The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-03-15
CLEVELAND In REVIEW
EX-PRESIDENT'S POLITICAL HIS
TORY STAMPS HIM a DEMAGOGUE.
Career of the Man Who HIS Gone
Down i'm His Pnrty's wreckage-His
Fourteen Years with Hill.
New York Letter in Philadelphia Press.

HID, who for ten years have been the con-
| spicuously influential forces in the Demo-
cratic party, were 10 end their public careers
upon the same day fourteen years be-
| fore they began them at the same moment
asGovernor and lieutenant governor of New
York. wide comment upon this strangely
suggestive coincidence has been made.
Had they been ooagtn.al and sympat hetic.
mutual supporters. steadfast in their as
ISOLATION. it would have been expected
that they would so down together in the
wreckage of the party. just as they came
III on the crest of the most powerful inn
pulse it has ever had in New York State.
But they were antagonistic from the mo-
ment that they first met. Neither one at-
! tempted TO hide his opinion of the other,
and ii is a fact that .ach recognized in
the other antagonstic political purposes
and high political ability.
MIR. Hill is not of those who denies
Clevelands political ability. On the con-
trary, he has always esteemed Cleveland
as politician pure and simple. although
playing the game after & method Of his
own, sometimes with extraordinarily sue
cessful violation Of all the rules and ira
ditions of politics. and as politician seek
ing first of all personal preferment and or
whose methods success is the criterion. Mr.
Hill is reported to be of the opinion that
Cleveland has been the master hand OF that
game in his generation.
Hill strips aside The veil of ideal pur-
pose and lofty motives which has SO greatly
impressed so many men. and sees, as he
thinks, behind il Cleveland revealed az
nothing more than politician who played
upon the chords of pop liar passion. preju-
dice discomfort, with master touch and
with the deftest skill appealing from the
professional politician TO the people beyond
them, just then tired of the domination OF
the bosses. gained all the advantage that
lay In his new and unexpected method
or course, that implies that Cleveland
IN ms poltlcai career, was the arch dema-
gogue, and that his methods Were. after ALL
those OF demagogue. admirably concealed,
almost perfectly masked.
And those who had some necessary in
timacy with Cleveland during his three
campaigns. as well as those who remember
tie strange scene at Syracuse in the fall
| OF ISo2-Whsl there was no pretense of high
| and lofty motives, but pleading and prac-
tlcal request that the combination be made
which would give him the nomination for
| Governor-many of these recall incidents
that seem fully to Justify Mr.. Hilrs opin-
ion.
congress In lsS. as TO cause the first i'm
| pulse to Those disasters that came in his
second administration he confessed two
| years before was something that II don't
| know the first thing about
Mr.. Manning. Mr.. Cleveland's first secre-
tary of the treasury. Cnce limited although
when Cleveland in his first letter of ac-
| ceptance wrote that the temptations that
We're a malign influence he already had in
| mind such Cabinet construction as would
| remove all rivals for his own second NOM
| ination.
THE KELLY INCIDENT.
| Then. too. there was the strange John
Kelly episode. With extraordinary skill.
and, as it seemed. reckless audacity.
Cleveland had been able to impress Demo-
Gratis everywhere that he was intolerant OF
Kelly's influence. and defied him and all his
Tammany following; and yet, almost under
cover of the night, when it was clear that
Tammany proposed to see to it that Blaine
had enough votes in New York city to give
| him the electoral vote, Cleveland sought
| Kelly, going to him and remaining With
| him in secret.
When Kelly came forth from that meet
| ing ne at once sent commands to all his
| district leaders that they see to il that the
| organization vote straight. a command tina I
| came too late to be thoroughly obeyed. but
| II was the command which elected Grover
| Cleveland in 1884 No man who knew John
heny ever suspected that he yielded in
| secrets he never revealed
Yet everywhere the impression still re-
| manned that Cleveland was defiant of Tam
many. Almost identical were the condi-
| tons which led to the Victoria Hotel con-
| ference in 1892. What happened there has
| never been fully told except that Cleveland
was revealed as politician making. as d.
| plomatists say, convention with Richard
| Croker, Kelly's successor.
And next morning the organization
| created TO Offset Tammany's opposition to
Cleveland's third nomination. and which
| was successful i'm that business, was
crushed to death by him. and it was made
| clear that Cleveland had made allies of his
| foes and had turned his back upon those
who had risked everything TO secure his re-
| nomination.
| politician rather than the statesman of
| broad view and apt knowledge of his coun-
| try that Cleveland was revealed upon that
| excursion through the West when he COM
| plmented the citizens of every city through
| which he passed with plaEarisms from the
| encyclopedias description of their towns.
| and although the incident had more of HUI
| NOR than Importance in ii. yet il has
! seemed to unprecedented students of Mr.
Cleveland as though it threw some light
| upon his character.
Prof. Harry Peck. of Columbia College.
| one of the most brilliant members of that
| faculty, applied the test of scholarly crit
| icism to one distinguishing characteristic
| of Mr.. Cleveland. his ponderous peculiar
method of platitudinous public utterances.
| Professor Peck subjected the addresses OF
| Mr. Cleveland to an analysis similar I'm It's
| methods of those employed In editing the
| writings of the masters of the Latin and
| Greek tongues He discovered from the in
| ternal evidence that these addresses fur
| nished something deeper than the self-con-
| scious perfection which to superficial
| reader is the spirit in which these papers
| were written. and. strange TO say. Prof.
| Peck's analysis agrees exactly with that
| estimate Of Cleveland which many of the
| ADLER politicians now entertain.
| For &c this scholar these speeches in their
| artificial. ponderou5 style are the forced,
| deliberate verbal expression of one who is
| without real sincerity of purpose, but who
| has apprehended an impressive way OF pre-
| senting self-evident and homely truths as
| would do that whose motives We're not per-
| Sonal.
The profound moral or political philoso-
| piers. the man who breaches with all sim
| cerity doctrines that are for the betterment
| of the state or society reveals his unselfish
| purposes clearly in his style in his
| acts But students of the quality of Prof.
| Peck detect with unerring scent the flavor
of demagogy. however Subtly disguised.
| and such flavor Professor Peck finds in all
| Of Cleveland's addresses. All politics is not
| demagogy. but ell demagogy Is of selfish
political purpose.
A SCHEMING POLITICIAN.
1t was from May of 1892 until the election
| of that year that Mr.. Cleveland made very
| surprising exposure of himself master
| politician to many who had thought him
| lifted far above the plane of politics
When Van Allen at a time OF desperate
| poverty for the national committee con-
that he would be appointed minister to
| Italy, the understanding was not ex-
ceptional incident of that campaign. for al