The Portland daily press., 1892-12-24
THE COMING CABINET.
Interesting Gossip About the Next
Administration.
Fairchild the Only Member of the Old
Cabinet Who May Be Reappointed.
why Whitney Will Not Accept Office.
Isaac Pussy Gr"v's Prospects.
Fspeci. - rrespondence.1

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22.-It is difficult
to realize that we kre within three
months and less of new administra-
ton. In few weeks the newspapers
will be filled day after day with gossip
concerning the formation of the new
presidents cabinet. Let us anticipate
our friends of the daily dispatches lit
tie and see If we can throw any light
upon the important and interesting
topic of what Mr.. Cleveland is likely to
do and not to do.
| think | can say without fear of con-
tradiction that Mr.. Cleveland is going
to be very large part of the new adj
ministration himself. He always was
accustomed to having his way about
things, and as he grows older and meets
with new successes it is very natural
that this habit should become more no.
ticeable. One hears about twenty times
a day in Washington the prediction that
in less than six months Mr.. Cleveland
will be the most cordially hated and lu-
ridly cursed man in the Democratic party
that is to say, his own party friends
will be cursing him. This may be true,
but if it is l imagine that Mr.. Cleve-
land isn't losing any sleep about it.
There are numerous and unmistakable
indications that when he comes to the
White House for the second time Mr..
Cleveland will take up the cares of his
great Office with the supreme satisfac-
ton of feeling that he is going to do
what he pleases and bother the conse-
quences.
1t is an odd thing, but o president of
the United States, the most powerful
official of this continent and one of the
greatest rulers of the world, is under
ordinary circumstances a man who soon
becomes noted for not having his own
way. A president who wants to be re-
elected-and nearly all presidents do,
sooner or later-must bow the knee to a
horde of politicians great and small or
bid farewell to any hope of succeeding
himself.
If he stands up and fights and has his
own way about things, he will become
unpopular, will be cursed from Maine to
Texas and will not be renominated or
reelected. If he succumbs to the in
6uence of the politicians and submits to
their domination, he will advertise him
self to the country as man too plant
and weak to be trusted with the great
responsibilities of the Office. In seeking
a happy mean between the two ex-
tremes president of the United States
is one of the most miserable, most
harassed and most unhappy mortals on
The face of the earth.
This brings me to point which ]
have often made before in these letters.
1t is that we are surely coming to a
change in our constitution which will
forbid the reelection of president.
Men of all parties are now agreed that
it is unwise to choose a man as his own
successor in the presidential chair. The
politicians are agreed that it is only I'M
der exceptional circumstances, such as
war or danger of war, that president
can be reelected, even if it is then
desirable. Cleveland tried it and failed;
Harrison tried it and failed. The trou-
BILE is that during his first term a presi-
dent necessarily makes SO many enemies
that when the campaign for his re-elec-
ton comes on he is inevitably weaker
than his party.
Still more serious is the influence
which denomination has upon the pol
iticians and local leaders throughout the
country. They say: sob, what differ
ence does it make to us whether this
man is elected again or not? He didn't
give us an Office during the present term,
and if we turn to and help him to
second term we are simply working to
keep in office the fellows who are already
there" But if new man is put up the
men who already hold good jobs turn in
and work in hope of keeping them, and
the chaps who are on the outside pull off
.heir coats in hope of getting in.
Besides there is some peculiar quality
in the public mind which welcomes
change. The people become tired of the
very name Of president. They become
tired of gossip about him and stories
which illustrate his character and meth
DDS. They would like to see new sun
rise in the horizon. They have an in
stinctive, even if unconscious, craving
for novelty. In four years about all the
sentiment there is in the personality of a
president is dissipated in the popular
mind.
Four years ago the people were little
weary of Grover, whose strong charac
ter and certain mental peculiarities had
at first strangely attracted them. Last
month they gave evidence that the senti-
ment which ''Little Ben" had reused in
them was no longer force. When you
come to think about it, sentiment is after
all the biggest thing in the world. 1t
beats money and brains all to pieces.
Andrew Jackson obtained his marvel
GUS hold upon the people of our earlier
republic because his rude character and
uncouth manners were just suited to fill
and satisfy the imagination Of the times.
He was a heroic figure, and his clay pipe
and s'By the Eternal.'' did more to main
tain him in power than all his craft and
wisdom. H.
1t was the same with Lincoln, the next
president after Jackson who appealed
to the popular imagination. OF course
Lincoln was great, & wonderful man,