so-called "Millionaires' Dinner" as a proof that Mr. Blaine was the chosen candidate of the rich, and therefore devoid of sympathy with the poor and needy. Some extracts from the New York World of the following day, may be cited as typical, however absurd they may now appear.

Yesterday was Black Wednesday for Mr. James G. Blaine. He will remember it with sorrow. The Millionaires and Monopolists banquet favourite candidates, but the People elect Presidents, thank God! . . . Is there a workingman now who believes that James G. Blaine is sincere when he pretends to be the friend of labour? If so, why does he receive the homage of Gould, Cyrus Field, and the millionaire enemies of the workingmen?

"While Blaine and his millionaire admirers were feasting at Delmonico's last night, thousands of children in this great city, whose fathers labour twelve hours a day, went to bed hungry and many of them supperless. It was a Black Wednesday for James G. Blaine.. Mr. Blaine was at home in the midst of the Monopolists and Millionaires last night. He loves them and they admire him. But the people witnessed the shameless exhibition, and they will not elect to the presidency the defender of Jay Gould's schemes and the partner of Cyrus Field.

"From Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, Mr. Blaine proceeded to the merry banquet of the Millionaires at Delmonico's, where champagne frothed and brandy sparkled in glasses that glittered like jewels. The clergymen would have been proud of Mr. Blaine, no doubt, if they had seen him in the midst of the mighty wine-bibbers. It was Mr. Blaine's Black Wednesday.

"Beaten by the people, hopeless of an honest election, Blaine's appeal at the banquet of the millionaires was for a corruption fund large enough to buy up New Jersey, Connecticut, and Indiana, and to defraud the people of their free choice for President.

Every dollar subscribed at this late stage of the campaign, when all legitimate expenses have ceased, was given solely to purchase votes, to facilitate frauds, and to rob the people of a fair election. Every subscriber is an enemy of the Republic."

.

Still, the result seemed doubtful. Tammany Hall had not yet been won over. Its leader was John Kelly, a rough and ready politician, but an honest man, according to his lights. He had opposed Mr. Cleveland's nomination, pronouncing him no Democrat, and declaring that if elected he would prove a traitor to the party. Kelly held in his control the vote of Tammany Hall; and, as a last resort, Mr. Hendricks was summoned from Indiana to exert his influence. He made the journey of a thousand miles and conferred with Kelly until a late hour of the night. Hendricks was a party man of the straitest type, an old-time Democrat of the Middle West. He carried his point, and Kelly promised that for Hendricks's sake the Tammany vote should be cast for the party ticket.

Then came the day of the election on November 4th. Early on the following morning it was known that Cleveland had carried all the Southern States, besides New Jersey, Connecticut and Indiana. New York was still in doubt, but it seemed to have gone Democratic. The New York Sun, which had supported the farcical Greenback candidacy of General B. F. Butler, and which was bitterly opposed to Cleveland, conceded his election. The Tribune, on the other hand, kept its flag still flying, and declared that Blaine had won. It was evident that the result depended upon a few hundred votes in the outlying counties of New York. A very ugly feeling was manifested among the Democrats. They suspected that a plot was on foot to cheat them of their rights and to repeat the discreditable

history of 1876. This suspicion was intensified when the Republican National Committee issued the following bulletin:

"There is no ground for doubt that the honest vote of this State has been given to the Republican candidate; and though the defeated candidate for the presidency is at the head of the election machinery in this State, the Democratic party, which has notoriously been the party of frauds in elections for years, will not be permitted to overthrow the will of the people."

Mobs filled the streets in the vicinity of the newspaper offices, watching intently every bulletin that was posted, and from time to time breaking out into savage cheers or groans. Violence was attempted in several cities, and bodies of men marched up and down as they had done at the outbreak of the Civil War. The excitement was most intense in the city of New York, where it was believed that Jay Gould, who controlled the Western Union Telegraph Company, was leagued with the more unscrupulous of the Republican managers to tamper with the delayed returns. Gould was one of the most sinister figures that have ever flitted, bat-like, across the vision of the American people. Merciless, cold-blooded, secretive, apparently without one redeeming trait, this man for many years had been the incarnation of unscrupulous greed. A railway-wrecker, a corrupter of the judiciary, a partner of the notorious Fisk, the author of the dreadful panic of Black Friday in 1873, when he drove hundreds of victims to ruin, to self-murder or to shame, Jay Gould, even at the present day, typifies so vividly all that is base and foul, as to cause even the mention of his name to induce the shudderings of moral nausea. No sooner was his repulsive personality associated with the belief that the election returns were being altered,

than popular indignation broke loose from all restraint. An angry mob marched to the Western Union Building with shouts of "Hang Jay Gould!" Gould added to his other despicable traits the quality of cowardice. Fearing for his life, he besought police protection; and then from some inner hiding place he despatched a telegram to Mr. Cleveland, conceding his election and effusively congratulating him upon it. 15

On the evening of the 18th of November, the official count was ended; and then the country knew that a plurality of 1149 votes in the State of New York had given the presidency to Mr. Cleveland. On that same night, Mr. Blaine appeared at the door of his house in Augusta, Maine, and said to a sombre, sullen crowd which had assembled there: Friends and neighbours, the national contest is over, and by the narrowest of margins we have lost."

The election of Mr. Cleveland marks an epoch in our national history, the importance of which can only now be fully understood. It meant that, with the exception of the negro question, the issues springing from the Civil War had been definitely settled. It meant the beginning of a true re-union of all States and sections. It meant that the nation had turned its back upon the past, and was about to move forward with confidence and courage to a future of material prosperity, and to a greatness of which no one at that time could form an adequate conception. And it meant, although none then surmised it, that, as a result of new conditions, there was ultimately to be effected a momentous change in the whole social and political structure of the American Republic.

15 See Breen, Thirty Years of New York Politics, pp. 695-697 (New York, 1899).

CHAPTER II

TWO YEARS OF PRESIDENT CLEVELAND

PRESIDENT CLEVELAND, from the very outset of his administration, was destined to confound the predictions of his political adversaries. The misrepresentations concerning him with which the country had been flooded during the campaign of 1884 had found lodgment in the minds of millions. Now that he was actually in office, a shiver of nervous apprehension ran through those Republicans who honestly believed that a Democratic administration meant ruin and disaster. They had been told that Mr. Cleveland was a man of limited intelligence, of low tastes, and of disreputable associations. Partisan newspapers had prophesied that his Cabinet would be made up of barroom politicians and old-time party hacks. It was said, for instance, that John Kelly would be appointed Secretary of the Treasury in return for the support which Tammany Hall had reluctantly given to Mr. Cleveland. Editorial writers let their imaginations run riot in suggesting other like appointments as not only possible but probable. At the North there were many who feared lest the results of the Civil War should be undone and lest the government of the United States should be given into the hands of "rebels." The negroes in the South were told that a Democratic President might seek to re-enslave them. Not a few timorous souls all over the country looked for im mediate commercial panic and financial ruin.

In this respect, history was only repeating itself. Just