principles, it seems to me that nothing in the character of the office or the necessities of the case requires more from the candidate accepting such nomination than the suggestion of certain well-known truths, so absolutely vital to the safety and welfare of the Nation, that they cannot be too often recalled or too seriously enforced.

"We proudly call ours a government by the people. It is not such when a class is tolerated which arrogates to itself the management of public affairs, seeking to control the people instead of representing them. Parties are the necessary outgrowth of our institutions; but a government is not by the people when one party fastens its control upon the country, and perpetuates its power by cajoling and betraying the people instead of serving them; government is not by the people when a result which should represent the intelligent will of free and thinking men is, or can be determined by the shameless corruption of their suffrages. When an election to office shall be the selection by the voters of one of their number to assume for a time a public trust instead of his dedication 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 altogether 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 amendment to the Constitution disqualifying the President from reëlection.

"When we consider the patronage of this great office, the allurements of power, the temptation to retain public places once gained, and, more than all, the availability a party finds in an incumbent when a horde of office-holders, with a zeal born of benefit received 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 reëlection a most serious danger to that calm, deliberate and intelligent political action which must characterize a government by the people."

The dignity of labor and of honest toil was next dwelt upon in language of simple directness, and a suggestion made that proper legislation should be inaugurated for the benefit of a class heretofore neglected. In touching upon another point of importance in connection therewith, he used the following words: "While we should not discourage the immigration of those who come to acknowledge allegiance to our government and add to our citizen population, yet, as a means of protection to our workingmen, a different rule should prevail concerning those who, if they come or are brought to our land, do not intend to become Americans but will injuriously compete with those justly entitled to our field of labor." After further discussion of the labor question, Governor Cleveland said: “In a free country, the curtailment of the absolute rights of the individual should only be such as is essential to the peace and good order of the community.

The limit between the proper subjects of governmental control and those who can more fittingly be left to the moral sense and self-imposed restraint of the citizen, should be carefully kept in view. Thus, laws unnecessarily interfering with the habits and customs of any of our people, which are not offensive to the moral sentiments of the civilized world and which are consistent with good citizenship and the public welfare, are unwise and vexatious.

"The commerce of a nation to a great extent determines its supremacy. Cheap and easy transportation should therefore be liberally fostered within the limits of the Constitution; the general government should so improve and protect its natural waterways as will enable the producers of the country to reach a profitable market."

In the discussion of a question that had no small influence in determining the result of the election then pending, by bringing to the support of the Democratic nominee a large party of men in New York state and elsewhere, who believed that a true civil service reform could not be accomplished should James G. Blaine-the nominee of the Republicans-be elected to the Presidency, Mr. Cleveland declared himself in these unequivocal and emphatic terms:

"The people pay the wages of the public employés, and they are entitled to the fair and honest work which the money thus paid should command. It is the duty of those entrusted with the management of these affairs to see that such public service is forthcoming. The selection and retention of subordinates in government employment should depend upon their ascertained fitness and the value of their work, and they should neither be expected nor allowed to do questionable party service. The interests of the people will be better protected. The estimate of public labor and duty will be immensely improved. Public employment will be open to all who can demonstrate their fitness to enter it. The unseemly scramble for place under the government, with the consequent importunity which embitters official life, will cease, and the public departments will not be filled by those who conceive it to be their first duty to aid the party to which they owe their places, instead of rendering patient and honest return to the people. I believe the public temper is such that the voters of the land are prepared to support the party which gives the best promise of administering the government in the honest, simple and plain manner which is consistent with its character and purposes. They have learned that mystery and concealment in the management of their affairs cover tricks and betrayals. The statesmanship they require consists in honesty and frugality, a prompt response to the needs of the people as they arise, and the vigilant protection of all their varied interests."

In conclusion, Governor Cleveland said: "If I should be called to the Chief Magistracy of the Nation by the suffrages of my fellow-citizens, I

will assume the duties of that high office with a solemn determination to dedicate every effort to the country's good, and with an humble reliance upon the favor and support of the Supreme Being, who, I believe, will always bless honest human endeavor in the conscientious discharge of public duty."

James G. Blaine of Maine had been chosen as the Presidential nominee of the Republican party; Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts, of the united Labor and Greenback party; and John P. St. John of Kansas, of the Prohibition. The contest that ensued was one that apparently had reference rather to the personality of the candidates and as to the manner in which the Presidential office would be administered, than to the questions of politics at that time in issue. In New York state especially, the old lines seemed broken down for the time, many of the leading journals and most pronounced advocates of civil service reform favoring Governor Cleveland and doing very effective work in his support. The result was uncertain to the last, the contest being waged with the utmost vigor upon both sides; but the decision was given when New York cast her thirty-six electoral votes for the man who had so ably defended and cared for her interests as governor, and Grover Cleveland was pronounced the President-elect of the United States. Two hundred and nineteen electoral votes were cast for him, and one hundred and eighty-two for James G. Blaine. The popular vote for the four candidates stood: Cleveland, 4,874,986; Blaine, 4,851,981; Butler, 175, 370; St. John, 150,369.

This National election was attended by some features of unusual interest within the great political parties, and in their relations to each other. An effort was made to induce the Prohibition nominee to withdraw in favor of Mr. Blaine, and a letter asking him to pursue such course was addressed to him, signed by Dr. Theodore D. Woolsley, the eminent educator, and other prominent men. He declined to accede to the request. General Butler and Mr. St. John both conducted a personal canvass throughout the northern states, while Mr. Blaine, contrary to the custom of Presidential nominees, made an extended trip to the west, delivering numerous speeches in New York, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and West Virginia. Governor Cleveland remained at Albany in the performance of his official duties during most of the summer, interrupted by visits to Buffalo, Newark, Hartford, New Haven and New York, all of which were attended by enthusiastic political demonstrations. The chief danger to the election of Cleveland to be feared from within the Democratic party was the apathy of the Tammany faction of New York, which was open in its dissatisfaction at his nomination, although a formal pledge was given for the support of the National Democratic ticket. His chief help from sources outside of his party lay in the action of the so-called Independent Republicans, who, as early as December, 1883, had taken steps that finally

led to the very material advancement of Cleveland's chance of success. At that time certain Republicans of the city of Boston began a movement that had for its object the "adoption of measures and the nomination of men fitted to command the hearty approval and support of the independent, thoughtful and discriminating voters of the United States." The result was the formation of a committee, and the opening of a correspondence which eventually led to a call for a general conference of Republicans who were in favor of such measure, to be held at New York on the twenty-third of February, 1884. Resolutions in favor of a genuine. civil service reform, and of the nomination and election of only such men as could be depended upon to put it into operation, were adopted at that meeting, and an appeal sent to the National Republican convention to make its selections in accordance with those views. The choice by that body of Mr. Blaine for President, and General John A. Logan for vicepresident, not being satisfactory to the gentlemen engaged in this movement, another meeting was held in New York city on July 22, when delegates from various parts of the country were in attendance. An address to the people was prepared, and a formal declaration therein made in favor of Grover Cleveland, as being nearest to the ideal in his public record and promises, of any of the candidates then named. That important document concluded with the following words: "Every voter is a trustee for good government, bound to answer to his private conscience for his public acts. This conference, therefore, assuming that Republicans and Independent voters who for any reason can not sustain the Republican nomination desire to take the course which, under the necessary conditions and constitutional methods of a Presidential election, will most readily and surely secure the result at which they aim, respectfully recommends to all such citizens to support the electors who will vote for Grover Cleveland, in order most effectually to enforce their conviction that nothing could more deeply stain the American name and prove more disastrous to the public welfare, than the deliberate indifference of the people of the United States to increasing public corruption, and to the want of official integrity in the highest trusts of the government."

It was this belief that Mr. Cleveland would carry into the Presidential office the same fearless integrity and support of measures favoring the people as against the politicians or other classes seeking only personal advancement or gain, that he had already shown in Buffalo and Albany, that gave him the Presidency, and when his election was secure there was a wide-spread interest as to the course he would pursue toward the difficult questions that would confront him upon the first day's possession of the White House. Could he so far ignore the demands that would be made upon him by the members of a party that had been practically excluded from the offices pertaining to the Executive since the days of

Buchanan, as to give the civil service reform a fair trial? Would it lie within his resolution and courage to fulfill to the letter the pledges he had already given, and make good the grand expectations the reformers had promised in his name? The election of a Democratic President had been taken by the great majority of his party as meaning an immediate overturning of things, and long before the day of inauguration there was a prospective parceling out of effects from one end of the land to the other, while those who made of politics a trade took it for granted that Cleveland's promises in public affairs were as brittle as their own, and expected to see him reward those who had served, in an unmeasured fulfillment of that old theory that to the victors belonged the spoils. How far that expectation was fulfilled, let the course of President Cleveland determine for itself.

Some very strong light was let in upon this point when the Presidentelect, under date of December 25, penned a response to the Executive Committee of the National Civil Service Reform league, which had addressed him in a letter that commended to his care the interests of the measure so near their hearts. That response, worthy of a place among the best of the state papers our country has produced, was as follows: "That a practical reform in the civil service is demanded is absolutely established by the fact that a statute, referred to in your communication to secure such a result, has been passed in congress, with the assent of both political parties, and by the further fact that a sentiment is generally prevalent among patriotic people calling for the fair and honest enforcement of the law which has been thus enacted. I regard myself pledged to this because my conception of true Democratic faith and public duty requires that this and all other statutes should be in good faith and without evasion enforced, and because in many utterances made prior to my election as President, approved by the party to which I belong, and which I have no disposition to disclaim, I have in effect promised the people that this should be done.

"I am not unmindful of the fact to which you refer that many of our citizens fear that the recent party change in the National Executive may demonstrate that the abuses which have grown up in the civil service are ineradicable. I know that they are deeply rooted, and that the spoils system has been supposed to be intimately related to success in the maintenance of party organization, and I am not sure that all those who profess to be friends of this reform will stand firmly among its advocates when they find it obstructing their way to patronage and place. But fully appreciating the trust committed to my charge, no such consideration shall cause a relaxation on my part to an earnest effort to enforce this law.

"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 the administration that the removal therefrom of present incum