father's request shortly after the beginning of his second year at the Fayettevile store, and resumed his studies at the Clinton Academy. After three years spent in this town, the Rev. Richard Cleveland was called to the village church of Holland Patent. He had preached here only a month when he was suddenly stricken down and died without an hour's warning. The death of the father left the family in straightened circumstances, as Richard Cleveland had spent all of his salary of $1,000 per year, which was not required for the necessary expenses of living, upon the education of his children, of whom there were nine, Grover being the fifth. Grover was hoping to enter Hamilton College, but the death of his father made it necessary for him to earn his own livelihood. For the

first year (1853-4) he acted as assistant teacher and bookkeeper in the Institution for the Blind in New York City, of which the late Augustus Schell was for many years the patron. In the winter of 1854 he returned to Holland Patent, where the generous people of that place, Fayetteville and Clinton, had purchased a home for his mother, and in the following spring, borrowing twenty-five dollars, he set out for the West to earn his living. Reaching Buffalo he paid a hasty visit to an uncle, Mr. Lewis F. Allen, a well-known stock farmer, living at Black Rock, a few miles distant. He communicated his plans to Mr. Allen, who discouraged the idea of the West, and finally induced the enthusiastic boy of seventeen to remain with him and help him prepare a catalogue of blooded short-horned cattle, known as "Allen's American Herd Book," a publication familiar to all breeders of cattle. For this work young Cleveland was to receive fifty dollars, and his uncle further agreed to secure a position for him in a lawyer's office as a clerk or copyist. His ambition had turned toward the law ever since his days in the Clinton Academy, and it was partially in the hope of finding some opportunity to begin the study of the law that he had first decided to go West. While Grover was working on the pedigrees of cattle his uncle visited the law offices of his Buffalo friends and, after several unsuccessful efforts, secured a place for Grover with Rogers, Bowen & Rogers, one of the leading firms in the county. He entered that office accordingly in August, 1855, and after serving a few months without pay, was paid four dollars a week-an amount barely sufficient to meet the necessary expenses of his board in the family of a fellow-student in Buffalo, with whom he took lodgings. Shortly afterward he took a small room in the attic of the Southern Hotel, then a favorite stopping place with drovers and farmers. Life at this time with Grover Cleveland was a stern battle with the world. He took his breakfast by candle-light with the drovers, and went at once to the office where the whole day was spent in work and study. Usually he returned again at night to resume reading which had been interrupted by the duties of the day. In this manner the foundations of legal knowledge were laid deep and firm at the same time that habits of industry and close application were acquired. Gradually his employers came to recognize the ability, trustworthiness and capacity for hard work in their young employee, and by the time that he was admitted to the bar (1859) he stood high in their confidence. A year later he was made confidential and managing clerk, and in the course of three years more his salary had been raised to $1,000. In 1863 he was appointed assistant district attorney of Erie county by the District Attorney, the Hon. C. C. Torrance, in recognition of his abilities and his services to the Democratic party.

Since his first vote had been cast in 1858 he had been a staunch Democrat, and had enrolled himself among the young men of his ward to do duty at the polls on election day. It may be stated here that until he was chosen Governor he always

made it his duty, rain or shine, to stand at the polls and give out ballots to Democratic voters. During the first year of his term as assistant district attorney, the Democrats desired especially to carry the board of supervisors. The old Second ward in which he lived was Republican ordinarily by 250 majority, but at the urgent request of the party Grover Cleveland consented to be the Democratic candidate for supervisor, and came within thirteen votes of an election. The three years spent in the district attorney's office were devoted to assiduous labor and the extension of his professional attainments. So vigorously was crime prosecuted and so efficiently did he administer the office that he was nominated for district attorney in 1865, with one voice by the Democrats. The Republicans nominated Mr. Lyman K. Bass, a particular friend of Cleveland's, in order to divide the young men's vote, then beginning to be a prominent factor in Buffalo politics. The election was closely contested, but Bass won by about 500 majority, although Cleveland polled more than the party vote in all the city wards. When he retired from the position of assistant district attorney, in January, 1866, he formed a law partnership with the late Isaac V. Vanderpoel, ex-State Treasurer, under the firm name of Vanderpoel & Cleveland. Here the bulk of the work devolved on Cleveland's shoulders, and he soon won a good standing at the bar of Erie county. In 1869 Mr. Cleveland formed a partnership with ex-Senator A. P. Laning and ex-Assistant United States District Attorney Oscar Folsom, under the firm name of Laning, Cleveland & Folsom. During these years he began to earn a moderate professional income; but the larger portion of it was sent to his mother and sisters at Holland Patent, to whose support he had contributed ever since 1860.

In 1870, at the urgent solicitation of the Democracy and against his own wishes, he consented to be the candidate for sheriff. The election was closely contested, but Mr. Cleveland and the entire Democratic ticket was elected by a good "majority. The office of sheriff is the most important position in the county, and its duties were performed by Mr. Cleveland in such a manner as to command the approbation and confidence of the community, as was strikingly demonstrated a few years later. At the expiration of his official term as sheriff (January 1, 1874), Mr. Cleveland resumed the practice of the law, associating himself with the Hon. Lyman K. Bass, his former competitor, and Mr. Wilson S. Bissell. The firm was strong and popular, and soon commanded a large and lucrative practice. Ill health forced the retirement of Mr. Bass in 1879, and the firm became Cleveland & Bissell. In 1881, Mr. George J. Sicard was added to the firm.

In the autumn election of 1881 the Democrats of Buffalo nominated Grover Cleveland for mayor on a platform pledging the party to administrative reform and economy in the expenditures of the city. He was elected by a majority of over 3,500—the largest majority ever given a candidate for mayor—and the Democratic city ticket was successful, although the Republicans carried Buffalo by over 1,000 majority for their State ticket. Grover Cleveland's administration as mayor fully justified the confidence reposed in him by the people of Buffalo, evidenced by the great vote he received. Some of the salient features of his record while in that office are touched upon in other columns.

It was his courageous devotion to the interests of the people and his great executive abilities, which, in the summer and fall of 1882, gave him prominence before the Democracy of the State as a candidate for Governor. The Democratic State Convention met at Syracuse, on September 22, 1882, and nominated Grover Cleveland for Governor on the third ballot. The campaign that followed was auspicious from the beginning and terminated with a triumphant victory. Cleve

land was elected Governor by a majority of 192,000, by far the largest ever given in this State, and the largest ever given in any State in the Union. He was inaugurated on January 1, 1883.

Grover Cleveland is in his forty-eighth year. Physically he is of a large and powerful frame; deliberate and firm, but not slow in his motions. His manner and tone of voice are genial and agreeable. He is broad minded and liberal in his habits of thought, and in religious matters especially a man of conscience rather than a man of any one sect or creed. All his surroundings and habits are those of Democratic simplicity. He walks from the Executive Mansion to the Capitol every morning at nine o'clock, returns to lunch at one, and resumes work at two. .The evening he usually devotes to work in the Executive Chamber, walking home never earlier than eleven o'clock. His life is wholly without ostentation. Indeed, the key to his character may be found in the moderation of his wants and the frugality of his living. From such sources spring firmness, courage, clear powers of perception, and collected and deliberate judgment and action. In the strongest and truest sense of the words he is a Jeffersonian Democrat, honest, capable, faithful to the Constitution.

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PUBLIC RECORD OF GROVER CLEVELAND.

Public Record of of Grover Cleveland.

Corporations.

The public duties and rights of private corporations have become the subject of repeated consideration by Governor Clevelend; and his views have been stated in terms so explicit and just as to merit and receive the approval of fair-minded men who have informed themselves as to the particular grounds of his action.

In accepting the nomination for Governor, in October, 1882, he thus defined. his position, from which he has never wavered:

Corporations are created by the law for certain defined purposes, and are restricted in their operations by specific limitations. Acting within their legitimate sphere they should be protected; but when by combination or by the exercise of unwarranted power they oppress the people, the same authority which created should restrain them and protect the rights of the citizen. The law lately passed for the purpose of adjusting the relations between the people and corporations should be executed in good faith, with an honest design to effectuate its objects and with a due regard for the interests involved."

Almost the first act performed by him as Governor was in fulfillment of the law here referred to, the Railroad Commission act, which authorized the appointment of three railroad commissioners, one from each of the two great political parties, and one upon the nomination of the Anti-Monopoly bodies. Despite great pressure to the contrary, and without waiting for a proposed amendment of the law, Governor Cleveland promptly nominated three commissioners, in literal compliance with the old law, accepting without hesitation the anti-monopoly candidate, Mr. O'Donnell, who now holds his office under the appointment of Governor Cleveland. The fact that the work of the Railroad Commission has been so well done as not only to justify its creation to those even who were originally doubtful of its value, but also to be satisfactory to the anti-monopoly sentiment which led to its formation, is due to the conscientious care with which Govenor Cleveland, ignoring every consideration but the purpose of the law, selected the members who were to serve upon it.

Checking the Aggression of Corporations.

Upon April 2, 1883, the Governor, jealously regarding the interests of the public, as opposed to those of corporations, vetoed a bill tending to increase the power of telegraph companies to use the public streets, from which veto message the following extracts are made:

"A fatal objection to this bill is found in the provision allowing the corporations therein named to enter upon private property, and erect and maintain their

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structures thereon, without the consent of the owner. It seems to me that this is taking private property, or an easement therein, with very little pretext that it is for a public use.

If a private corporation can, under authority of law, construct its appliances and structures upon the lands of the citizen without his consent, not only for the purpose of furnishing light, but in an experimental attempt to transmit heat and power, the rights of the people may well be regarded as in danger from an undue license to corporate aggrandizement."

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Upon June 14, 1884, despite great opposition from the parties interested, he signed a bill requiring such companies to put their lines under ground on or before November 1, 1885. So, upon May 29, 1883, he vetoed a general street railroad bill, upon the ground that its design was more to further private and corporate schemes than to furnish the citizens of the State street railroad facilities, under the spirit and letter of the Constitution, and within the limits therein fixed for the benefit of the people."

Upon April 6, 1883, in further exhibition of his disposition to keep corporations within the limit of the laws creating them, he vetoed a bill to extend the time for the payment of the capital stock of a corporation, saying:

"Our laws in relation to the formation of corporations are extremely liberal, and those who avail themselves of their provisions should be held to strict compliance with their requirements. * * * This company and its stockholders have assumed for their own benefit certain relations to the State, to the public and to their creditors, and these relations should not be disturbed. If corporations are to be relieved from their defaults for the asking, their liability to the people with whom they deal will soon become dangerously uncertain and indefinite.'

Publicity of Corporation Operations Required.

In his message to the Legislature at the beginning of his second year, the Governor, in vigorous language, called attention to the duty of railroad corporations, and of all others as well, to truly inform the public as to their operations. In the present season of distrust and distress, consequent upon a supposed failure to discharge this duty, these words of the Governor are admirably appropriate. After commending the requirement by the Railroad Commissioners of quarterly reports from the railroad companies, he says:

"It would, in my opinion, be a most valuable protection to the people if other large corporations were obliged to report to some department their transactions and financial condition.

The State creates these corporations upon the theory that some proper thing of benefit can be better done by them than by private enterprise, and that the aggregation of the funds of many individuals may be thus profitably employed. They are launched upon the public with the seal of the State, in some sense, upon them. They are permitted to represent the advantages they possess and the wealth sure to follow from admission to membership. In one hand is held a charter from the State, and in the other is proffered their stock.

"It is a fact, singular though well established, that people will pay their money for stock in a corporation engaged in enterprises in which they would refuse to invest if in private hands.

It is a grave question whether the formation of these artificial bodies ought not to be checked or better regulated, and in some way supervised.

"At any rate they should always be well kept in hand, and the funds of its citizens should be protected by the State which has invited their investment. While the stockholders are the owners of the corporate property, notoriously they are oftentimes completely in the power of the directors and managers, who acquire a majority of the stock and by this means perpetuate their control, using the corporate property and franchises for their benefit and profit, regardless of the interests and rights of the minority of stockholders. Immense salaries are paid to officers; transactions are consummated by which the directors make money, while the rank and file among the stockholders lose it; the honest investor waits