My Memories of Eighty Years [50]
and trade. To stop them is to prevent the transportation of provisions or of coal, to starve and freeze cities and communities. Cleveland used the whole power of the federal government to keep free the transportation on the railways and to punish as the enemies of the whole people those who were trying to stop them. It was a lesson which has been of incalculable value ever since in keeping open these great highways.
He forced through the repeal of the silver purchasing law by every source and pressure and the unlimited use of patronage. His party were almost unanimous for the silver standard and resented this repeal as a crime, but it saved the country from general bankruptcy. Except in the use of patronage to help his silver legislation, he offended his party by improving the civil service and retaining Theodore Roosevelt as head of the Civil Service Commission. These crises required from the president an extraordinary degree of courage and steadfastness.
While Mr. Cleveland was in such unprecedented popular disfavor when he retired to private life, his fame as president increases through the years, and he is rapidly assuming foremost position in the estimation of the people.
Mr. Cleveland had a peculiar style in his speeches and public documents. It was criticised as labored and that of an essayist. I asked him, after he had retired to private life, how he had acquired it. He said his father was a clergyman and he had been educated by him largely at home. His father was very particular about his compositions and his English, so that he acquired a ministerial style. The result of this was that whenever any of the members of the local bar died, he was called upon to write the obituary resolutions.
To take a leap over intervening years: After Mr. Cleveland retired from his second term I used to meet him very frequently on social occasions and formal celebrations. He soon left the practice of law and settled in Princeton, where he did great and useful service, until he died, as trustee of the university and a lecturer before the students.
Riding in the same carriage with him in the great procession at the funeral of General Sherman, he reminisced most interestingly in regard to his experiences while president. Every little while there would break out a cheer and then a shout in the crowd of one of the old campaign cries: "Grover, Grover, four years more." Mr. Cleveland remarked: "I noticed while president a certain regularity and recrudescence of popular applause, and it was the same in every place I visited." That cry, "Grover, Grover, four years more!" would occur every third block, and during our long ride the mathematical tradition was preserved.
XI. BENJAMIN HARRISON
The year 1888 was one of singular experience for me. I was working very hard in my professional duties and paying no attention to public affairs.
The district conventions to send delegates to the national convention at Chicago began electing their delegates and alternates, and passing resolutions instructing them to vote for me as their candidate for president.
After several districts had thus acted I was asked to meet in Whitelaw Reid's office in the Tribune Building Thomas C. Platt, our State leader, and United States Senator Frank Hiscock. Platt demanded to know why I was making this canvass without consulting the organization or informing them. I told him I was doing nothing whatever by letter, telegram, or interview; that I had seen no one, and no one had been to see me.
Mr. Platt, who had been all his life accomplishing things through the organization, was no believer in spontaneous uprisings, and asked me frankly: "Are you a candidate?" I told him I was not, because I did not believe I could be nominated with the present condition of the public mind in regard to railways, and I was president of one of the largest systems.
Then it was suggested that I permit the Tribune, which was the party organ, to state that I was not a candidate and did not want to be. The next morning the Tribune had that
He forced through the repeal of the silver purchasing law by every source and pressure and the unlimited use of patronage. His party were almost unanimous for the silver standard and resented this repeal as a crime, but it saved the country from general bankruptcy. Except in the use of patronage to help his silver legislation, he offended his party by improving the civil service and retaining Theodore Roosevelt as head of the Civil Service Commission. These crises required from the president an extraordinary degree of courage and steadfastness.
While Mr. Cleveland was in such unprecedented popular disfavor when he retired to private life, his fame as president increases through the years, and he is rapidly assuming foremost position in the estimation of the people.
Mr. Cleveland had a peculiar style in his speeches and public documents. It was criticised as labored and that of an essayist. I asked him, after he had retired to private life, how he had acquired it. He said his father was a clergyman and he had been educated by him largely at home. His father was very particular about his compositions and his English, so that he acquired a ministerial style. The result of this was that whenever any of the members of the local bar died, he was called upon to write the obituary resolutions.
To take a leap over intervening years: After Mr. Cleveland retired from his second term I used to meet him very frequently on social occasions and formal celebrations. He soon left the practice of law and settled in Princeton, where he did great and useful service, until he died, as trustee of the university and a lecturer before the students.
Riding in the same carriage with him in the great procession at the funeral of General Sherman, he reminisced most interestingly in regard to his experiences while president. Every little while there would break out a cheer and then a shout in the crowd of one of the old campaign cries: "Grover, Grover, four years more." Mr. Cleveland remarked: "I noticed while president a certain regularity and recrudescence of popular applause, and it was the same in every place I visited." That cry, "Grover, Grover, four years more!" would occur every third block, and during our long ride the mathematical tradition was preserved.
XI. BENJAMIN HARRISON
The year 1888 was one of singular experience for me. I was working very hard in my professional duties and paying no attention to public affairs.
The district conventions to send delegates to the national convention at Chicago began electing their delegates and alternates, and passing resolutions instructing them to vote for me as their candidate for president.
After several districts had thus acted I was asked to meet in Whitelaw Reid's office in the Tribune Building Thomas C. Platt, our State leader, and United States Senator Frank Hiscock. Platt demanded to know why I was making this canvass without consulting the organization or informing them. I told him I was doing nothing whatever by letter, telegram, or interview; that I had seen no one, and no one had been to see me.
Mr. Platt, who had been all his life accomplishing things through the organization, was no believer in spontaneous uprisings, and asked me frankly: "Are you a candidate?" I told him I was not, because I did not believe I could be nominated with the present condition of the public mind in regard to railways, and I was president of one of the largest systems.
Then it was suggested that I permit the Tribune, which was the party organ, to state that I was not a candidate and did not want to be. The next morning the Tribune had that