands of a Presi
dent of Mr. Taft's temperament and calm judgment, and for
this reason we favor his election to the Presidency.
These are the conclusions which we have reached after ma
ture consideration and with the sole desire to promote the good
of the nation and the welfare of the people. We are aware
that they are not in accord with the views of many of our read
ers. We have entire respect for their sincerity. We recognize

their right to follow their own convictions and judgment. Every
man is entitled to freedom of political action. Americans gen
erally have the welfare of the nation at heart, and though they
differ as to the means and methods by which the national welfare
can be assured, they differ honestly. We believe the election
of Mr. Taft would tend to hasten the restoration of prosperous
business conditions. We believe that his administration will be
prudent. Therefore we support him from a sense of public duty.

WORLD PROPHESIES TAFT'S ELECTION.
(From the New York World, Dem.)
One vital, dominating fact confronts the Democratic party
which no oratory, which no eloquence, which no rhetoric can
obscure : BRYAN'S NOMINATION MEANS TAFT'S ELEC
TION.

IS

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