Bennington semi-weekly banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 1894-1902, 1895-01-01

influence on the popular mind. 1t was
comparatively easy for Mr.. Cleveland to
preserve the attitude of solemn oracle
during his first Administration The SEN
ate was Republican. The laws which
the government administered were Re-
publican measures. Mr. Cleveland could
do nothing to alter the national policies,
for he was powerless to affect legislation.
| All he had to do was to look wise and is
sue messages full of ponderous plati-
tudes, which the Mugwumps straight
way declared were the utterances of in
spired political knowledge. luminous
with trutA in every line, and showing su-
pernatural sagaclty down to the punctu->
alton points Even Mr.. Cleveland's free
tr de proclamation of 1887, written with
the crudity of a school boys composition,
and show ing an ignorance of the tariff
question which smacked of the kinder
garten, failed to awaken the country to
his true character and intellectual limi-
tations.
But when on March a. 1S03 Mr. Cleve-
land again became President, with
Democratic majority in both houses of
Congress to support him, the situation
underwent a complete change. The real
characteristics of the man came speedily
to light. His insane egotism, his phe-
nomenal ignorance of the first principles
of craftsmanship and finance, his colos-
sal selfshness, his brutal indifference to
land, which impelled him to make
the State Department the annex of
Downing Street and to endeavOr to break
down the American tariff system in the
interests of Great Britain, his absolute
inability to understand the meaning of
patriotism, and his sullen contempt for
the American flag, produced an over
whelming revulsion of public sentiment
in few months. 1t is within the bounds
of sober truth to say that American his
tory does not record an Administration
which was so complete, humiliating and
detestable failure as the second Admin
istration of Grover Cleveland. The flag
has been degraded by the vile conspir
acy to crush civil liberty in Hawaii and
set up bloodthirsty savage on tinsel
throne in the interests of England. The
evasion of Anne lean responsibilities in
Samoa flo refusal to protect American
rights in Nicaragua, the preposterous at
tempt to bully Japan into making peace
with China and the infamous surrender
of two japanese students at Shanghai to
torture and death have all excited the
decision of the enemies of the United
States, and have all been inspired by the
motive which underlies every act of the
Cleveland foreign policy-the crazy and
cowardly desire to please British states
men and advance the interests of the
British Empire.
In his domestic policy Mr.. Cleveland,
the most vociferous of his professions of
all the allege civil service reformers of
the century, has shamelessly prOstituted
the federal offices to pay personal and
party debts, has dishonored the Ameri-
can diplomatic service by selling the
Italian Ambassadorship for $4,000, and
has filed the United States consulships
with the most incapable and unworthy
set of politicians that ever held the com
mission of this Republic. He has main
tanned, in cOntemptuous defiance of pop
! ia1 ot,t Of inn,
portant corporations in the Office of At
torney General; he has manifested a
spirit of unmanly and vndictive hostility
in his treatment of Union pensioners,
their widows and their orphans; and he
has used government vessels to transport
him on his continual junketing expe-
dtions with an impudent disregard OF
decency which has called down the Sc
! verest condemnation from self respect
ing Democrats all over the land. In or
der, as he brutaly said, to give the coun-
try IAN object lesson he deliberately
precipitated great panic which brought
about general disaster and carried thou
sands of American citizens down into
bankruptcy. At the present moment
the President and his Secretary of the
Treasury are obstinately endeavoring to
force through Congress an iucoherent,
crude and reckless measure which would
in the opinion of all established author.
tiles, entirely depete the Treasury and
wreck the whole financial system of the
country.
But it is withIrespect to the tariff that
the President has shown most plainly his
utter unftness for office and his funda-
mental want of Ameaicanism. 1t was his
dogged obstinacy that drove the Demo
cratic tariff measure through the Senate
in the face of the overwhelming popular
protest against it. With factories closed,
mines untenanted, farm products stead
lily falling in value and a million men in
idleness, Mr.. Cleveland persisted in
pushing to a passage the bill that had
caused all these calamities. He was
willing to surrender disgracefully to the
Sugar Trust, to use his patronage for the
purpose of wholesale bribery, and to in
Aict unprecedented loss and suffering up