Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1897-03-14
JUST A REHABILITATION
On the Exit of President Cleveland--A Man
NTH an l8 Collar and No. 6 Hat.

d
Democratic President will be private
citizen, but he will confer as.little honor
on the class he enters as he will excite
regret by ceasing to be high official
For the first time in American politics,
both political parties will rejoice in con-
cert because of the retirement of a Presi-
dent, and this retiring to private life will
be the sole act of his official career that
his constituents can heartily endorse
Nero had some warm friends, and it Is
said that an unknown hand strewed flow
ers on the grave of Robespierre, but aside
from the sycophantS who crook the
plant hinges of the knee, that thrift may
follow faWning'-Grover has no country
man whose lachrymal apparatus VIII ever
be called upon to exercise It's 1unciloHS
DER his unhonored grave. The most IN
Democratic of Democrats, the most IN
American of Americans. the most unpa-
triotic of citizens and the most un-ChriS-
tian of Christians, his name viii serve Tor
all future ages as bye-Word ana term
of reproach.
Cleveland was born in New Jersy,
State where to raise anything useful you
have to plant a dead Goldfish under 1t.
They forgot to plant the Goldfish under
Grover, and even u top dressing of spoilt
clans failed to enable him to develop a
SOUL as is fully shown by the TACT that
when his niece called upon him to aid
mer the ancestral home Of the uncle who
sheltered him in childhood and paid for
the little education he has, he turned to
her the back of his millionaire hand and
not one dollar would he give. We DO not
reproach New Jersey for being his birth
place She really couldn't help 1t. 1t was
a part of the plan of Divine Providence
ITO chastise this nation for its many sins,
and as locusts and plaques ana fanlnes
were not severe enough for the occasion,
Grover had to be born, and Jersey might
as well have had the dishonor as any
other place. Fortunately for New Jer-
sey, however, he did not long larry in her
dominions but drifted over into New
York state In order that the infamy
might be divided between the two, being
greater than either could singly bear.
When Grover first entered public life.
he didn't enter-he sent q substitute
When in lusty manhood's prime, % years
of age and no family ties to restrain him.
his country bleeding at every pore" call
ed him, but he didn't show down.; ne
was patriot by proxy and shed his blood
flag. Senator Morgan, of Alabama, says:
Morally I am obliged to regard a sub
sttute no better than a hired assassin
And a man who--possessing health and
strength and a wide-open ability TO go
to war in person.-will hire a substitute,
is an assassin and coward to boot
There are two occasions which do not
in decency allow Of an agency, or open
to proxy. One Is when men marry and
when mar fight man should wed his
wife and fight his foe in person" If the
Senator's ethics are but approximately
correct, Grover laid a very unsound foun-
da ton for a public career. and its end is
but in keeping with its beginning.
Grover, by the bounty of his uncle,
whose daughter he treated so habbily
when President, studied law, and, with
no honor to the legal profession, was adj
anitted to the bar If he ever had a client
~
confined principally to that bar where
e'zwei lager is the rule of practice and
pretzels and free lunch the principal
fees Instead of climbing up in his pro-
fession to States Attorney or a judgeship,
we find him climbing down into the
Sheriffs office, evicting poor tenants,
levying on kettles and frying pans, lock-
ing up petty thieves and playing Jack
Ketch to the greater offenders. From
keeping the thieves in the county Jail he
was promoted to be chief of the thieves
in the city hall. At one bound The rose
from county hangTnan to city Mayor and
Buffalo even at this day. shoulders and
turns pale when she thinks about It.
When, in 1882, politics in New York was
in the condition of the heavens and the
earth, when the spirit of God moved
on the face OF the great deep" When
Conllling and Platt had knocked the Re-
publican party into smithereens and Tam
many and anti-Tammany were snarling
at each other Ike two tom-cats on a
board fence old John Kelly, INSPIRED by
the devil and without the fear OF God
before his face. with malice afore-
thought" brought forward Buffalo's
Mayor as the one man in all the world
filthy enough to suit Tammany saints
and stupid enough to please the country
Democracy, and carried him through the
convention which made him Governor.
Being elected by a large majority. be-
cause the republicans were mad at the
Garfield administration and stayed at
home, gave Grover big advertisement.
and as carrying New York was equiva-
lent to carrying the electoral college. the
Democracy named him as their candidate
in 1884 and elected him. Without any
question of merit, without any record of
party fealty. without any traits Of states
manship, with a meager education and
utter ignorance of the principles of our
government, by a train OF fortuitous cir
cumstances, we find him in few years
bounding up from the common hangman
calls this destiny The negroes in the
South have proverh. "a fool for luck.
a poor man for children and a niger
for gourds.' The negro is an expert in
d1le cultivation Of gourds, poor people, as
a rule, do have the most children, and
Cleveland demonstrates satisfactorily
the first proposition in the proverb
When. ON March 4. 1895. he delivered
his first inaugural. 1t Is said that in the
vast audience who listened to his oretund
platitudes there was not a man so pro-
fnundly ignorant of the history and theo-
ry of the government as he.
He had never read the Constitution of
the United States. and many grave Sem
ators doubt II he has ever read it to this
good day. His predictions and tastes
are all low, ciawnIsh and vulgar: he
would infinitely prefer the society," of the
tBoars Head II. Eastchelp to kthe wits
Of the Hotel Rambouiet. Doll TearStreet
to Mime de Stael, In art he is as utterly
without appreciation ss a Samoan saw
age He could not distinguish Rem
brant or Meissonier from circus poster.
Tn fact II the drapery on the circus poster
began sufficiently late and ended suffi-
c.antly early, as they most generally do.
he would admire II more than any pro-
duction from tho pencil Of a Murello or