The evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1907-1908, 1907-12-30
.CwLEVELAND'S VIEWS
NATION SHOULD PROVIDE
FOR Ex-PRESIDENTS.
Says Man who Has Held Highest ONCE
Is semi-Public Oflcial-Eliminates
Himself in Magazine Article.

NEW YORK, Dec. N.-Grover cleve-
land has written an article for the issue
of the Youths Companion of January .
on "Our Duties to Our Ex-Presidents
in which he speaks of the necessities Oh an
ex-President, his obligations and Occur
nations. and touches upon the provision
the people shopld make for retired chiel
magistrates.
Concerning provisions for our ex-Presl-
dents. the writer says:
whatever omission there may be of Iair
and considerable conduct on the part OF our
people In THEN relations with their ex-
Presidents ought to be made good by a
definite and generous provision for all cases
alike. based Upon motives Of Justice anu
fairness and adequate to the situation.
''The condition is by no g met-py
the meagre and spasmodic relief occasion
ally furnished under the gulse of a mill
tary pension or some other p~retext, nor
would it be best met by making compen-
sation, already accrued or accruing, de-
pendent upon the discharge of Senatorial
or other official duty.
IF In concluding this discussion a per-
sonal word Is necessary or permissible In
view of the act that l am the only mar
now living who could at this time profit by
the ideas 1 have advocated. / hope my sim
Certify will not be questioned when l say
that I nave dealt with the subject without
the least thought of personal interest or
desire for personal advantage. I am not
in need of aid from the public treasury. l
hope and believe that / have provided for
myself and those dependent upon me a
comfortable maintenance, within the limits
of accustomed prudence and economy, and
that those to whom<I I'VE the highest
earthly duty will not want when l am
gone.
These conditions have permitted me to
treat with the utmost freedom a topic
which involves no personal considerations
and only has to do in my mind with con-
ditions that may arise in the future but are
not attached to the ex-President of today,
and 1 am sure tina 1 am actuated only by
an ever present desire that the fairness and
sense of justice characteristic Of American
ism shall neither fail nor be obscured."
Mr.. Cleveland says Of the obligations of
an ex~-President:
How can it be that our governmental
system places the President on the highest
pinnacle of honor and yet DEGREES that as
ex-President he is but a melancholy
product doomed to unescapably sad con-
ditions? Is there neither comfort nor
honor in his release from ~exhausting
Presidential labor and p~erplexity, in the
respect and esteem accorded to him by
his fellow citizens on every side and the
neighborly welcome hat greets him o
his return to the fellowship of private
station?
The truth is that our people. SO far
from treating their ex-Presidents simply as
relics of past honors, seem disposed not
only to bestow upon them honor and re-
spect, but to continue them in service. so
e,w os ~ i.+o-f.ro aarinnoIu NTH fhnfr I'M
trammeled return to private citizenship
and their unrestrained resumption Of the
occupations of everyday life.
''There is a sort Of vague but nom the
less imperative feeling abroad in the land
that one who has occupied the great Office
of President holds in trust for hiri fellow
citizens a certain dignity which In his
conduct and manner of life he is bound to
protect against loss or deterioration,
obedience to this obligation, which can
hardly be avoided, limits the ex-President
In his choice of an occupation and means
of livelihood. and prescribes for him only
such work as in popular Judgment is not
.undignifed, and 1t also enforces a scale OF
living on his part frequently less In keep
ing with his financial ability than with
conceptions of ex-Presidential pro-
vi all GA-1 ltoANtChI . OSNhB1NAoA Ais
Cleveland writes:
"He is deluged with newly written books
of them Indifferent or positively
worthless-and these he is expected to
read and commend for advertising pur-
poses. He is made a target for all man
ner of p~ecuniary solicitation, embracing all
sorts of objects, ranging from large en-
dowment funds and disinterested offers Of
fabulously profitable investments to pa
thetic and depressing appeals for the re-
lief of individual distress.
He Is almost daily importuned to join
in the management Of public or semi
enterprises which profess TO be use
full or ~beneficent or charitable. He is
persistently urged to make addresses on
topics and for purposes that are bewilder-
ing and at times and places that are i'm
His daily mail furnishes con-
elusive evidence that his existence is not
Overlooked by any class or condition Of our
people in any corner of our land; and the
visitors he receives forbid the reflection
that he is only a melancholy product
of our governmental system"