CHAPTER VII.

ADMINISTRATION OF CLEVELAND-FREE-TRADE MESSAGE

FOR

TARIFF DISCUSSION-THE MILLS BILL.

OR the first time since the Republican party elected its first President it was defeated, and yet by a margin so narrow that any one of a dozen causes can be given as the particular reason for the defeat of Mr. Blaine. A change of less than six hundred votes in the State of New York would have elected him. As it was, he received in New York State 220,000 more votes than did Mr. Folger in 1882. It is pretty clear, therefore, that he was not defeated by the Mugwump The Burchard incident and the dinner given by the socalled capitalists and plutocrats at Delmonico's were no doubt the means of changing several hundred men from Mr. Blaine who had determined to vote for him. Mr. Butler drew away enough votes to have changed the result, as did also Mr. St. John. There were more than enough fraudulent votes cast and counted in the city of New York and Long Island to bring about the defeat of Mr. Blaine. Senator Hoar, in his Auto

biography of Seventy Years, says:

I suppose it would hardly be denied now by persons acquainted with the details of the management of the Democratic campaign, at any rate I have heard the fact admitted by several very distinguished Democrats, members of the Senate of the United States, that the plurality of the vote of New York was really cast for Mr. Blaine, and that he was unjustly deprived of election by the fraud at Long Island City by which votes cast for the Butler Electoral Ticket were counted for Cleveland.

But from some one or from all these causes put together Mr. Blaine was defeated and Grover Cleveland was elected. A. K. McClure, in Our Presidents and How We Make Them, says that one thousand Republican votes in Oneida County, the home of Mr. Conkling, were cast for Mr. Cleveland. This alone would have defeated Mr. Blaine. Mr. McClure also makes the claim that Mr. Blaine's attempt to run his own campaign was fatal to him. He says:

Blaine would have been matchless in the skillful management of a Presidential campaign for another, but he was dwarfed by the overwhelming responsibilities of conducting the campaign for himself, and yet he assumed the supreme control of the struggle and directed it absolutely from the start to finish. He was of heroic mould, and he wisely planned his own campaign tours to accomplish the best results. In point of fact, he had won his fight after stumping the country, and lost it by his stay in New York on his way home. He knew how to sway multitudes, and none could approach him in that important feature of a conflict; but he was not trained to consider the thousand intricacies which fall upon the management of every Presidential contest.

It was some days after the election before the result was known, the vote in New York State particularly being close, but, once it was determined, there was ready acquiescence on the part of the keenly disappointed Republicans, while on the contrary the Democrats were hilarious with joy over their first victory since the election of James Buchanan in 1856. Naturally the Mugwumps claimed everything and were not slow to give themselves the credit for having brought about the change.

Although the election of 1884 gave a Democratic majority to the House of Representatives, which would convene the following year, yet the Senate remained Republican. It was seen at the outset, then, that no revolutionary legislation could be enacted during Mr. Cleveland's term, and no undue business excitement followed as was the case eight years later, when the Democratic party was successful in all three branches of the Government.

President Arthur in his annual message to Congress, December, 1884, said:

Cleveland's Cabinet.

165

I concur with the Secretary of the Treasury in recommending the immediate suspension of the coinage of silver dollars and of the issuance of silver certificates. This is a matter to which, in former communications, I have more than once invoked the attention of the national legislature. It appears that annually for the past six years there have been coined, in compliance with the requirements of the act of February 28, 1878, more than twenty-seven million silver dollars. The number now outstanding is reported by the Secretary to be nearly one hundred and eighty-five million, whereof but little more than forty million, or less than 22 per cent., are in actual circulation.

While apprehension was felt that the continued coinage of the silver dollar would bring about a crisis, yet there was no legislation on the subject, and there was no reference made to the silver question in President Cleveland's inaugural message.

The inauguration of Grover Cleveland took place on the 4th of March, 1885, and was attended with unusual military and civic display. The President's inaugural message was short and given chiefly to generalities with no specific mention of any desired form of legislation. The President appointed as his Cabinet the following: Secretary of State, Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware; Secretary of the Treasury, Daniel Manning of New York; Secretary of War, William C. Endicott of Massachusetts; Secretary of the Navy, William C. Whitney of New York; Secretary of the Interior, L. Q. C. Lamar of Mississippi; Postmaster-General, William F. Vilas of Wisconsin; AttorneyGeneral, Augustus H. Garland of Arkansas. The changes made in the most important diplomatic appointments were as follows:

Minister to Great Britain, Edward J. Phelps of Vermont; Minister to Germany, George H. Pendleton of Ohio; Minister to France, Robert M. McLane of Maryland; Minister to Mexico, Henry R. Jackson of Georgia; Minister to Turkey, Samuel S. Cox of New York; Minister to Brazil, Thomas J. Jarvis of North Carolina; Minister to the Argentine Republic, Bayliss W. Hanna of Indiana; Minister to the Netherlands, Isaac Bell, Jr., of Rhode Island; Minister to Sweden and Norway, Rufus Magee of Indiana; Minister to the Hawaiian

Islands, George W. Merrill of Nevada; Minister Resident and Consul-General to Portugal, Edward P. C. Lewis of New Jersey; Minister Resident and Consul-General to Denmark, Prof. Rasmus B. Anderson of Wisconsin; Minister to Chili, William R. Roberts of New York; Minister to Peru, Charles W. Buck of Kentucky; Minister Resident and Consul-General to Hayti, John E. W. Thompson of New York; Minister Resident and Consul-General to Switzerland, Boyd Winchester of Kentucky; Minister to Italy, John B. Stallo of Ohio; Minister to Japan, Richard B. Hubbard of Texas; Consul-General at London, ex-Governor Thomas M. Waller of Connecticut; Consul-General at Berlin, Frederick Raine of Maryland; Consul-General at Vienna, Edmund Jussen of Illinois; ConsulGeneral at Rome, William L. Alden of New York; ConsulGeneral at St. Petersburg, Pierce B. M. Young of Georgia; Consul at Liverpool, Charles T. Russell of Connecticut.

Among the most important civil appointments were the following:

Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Charles S. Fairchild of New York; Commissioner of Pensions, Gen. John C. Black of Illinois; Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Joseph S. Miller of West Virginia; Commissioner of Patents, Marvin V. Montgomery of Michigan; First Assistant Postmaster-General, Malcolm Hay of Pennsylvania; First Comptroller of the Treasury, Milton J. Durham of Kentucky; Commissioner of the General Land Office, William A. J. Sparks of Illinois; Assistant Secretary of the Interior, Henry L. Muldrow of Mississippi; Solicitor of the Treasury, Alexander McCue of New York; Commissioner of Railroads, Joseph E. Johnston of Virginia; Commissioner of Agriculture, Norman J. Coleman of Missouri; Second Assistant Postmaster-General, A. Leo Knott of Maryland. Later in the year, First Assistant Postmaster-General Hay resigned on account of ill health, and was succeeded by William E. Smith of New York.

Henry J. Pearson was reappointed as Postmaster at New York. The new appointments continued during the recess, in fact there was no cessation of changes during the whole of Mr. Cleveland's term. The Republicans had been in power so