The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-03-05
GROWING GREATER.

/
as emanations of Cleveland. Thus he be-
| came greater than Democracy.
GROWING GREATER.
! The psychological process by which he
also become greater than the presidential
Office Itself was similar in origin and de-
velopment. He entered the white house
with the declaration, suggested to his then
| comparatively modest mind by the utter
ances of some of his Democratic prede-
| cessors, that the ambition of the occu-
pant OF that mansion to get himself re-
| elected, constituted at once the most se-
rlous obsacle to the proper performance
of executive duties, and the gravest mem
ace TO the permanence of our republican
! institutions. He began, in fact by pledg-
ing himself practically to a single term
1t Is not profitable to trace step by step
| the evolution of the candidate for a sec
ohd nomination, the candidate for q third
nomination and a second term, the un-
| successful candidate for a fourth nomina
ton and third term, and the man who
goes out of office today upheld by the
| entire Mugwump circlet in his private
belief that the country will discover dur
ing the next four years that he is indls-
pensable to It's welfare, and will surely
| demand his return in spite of traditions
and unwiitten laws. He is not wholly to
blame for this. The influences which
nave wrought that great change in twelve
years are both from without and from
| within him From chief magistrate
| loudly celbrated at the start as the ideal
deVotee of law and constitutional restric-
tions, he has educated himself and has
been educated by others to be, in his view
OF his office and it's functions, the nearest
approach to the irresponsible dictator, the
self-contained ruler, that we have ever
had as president. He has done more than
amy other president to famlarze the pub
lie mind with the dangerous idea that a
personal government a substantial auto
/ in,
respects preferable to government by the
coordinate departments which the
founders of the republic erected as a
check against the ACKNOWLEDGMENT of any
ambitious individual. During the last
half OF his second term his attitude in this
regard has been openly offensive. The
congress is a nuisance, aNd he is
noyed when he has the national legisla-
ture "on mis- hands" The constitutional
question between the senate and the ex-
ecutive to their relative powers in the
shaping of foreign policy is decided by
him otf-hand in his own favor and upon
his own unsupported authority. This ul-
innate period in the development of the
man who is larger than the Office of plesi-
dent is marked yet by a pretence of re-
spect for law, but 1t must be law as laid
down by Cleveland, or as interpreted by
him. There is yet much talk, in the old So
norous fashion, of direct responsibility to
the people, the source of supreme power,
who have constituted him as "a sort of uni
versal trustee and receiver; but the peo-
pie he means are the people who clamor
= for more Cleveland. Even in the subor-
dinate but not less significant matter of
the use of government property for pri-
Vate convenience, and the employment of
official opportunities for personal gratiii-
cation or profit, the citizens of this coun-
try have gradually become accustomed
to the same dumb stolid insensibility to
restraints which have appealed to con-
science or the creed of propriety in the
cases of twenty-five other presidents
with possibly one partial exception. From
Pan-Electric to Perrine, from Wall street
! to Hatteras Inlet, he has proceeded upon
: the theory that unique personality nulli-
: fies the ordinary limitations affecting
! the president of the United States.
. Such is the metaphysical and personal
I aspect of Clevelandism. What results
. have these qualities wrought?
RESULTS ACHIEVED.
. Very meagre, except in words, and even
a more meagre in nouns than in adjectives,
{ is the record of actual achievement now
|, exhibited as the Hon. Grover Cleveland's
= title to be regarded as "the greatest pres
1 ident since Washington" He took up
{ civil service reform, with the principles
V of selection for supposed merit, of perma-
. nence of tenure, and of federal non-nter-
: | ference in elections. He applied those
f principles by the wholesale and with con-
= determined by experience, whenever his
Q personal fortunes had nothing to lose by
+ their application; and whenever he per-
+ ceiVed any benefit to himself from their
. violation he violated them openly and
. detlantly. He took up tariff reform used
- it for one year to procure his own renomi-
t nation and the overwhelming defeat of
q his party, and then traded politically dur
4, | ing four years of retirement upon his
J. constantly proclaimed purpose to conquer
or n 6ia Wi a nd hn
a got back into office, he deliberately plot
q ted and betrayed the reform which his
i, party had demanded, and gave the coun-
Il try a ridiculous and ineffective tariff act,
a plus a sOcialistc income tax, which the
# Supreme court overthrow He found a
y consistent protective tariff that produced
n revenue adequate for the governments
q needs and a surplus large enough for
- safety; and he left an incongruous pro-
tective tariff that produces annually an
immense deficiency, and that has, during
its dishonest and direful existence, de-
VolVed upon the country financial confu-
sion and business distress beyond the
power of figures to measure or of Ian
guage to describe. He has increased the
public debt, in a time of peace with all
the world, by more than a quarter of a
billion of dollars. He has borrowed
money on false pretences, compelling the
taxpayers to pay for his disastrous tariff
experiment while informing them that
they were sustaining the governments 5
credit. He has rendered, even if indirect
ly and disingenuousy, some service in the
way of helping to maintain sound cur
rency; but in so doing and always with
his selfish interests steadily in view, he
has broken the Democracy in pieces, re-
inforced the hosts of SOCIALISM and anar-
chy, and wrecked for the time, if not ir-
reparably, the future of one of this ma
tions great historical political organza-
tions. He has destroyed the Democratic
q 9 n living