Middletown transcript., 1894-06-02
THE sOCIALIsTIC TEACHINGS OF
GROVER CLEVELAND.

THE sOCIALIsTIC TEACHINGS OF
GROVER CLEVELAND.
from the New York Sun. Democratic)
The seed of all such riotous and
bloody disturbances as are now wit
messed in Pennsylvania and elsewhere
is in the teachings of public writers
and speakers who take the tone which
is almost invariably employed by Gro
yer Cleveland in his discussions of the
relations of capital to labor.
Through the hazy verbiage of Mr..
Cleveland's accustomed style there ap-
pears one fixed and constant purpose, !,
whenever the subject is touched.
That purpose is to excite and increase,
so far as he can do it by indirect sug-
gestion or by The choice Of adjective,
the hostility of labor to capital, OF the
employed to the employer, Of the less
prosperous citizen to the more pros
porous. The utterances Of Mr.. Cleve'
land concerning the greed and selfish
ness Of wealth, and the oppressive and
injustice which are the portion of toll
ing industry. have been too frequent
to admit of any explanation other than
that of DELIBERATE purpose to provoke
and to incite. The favorite terms in
his VI cabulary are rel Gated over and
over again in his speeches, letters, and
messages. His attitude is not merely
accidental or rhetorical. 1t is some
thing more than an expression of the
peevishness and pessimism with which
he habitually contemplates human con.
ditions in general, and human motives
apart from his own.
A few extracts from the public de.
liverance of the President will illus
trate what must be regarded as a sys.
tematic and persistant endeavor on his
part to array class against class in the
community. AS long ago as April,
1886 he wrote special message to Con-
gress, substantially recommending
Federal interference in local disputes
between labor and capital; and we find
in that message this characteristic
sentence:
The discomfort of the employed is due, in
large degree to the grasping and needless
exactions of employers.
In December of the same year Mr..
Cleveland's second annual MESA ge
contained a passage which could hardly
have been improved upon by any social
istic agitator aiming to bring about
the very condition of discomfort and
distrust which the president affected to
deplore:
"Tbose who toll for daily wages are be-
ginning to understand that capital, though
sometimes vaunting its importance and
clamoring for the protection and favor of
the Government, is dull and sluggish until
touched by the magical hand of labor, it
springs into activity. And the laboring
man is thoughtfully inquiring whether, in
these circumstances and considering the
tribute be constantly pays into the public
treasury as he supplies his daily wants, he
receives his fair share of advantage. There
is also suspicion abroad that the surplus
of our revenues indicates abnormal and ex-
ceptional business profits, which, under the
system which produces such surplus, in
crease. without corresponding benefit to the
people at large, the vast accumulations Of a
few among our citizens, whose fortunes
rivalling the wealth of the most favored in
anti-democratic nations, are not the natural
growth of steady, plain and industrious
republic"
Two years later, in his message of
December, 1888, Mr.. Cleveland drew
for the benefit of his disciples this pic
ture of strongly contrasted social con-
ditions, and of the gross injustice
underlying them:
''Our cities are the abiding places of
wealth and luxury; our manufactures
yield fortunes never dreamed of by the
fathers of the republic; our business men are
madly striving in the race for riches, and
the immense aggregations of capital outrun
the imaginations in the magnitude of their
undertakings. Upon more careful inspec-
ton we find the wealth and luxury of our
cities mingled with poverty and wretched-
ness and unremunerative toll. We discover
that the fortunes realized by our manufac-
turers are no longer solely the reward of
steady industry and enlightened foresight,
but that they result from the discrimina-
ting favor of the Government, and are
largely built upon undue exactions from
the masses of our people. The gulf be-
tween employers and employed is constant
ly widening and classes are rapidly form
ing, one comprising the very rich and
powerful, while in another are found the
toiling poor. As we view the achievements
of aggregated capital we discover the exis-
tence of trusts, combinations and monopo-
lies, while the citizen is struggling far in
rear, or is trampled to death under an iron
heel
"Trampled to death under an iron
heel!" The words might have come
from the pen of Coxey or from the
mouth of Johann Most. In the same
message we find incidental phrases such
as these:
Colossal fortunes, unfairly gathered, in
the hands of few"
"The communism of combiued wealth
and capital"
"Overweening cupidity and selfshness
which insiduously undermines the justice
and integrity Of our institutions"
Oppressed poverty and toll, which, exas-
perated by injustice and discomfort attacks
with wild disorder the citadel of rule"
In his speech in the fremont Temle,
at Boston, in October of 1891:
"Our consumers, those of moderate means
and the poor of the land, are too much ne
elected in our national policy, their life is
too hard for them, and too much favor is
shown to pampered manufacturers and
rich monopolies."