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By Root 1681 0

A strange thing happened next. Smith sat on the story. He had the jump on the political scandal of the decade, and yet the Journal did nothing. One reason may have been that he received orders from higher up—perhaps from Blaine himself; any charges published by the Journal would have been suspected of being Blaine propaganda. Blaine’s fingerprints were all over the paper, and especially its editor Zemro Smith. The smart move was to wait. The decision was made. Of Buffalo’s newspapers, the Evening Telegraph was the new kid on the block. Let the “obscure” Telegraph have first crack at it. Then the Journal would pounce.

There were signs everywhere of tremendous enthusiasm for the candidacy of Grover Cleveland. In Nyack, New York, four hundred cheering citizens marched to Mr. Andrew Jackman’s house to serenade him with a cornet band. What had Jackman done to deserve such a tribute? He had served as a delegate to the convention that had nominated Cleveland. Making his way home from the convention, a forty-year-old Connecticut delegate actually had to be tied into a straitjacket at a stop in Toledo when he tried to leap from the train. The cause of his derangement was said to have been ecstasy over Cleveland’s victory. In Buffalo, thousands of people beaming with pleasure over their favorite son’s accomplishment paraded through the streets with banners and fireworks. Special accolades were paid to Buffalo’s own Wilson Bissell and his virtuoso tactics in securing Cleveland the nomination. Some in the city were calling Grover Cleveland the Man of Destiny. A fitter phrase might have been Creature of Circumstances. A trivial set of conditions had, as if by magic, lifted Cleveland into the stratosphere of national politics. Those who knew the inside story were aware that had Cleveland not been pushed into running for mayor of Buffalo just three years before, he would still be practicing law in Buffalo at the humble firm of Cleveland, Bissell & Sicard.

In Albany, Cleveland was trying hard to stay focused. Daniel Manning, the architect of the Cleveland campaign, was back from the convention organizing the fall election. Manning had been offered the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee but declined, saying he wanted to devote himself exclusively to running the Cleveland canvass in New York.

With all this activity in progress, Cleveland was still governor of New York, with all its obligatory executive duties. On July 19, he took the Hudson River line to Westchester County for a military review of the New York State regiment at Peekskill. He had two of his nieces in tow, the daughters of his missionary sister from Ceylon who were spending the summer with him. The governor carefully stepped off the train, impeccably dressed in a black double-breasted frock known as the Prince Albert suit—standard formal business attire in the Victorian Era. A 21-gun salute greeted him. Following supper, he and his entourage returned to Albany on the 7:00 p.m. train. Cleveland was eager to get back. The winsome Frances Folsom and her mother, Emma, were expected in Albany any day now. Frances was on summer break from Wells College and wanted to personally congratulate Uncle Cleve on his nomination. She and her mother would be his guests at the Executive Mansion.

The Republicans were on the ropes. James Blaine was an able man, but he had a reputation as a two-faced schemer. Like the mythological Roman god Janus, one-half of Blaine was statesmanlike and honest; the other could be corrupt and sinister. As Speaker of the House in 1869, he had been accused of lining his pockets with $130,000 in bribe money to secure land grants for the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad Company. Blaine was never criminally charged, but the scandal had derailed his presidential ambitions in 1876 and again in 1880. Theodore Roosevelt expressed the sentiment of his generation when he announced that while he planned to vote the Republican presidential ticket in 1884, he would refuse to campaign on behalf of Blaine. To prove he meant it, Roosevelt headed off to his