FRANCES FOLSOM, ward of Grover Cleveland and daughter of his late law partner became his wife in 1886. She was the first President's wife to be married in the White House and to give birth to a child there, the second daughter being born during her father's second term. As President Cleveland was a bachelor when elected, his sister, Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, presided at the White House. Besides being a literary woman, she earnestly and creditably fulfilled all social demands. Mrs. Madison and Mrs. Cleveland were the youngest wives of Presidents. The latter quickly won all hearts by her ease, grace and charming manners, and upon her return in 1893, she received a hearty welcome. After his retirement from office Ex-President Cleveland's home was at Princeton, New Jersey, until his death June 24, 1908. Mrs. Cleveland married Prof. Thomas S. Preston, Jr., on Feb. 10, 1913.

CLEVELAND

Mr. Cleveland is said to have declared, when elected Governor of the State of New York, that it was his purpose "to make the matter a business engagement between the people of the State and myself, in which the obligation on my side is to perform the duties assigned me with an eye single to the interests of my employers." And in his first inaugural address as President of the United States, he said: "In the discharge of my official duty, I shall endeavor to be guided by a just and unstrained construction of the Constitution, a careful observance of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or to the people." In his adherence to these rules of official conduct, in his Administration of the affairs of the Federal Government, Mr. Cleveland evinced a loftiness of courage, an unswerving fidelity to conviction, and an unvarying disregard of his own mere personal interests that compel the admiration and approval of all fair-minded and unprejudiced men.

He sincerely desired, and cordially invited, the co-operation of the members of the legislative branch, in his endeavors to prevent lavish waste of the public money, debasement of the national currency, injury to the public credit, and mercenary intrusion upon the affairs or territory of foreign powers, but, deeply as he was convinced of the folly and mischief of these measures, and of his own inability to avert them without the co-operation of the Senators and Representatives, he steadfastly refused to acquire that aid, at the expense of his sense of official duty and responsibility, by surrendering to others the power of appointment to public offices, by approving acts for the payment of fraudulent pension claims, or for the erection of public buildings, at points where public need did not require them, or by perverting to mere party uses the powers confided to him for the public good.

He vetoed scores of bills for the payment of pension claims, which he believed to be fraudulent, and assigned in his messages the reasons for his action, and these remained unanswered. He vetoed bills for the erection of public buildings, on grounds which cannot be shaken. He withheld his hand from measures which he believed to be vicious, when he knew that his resolute adherence to duty would alienate his party associates and inflame the hostile zeal of party opponents.

Perhaps in no other course or policy has his judgment been so fully vindicated and his strenuous intrepidity been so conspicuously displayed, as in his persistent antagonism to the dangerous heresy of foreign conquest, and impudent intermeddling with the affairs of foreign powers. Selfish greed masked in the garb of ardent patriotism employed the

Federal Navy to overthrow the Government of Hawaii and set up a provisional government in its stead. A treaty of annexation had been negotiated, and was pending in the Senate when Mr. Cleveland entered upon his second administration. He withdrew that treaty, and sent a commissioner, to Hawaii to investigate the matter.

The disturbances in Cuba had become the subject of anxiety and alarm to the Government and people of the United States. Our citizens had large investments of capital in that island, which were seriously imperiled by the war then raging between Spain and her colonists, and deep and earnest sympathy was felt and expressed for a people struggling for liberty. In his message of December 2, 1895, Mr. Cleveland said: ***"The plain duty of their, our, Government is to observe in good faith the recognized obligations of international relationship. The performance of this duty should not be made more difficult by a disregard on the part of our citizens of the obligations growing out of their allegiance to their country, which should restrain them from violating, as individuals, the neutrality which the nation of which they are members, is bound to observe in its relations to friendly sovereign. States." And referring to the same subject in his message of December 7, 1896, he there said: "It is urged finally that, all other methods failing, the existence of internecine strife in Cuba should be terminated by our intervention, even at the cost of a war between the United States and Spain-a war, which its advocates confidently prophesy could neither be large in its proportions nor doubtful in its issue. The correctness of this forecast need neither be affirmed nor denied. The United States has, nevertheless, a character to maintain as a nation, which plainly dictates that right and not might should be the rule of its conduct."

And so on, to the end of his Administration, when the halls of Congress were resonant with clamorous cries for war with Spain, its precipitation sought to be justified on grounds of "humanity," and the event forestalled by appeals to "manifest destiny," when his judgment was sought to be swerved by intimidations of popular vengeance, and allurements of popular applause and reward, Mr. Cleveland stood firm, with his "eye single to the interests of his employers," and still guided by a "just and unstrained construction of the Constitution," he withstood the ravings of the multitude, and standing alone at the helm, he kept the ship of State true to the chart which he had sworn to follow.

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