The United States Since The Civil War by Charles Ramsdell Lingley

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The choice of Cleveland gave the independent movement more than the
expected impetus. The New York _Times_ at once crossed the line into
the Cleveland camp and _Harpers Weekly_, long a supporter of the
Republicans, the Boston _Herald_, Springfield _Republican_, New York
_Evening Post_, _The Nation_, the Chicago _Times_ and a host of less
important ones followed. A conference of Independents in New York
City, which was composed of five hundred delegates and which enlisted
the support of such men as Carl Schurz, George William Curtis, Henry
C. Lea, Charles J. Bonaparte, Moorfield Storey and President Seelye of
Amherst College, gave striking evidence of the revolt which Blaine's
nomination had aroused. Curtis said in the conference, that the chief
issue of the campaign was moral rather than political. The New York
_Times_ declared that the issue was a personal one. Some of the better
element, however, like Senator Hoar, earnestly urged the election of
Blaine, while Senator Edmunds refused either to aid or oppose his
party. Others, like Roosevelt, were unable to give ungrudging support,
but felt that reform would be better promoted by working within the
party than by withdrawing. It is obvious that Blaine and Cleveland,
not the platforms of the parties, had become the issue of the
campaign.

James G. Blaine was born in Pennsylvania in 1830, was educated at
Washington College in his native state, later moved to Augusta, Maine,
and purchased an interest in the Kennebec _Journal_. On assuming his
journalistic duties he familiarized himself with the politics of the
state and became powerful in local, and later in federal affairs. He was
a member of the first Republican convention and was chairman of the
state Republican committee for more than twenty years, from which point
of vantage he had a prevailing influence in Maine politics. He served in
the state and federal legislatures as well as in Garfield's cabinet and
was a prominent candidate for the presidential nomination in 1876 and in
1880.

Grover Cleveland, although only seven years younger than Blaine, was
relatively inexperienced on the stage of national affairs. He was born
in New Jersey, the son of a Presbyterian minister, grew up with little
education, was salesman in a village store and later clerk in a law
office, at the age of eighteen. Although he had been sheriff of Erie
County, it was not until 1881, when he became mayor of Buffalo, that
he took an important part in politics, and here his record as the
business-like "veto mayor" was such as to carry him into the governor's
chair a year later. The huge majority which he received in the
gubernatorial contest was not wholly due to his own strength--doubtless
factional quarrels among the Republicans assisted him--but the
prominence which this election gave him and his conduct as Governor
made inevitable his candidacy for higher office.

Few men could have been nominated who would have presented a more
complete contrast than Blaine and Cleveland. In personality Blaine was
magnetic, approachable, high-strung, possessed of a vivid imagination
and of a marvellous memory for facts, names and faces. Over him men
went "insane in pairs," either devotedly admiring or completely
distrusting him. Cleveland was almost devoid of personal charm except
to his most intimate associates. He was brusque and tactless,
unimaginative, plodding, commonplace in his tastes and in the elements
of his character. Men threw their hats in the air and cheered
themselves hoarse at the name of Blaine; to Cleveland's courage,
earnestness and honesty, they gave a tribute of admiration. When the
campaign was at fever heat, Blaine was lifting crowds of eager
listeners to the mountain peaks of enthusiasm; Cleveland was in the
governor's room in Albany, phlegmatically plodding away at the
business of his office. He was too heavy, unimaginative, direct, to
indulge in flights of oratory. Yet scarcely anything that Blaine said
still lives, while some of Cleveland's phrases have passed into the
language of every-day.

No less a contrast existed between Blaine and Cleveland as political
characters. The former's experience in the machinery of politics, in the
disposal of its loaves and fishes, has already been mentioned. Of that
part of politics, Cleveland had had no experience. It is said that he
never was in Washington, except for a single day, until he went there to
become President. Both were bold and active fighters, but Blaine was a
strategist, a manager and a diplomat, while Cleveland could merely state
the policy which he desired to see put into effect, and then crash
ahead. Blaine had the instinct for the popular thing, was never ahead of
his party, was surrounded by his followers; Cleveland saw the thing
which he felt a moral imperative to accomplish and was far in advance of
his fellows. The Republican was popular among the professional political
element in his party and was supported by it; the Democrat never was.
Cleveland openly declared his attitude on controverted issues, in words
that admitted of no ambiguity and at times when only silence or soft
words would save him from defeat. Blaine lacked the moral courage and
the indifference to immediate results which were necessary for so
exalted an action. Cleveland had more of the reformer in his nature, and
had so keen a sense of responsibility and duty that his political career
was a succession of battles against things that seemed wrong to him.
Blaine accepted the party standards as they were; he belonged to the
past, to the policies and political morality of war and reconstruction;
Cleveland belonged to the transition from reconstruction to the
twentieth century.

The particular thing, however, that came out of Blaine's past to dog his
foot-steps, give him the enmity of the Independents--better known as the
"Mugwumps"--and, doubtless, to defeat him, was a series of transactions
exposed in the Mulligan letters. In order to understand these, it is
necessary to inquire into events that occurred fifteen years before the
overturn of 1884. In April, 1869, a bill favorable to the Little Rock
and Fort Smith Railroad--an Arkansas land-grant enterprise--was before
the House of Representatives. Blaine was Speaker. As the session was
near its close and the bill seemed likely to be lost, its friends
bespoke Blaine's assistance. He suggested that a certain point of order
be raised, which would facilitate the passage of the measure, and also
asked General John A. Logan to raise the point. Logan did so, Blaine
sustained him and the act was passed. Nearly three months later, Warren
Fisher, Jr., a Boston business man, asked Blaine to participate in the
affairs of the Little Rock Railroad. Blaine signified his readiness,
closing his letter with the words, "I do not feel that I shall prove a
dead-head in the enterprise if I once embark in it. I see various
channels in which I know I can be useful." When Blaine's enemies got
hold of this, they declared that he intended to use his position as
Speaker to further the interests of the road, as he had done at the time
of the famous point of order; his friends asserted that he intended
merely to sell the securities of the road to investors. Whether one of
these contentions is true, or both, he did sell considerable amounts of
the securities of the road to Maine friends, getting a "handsome
commission." Considerable correspondence passed between Blaine and
Fisher from 1869 to 1872 when their relations ended. Blaine understood
that all their correspondence was mutually surrendered.

In the spring of 1876, the presidential campaign was on the horizon and
Blaine was a prominent candidate for the Republican nomination.
Meanwhile ugly rumors were flying about concerning the connection of
certain members of Congress, Blaine among them, with questionable
railroad transactions, and he arose in the House to deny the charges. He
did not discuss the matter fully, as he did not wish his Maine
constituents to know that he had received a large commission for selling
Little Rock securities. Gossip grew, however, and a congressional
investigation resulted in May, 1876. Blaine was one of the witnesses,
but was doubtless anxious to bring the investigation to an end, since it
clearly reduced his chances of receiving the nomination. Presently
gossip said that Warren Fisher and James Mulligan were going to testify.
Mulligan had been confidential clerk to one of Mrs. Blaine's brothers
and later to Fisher. When Mulligan began his testimony it appeared that
he intended to lay before the committee a package of letters that had
passed between Blaine and Fisher, and thereupon, at Blaine's whispered
request, one of the members of the committee procured an adjournment for
the day. That evening Blaine found Mulligan at the latter's hotel and
prevailed on him to surrender the letters temporarily, in order that
Blaine might read and then return them. Blaine thereupon consulted two
lawyers and on their advice he refused to restore the package to
Mulligan. Merely to keep silence, however, was to admit guilt. Blaine,
therefore, arose one day in the House of Representatives and holding the
letters in his hand read selections and defended himself in a remarkable
burst of emotional oratory. At the climax of this defence he elicited
from the chairman of the committee of investigation an unwilling
admission that the committee had suppressed a dispatch which Blaine
declared would exonerate him. Blaine was triumphant, his friends sure
that he had cleared himself and the matter dropped for the time. Further
investigation was prevented by Blaine's refusal to produce the letters
even before the committee and by his sudden illness shortly afterward.
His election to the Senate soon took him out of the jurisdiction of the
House committee and no action resulted.

The nomination of Blaine in 1884 was a fresh breeze on the half-dead
embers of the Mulligan letters. _Harper's Weekly_ and other periodicals
published them with damaging explanatory remarks. Campaign committees
spread them abroad in pamphlet form. Attention was directed to such
phrases as "I do not feel that I shall prove a dead-head" and "I see
various channels in which I know I can be useful." Hostile cartoonists
used the phrases with an infinite variety of innuendo. But the most
powerful evidence was still to come. On September 15, 1884, Fisher and
Mulligan made public additional letters which Blaine had not possessed
at the time of his defence in 1876. The most damaging of these was one
in which Blaine had drawn up a letter completely exonerating himself,
which he asked Fisher to sign and make public as his own. Blaine had
marked his request "confidential" and had written at the bottom "Burn
this letter." Fisher had neither written the letter which was requested
nor burned Blaine's. Meanwhile it was recalled that Blaine had earlier
characterized the reformers as "upstarts, conceited, foolish, vain" and
as "noisy but not numerous, pharisaical but not practical, ambitious but
not wise," and the already intemperate campaign became more personal
than ever.

Thomas Nast's able pencil caricatured Blaine in _Harper's Weekly_ as a
magnetic candidate too heavy for the party elephant to carry; _Puck_
portrayed him as the "tattooed man" covered all over with "Little Rock,"
"Mulligan Letters" and the like. _Life_ described him as a

Take all I can gettery,
Mulligan lettery,
Solid for Blaine old man.

Nor was the contest of scurrility entirely one-sided. _Judge_
caricatured Cleveland in hideous cartoons. The New York _Tribune_
described him as a small man "everywhere except on the hay-scales."
Beginning in Buffalo rumors spread all over the country that Cleveland
was an habitual drunkard and libertine. As is the way of such gossip,
its magnitude grew until the Governor appeared in the guise of a monster
of immorality. The editor of the _Independent_ went himself to Buffalo
and ran the rumors to their sources. He came to the conclusion that
Cleveland as a young man had been guilty of an illicit connection, that
he had made amends for the wrong which he had done and had since lived a
blameless life. Such religious periodicals as the _Unitarian Review_,
however, continued to describe him as a "_debauchee_" and "_roue_."
Nearly a thousand clergymen gathered in New York declared him a synonym
of "incapacity and incontinency." Much was made, also, of the fact that
Cleveland had not served in the war, and John Sherman denounced him as
having no sympathy for the Union cause. It did little good in the heated
condition of partisan discussion to point out that young Cleveland had
two brothers in the service, that he was urgently needed to support his
widowed mother and her six other children, and that he borrowed money to
obtain a substitute to take the field. On the other side, _Harper's
Weekly_ dwelt upon the Mulligan scandal; _The Nation_, while deploring
the incident in Cleveland's past, considered even so grave a mistake as
less important than Blaine's, since the latter's vices were those by
which "governments are overthrown, states brought to naught, and the
haunts of commerce turned into dens of thieves."

As the campaign neared an end it appeared that the result would turn
upon New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Indiana, and especially upon
the first of these. In New York several elements combined to make the
situation doubtful and interesting. Tammany's dislike of Cleveland was
well-known, but open opposition, at least, was quelled before election
day. Roscoe Conkling, still influential despite his retirement, refused
to take the stump in behalf of Blaine, declaring that he did not engage
in "criminal practice." The Republicans also feared the competition of
the Prohibitionists, because they attracted some Republicans who refused
to vote for Blaine and could not bring themselves to support a Democrat.
On the eve of the election an incident occurred which would have been of
no importance if it had not been for the closeness of the contest. As
Blaine was returning from a speaking tour in the West, he was given a
reception in New York by a delegation of clergymen. The spokesman of the
group, the Reverend Dr. Burchard, referred to the Democrats as the party
of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." Blaine, weary from his tour, failed to
notice the indiscreet remark, but the opposition seized upon it and used
it to discredit him in the eyes of the Irish. On the same evening a
dinner at Delmonico's at which many wealthy men were present, provided
material for the charge that the Republican candidate was the choice of
the rich classes.

Early returns on election night indicated that the Democrats had carried
the South and all the doubtful states, with the possible exception of
New York. There the result was so close that some days elapsed before a
final decision could be made. Excitement was intense; and business
almost stopped, so absorbed were people in the returns. At length it was
officially decided that Cleveland had received 1,149 more votes than
Blaine and by this narrow margin the Democrats carried New York, and
with it the election.

Contemporary explanations of Blaine's defeat were indicated by a
transparency carried in a Democratic procession which celebrated the
victory:

The _World_ Says the Independents Did It
The _Tribune_ Says the Stalwarts Did It
The _Sun_ Says Burchard Did It
Blaine Says St. John Did It
Theodore Roosevelt Says It Was the Soft Soap Dinner[1]
We Say Blaine's Character Did It
But We Don't Care What Did It
It's Done.

None of these explanations took into account the strength of Cleveland,
but the closeness of the result made all of them important. From the
vantage ground of later times, however, it could be seen that greater
forces were at work. By 1884 the day had passed when political contests
could be won on Civil War issues. The younger voters had no recollections
of Gettysburg and felt no animosity toward the Democratic South. Moreover,
Cleveland's success was the culmination of a long-continued demand for
reform, which he satisfied better than Blaine.

The opening of the first Democratic administration since Buchanan's time
excited great interest in every detail of Cleveland's activities and
characteristics.[2] Moreover, many who had voted for him distrusted his
party and were apprehensive lest it turn out that a mistake had been
made in placing such great confidence in one man. The more stiffly
partisan Republicans firmly believed that Democratic success meant a
triumphant South, with the "rebels" again in the saddle. Sherman
declared that Cleveland's choice of southern advisors was a "reproach to
the civilization of the age," and Joseph B. Foraker, speaking in an Ohio
campaign, found that the people wished to hear Cleveland "flayed" and
wanted plenty of "hot stuff."

The President's early acts indicated that the partisans were unduly
disturbed. His inaugural address was characterized by straightforward
earnestness. The exploitation of western lands by fraudulent claimants
was sharply halted. The cabinet, while inexperienced, contained several
able men, of whom Thomas F. Bayard, Secretary of State, William C.
Whitney, Secretary of the Navy, and L.Q.C. Lamar, the Secretary of the
Interior, were best known.[3]

The first great obstacle that Cleveland faced was well portrayed by one
of Nast's cartoons, in which the President, with an "Independent" club
in his hand, was approaching a snarling, open-jawed tiger, which
represented the office-seeking classes. The drawing was entitled
"Beware! For He is Very Hungry and Very Thirsty." It was not difficult
to foresee grave trouble ahead in connection with the civil service. The
Democrats had been out of power for twenty-four years, the offices were
full of Republicans, about 100,000 positions were at the disposal of the
administration, and current political practice looked with indifference
upon the use of these places as rewards for party work. Hordes of
office-seekers descended upon congressmen, in order to get introductions
to department chiefs; they filled the waiting rooms of cabinet officers;
they besieged Cleveland. Disappointed applicants and displaced officers
added to the clamor and confusion.

The President's policy, as it worked out in practice, was a compromise
between his ideals and the wishes of the party leaders. He earnestly
approved the Pendleton act and desired to carry out both its letter and
its spirit. He removed office holders who were offensively partisan and
who used their positions for political purposes. He gave the South a
larger share in the activities of the government, both in the cabinet
and in the diplomatic and other branches of the service. When the term
of a Republican office holder expired he filled the place with a fit
Democrat, if one could be found, in order to equalize the share of the
two parties in the patronage. Nearly half of the diplomatic and consular
appointments went to southerners, and eventually most of the Republicans
were supplanted.

The displacement of so many officials gave the Republicans an
opportunity to attempt to discredit the President in the eyes of his
mugwump supporters. An amended law of 1869 gave the Senate a certain
control over removals, although the constant practice of early times had
been to give the executive a free hand. Moreover the law had fallen into
disuse--or, as the President put it--into "innocuous desuetude." The
case on which the Senate chose to force the issue was the removal of
George M. Duskin, United States District Attorney in Alabama, and the
nomination of John D. Burnett in his place. The Senate called upon the
Attorney-General to transmit all papers relating to the removal; the
President directed him to refuse, on the ground that papers of such a
sort were not official papers, to which the Senate had a right, and also
on the ground that the power of removal was vested, by the Constitution,
in the president alone. In the meantime it had been hinted to Cleveland
that his nominations would be confirmed without difficulty if it were
acknowledged that the suspensions were the usual partisan removals. To
do this would, of course, make his reform utterances look hypocritical
and he refused to comply:

I ... dispute the right of the Senate ... in any way save
through the judicial process of trial on impeachment, to review
or reverse the acts of the Executive in the suspension, during
the recess of the Senate, of Federal officials.

As he was immovable and was taking precisely the position that such
Republican leaders as President Grant had previously taken, the Senate
was obliged to give way. Although it relieved its feelings by censuring
the Attorney-General, it later repealed the remains of the Tenure of
Office act of 1869, leaving victory with the President.

In connection with the less important offices Cleveland was forced to
compromise between the desirable and the practicable. Most of the
postmasters were changed, although in New York City an efficient officer
was retained who had originally been appointed by Garfield. All the
internal revenue collectors and nearly all the collectors of customs
were replaced. On the other hand, the classified service was somewhat
extended by the inclusion of the railway mail service, a change which,
with other increases, enlarged the classified lists by 12,000 offices.

It seems evident that Cleveland pressed reform far enough to alienate
the politicians but not so far as to satisfy the reformers. When he
withstood Democratic clamor for office, the Independents applauded, and
the spoilsmen in his own party accused him of treason. When he listened
to the demands of the partisans, the reformers became disgusted and many
of them returned to their former party allegiance. Eugene Field
expressed Republican exultation at the dissension in the enemy's ranks:

... the Mugwump scorned the Democrat's wail,
And flirting its false fantastic tail,
It spread its wings and it soared away,
And left the Democrat in dismay,
Too hoo!

Aside from the President, official Washington seems to have had but
little real interest in reform. The Vice-President, Hendricks, was a
partisan of the old school, and so many members of Congress were out of
sympathy with the system that they attempted to annul the law by
refusing appropriations for its continuance. On the whole a fair
judgment was that of Charles Francis Adams, a Republican, who thought
that Cleveland showed himself as much in advance of both parties as it
was wise for a leader of one of them to be.

In addition to further improvements in the civil service laws, Cleveland
was interested in a long list of reforms which he placed before Congress
in his first message: the improvement of the diplomatic and consular
service; the reduction of the tariff; the repeal of the Bland-Allison
silver-coinage act; the development of the navy, which he characterized
as a "shabby ornament" and a naval reminder "of the days that are past";
better care of the Indians; and a means of preventing individuals from
acquiring large areas of the public lands. The fact that Hayes and
Arthur had urged similar reforms showed how little Cleveland differed
from his Republican predecessors. It was not likely, however, that the
program would be carried out, for Congress was not in a reforming mood
and the Republicans controlled the upper house so that they could block
any attempt at constructive policies.

The latent hostility which many of the Civil War veterans felt toward
the Democratic party was fanned into flame by Cleveland's attitude
toward pension legislation. The sympathy of the country for its disabled
soldiers had early resulted in a system of pensions for disability if
due either to wounds or to disease contracted in the service. Early in
the seventies the number of pensioners had seemed to have reached a
maximum. Two new centers of agitation, however, had appeared, the Grand
Army of the Republic and the pension agent. The former was originally a
social organization but later it took a hand in the campaign for new
pension legislation. The agents were persons familiar with the laws, who
busied themselves in finding possible pensioners and getting their
claims established. The agitation of the subject had resulted in the
arrears act of 1879, which gave the claimant back-pensions from the day
of his discharge from the army to the date of filing his claim,
regardless of the time when his disability began. As the average first
payment to the pensioner under this act was about $1,000, the number of
claims filed had grown enormously and the pension agents had enjoyed a
rich harvest. The next step was the dependent pensions bill, which
granted a pension to all who had served three months, were dependent on
their daily toil, and were incapable of earning their livelihood,
whether the incapacity was due to wounds and disease or not. President
Cleveland's veto of the measure aroused a hostility which was deepened
by his attitude toward private pension acts.