The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1908-06-24
WEDNESDAY EVENING. JUNE "a. 1906
Grover Cleveland.

A brave man. man powerful
for the welfare of the nation,
good man, is lost in the death of
Grover Cleveland, tvventy-second and
twenty-fourth President of the
United States, reported this morn
ing from his home in Princeton
Through forty of the seventy-One
years of his life he stood in the
clear view of his fellows and TO
their eyes, in those two-score years
he exhibited solEe of the faults and
many of the virtues of a nature
strong beyond that of most men.
Now that he has put down his Ia
bors, it is the judgment of this
newspaper that his fellow-country-
men will see in his life the revela-
ton Of true greatness.
Like the Pitts, father and son,
like Warren Hastings, like Mr.. Glad
stone, it fell to Grover Cleveland to
combat great forces. There is now
little difference Of opinion that the
forces to which this American op-
posed himself were driving toward
certain evil. The warfare was al
most constant and it is proof
of this mans great strength that,
while it centered upon him an al
most unending fire of scandal, of
malice, of bitter partisanship, hard
est of all, perhaps, for him to com
bat, of opposing opinion no less
honest than his own, his career in
public office is yet an almost IN
broken record of principles estab-
ished and victories gained
America will do well at this time,
when problems of peculiar COM
plexity await solution. to ponder
the victories which this man won,
the principles which he established.
His very first candidates. stood up
on the same platform of municipal
reform which has of late redeemed
so many other cities as he redeemed
Buffalo. 1t was an independent
vote which enabled him to defeat
Blaine for the Presidency and he
owed the support of that vote to
his personal courage and independ-
ence while governor of New York
AS President he gave a new under
standing to the integrity of that
high office-by vetoing Alb bills in
his first term; by maintaining the
independence of the Presidential
power to remove incompetent Pres
idential appOintees; by giving foun-
datiOn 10 the cause of civil serv-
ice reform: by insisting with a cour-
age even his bitterest enemies must
admire that this nation must pay
its debts in standard coin; by is
suing in the course of the Venezuela
boundary controversy a prOciama-
ton which wrote a new serious
ness into the Monroe Doctrine. 1t
was he who took the first steps
toward making the American navy
adequate TO its functions, who,
though a Democrat, yet established
the right of the National Govern
ment to maintain its mails even
through a State content to remain
In disorder, and, though he failed
to'obtain tariff legislation to which
be could give his whole approval,
yet promulgated a new standard
Of tariff reform.
Courage was the key to his life
not the brilliant, dashing, theatrical
courage of single victories, but he
much more valuable, much rarer,
much nobler courage Of contending
for worthy causes over long periods
of alternating hope and defeat. To
that quality in his life the nation
stands today in heavy debt. and
that debt viii grow in later years
rather than diminish, as the ma
tons young men find in the story
Of Grover Cleveland's sturdy fight
ing a new incentive to that states
manship which is above popularity
above party leadership. above tran
sient successes unworthily bought