The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-06-25
CLEVELAND'S LIFE
 VERY ACTIVE ONE


 | Washington, June 24-Grover Cleveland was the twenty-second and twenty-fourth l President of the United States He was born at Caldwell. Essex county, New Jer- sey, March IS. 1sS7 In 1s1 his father, the Rev. Richard F. Cleveland (Yale 1S2D, a Presbyterian minister, removed with his family to Fayetteville, near Syracuse, N. r., and afterwards to Clinton, N. Y, in the schools of which places Grover Cleve land was a scholar The death of his father in 1853 obliged him to earn his own living, and the first position that he held was that of a teacher in the New York Institution for the Blind. A little later he started for Cleveland, O., where he ex- pected to study and practice law. While passing through Buffalo however, he was induced to remain there by his uncle Lewis F. Allen, who secured for him ! position with a prominent law firm. He was admitted to practice in 1859; became assistant district attorney for Erie county in 1862; was the democratic candidate for district attorney in 1865, but was defeated at the polls, and in 1870 was elected sher- If of the county. At the conclusion of his term of office of three years, he re- sumed the practice of law, with marked | success.
 l In November, 1881, he was nominated as 1 democratic candidate for mayor of Buff | falo. The city was strongly republican but long-continued tenure of office had engendered fragrant corruption and good men of all parties joined to uproot 1t. | Cleveland, being elected by a handsome majority, reorganized the departments under his charge on business principles, overcame corrupt combinations and promptly vetoed all measures that sav- cred of extravaganza or dishonesty His notable service in that office was rec cgnized in 1882, when he received the | democratic nomination for governor of 1 New York His opponent was Charles J.. Folger, then secretary of the treasury un- der President Arthur.
 Reform Candidate.
 The republican party in the state was divided, and among the independent vot- l CTS there was strong dissatisfaction with the methods that had secured MT. Fol gers nomination. MT. Cleveland's reputa- 1 tion as a reformer was strongly in his favor and he was elected by the extra | ordinary plurality of 192S54. His conduct | as governor was marked by integrity, in- dependence and good judgment and he was early spoken of as a candidate for 1 the presidency.
 1 At the democratic national convention July, 1884, he was the leading candidate on the first ballot and in spite of d 1 nnritx of own state, secured the necessary two- | thirds of all the votes on the second bal l lot
 Cleveland Elected.
 MT Cleveland received 219 electoral votes against 1892 for his opponent, James | G. Blaine. Besides the southern states he carried Connecticut New York, New Jer- | sey and Indiana. He was inaugurated | March 1, 1885, On June of the follow | ing year he married Miss Frances Fol- l son. His term was chara cterized mainly | by his bold advocacy, of reduction of l tariff duties. and by his opposition to | what he considered unworthy bills. Dur | ing his term he vetoed or ''pocketed' 4l3 l bills, 297 of which were private pension | bills. During the first session of of Con- l gress he directly antagonized the Sen- | ate by refusing to give to that body his | reason for removing certain officers or | to deliver up the papers ordering such re- | movals, on the ground that, under the | constitution, the President is not amen- able to Congress for such acts, and that the papers were not official documents. | His supporters maintain that considering the immense difficulties surrounding such l an undertaking, his civil service reform | pledges were carried out as consistently | as possible. He was renominated for the l presidency at St. Louis June ', 1888, but was defeated receiving only 16S electoral votes to Harrison's 233, though his pop | ular vote exceeded by more than 10000 l that of his opponent. On the expiration of his term of office he resumed in New York city the practice of law, but still kept in touch with the political interests l of his party.
 Defeated Harrison.
 At the national democratic conven- 1 tion of June, 1892, although opposed by the delegation from his own state, he was nominated for the presidency on l the first ballot, and in November was elected, receiving PIT electoral votes against 145 for Harrison Republican, and 22 for Weaver lpopulist). During his second term, in the face of the | violent opposition of the mass of his own party, he exerted himself unfiinch- | ingly for the maintenance of the gold
 
 |, extra session of Congress in the sum | mer of 1893, and secured the repeal of the Sherman act of 1890. requiring | the government to make large pur- | chases of silver bullion He main tained the gold reserve by successive issues of government bonds. When the democratic majority of Congress passed tariff act. he allowed 1t to be- come a law with out his signature. con sidering 1t inadequate in many of it's provisions. During the great railroad strike at Chicago in 1894, he ordered out the United States troops to "pre- vent the obstruction of the mails" al l though Governor Altgeld of Illinois, who had not asked for the troops, pro- tested vigorously against the measure.
 Policies Carried Out.
 In the domain of foreign affairs, MT. Cleveland's second administration was signalized by his with drawal from the Senate of the Hawaiian annexation treaty negotiated by President Harri- son; the upholding and advancement of the Monroe Doctrine by his vigorous and successful insistence upon the sub