Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-01-01

X 7
 DON NJ. DICKINSON.
 matc. Mr. Dickinson is a bundle of nerves. He moves, talks, thinks, decides, acts with great rapidity. His nervous forces are un- der high pressure all the time. Extremes certainly have met in this rare and close friendship.
 A Political Adviser.
 It is an open secret in the higher political circles here that Mr. Dickinson enjoys the rare distinction of being a man who refused to take the secretaryship of state when it was urged upon him by a president elect for whom he entertained the warmest feel ings of friendship and admiration. Dick inson fairly wOrships Mir. Cleveland. He thinks the president the greatest man that was ever born in this western hemisphere. The president has almost as high an opin ion of his friend from Michigan. After the campaign of last year was over, and MT. i Cleveland had begun to look around him for a cabinet, he asked Don Dickinson to become one of his official advisers. He of fered him his choice of the places and final ly urged him to accept the state portfolio But Mr. Dickinson had had his fill of off cial honors. He declined again and again to take any office under this administra- tion. He refused to be moved from his pur- pose, saying that he had spent the savings of a number of years of hard work at his profession for the honor of being postmaster general under the former Cleveland admin istration, and that his present duty was to return to his profession and make some money for his family. But while he could not accept office himself, he did the next best thing by helping MT. Cleveland form the cabinet. The manner i'll which the present cabinet was made up was due more to the influence of Mir. Dickinson than to that of any other single man, the president alone excepted
 It was Mr. Dickinson who engineered what was one of the greatest surprises the political world has known for a long time the selection of MT. Gresham to be secre- i tary of state Mr. Dickinson was from the 1 very first in favor of this somewhat radical ! departure. He argued that the time had | come when the DemOc atic party could af | ford to go outside the lines of strict party service and by recognizing men who had 1 been in sympathy with the party, but not l members of it, attract still others to follow i their example. In other words, MT. Dickin- i son believed the party could with profit reach out for the aDlest and most distin- l guished men who had become dissatisfied with the rival party and bring them into | the fold. Though Mr. Cleveland was him ] self the originator of the Gresham idea, Mir. Dickinson encouraged him in it and went to Chicago to urge the judge to accept the | office.
 1 He Confoundci His Enemies.
 During last years campaign Dickinson was very important man at the national | Democratic headquarters. Such energy as | he evinced, such a display of generaship 1 and masterful activity, have rarely been 1 equaed in the history of campaigning. Jealouses arose among the men, who l thought MT. Dickinson was swinging too wide a sWath, who did not like the influence which he had over the candidate, and who were free O predict that the Michigan man was simply working to get back into the cabinet in case of MT. Cleveland's re-elec- tiOn. But Dickinson paid no heed to these | jealousies, and even when ugly remarks were made about him by men associated with him on the committee, and malicious tales were put in circulation, he kept his temper, went on with his work and bided his time. It must have been a source of | great satisfaction to him to be able to re- fuse the highest office within Mir. Cleye" land's gift, and thus to confound lis enc mics. And it must be a source of still Tgrcater satisfaction to him now to be able to come down to Washington, virtually take up his residence at the White House for several days at a time, to be Mr. Clcve-
 
 the honor and influence of being ''the power behind the throne' without any of the cares | and annoyances of official life.
 The Presidents Health. There is q great deal of gossip in Wash ington concerning the health of Mr. Cleve- | land. Every once in awhile stories are set in circulation that the president has had an | attack of cancer of some other virulent | disease. These stories contain but very lit tie of truth. Usually they are manufac- tured largely out of the imagination, or are suggested by state of facts for which the | newspaper writers are unable quickly to find any other explanation. Your core | spondent is able to state on satisfactory au- | thority that MT. Cleveland's bodily health l is all right. He is in good condition. But | it is at the same time true that he is show | ing signs of the mental wear and tear to which he has been subjected during the last | 10 years. There are unwelcome evidences that the presidents nervous forces have been more or less undermined by the strains | to which he has been subjected during his short but tense career
 Probably few people in the world realize what it is to be public man of the high est rank, especially to be president of the United States, to take on the great cares and responsibilities of that office, to dissi pate one's reserve strength day after day in struggle with the office seekers, with the questions of the day and with a host of details of which no way has been devised for relieving our chief magistrate. The work of receiving official and other callers at the White House is alone enough to break down a man who continues long enough at it. The mere effort to remem- Der names and faces of people who consider themselves of much importance and to concentrate ones faculties upon the busi- ness which they bring forward one after another, like the changing colors of a ka- leidoscope, is herculean task in itself. This is only part of the tension to which a president is subjected. The semiweekly cabinet meetings are not mere social gath erings by any means They are councils of state, in which the president is the central figure. Matters of the highest importance come up for consideration. All eyes are upon the man who sits at the head of the table All listen when he speaks. He feels that sense of responsibility, of leadership, which is wearing upon the nerves, which even in man as we'll balanced, as strong, almost phlegmatic, us Mr. Cleveland is, surely though slowly detracts from his