Grover Cleveland was a remarkable man. He had more political courage of the General Jackson type than almost any man who ever held great responsible positions. He defied Tammany Hall while governor of the State, and repeatedly challenged the strongest elements of his party while president. Threats of defeat or retaliation never moved him. If he had once made up his mind and believed he was right, no suggestions of expediency or of popularity had any influence on him.
In personal intercourse he made friends and had great charm. The campaign against him when he ran for governor of New York was ruthlessly conducted. I considered the actions of his enemies as unfair and that they would react in the canvass. I studiously discredited all in my speeches, and begged our people not to feature them.
I knew Mr. Cleveland, and as an evidence of my appreciation of his character and ability, when the office of general counsel of the New York Central Railroad at Buffalo became vacant, I offered it to him, saying: "I am exceedingly anxious that you should accept this place. I think, by an adjustment of the administration of your office, you can retain your private practice, and this will add about fifteen thousand dollars a year to your income."
Mr. Cleveland replied: "I have a very definite plan of life and have decided how much work I can do without impairing my health, and how much of additional responsibility I can assume. I have accumulated about seventy-five thousand dollars and my practice yields me an income which is sufficient for my wants and a prudent addition for my old age to my capital. No amount of money whatever would tempt me to add to or increase my present work."
I doubt if there were many lawyers in the United States who had that philosophy or control of their ambitions. His annual income from his profession was considerably less than the compensation offered by the general counselship of the New York Central.
Cleveland was most satisfactory as president in his quick and decisive judgment upon matters presented to him. There were no delays, no revisions; in fact, no diplomatic methods of avoiding a disagreeable decision. He told you in the briefest time and in the clearest way what he would do.
A great social leader and arbiter in social affairs in New York was very desirous that the president should reverse his judgment in regard to an appointment affecting a member of his family. I gave him a letter which procured him a personal and confidential interview. When he came back to me he said: "That is the most extraordinary man I ever saw. After he had heard me through, he said he understood the matter thoroughly and would not change his opinion or action. He has no social position and never had. I tried to present its attractions and my ability to help him in that regard, but he only laughed; yes, he positively laughed."
While President Hayes had difficulty with civil-service reform and incurred the hostility of the Republican organization and machine men, the situation with him was far less difficult than it was with Cleveland, who was a sincere civil-service reformer, and also an earnest Democrat. While a Democratic senator from Ohio, Mr. Pendleton, had passed a bill during the Hayes administration for reform in the civil service, the great majority of the Democratic party believed in Secretary Marcy's declaration that "to the victors belong the spoils."
There was an aggravation, also, growing out of the fact that the Democrats had been out of office for twenty-four years. We can hardly visualize or conceive now of their hunger for office. The rule for rescuing people dying of starvation is to feed them in very small quantities, and frequently. By trying this, the president became one of the most unpopular of men who had ever held office; in fact, so unpopular among the Democratic senators and members of the House that a story which Zebulon Vance, of North Carolina, told went all over the country and still survives. Vance, who had a large proportion of the citizens of North Carolina on his waiting list, and could get none of them appointed, said that the situation, which ought to be one of rejoicing at the election of a president by his own party, was like that of a client of his who had inherited a farm from his father. There were so many difficulties about the title and getting possession of it and delay, that the son said: "I almost wished father had not died."
However, Mr. Cleveland, in his deliberate way did accomplish the impossible. He largely regained favor with his party by satisfying their demands, and at the same time so enlarged the scope of civil-service requirements as to receive the commendation of the two great leaders of the civil-service movement—George William Curtis and Carl Schurz.
President Cleveland entered upon his second term with greater popularity in the country than most of his predecessors. When he retired from office, it was practically by unanimous consent. It is among the tragedies of public life that he lost entirely the confidence of his party and, in a measure, of the whole people by rendering to his country the greatest public service.
A strike of the men on the railroads tied up transportation. Railroads are the arteries of travel, commerce, and trade. To stop them is to prevent the transportation of provisions or of coal, to starve and freeze cities and communities. Cleveland used the whole power of the federal government to keep free the transportation on the railways and to punish as the enemies of the whole people those who were trying to stop them. It was a lesson which has been of incalculable value ever since in keeping open these great highways.
He forced through the repeal of the silver purchasing law by every source and pressure and the unlimited use of patronage. His party were almost unanimous for the silver standard and resented this repeal as a crime, but it saved the country from general bankruptcy. Except in the use of patronage to help his silver legislation, he offended his party by improving the civil service and retaining Theodore Roosevelt as head of the Civil Service Commission. These crises required from the president an extraordinary degree of courage and steadfastness.
While Mr. Cleveland was in such unprecedented popular disfavor when he retired to private life, his fame as president increases through the years, and he is rapidly assuming foremost position in the estimation of the people.
Mr. Cleveland had a peculiar style in his speeches and public documents. It was criticised as labored and that of an essayist. I asked him, after he had retired to private life, how he had acquired it. He said his father was a clergyman and he had been educated by him largely at home. His father was very particular about his compositions and his English, so that he acquired a ministerial style. The result of this was that whenever any of the members of the local bar died, he was called upon to write the obituary resolutions.
To take a leap over intervening years: After Mr. Cleveland retired from his second term I used to meet him very frequently on social occasions and formal celebrations. He soon left the practice of law and settled in Princeton, where he did great and useful service, until he died, as trustee of the university and a lecturer before the students.
Riding in the same carriage with him in the great procession at the funeral of General Sherman, he reminisced most interestingly in regard to his experiences while president. Every little while there would break out a cheer and then a shout in the crowd of one of the old campaign cries: "Grover, Grover, four years more." Mr. Cleveland remarked: "I noticed while president a certain regularity and recrudescence of popular applause, and it was the same in every place I visited." That cry, "Grover, Grover, four years more!" would occur every third block, and during our long ride the mathematical tradition was preserved.
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