The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1920-10-23

mo Otu6r man mas SL6ppeu SO quick
ly from obscurity to the presidency
as Grover Cleveland. When Garfield
stood on the steps of the capitol to be
inaugurated he never had heard the
name of this Buffalo attorney, who
years afterward.
At As Cleveland remained unknown
outside his county. At AZ he was in
the white house.
1t was a meteoric rise. Yet this
man was no meteor. Slow of mind,
with a narrow range Of reading and of
intellectual interests, Cleveland was
stolid in manner and without brilliant
qualities. But he had a character as
rugged and immovable as a mountain.
1t had been built up in rural parson-
ages, where his father, a Presbyter-
ian minister, was required to rear a
large family and set an example to
the community on $500 year.
At the early death of his father.
Stephen Grover, who improved his
name by dropping the first part of it,
self. First he clerked in a village
in a blind asylum, and finally swept
lars a week, until he had swept a
path for himself to the bar.
For more than a quarter of a cen
fury he plodded along in Buffalo, a
quiet, trusted, but not distinguished
lawyer. Unmarried and without fam
lily or home, he took no part in the
social life of his community, where
one hundred other Buffalonians may
have been better known to their fell
low townsmen.
He had been an assistant district
attorney of Erie county and also its
sheriff. The first that was ever heard
of him outside his neighborhood were
his sledge hammer vetoes from the
mayors office only two years before
his election to the presidency. The
whole state of New York stopped to
listen to his resounding whacks and
next the whole country took notice.
Being mayor Of Buffalo never would
have made Cleveland famous, but be-
ing an honest mayor of any city in
the United States at that time, who
had the courage of his honesty, was
distinction unfortunately rare. For
almost everywhere partisanship was
blindfolding the people while municip,
al rings and gangs picked their peck,
cts of franchises and of contracts for
predatory interests-railway, street
car and gas companies, contractors,
and the petty criminals of the under
world.
1t chanaced that year that two big
men" were dividing the votes of the
Democratic state convention for gov
ernor, and the little fellow" this
veto Mayor" slipped in between
them. The Republicans had put up a
machine-made ticket and Cleveland
personified the issue. He did not have
to make a campaign speech; his We
toes spoke for him, and he was elect
ed by 10000 plurality, the biggest in
the records of New York up to that
time.
After voting on election day, he sat
down in the certainty of victory and
wrote letter to his brother. 1t is
letter which reveals a side of the man
that he never turned to the public and
that is always the real side of any
in my desire to do WELL" he wrote;
but the question is whether know
enough to accomplish what | desire
If mother were alive, should
feel much safer I have always
thoI iSi "a S~J NAS AAeSt -
do with my success"
Cleveland's two years in the COVER
norship at Albany was only an en-
largement of his few months in the
mayoralty of. Buffalo. His promotion
to the presidency followed naturally.
The sudden, the theatrical rise of
this man was not mere caprice, a
blind stroke of luck On the contrary,
he was nominated and elected preSi-
dent because he was the logical. COM
nonsense choice; because this I'M
known, unambitious lawyer of Buffalo
had become in two swift years the
most conspicuous embodiment of the
things that the times called for-inde-
pendence in politics and a higher
standard of conduct in office.
The national campaign of 1884 sank
to a new low level of mudslinging
when a great people seemed reduced
to humiliating choice between COM
mon honesty and common decency.
Inscribing on their banners, Public
Office is Public Trust" the Demo-
Gratis bombarded the public character
of Blaine, the Republican candidate,
with his "Mulligan letters" in which
that thrifty statesman had sadly mix
ed politics and business. The Repub-
licans retorted by assailing the private
character of Cleveland, who comman-
ded his friends in Buffalo to tell the
truth" But just what the truth was
never has been told-to the public at
least. The bachelor candidate himself
made no other profession than that
since he had been governor, with a
special obligation to the people. his
walk had been correct in every shad-
owl
The Independent. or "Mugwump'
vote, with a brilliant array of news
papers, went over to Cleveland. skim
ming tho cream off tho ton - tho Re-