British territorial claims at the expense of Venezuela, and apprehensive of a new forward attempt; that he thought it time to stop further encroachment and bring the question to a final issue; and that he knew of no better means to this end than a vigorous demonstration on the part of this republic involving the possibility of war. Assuming that the objects President Cleveland had in view were right, it can hardly be denied that by prudent and at the same time energetic management they might have been reached without the risk of a collision with a friendly power, without exciting dangerous passions among our population, without a disastrous disturbance of the business of the country republic, not only by maintaining our own rights, but also by respecting the rights of others; so careful and conscientious in the observance of the principles of international law had been his course with regard to the insurrection in Cuba, notwithstanding the clamor of the professional "Jingoes" and of hot-headed sympathizers, and notwithstanding, too, his own sympathy with the cause of the insurgents; so wisely and consistently pacific and so dignified had been his foreign policy throughout, that the people were struck with wonder and amazement when they read his famous Venezuela message on the 17th of December, 1895, in which he asked Congress to make an appropriation for a commission to investigate and thus without a grievous break in the boundary line in dispute between Vene- Mr. Cleveland's otherwise so dignified and zuela and British Guiana; declared that if statesmanlike foreign policy. At the same Great Britain refused to submit the whole time it must be admitted that the means matter to arbitration, the United States he employed did accomplish his purpose. should by every means in their power en- As soon as a danger of war appeared force the finding of our own commission; substantially made the cause of Venezuela our own, and apparently countenanced, by inference at least, that construction of the Monroe doctrine now so much in vogue, which maintains that the relations between any part of America and any foreign power are virtually the business of this republic. Without taking time for calm deliberation both Houses of Congress promptly voted the appropriation asked for. From many parts of the country came expressions of approval. The Jingoes were jubilant, for they thought that the administration had surrendered to them, and there was a threat of war in the air. A panicky feeling seized upon the business community both in England and in the United States. The prices of stocks and bonds dropped with a thump. The losses caused by the depreciation of securities were enormous. The revival of business in this country, of which there had been some promising symptoms, was instantly checked by a nervous sense of apprehension. Many of Mr. Cleveland's most steadfast friends were sorely puzzled. What could he mean? Did he try to catch popularity for himself and his party? But he was not a demagogue. Did he wish to provoke a war? But he had always been a man of peace. The truth most probably is that, the United States having for many years acted in this matter as the friend of Venezuela, he felt a certain responsibility as to the outcome; that he was irritated by the constant advance of on the horizon, public sentiment in England pronounced itself so generally and so emphatically for the preservation of peace with the United States that Lord Salisbury could yield important points in the Venezuela boundary dispute and thus clear the way for a satisfactory arrangement without weakening his position before the British people. In this country, too, the bellicose flurry was speedily subdued by telling demonstrations of our love of peace and good-will among nations, which warmly responded to the feeling manifested by English public opinion. And then came, borne along on the wave of international fraternalism, that great achievement which alone would suffice to make an administration memorable for all time-the general arbitration treaty between the United States and Great Britain—not only a guaranty of peace between the two nations, but an example for all mankind to follow, an epoch in the advance of civilization. The active negotiations for this treaty belong wholly to Mr. Cleveland's administration. They were begun under Secretary Gresham, and carried to a successful issue with extraordinary ability by Secretary Olney. The efforts made in the Senate to prevent the confirmation of the treaty while Mr. Cleveland was President-efforts attributed by the opinion of the country to a combination of partizan jealousy and personal rancor-succeeded in postponing the final consummation, but ignominiously failed in taking from Mr. Cleveland's administration the glory of the achievement. That treaty will forever stand as a monu mental milestone in history, bearing in classified, making the total nearly 90,000, large characters the names of Cleveland, but it established the general principle that Gresham, and Olney. Nor will any amend- it is the natural and normal status of perments intended to emasculate the treaty sons serving under the executive departdefeat its purpose. The very fact that the ments of the national government to be executive heads of the two countries once under the civil service rules-in other concluded it will henceforth put upon any words, that it shall no longer require a refusal to submit to arbitration any differ- special edict to put them there, but that ence between them, a burden of odium they shall be considered and treated as betoo heavy for any civilized nation to bear. ing there unless excepted by special edict. This victory of peace is won. There is another great victory with which Mr. Cleveland's name is nobly identified. He was a civil service reformer, not as a theorist, but as a practical administrator. He knew from practical experience that public office, to be treated as a public trust, must cease to be party spoil, and that a department of the public service, to be a business department, must cease to be a patronage department. He knew also that offices would not cease to be treated as party spoil so long as they were filled by partizan favor, and that public departments would not cease to be patronage departments so long as they had patronage to bestow. He had learned this as Mayor of Buffalo and as Governor of New York, and he found in the competitive merit system the simple, honest, practical remedy. When he became President the first time in 1885, he would have wiped out the spoils system at once, had he not feared, by breaking too brusquely with longestablished political habits, to alienate his party. He resolved therefore slowly to extend the civil service rules already in operation, while humoring the Democratic politicians by conceding to them as much as he thought necessary. Such conces sions, once begun, are apt to lead on beyond the original intention, and so it happened that at the end of his first term he had dissatisfied the reformers without satisfying the party politicians. Still, when he went out of office in 1889, he had added 12,000 places to those under the civil service rules. It has already been mentioned what considerations induced him at the beginning of his second administration to humor the politicians of his party again and to postpone what blows he meant to strike for his cherished reform. The first three years he added only this and that branch of the service to the classified list, and established rules covering a part of the consular service. But on the 6th of May, 1896, he issued an order which marked an epoch. It not only added at one stroke of the pen over 40,000 places to those already This order was the most effective blow the spoils system had ever received. It completed the work of civil service reform as to the subordinate places under the heads of government offices, leaving in their old condition virtually only the offices to be appointed with the consent of the Senate, and the minor postmasters. These, it is to be hoped, will in the same spirit be dealt with by Mr. Cleveland's successors. But of him it may justly be said that while he has not done for the reform of the civil service all that could and should be done, he has done far more than all his predecessors together, and he will ever stand preeminent among the champions of that great cause. But he was a reformer of the government service in more than one sense. No man in the presidential chair has ever battled with more devotion, energy, and fearlessness for economy and rectitude in the administration of the people's business; not one has carried on the struggle against the prevailing wantonness of public expenditure and against corrupt jobs more bravely, more persistently, and with more unceasing watchfulness; and not one has, in doing this, defied the prejudices of large classes of people, the powerful resentment of favored interests, and the vindictive hatred of greedy schemers with more selfsacrificing fortitude than he. The spectacle of the President of the United States, in the small hours of the night, poring over the details of bills granting public money for rivers and harbors, or for pensions, or for public buildings, and what not, to satisfy himself whether the people's interests were well guarded, and then, whenever he detected fraud, or wastefulness, writing his veto messages with an indefatigable and unflinching sense of duty-that spectacle has not seldom been held up to disdain and ridicule by unprincipled or light-headed persons. But the more thoughtfully the patriotic citizen contemplates it, the more worthy will he find that President of the admiration, confidence, and gratitude of the people. No thinking man denies that corruption i As to the Democracy for which he had stood, it survived only in those represented by the Indianapolis convention of sound money Democrats-the saving remnant, embodying the hope-indeed the only hope-of a Democratic party resurrection. and profligacy, the tendency to make the him by the treachery of other Democratic government an agency for private support, leaders, but that the greater treason of and the loose methods of doing the govern- the national convention of his party, by ment's business which minister to such threatening the country with immeasurable evil practices, are among the gravest dan- calamities, forced him to favor the election gers besetting democratic institutions. of Mr. McKinley himself as his successor The more highly should we value among in the presidential office, and to find in our officers of state that courage of con- Mr. McKinley's victory a popular vindicascience which fears nothing, and that de- tion of his own financial principles. votion to duty which shuns no drudgery to protect the purity of the government and the character and interests of the nation. Indeed, there was something of civic heroism in the figure of President Cleveland as during the expiring days of his term he sat in the political solitude of the White House, to the last moment plodding in the accustomed way, elaborately writing out his enlightened and cogent objections to an illiberal immigration bill, in spite of the clamor in favor of it; study ing appropriations and casting them aside if extravagant, and vetoing grants of pension if unwarranted by fact or equity although he well knew that in most cases Congress would pass such acts of legislation over his head without a moment's consideration-thus doing his duty for duty's sake. It would be going too far to say that, as a reward, every honest man was his friend; but surely every rascal was by instinct his enemy. And all good citizens have reason to wish that every one of his successors may, irrespective of political opinions, possess that conscience and moral force which were President Cleveland's distinguishing qualities. 46 It is said that his administration was a failure. True, he failed in holding his party together. But who would have succeeded? He felt himself a party man because he believed in the old" Democratic policies which aimed at economical, simple, and honest government of, for, and by the people. He sought to elevate his party again to the level of its original principles. It was his ambition to do the country good service in the name of that Democracy. It was his fate-a fate with something of the tragic in it-that his very endeavors to revive the best of the old Democracy served only to reveal the moral decay and the political disruption of the Democracy of his day, and to consign him to an isolation paralleled in our history only by that of John Quincy Adams. There could be no more whimsical irony of fortune than that, after Mr. Cleveland had led his party to victory over the McKinley tariff, not only the specific fruits of that victory were made repugnant to But what does the true success of an administration consist in? Not in the mere prosperity of a party organization, but in the public good accomplished and in the public evil prevented. Who, then, will deny that, had not Mr. Cleveland stood like a tower of strength between his country and bankruptcy, we should have been forced on the silver basis and into the disgrace of repudiation? Would not, without his prompt interposition, the annexation of Hawaii have launched us upon a career of indiscriminate aggrandizement and wild adventure imperiling our peace and the character of our institutions? Has he not been a bulwark against countless jobs and acts of special legislation and of reckless extravagance, not only by his vetoes, but by merely being seen at his post? And as to the good accomplished, how many administrations do we find in our annals that have left behind them a prouder record of achievement than the maintenance of the money standard and the credit of the country against immense difficulties, the splendid advance in the reform of the civil service, and that signal triumph of the enlightened and humane spirit of our closing century-the general arbitration treaty with Great Britain ? Whatever its mischances and failures may have been-with such successes the second Cleveland administration can confidently appeal to the judgment of history. body pretends that Mr. Cleveland is the ideal human being or the ideal statesman; but it is safe to say that the greatness of his name will constantly grow in the historic retrospect, and that his figure will continue to stand strong and eminent in the front rank of American Presidents long after the small politicians who sought to thwart or belittle him have been buried under the drift sands of time. No |