years and more, he has been the figure in the public life of our coun to private life is instinctively felt by men to mark something far more the mere close of an official term. H has so stamped itself on the histo his influence on the character of ou and on the shaping of public polic profound, that the removal of this p from among the political forces acti upon the country is recognized as o of the greatest interest and signific sense a man without a party, he yet the public eye as he retires from the most men have done when entering office amid the enthusiastic huzzas of party followers.

Friend and foe alike feel this lar portance of the man. As has been not that his powers are extraordina that they are made upon a grand scal that have brought him to his high upborne him in playing the great been his during two Administrations four years' interval between them are many people possess in a degree su

which, from the time he first attracted Mayor of Buffalo to the close of his second President of the United States, have been ation of his strength, the source of his republic services, and the secret of his ex-y command of the respect of his country

one should for a moment feel inclined to justice of the estimate which places him e all the other public men of the time, let ine any other of our political celebrities the circumstances which have confronted and consider whether there is the least that he would have been equal to the Entering upon his first term as the successHate of a party which had not tasted nawer for a quarter of a century, he was d at once with the problem of combining civil-service reform with the retention of t party following to enable him to carry overnment effectively. The difficulties of ion were overwhelming. The public sere found it was almost completely partisan. of the merit system was still a novelty, and e it had not yet undergone the test of a parties. Very few indeed of the men of

influence in the Democratic party were in sympathy with it. Mr. Cleveland himself was new to the responsibilites of national government, and he was well aware of the need of support in bearing them, conscious though he may have been of his own strength. In view of all these elements, there can be but one verdict as to his success in grappling with the civil-service problem in his first Administration. It is easy to find flaws in his performance as regards appointments. But he never left it for one moment doubtful that the merit system was safe in his hands, and would pass through its first great and crucial test not only unimpaired, but strengthened and enlarged. He did not, it is true, oppose a rigid and invariable denial to the demands of spoils politicians, but he resisted these demands sufficiently to secure great progress to the cause, while at the same time retaining his power and prestige, not only as President, but as leader of the Democratic party.

But even before he received the onset of the officeseeking hordes in Washington, he was called upon to meet another question, which, like that of the civil service, was destined to occupy a large share of his attention throughout his two administrations. He was invited by Mr. A. J. Warner and other Congressmen friendly to free coinage to define his position on the silver question. To do this clearly, firmly, without evasion, was to Mr. Cleveland a mere matter of course. The reply which he wrote on February 24, 1885, opens with the almost naive statement that the letter of the Congressmen "invites, and, indeed, obliges " him to give expression to his views upon the grave necessities of the situation,

"although in advance of the movement when they would become the objects of my official care and partial responsibility"; and after reviewing the facts of the case, he laid down the principle, which he has ever since strenuously maintained, that the maintenance of the parity of all forms of our money with gold was a paramount necessity, and that the only way to insure this parity was by a suspension of the coinage of silver. How many men, assuming for the first time the duties and trials of the Presidency, would thus, before induction into office and under no political stress, have invited trouble by boldly declaring themselves on a subject upon which their party was divided? How many would have failed to avail themselves of the obvious plea that pressing duties prevented adequate consideration of the subject, and thus put off the evil day of conflict?

Yet another matter, apparently of far smaller dimensions, but in reality of hardly less critical nature, called for the exercise of Cleveland's characteristic qualities from a very early period in his first Administration. His numerous vetoes of private pension bills, accompanied by the reasons for their rejection, which were based on fixed and sound principles, have constituted from the beginning a peculiar feature of Mr. Cleveland's activity. His scrupulous sense of duty, his extraordinary industry, and his civic courage have all been manifest in a very high degree in this part of his conduct. On the face of it, there might seem something trivial in the expenditure of much personal care, and the writing of many special messages, by the Chief Magistrate of this great nation upon matters involving expendi

that disastrous and demoralizing per which has since been the source of i In vetoing this bill, and still more i vetoes of private pension bills, he has unfortunately almost unique, of delib a large and well-defined body of pursuance of the dictates of public

One more instance of high courag cious statesmanship must be mentio Mr. Cleveland's first term as Preside cratic party, before the beginning o drifted into an almost hopeless state The break-up produced by the war, exclusion of the Southern States f from genuine participation in Fede other causes, had led to a want of purpose or meaning in the party. It upon oppositon to the arrogant and rupt perversions of power by the R than upon any clear purpose of its Tilden had infused strength and rea into the party's life, but after the dis its hopes upon the seating of Haye have lapsed into its former conditio always, indeed, a pervading spirit