The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-08-11

cropping folk, feeling
THE VICTORY for answer in the
OF dark, call luck
ACCIDENT. Like Napoleon ,Cleve-
land named it des
tiny Let that go. It's not OF momene
what one calls it, so that it be under
stood.
"It was John Kelly with Croker who
made Cleveland Governor. 1t was war:
Tammany against -Tammany; city
against country Let's take this fellow
from Buffalo, who's been Mayor there,
said Kelly. Let's nominate him for Gov
ernor. He doesn't belong to either SIDE.
The convention did as Kelly said; and
then Conklng fought Garfield and almost
the Republican party stayed at home on
election day and Cleveland won over Fol-
ger by shadow short of 200, 900 votes
Following Cleveland's governorship. he
was selected for the Presidential race
German as manager elected him, landing
him winner by throat-latch, and was
barred from the White House for it with
in month after the inauguration
'Thus one beholds the lifting up OF
Cleveland from sheriff to President. This
story is much quoted by some as PROOF
of the sterling worth of Americas free
institutions. With the thoughtful, how
ever it's midday value in that behalf is
denied.
'Jones. of Nevada, once told that of all
whom he had met in high places Cleve-
land was mentally the most abundantly
dark. When he came to be President he
had not read the Constitution of the coun-
try. Still, one is at liberty to select ones
authors as we'll as ones literature; we
may not, perhaps, complain
'',To understand Cleveland as a Presi
dent--for he changed nightly, and those
who knew him
CLEVELAND dozen years before
THE wouldn't have known
MONEY MAKER. him then--one must
remember the influ-
ence of money getting upon him. He was
poor, without a dollar when first he
came White House seeking. When he
left it in 1897 he was rich to the point
of millions And Money had re-shaped
and nodded and added to, and taken
from, and made him anew. Cleveland had
not made a dollar; naturally, he didn't
know how. 1t was like calling on horse
to make a dollar. He had grown TO for
ty-eight and came to Washington without
so much silver as might, serve to keep
But he met wise men; men who saw in
him those latent money wonders which lie
dormant in every President, and who were
willing to work them out to his and their
adantage.
"Jt skills nothing to go over the long
and tangled trail of Cleveands money
getting, with all its windings, twists and
curious turns. And whether, in the heap
ing and sweeping together, it came from
Red Top or Gray Gables; from bonds or
stock deals or traction companies; or
wood pulp patents; or Nova Scotia coal
or Cuban iron; or whatever its thousand
sources, it was an enormous sum for enc
to have from a capital of Ignorance
and nothing in twelve years; and it failed
not to impress Cleveland and affect him.
In his last reign his great reverence was
for money; his respect was kept for those
who possessed it. Poverty was synony-
nous with ignorance; wisdom went only
with wealth. In his day one might come
afoot to Washington; and if one did, one
couldn't see him. Come in private car,
and one could. Ones honesty, ones
worth. the goodness of ones purpose, or
the justice of ones cause would not
avail. People were nothing to Cleve-
land; property was everything. He would
turn from a man in moment. Spill down
a million of gold. and the sight would
suspend and hold him spellbound-cast
him into trance of riches
According to our author. Cleveland not
only worshipped money, but he lacked or
dinary book learning;
CLEVELANDS had a small mind,
LOVE OF but hard as jade
FLATTERY stone and retentive.
He had no mental
fnenesses. ''He would rather talk than
read, eat than talk, fish than eat, drink
than fish, He was most susceptible to
f1attery-"as amenable to the tickle of
the sycophant as ever was swine to cob.
One might have stuck bills on him so it
were done with soft SOAP
"To egotism and a coarse greed Cleve-
land added the heart of a hare. None
was more TIGHTLY timid in physical way.
Perhaps it was this that kept him from
the war when the nation fought for it's
life in the sixties, and Cleveland, aged
twenty three, in perfect health without
wife to weep or wean to stay him, took
heed he didn't go. What a Curtus! How
Rome would have reared a column to
him. When Cleveland aforetime left
Washington for Buzzards Bay, or ducks,
he skulked secretly from town"
other pleasant characteristics attribu-
ted to the ex-President are egotism, Sc
cretiveness, and tyranny.
'In the luxuriance of a measureless
egotsm, Cleveland was wont to hold that
he elected the party His courtiers as
they famed and fawned and fattered. as
sured him of this and he believed them. |
Every defeat the Democracy suffered af-
ter 1892 served as proof to him. 1t
warned him with mild pleasure as he saw
reflected in The hopeless returns his pop
ularity. See what happens when I'm
not running, he argued, and drew glow
from party defeat like an inspiration. 1t
was this that taught him that the pat
ronage was his and not the party's And
he used it to please himself; to push 1,
his way with Congress, and as jewels |
wherewith to deck his fatterers and
spaniels of politics.
WIN JENNINGS BRYAN, Orator.
From Cleveland to Bryan is an easy /
jump chronologically, but long one po-
litically. 1t was at the close of Cleve- |
lands second term in 1896, that the ma
tiona1 convention reprns nsenting in its vast |