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Naturally, the Republican papers were doing their utmost to prop up their candidate, Milton E. Beebe, a mild-mannered architect who served as an alderman and was deemed to be in the pocket of the shady political ring that ruled City Hall. In the final weeks of the campaign, the Commercial Advertiser, crowning Beebe as the “workingman’s friend,” published the entire Republican ticket on its front page every day. The paper also took special pleasure in assailing Cleveland—“Grove” as he was scornfully called—for his “lordly manners.” He was derided as a “wealthy old bachelor and white-vested aristocrat” who “carries his head so high, as a rule, that he cannot see ordinary persons.” Cleveland’s draft-dodging days came up in another story, this one told by a veteran who said that after he had hounded Cleveland for a donation to send a delegation of soldiers to Yorktown for the centennial celebration of the British surrender, Cleveland sputtered, “I am sick and tired of this old-soldier business. You fellows have been well taken care of, and I am opposed to it on principle.” That was either a tactless stand or a gutsy one, depending on one’s point of view: Cleveland seemed to be taking a shot at the Grand Army of the Republic, the fraternal organization of nearly half a million Union Army veterans, known for its political clout. It was said that no Republican candidate could be nominated for president without the endorsement of the GAR. Yet for whatever reason, Cleveland’s scorn for the veterans’ vote failed to gain traction.

The first ward was shaping up to be key to a victory. It was typically a Democratic stronghold, but Cleveland was concerned that his ouster of John Sheehan from the ticket would lead to a tepid turnout, or even worse, outright sabotage by Sheehan’s legions of followers. The Commercial Advertiser tried to stir things up yet again with the accusation that Cleveland had “ostracized” the entire Irish American population from jury duty when he was sheriff and, this time, had refused to run on the ballot with “that Irishman Sheehan.” The Saturday night before the election, Cleveland poured all his resources into campaigning in the bars along the waterfront. His last stop was Schwabl’s saloon, right on Sheehan’s home turf.

Election Day fell on the first Tuesday in November. In those days, there were polling booths at police precincts, but more often than not, they were in private houses scattered around the city; a voter in the fourth ward, for example, had to cast his ballot at No. 62 E. Huron Street, the home of Frederick Schottin, a bookbinder. A Buffalo policeman stood outside each polling station, and as soon as the votes were tabulated, the officer ran to the nearest telegraph office to send the results to police headquarters.

The final returns gave Grover Cleveland a solid victory, 15,080 to Beebe’s 11,529. Jubilant Democrats were so appreciative of the coverage they had received in the Courier they marched in a procession with a band to the newspaper’s editorial offices, lit a huge bonfire, and serenaded the staff. It was, the Commercial Advertiser sourly reported, a “waste of good kindling.” For Republican mouthpieces such as the Commercial Advertiser, the election of Grover Cleveland and the Democrats was a “disaster,” which it blamed on the “treachery” of those Republicans who had switched party allegiance.

In truth, Cleveland was swept into office on a wave of revulsion over machine politics and the conduct of a clique of grafters known as the Ring who ran City Hall. Democrats and Republicans were deemed equally crooked. Cleveland’s platform of good government and his reputation for pugnacious honesty connected with the electorate. Plus, the German voters really delivered.

In Holland Patent, Ann Cleveland sat down at her desk and composed a letter to her son. Mrs. Cleveland had misgivings about Grover entering politics. “But now that you have taken upon yourself the burdens of public office do right, act honestly, impartially and fearlessly,