Norwich bulletin., 1920-05-29

of him outside his neighborhood were his sledgehaElmer Vetoes from the may
 or's office only two years before his cleo ton to the presidercV. The whole state I's New ork stopped to listen to his re-
 sounding whacks and neXt tie whole country took notice.
 Being Mayor of Buffalo never would
 have made Cleveland famous but being
 an honest Mayor of any city in the United States at that time, who had the courage of his honesty, was q distinction unfortunately rare. For almost every where partisanship was blindfolding the people while municipal rings and gangs picked their pockets of franchises and of contracts for predatory interests-rail- way, street car and gas companies, con tractors and the petty criminals of the underworld
 l It chanced that year that two big men were dividing the votes of the
 Democratic State convention for govern 1 or, and the little fellow" this veto
 Mayor, sliped in between them. The I republicans had put up a machine-made ] ticket and Cleveland personifed the issue. | He did not have to make a campaign
 speech; his vetoes spoke for him and he
 was elected by 192,000 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 a letter to his brother It is q letter which reveals which reveals a side of the man that he never turned te the public and that is always the real side of any public man. T am honest and sincere in my desire to do we'll" he
 wrote; but the question is whether ] l. sire. If mother were alive
 should feel much safer. I have alway: thought that her prayers had much te } do with my success"
 CleVe4ttnu'S two years in the Governor
 ship at Albany was only an enlargement
 of his few months in the Mayorality O
 Buffalo. Ills promotion to tile presidency
 naturally followed.
 The sudden, the theatrical rise of thi,
 man was not a mere caprice, a binS stroke of luck. On the contrary, he Wa. nominated and elected president becaus,
 he was the logical, common-sense choice because this unknown, unambitious law , yer of Buffalo had become in two swift
 years the most conspicuous embodinen of the things that the times called for independence in politics and highe
 standard of conduct in office.
 The National campaign of 1884 sanl to a new low level of mudslinging, whel a great people seemed reduced to a multi
 ating choice between common honest, and common decency. Inscribing ol their banners, Public Office is a Publi
 Trust" the democrats bonbarded the pub l lie character of Blaine, the republican candidate, with his ''MuIligan letters" il which that thrifty statesman had sadl, mixed politics and business. The repub licans retorted by assailing the priVat : character of Cleveland, who commando, I l his friends in Buffalo to tell the truth. s But just what the truth was has bee told-to the public at least-the bache l ! Tor candidate himself made no other pro l fession than that since he had been gov
 ernor, with a special obligation to th : people, his walk had been correct i v every shadow
 e The independent, or %Mugwump'' vot, e with brilliant array of newspaper. ;; went over to Cleveland, skimming tn : cream off the top of the republican paI t ty in New York, Massachusetts and i t certain other quarters. But the briilis,
 personality of Blaine, magnetic man, y stemmed the tide. Probably he woul ], thaye succeeded in turning it had h ?. promptly corrected the spokesman of p ;, delegation of ministers in New ork cit, S an alliterative clergyman who addresse r him on the eve of the voting as the or nj ponent of rum Romanism and rebe
 lion The democrats had not minut : to lose, and they did not lose minute s thrusting before voters of the Cathol q faith the Sunday preceding the electio