The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1902-02-04
THE White CLEVELAND,

A. THE WHITE CLEVELAND.
St Paul Dispatch: Mr.. Cleveland
will not follow in the footsteps of
Mr.. Plat in threatening to bring suit
for the character sketch William Allen
White has made of him. No greater
contrast were possible than Mr..
Whites treatment Of these two New
York politicians, and while one doubts
IL Mr.. Plat has a friend who could
successfully offset the White arraign-
ment, one is positive that Mr.. Cleve-
land has a plenty of enemies who
would diagnose his personality differ
emily from what it appears in the
White laudation. Having learned how
praise can sound when Mr.. White
makes it, Mr.. Plat will bitterly regret
that he did not bring hat libel suit.
1t is because Mr.. White sees as vir-
tues those dominant traits of Cleve-
land which SO eXasperated his enemies
and increased their bulk that the
sketch is as truthful as it is interest
ing. There is the occasional forcing
of a phrase in order that the red
blooded masculinity of the man may
be set forth, but that is only as a
PAINTER will intensity a high light that
the truth may be more striking. One
never loses sight of the real Cleveland
no matter what the White %extravag-
ances, and that is the real virtue OF
all these political portraits.
When a boy Cleveland was rusty,
ruddy, full-blooded, c%lose-knit, big
honed and as virile as a young bull
AS a young lawyer he was tall. burly,
kard-faced, soft-voiced, but quick
SPOKEN fellow, hard-headed, hard-liv-
ing, hard-working, close-fsted, hon
est, sturdy. manly" as a mature law
yer he was 'u~nconsciously, unimagi-
latively brave; with an ox-like hon
csty, and with a great, hulking body
"hich furnished unlimited power for il
tlreless brain lusting for work." as
mayor of Buffalo he was "a working
machine, moved by an iron will, auto
~natically following a c~onscience;"
later he was "a presidential masto
DOM
Always it is his capacity for work
and his incapacity for being moved
that impresses Mr.. White.
A man who can live a life "as pro-
sale as an index to an auditors re
port is not n to furnish dramatic
moments to the worlds history. And
yet those moments are Just what Mr..
Whites constructive Imagination
finds. The account of the repeal of
the Sherman act is as intensely mo-
in this writing as the charge
at Lookout.
Congress assembled, ready-ai-
most eager-to push the country over
the edge of the precipice onto a free
silver basis. Then Grover Cleveland |
rose. He stood there like Lincoln. To
save the nation from ruin he seized
the n weapon at hand, what little
"a left him, and he went
into the legislative market-appoint-
no man to Office unless the sem
ator or congressman recommending
man promised to vote against the
Sherman law. There he stood, unmind-
of God, man or devil, putting aside
past promises and future obligations
with the sublime shamelessness of
dire need-stolid, immoral, buying
votes with Offices with no more emo
ton in his choice of purchasable swine
a hog-buyer in the pens. The
public service was filled with incom-
petent men, recommended by purchas-
able national legislators, who traded
their votes for this patronage. The
Sherman act was repealed"
There is not in any printed Ameri-
history a more dramatic episode
than that. 1t is so completely Ameri-
,an, not a high moral t%ranaction, but
he only one for the time, an ignoring
If e for the end, a confession
hat the republic is founded on cen