WHAT MR. CLEVELAND STANDS FOR.

"How is it that you, an original member of the Republican party and an officer in the Union army all through the war of the Rebellion, -how is it that you, with this political and military record, are pow a supporter of the presidential candidate of the Democratic party?" This question has recently been put to me; it is a fair question; it comes from a responsible source, and is put, not idly or out of mere curiosity, but because I am believed to be one of a class, more or less numerous, and it is assumed, correctly or otherwise, that the considerations which have influenced me have also influenced those who feel and act much as I feel and act. Though the voice of almost no one carries far amid the tumult of a presidential canvass, I propose to answer the question. But before doing so, and in order to make my answer intelligible, it is necessary to cast a rapid glance backward.

It was in 1856, the year in which the Republican party came into existence and in which also James Buchanan was elected Presidentthat I cast my first vote. It is needless to say that I did not vote for Mr. Buchanan. My virgin vote was deposited for John C. Fremont, the "Pathfinder," as we then called him. And I may add, by way of reminiscence, that since then, like most men who take an interest always and occasionally an active hand in political movements, I have experienced some disappointments, and at times felt that the bottom, so to speak, of things, if it had not actually already tumbled out, was in imminent danger of so doing. But, looking back over an interval of more than a third of a century, I am now free to say that never at any time do I remember to have experienced so bitter a sense of political disappointment and temporary discouragement as when a merciful Providence, through the result of the Pennsylvania State election of October, 1856, saved the young Republican party from the grave disaster of a premature success. Since that time I have cast my vote in eight presidential elections; six times for the successful candidate and twice for the candidate who failed of success. So, as an adult, I have seen nine such elections; and I have further a most vivid recollection of the two others which immediately preceded those nine.

Passing in review the whole eleven of these conflicts from the standpoint of the threshold of the twelfth, I find myself forced to the conclusion that in the course of them I have been through a great deal of most unnecessary anxiety, and witnessed the expenditure of a vast amount of energy and enthusiasm with very inadequate returns; because, though generally I have been on the winning side, and so at the moment seen my country saved from what appeared to be imminent peril, yet now, looking back over the lines of that country's development and the political battle-fields which marked and more or less deflected those lines, I really cannot help feeling that so far as the country as a whole is concerned, the grand result would in the long run have been about the same whether at any particular election, with one exception only, the party I sympathized with had won the day or whether the other party had won it. The single exception was the election of 1864, the second election of President Lincoln. That election all, I think, must agree was of vital importance; and for the obvious reason, which Lincoln himself either gave or would have given, that it was not politic to attempt to swap horses while crossing a river. The country was most undeniably then crossing a river, a river swift and dangerous, and the transfer of political power from one party to the other at that time would, so far as all human judgment can decide, have been disastrous. But with this single exception, I do not see how a different result in any one of the last eleven presidential elections could have affected the grand course of events further than slightly to hasten or retard it, or possibly to deflect it to an extent in no way material.

Thus in these days of profound peace and great material prosperity, some of us, the veterans now of many noisy but innocuous presidential conflicts and of one actual and awful war-some of us, I say, seeing the general prosperity of the country we fought to preserve, and not being able to shut our eyes to the eager patriotism of the people, no matter by what party lines they may divide themselvesseeing all this, we find it somewhat difficult to work up in ourselves the old enthusiasm, or to be very earnest partisans, or to feel that every fourth year is "the most important in the country's history." Moreover, so far as the Republican party is concerned, the party of our youth and devotion, the present battle-cries of that organization have to our ears a somewhat unfamiliar sound. It was William M. Evarts, I think, who many years ago, probably during the second administration of Grant, remarked that "the Republican party was like an army

the term of enlistment of which had expired." The saying was as true as it was incisive. As I hold it, there have been only two political parties in the United States since the present National Government was organized which have left behind them the record of a great work of lasting historical importance accomplished. One of those two parties was the original Federal party, the party of Washington; the other was the original Republican party, the party of Lincoln. The Federal party organized and firmly established the Union of the States under a National Government; and the Republican party triumphantly carried that Union and that Government through the crucial stress of a great civil war. All the other parties and party conflicts of these hundred years of national history are, so far as I am competent to judge, mere matters of detail, and will prove hardly deserving of the future historian's notice.

It was to meet the issues of a great crisis then manifestly impending that the Republican party came into existence in 1856, and the young men of the North enlisted in its ranks. The mottoes inscribed on its banners were plain enough and understood by all. Neither was the work before it to do matter for much question. That work it did, and it did it completely-far more completely than it was originally proposed to do it. When the work the Republican party was organized to do was thus done, and fully and irreversibly done, the term of service of those who enlisted literally for that war expired by its own limitation. New issues then presented themselves, new leaders came to the front, new battle-cries were heard, and the name of Republican attached to a party organization became a mere tradition and sentiment-a trade-mark, as it were, representing what might most aptly be described as a very valuable political good-will.

Such are the general conditions of to-day as seen by some of us, original members of the Republican party, and faithful to it until the work it was formed to do was done; then, ceasing to call ourselves Republicans, we have seen no good reason for identifying ourselves with the Democratic or with any other political faction. We have felt satisfied with being simply citizens of that common country which, as members of the original Republican party, we helped to save. Why, then, do some of us now come forward, not calling ourselves Democrats, and earnestly advocate the election to the presidency of the candidate of the Democratic party? My answer is: We do so simply because that candidate is ex-President Cleveland.

What are the political issues of the impending canvass? Some of

them are old, as old as the National Government, and likely long to continue; others are new and of a passing character. These issues, new and old, may be enumerated somewhat as follows: 1. The economic and commercial system, commonly known as protective, based upon the idea that it is the business of government artificially to foster, or even call into existence, various branches of industry. 2. The purification and reform of the civil service; or, as Mr. Carl Schurz once tersely expressed it, "the disestablishment of the spoils system,' the system which the Jacksonian Democracy introduced. 3. What is known as the "currency question," now taking the form of a demand for the free coinage of silver at the national mint at an artificial ratio with gold. 4. The pension system.

What is the attitude of Mr. Cleveland so far as these issues are concerned? He has been called upon officially to confront them all, and on no occasion, so far as I know, has he failed to make his position understood, or to give the party of which he was the head a distinct, recognized, and creditable lead. He has not shuffled or vacillated; his voice at least has, upon these issues, emitted no uncertain sound. In this respect the line of responsible public action he has pursued has been in most agreeable contrast with that usually pursued by politicians, not only of the present, but of all time. The crying sin of cattle of that class, especially in these days of many newspapers and much rapid communication, is their constant endeavor to catch quickly and to reflect correctly the passing phases of public sentiment, and neither to think nor to speak for themselves. Continually playing a game of political chess and small party tactics, they are very chary of enunciating any political principles by which they are prepared to stand or fall, unless such principles are time-honored political platitudes or orthodox party shibboleth. But such has not been the practice of Mr. Cleveland. In high public position he has stood forth a clean-cut political character-a man with the courage of his convictions.

Take his course on the question of civil-service reform, that one of the issues enumerated in regard to which his record may seem to be most open to attack. Under the lead of Grover Cleveland the Democratic party came back into power in 1885 after twenty-eight years of exclusion from it. It is no exaggeration to say that those calling themselves Democrats were then simply ravenous for spoils. No more severe pressure for a general turning out of officials and a new distribution of places was probably ever brought to bear upon the head of a government than was brought to bear upon President

Cleveland after his inauguration. I have not the figures before me, nor do I care to look them up, but I think it will be found that the removals during President Cleveland's administration were fewer in number and less dictated by partisan or political considerations than those of President Harrison, who succeeded him. Yet President Harrison represented a party which when Cleveland was inaugurated had been in power for over a quarter of a century, filling every office in the gift of the Government, and many of these officials had held over notwithstanding the change which took place in 1885. President Harrison also represented the party which claims to be and which should be essentially the party of civil-service reform. Yet, so far as the use of party power for political purposes is concerned, the administration of Grover Cleveland will have little to fear from a comparison of its record with that of Benjamin Harrison. It may well be that in this matter there is little to choose as between the politicians of the two great parties; but in view of the record, it cannot but be conceded that Mr. Cleveland, in the trying position in which he was placed, acquitted himself as creditably as any man could have been expected to do. Upon the issue of a reformed civil service he showed himself as much in advance of both parties as it was wise or prudent for the recognized leader of one of those parties to be. He may not have been-probably he was not-on the skirmish line; but then a general in command is not in his proper place on the skirmish line.

On the next issue, that of protection, whether the critic be a protectionist or otherwise, he must still admit that President Cleveland's course was most creditable to him. Indeed, it may well be questioned whether any President, in dealing with an important question of public policy, ever acted from higher or more disinterested motives than did Cleveland when he took the course he did in his annual message of 1887. Before that message was sent in, it was generally conceded that all the President had to do to secure a reëlection was silently to bide the time. The course of events and the drift of public opinion were in his favor. The terrible results his opponents had so confidently predicted from a return of the Democratic party to power had not come about. The country was at peace and very prosperous; the South was pacified and loyal; the Treasury was overflowing. All things indicated popular confidence in the administration and unwillingness to disturb it. Nevertheless, when President Cleveland, after the most thorough and careful investigation he could make, had con