Grover Cleveland. I INTRODUCTION Grover Cleveland (1837-1908), 22nd and 24th president of the United States (1885-1889, 1893-1897), the only chief executive to be reelected after defeat. Cleveland adopted the credo "a public office is a public trust," and in his two nonconsecutive terms, he spent much of his energy resisting political influences and the party favoritism characteristic of that era. As a result, he managed to offend almost every political faction and to win the anger of many private organizations and individuals as well. It is for his stubborn courage and integrity, rather than for any outstanding achievement as president, that Cleveland is remembered. II EARLY LIFE Stephen Grover Cleveland was born on March 18, 1837, in Caldwell, New Jersey. He was the fifth child of Richard Falley Cleveland, a Presbyterian minister, and Ann Neal Cleveland. Four years later the family moved to Fayetteville, near Syracuse, New York, where his father became pastor of the Presbyterian church. The young Cleveland attended the local school, and when he was 13 entered an academy in nearby Clinton. The death of his father in 1853 removed any hope Cleveland may have had of attending college. To earn his own way and contribute to his mother's support, he went to New York City, where he worked for a year teaching at the state institution for the blind. In 1855 Cleveland decided to go to Cleveland, Ohio, to look for work, but he got no farther than Buffalo, New York. There his uncle, a wealthy and nationally famous cattle-breeder, hired him to look after the herdbooks of his cattle company. After a year of this, Cleveland studied law in the offices of friends of his uncle and in 1859 was licensed to practice law. III EARLY POLITICAL CAREER Cleveland soon showed the political independence that characterized his future career. His uncle, the best-known citizen of Buffalo except for former President Millard Fillmore (1850-1853), had organized Erie County's Republican Party, but Cleveland joined the Democratic Party. In later years, Cleveland said that he became a Democrat in 1856 because that party represented solid, conservative thought. On the other hand, he said, Republican presidential candidate John Charles Frémont struck him as flamboyant and theatrical. During the Civil War (1861-1865), when other men of his age were in the Union Army, Cleveland borrowed money to hire a substitute to serve in his place. This was a practice permitted under the Federal Conscription Act and was widely used in the North. Cleveland defended his action, saying that he had to earn enough money to support his mother and sisters. In 1863 Cleveland was appointed assistant district attorney of Erie County, New York. During the next three years he earned a name as a crusader against crime and corruption. In 1871 he became county sheriff. Between terms of public office he continued to practice law and became the most successful attorney in Buffalo. His success was generally attributed to hard work rather than brilliant legal talent. A Mayor of Buffalo In 1881 Cleveland was a 44-year-old, moderately wealthy bachelor. The Democrats of Buffalo, hoping to appeal to respectable citizens, nominated Cleveland for mayor because of his work against corruption. He declared, "Public officials are the trustees of the people," the basis for the slogan later credited to him, "Public office is a public trust." A coalition of Democrats, reform Republicans, and independents elected him mayor. Mayor Cleveland fought the Buffalo aldermen, a corrupt circle of politicians from both parties. In his single year at city hall he stopped an attempt to defraud the city of $200,000 on a street-cleaning contract and vetoed numerous bills passed by the aldermen. Cleveland felt these bills were examples of political graft, a form of fraud in which a legislator passed laws that increased the value of his own private investments. Cleveland thus became known as the "veto mayor." Cleveland probably would have advanced no further in politics but for the deadlock in 1882 between two men wanting the Democratic nomination for governor of New York. The party leaders then decided that a new face was needed to reconcile quarreling factions and chose to nominate Cleveland. He went on to victory over his Republican opponent, who had been the choice of President Chester A. Arthur. B Governor of New York As governor, Cleveland demonstrated the same stubborn honesty and independence that he had shown in his other offices. Most state governments at this time operated on the spoils system, in which winning politicians gave government jobs to those loyal party members who had helped them get elected. Cleveland, however, appointed people to office based on their skills. When politicians demanded jobs to reward their services to the Democratic Party, he would frustrate them by saying, "I don't know that I understand you." Cleveland liberally applied the veto to laws passed by the legislature. The most famous of these was his veto in 1883 of the Five Cent Fare bill, which would have lowered transit fares in New York City in violation of the transit company's charter. Afterward he said, "I shall be the most unpopular man in the state of New York." He later broke with Tammany Society, also called Tammany Hall, the Democratic political machine in New York City, when he vetoed its bill for revising the city charter. C Election of 1884 In 1884 the Republicans nominated Maine Congressman and former Secretary of State James G. Blaine for president. A group of Republicans who favored national reform were furious at Blaine's nomination, since he had been accused of accepting bribes from railroad companies. These independents, derisively called Mugwumps (meaning "big chiefs"), appealed to the voters to support any Democrat who ran against Blaine, as long as he was honest. They believed, as did almost every politician, that the candidate carrying New York state in the November election would win the presidency, and that was Cleveland's strength. The anti-Blaine independents could rally around Cleveland since his public record was unassailable. At the Democratic National Convention in July 1884, Cleveland was nominated for president. The Cleveland-Blaine presidential campaign inspired many personal attacks by both sides, as well as by the smaller parties. Republican editors and orators charged that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child, which Cleveland courageously acknowledged. Democrats, for their part, accused Blaine of trying to aid the railroads at public expense. Various factors combined to give Cleveland a slim victory over Blaine. Voters in New York City went heavily Democratic, in part because of an unfortunate statement by the Reverend Samuel D. Burchard, a Blaine supporter. Burchard called the Democrats the party of "rum, Romanism, and rebellion," an insulting reference to Irish Americans, Roman Catholics, and Southerners, who all generally supported the Democratic Party. The statement lost Blaine any chance of getting the Irish American vote in New York City. The Mugwumps supported Cleveland because of Blaine's political past. Even the Prohibition Party candidate received 25,000 votes that normally would have gone to the Republican candidate. New York's 36 electoral votes swung the election to Cleveland. He won the state's vote by only about 1000 in a total vote of more than 1,000,000, and the national election by 219 electoral votes to Blaine's 182. IV PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES Cleveland was inaugurated March 4, 1885, and he immediately showed his independence and disregard for the opinion of his supporters in the selection of his advisers and heads of departments, called the Cabinet. His secretary of state was Thomas F. Bayard, an advocate of lower tariffs (taxes) on imported goods, which offended Democrats, who wanted higher tariffs (see Tariffs, United States). His selection of William C. Whitney, a financier, for secretary of the Navy was denounced by those who feared the power of big business. The president drew hostile comments from Northerners when he made Lucius Q. C. Lamar of Mississippi secretary of the interior and Augustus H. Garland of Arkansas attorney general because both men had served the Confederacy. A Civil Service The president further demonstrated his independence by promising no "relaxation on my part" in enforcing the law regulating government employment, called the Pendleton Act of 1883. Cleveland more than doubled the number of government jobs that came under the Civil Service Commission; these jobs were given to people who were qualified to fill the positions, rather than to party loyalists, as was usually the case at that time. He also persuaded the Congress of the United States to repeal the Tenure-of-Office Act that since 1867 had restricted presidents in removing incompetent officeholders. Ultimately, however, pressure from the Democratic Party forced Cleveland to make concessions. By the end of his term, faithful Democrats filled most federal jobs. B Pension Bills Cleveland was harassed by countless pension bills passed by Congress. These bills granted money to people Congress felt were deserving, usually Civil War veterans. He vetoed more than 200 private pension bills, arguing that money would be given to people who didn't deserve it. He also vetoed a general pension bill that would have awarded pensions to all disabled Union veterans, regardless of the cause of their disability. The Grand Army of the Republic, the veterans' organization of the Union Army, was outraged, and its leaders reminded the president that he had not been a soldier during the Civil War. C Marriage In early June 1886, the 49-year-old president married Frances Folsom, daughter of a former law partner. Cleveland was the first president to be married in the White House. The couple had three daughters and two sons. D Major Legislation During his first term, Cleveland supported two major pieces of legislation. One was the Dawes Act of 1887, also called the Allotment Act. This act attempted to change the Native Americans' communal way of living and replace it with a sense of individualism by distributing tribal lands to individual Native Americans. The act failed to achieve its goal. Instead, much of the land fell into the hands of whites, further impoverishing a decreasing Native American population (see Native Americans of North America). The second major bill was the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, which said that charges on railroads must be "reasonable and just." This law established the principle of federal regulation of the economy. It created the Interstate Commerce Commission but did not give it sufficient powers to regulate railroads effectively. Cleveland also wanted to reduce the huge surplus then in the U.S. Treasury. He felt that the soundest way to do this was to lower the tariff, a tax on imports. Industries in Northern urban areas and banking interests tended to favor such tariffs because they helped domestic businesses by increasing the cost of imported goods; agricultural areas in the West and the South tended to oppose them because they made it harder for people to buy cheap foreign goods such as clothing. Cleveland presented his position on the tariff in a message to Congress late in 1887, but Congress did not act, and the tariff question became a major issue in the election of 1888. E Election of 1888 In 1888 the Democratic Party split over the tariff issue and over Cleveland's generally conservative position. However, Cleveland was renominated by the Democrats. His Republican opponent was Benjamin Harrison of Indiana. The Republican platform favored more high tariffs. Cleveland received only 168 electoral votes to Harrison's 233. Nevertheless, the defeated president received about 100,000 more popular votes than did Harrison. F Election of 1892 When Cleveland left public office in 1889, he returned to New York City and resumed his law practice. Three years later, the Democrats again turned to him as their party's greatest vote-getter. At their national convention Cleveland was nominated on the first ballot. In his third presidential campaign, Cleveland stood his ground against western Democrats who demanded free coinage of silver. The unrestricted, or free, coinage of silver would have increased the amount of money available, causing the value of the dollar to decline. Farmers in the South and the West supported free silver because they relied heavily on credit and would have been able to repay their loans much more easily. Western mining companies also favored free silver because it increased the market for their silver. Banks would have received money that was worth less than the money they had loaned; financial interests therefore opposed free silver. Because Cleveland refused to advance the free silver cause, many southern and western Democrats called Cleveland a "bloated Wall Street puppet." The Republicans in their campaign defended their high-tariff policy against repeated and strong Democratic criticism, but that was not enough. Despite the arguments within his own party, Cleveland decisively defeated President Harrison, 277 electoral votes to 145. V SECOND TERM AS PRESIDENT Cleveland took the presidential oath on March 4, 1893. Once more the job-seekers proved nearly unendurable. The president complained that the period set apart for receiving Congressmen had been "almost entirely spent in listening to applications for office." A Domestic Affairs A1 The Depression of 1893 In 1893 a financial crisis struck the country, brought on mostly by the overexpansion of the railroad industry. Many businesses failed, bringing unemployment, poverty, and suffering. Instead of surrendering to the public clamor for free coinage of silver as the remedy for the depression, the president persuaded Congress, which was controlled by Democrats, to repeal the Sherman Silver-Purchase Act of 1890. This action won him the permanent hostility of the pro-silver Democrats. A2 Tariff Almost as soon as Cleveland won repeal of the silver-purchase law, he faced the tariff issue again. Cleveland continued the fight for a low tariff to reduce the government surplus. However, a group of Senate Democrats from Eastern manufacturing states joined with high-tariff Republicans to raise rates in certain categories in the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act. Cleveland neither signed nor vetoed the bill, and it became law without his signature. A3 Coxey's Army In the depression year of 1894 while the tariff bill was being debated, Jacob Coxey, a well-to-do citizen of Massillon, Ohio, proposed a public works program to make internal improvements and to provide employment. To underscore the need for relief, Coxey led an army of 500 unemployed men in a march on Washington, but nothing came of his plans. A4 The Pullman Strike One of the most serious incidents of Cleveland's second term was the Pullman strike of 1894 in Chicago, Illinois. The American Railway Union, led by Eugene V. Debs, halted railroad traffic with a sympathy strike in support of the employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company. Cleveland used army troops to break the strike, claiming that the strikers had interfered with the U.S. mail. Cleveland's action was supported by the business community and much of the public, but trade-unionists, liberals, and intellectuals criticized the use of troops. See Railroad Labor Organizations; Trade Unions in the United States. A5 Gold Bonds During the last half of his second administration, Cleveland once more offended those in favor of inflation, alienating them still further. Between 1890 and 1894, the U.S. government's gold reserve had declined by about two-thirds from $190 million to $65 million. This was a problem because the gold reserve was the basis of the public's confidence in the U.S. dollar. With the depletion of the reserve in sight, the president struck a deal with the John Pierpoint Morgan and Belmont banking firms. These firms were permitted to purchase more than $62 million in government bonds and to pay for them in gold. The banks guaranteed that they would procure half of the needed gold from abroad and would use their influence to prevent further withdrawals of gold from the U.S. Treasury. When the bonds were offered to the public, their price rose, which put gold back into U.S. holdings and returned a handsome profit to the banking firms. Cleveland restored public confidence in the U.S. dollar. Some months later, when the federal government offered $100 million in 4 percent bonds to the highest bidder, the bonds were sold instantly. Nevertheless, in the West and the South Populists, mostly farmers in favor of free silver, complained that bankers owned the nation. B Foreign Affairs The major questions of foreign policy confronting Cleveland were the annexation of Hawaii and the Venezuela-British Guiana boundary dispute. In both matters he took firm positions based on American traditions, standing against imperialism and for the Monroe Doctrine, the position that the United States alone should look after political affairs in the western hemisphere. United States presidents had held this position since James Monroe first adopted it in 1823. In Hawaii, Cleveland was confronted by a rebellion organized by white businessmen and aided by American minister to Hawaii John L. Stevens. The rebellion began after Queen Liliuokalani, who was opposed to the growing influence of American-owned industries on the islands, chose to disregard a constitution that the businessmen had forced her brother to accept when he was king. The queen was removed and a provisional government was set up. Cleveland, when informed that the Hawaiian people were against annexation to the United States, decided not to submit an annexation treaty to the Senate. The provisional government announced the creation of the Republic of Hawaii on July 4, 1894, and Cleveland officially recognized it as an independent country the following month (see Hawaii: The Growth of U.S. Domination). In a long dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana about their boundary, the United States tried to persuade the British to reach a peaceful settlement with the Venezuelans through arbitration. In 1895 U.S. Secretary of State Richard Olney sent a strongly worded note to the British government insisting that Britain and Venezuela accept an offer from the United States to mediate the dispute. When the note was rejected, Cleveland lost his patience and dispatched to Congress a blistering message written in collaboration with Olney. The letter was almost a threat of war, so strong was its language in warning Britain not to take aggressive action in the western hemisphere. The message, usually called the Olney Corollary, in effect greatly enlarged the scope of the Monroe Doctrine because it asserted that the United States considered even such small matters as boundary disputes vital to its security. Britain and Venezuela finally settled the boundary dispute by arbitration. Consistent with his strong stand against British interference, Cleveland himself refused to meddle in the Cuban War of Independence (1895-1898) against Spain, despite strong pressure from American imperialists. Revolts and conspiracies against the Spanish regime had dominated Cuban political life throughout the 19th century. The Cuban struggle for independence had become an active revolution in 1895 because Spain failed to institute reforms promised to the Cuban people in 1878. In response the Spanish drove much of the population into confinement camps, in which thousands died of disease and malnutrition. Many Americans strongly sympathized with the Cuban cause, but Cleveland was determined not to involve his country in a war. He made Spain an offer, in April 1896, to act as mediator in the dispute. Spain declined, and the revolution continued. VI LAST YEARS As Cleveland neared the end of his term, it was evident that he had lost control of the Democratic Party. When the party nominated Nebraska Congressman and journalist William Jennings Bryan for president on a silver platform in 1896, Cleveland's supporters, called the national, or gold, Democrats, nominated a rival candidate for president. Cleveland did not get involved in the campaign, and the Republican candidate, Ohio Congressman William McKinley, easily defeated both Democratic nominees. After turning over the presidential office to McKinley on March 4, 1897, Cleveland retired to a home he had bought in Princeton, New Jersey. He became a member of the Anti-Imperialist League, which, in 1898, opposed the annexation of the Philippines. In 1904 there was talk of a third term for Cleveland, but he discouraged it. In that year he published a book called Presidential Problems, a defense of his administrations. During his last years, Cleveland served as a trustee of Princeton University. There he met the university's president and future U.S. President Woodrow Wilson (19131921), and they became close friends. After a three-month illness, Grover Cleveland died on June 24, 1908, at his Princeton home. His last words were, "I have tried so hard to do right!" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
