The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-01-22

the other hand, 'tIr slightest suSges-
 ten of MT. Cleveland5 fallibility is re-
 scented fy his admlreGs as personal
 attack Meanwhile the acknowledged
 official head of the party, our leader in
 spite of ourselves, MT. Cleveland, has
 conducted us into the middle of nor
 ass and left us to founder out as best
 we may.
 No well-ineormed man will say that
 the president has been all to blame,
 and no just man will accuse him of bad
 faith.
 He is simply a strong man unequal to
 the demands of a situation surDassing
 experience in affairs and the reach of
 his mental vision. He has encountered
 much of the ill fortune which is said
 to accompany ill play He has tried to
 change the conditions and the methods
 of political life; but lacking the char
 acter and temperament, he has lacked
 the training and knowledge which
 might have instructed him in default of the character and the temperament.
 He seems profoundly ignorant of the springs of human passion and how to
 make them respond to great occasions
 and purposes With not a little of a l pSIldll CidIL III lIlG dLL OL po9lA5 oS u l reformer and a great deal of real talent
 In phrasemongery, he shows few of the | staying qualities, little of the subtlety
 of the true reformer. Yet no man ever l set out upon more perilous expedition
 on a field of civil action, or engaged in
 an encounter with antagonisms and an-
 tagonists so intrenched both in power
 and in tradition.
 General Jackson may not have been
 a good man or a great man. But he
 was an eminently successful man. MT. l Cleveland may not be a small man, or 0 bad man. The one was a leader. | The other is an eXperimentalist. In peace or war success is ever the stan dard, and no matter how little moral
 value we may attach to it we can not dispute it's verdicts.
 MT. Cleveland set out upon the na- tional highway with the one idea that the government of the United States was as corrupt as the state of New l York, and that nothing was needed to purify it but the Mugwump panacea of l civil service reform. He was going to administer his office upon lines laid in heaven. To this end he chose at the head of his cabinet most charming and accomplished man; but one who, in his character of stateman, had pass ed his life in a peach-blow vase thousand miles beyond the moon. The rest of his political family consisted mainly of discoveries of his own. The same plan ran through the gamut of his appointments to office. His idea | seemed to be, to re-create the public service in the image of It's immediate maker; and, 1t is only fair to say, that he proceeded with the most impartial disregard of bygone friends or enemies. Indeed, like the upright judge, he stood so erect as to lean rather to bygone enemies than to bygone friends. The result was defeat which, however well-intentioned his motives and how ever theoretically good in themselves his actions, was not a logical sequence of the situation.
 Brought back to power after an in- terval of four years, and through one of the most whimsical chapters of ac- cldent in all the whimsical annals of American politics, he at once began to display those qualities that deny him leadership and to plunge his party in- to disaster On paper, very self-conti- | dent. Tn action, nearly abortive He had been renominated by his ex-ap- | pointees. They had worked four years | to this end, thinking that when he got | back they would get back But hardly | was he warm in his seat before he cool | ly told them they were not in it, Yet, | while he punished his friends, he did | not punish his enemies.
 TooIycop xtya c,I,irly and n1aor iY, bic | perceptions, prompt in his movements, | resolute in his purposes, faithful alike to his friends and his enemies. Nobody | was ever in doubt where to find him, As a consequence, not only the people | rallied to him-as, indeed, they have | rallied to Cleveland-but the public men of his time saw in him leader whom they could tie to, and who, in turn, would tie to them. In this latter res pect the conditions are exactly reversed | in Mir. Cleveland. He trusts nobody, and, as a consequence, Is trusted only by those who have some axe to grind, No public man of consequence, and without selfish motive, would venture to risk his character and influence upon any joint enterprise with MT. Cleve- land, because Mr. Cleveland makes common cause with nobody and may at any moment be expected to disap- pear from the scene, leaving his incon- siderate yolemate to carry the bur den unaided and alone As result, the president is at war with half his own side of the senate, and, while the senate has acted badly enough, yet in the matter of personal alienation res must be placed on the presi- dent, who ought to be, and who, but for the limitations we have noted would be equal to the management of men of such scant measure. To make an issue, and not to fight it out; to arouse a party following and to dis appoint it; to come to the scratch when 1t is too late; in short, ever to seek both horns of the dilemma, to wish to eat his cake and have it, these are the features which distinguish Grover Cleveland from Andrew Jackson, who never feared to burn his bridges behind him, and was always found at the head of the columns, his sword flashing, its
 T.