Cleveland entered upon his second term under favorable conditions for civil service reform. Although Harrison, in respect of the unclassified service, had not been as sound as his predecessor, he had, in the classified service, given strength to the movement and had made an important contribution to its progress by the appointment of Theodore Roosevelt as member of the Civil Service Commission. Cleveland was now thoroughly independent. His third nomination had been emphatically demanded by the people and his election was a triumph. His party owed him more than he owed his party. Being the most popular man in the country he seemed to stand in the position of a great leader, needing only to urge a policy to have it adopted. Yet the reformers were not so well satisfied with the first year of his second administration as they had been with the same period in his first. This was due in part to his failure to give the same attention to appointments that he had given eight years previously. He was now occupied with weightier matters and left the disposition of the offices mainly to his subordinates.

The greed of the hungry Democrats was indeed great. Their party had come into its own again and they believed in dividing up the spoils of office. On the night before the operation on his mouth, Cleveland, while talking with the consulting surgeon, burst out with "Oh, Doctor Keen, those office seekers! Those office seekers! They haunt me even in my dreams!" Previous to this he had been forced to issue what The Nation called "An Emancipation Proclamation." He said: "It has be

1 P. 33.

2

2 May 11.

come apparent after two months' experience that the rules heretofore promulgated regulating interviews with the President have wholly failed in their operation. The time which under these rules was set apart for the reception of Senators and Representatives has been almost entirely spent in listening to applications for office, which have been bewildering in volume, perplexing and exhausting in their iteration and impossible of remembrance. A due regard for public duty, which must be neglected if present conditions continue, and an observance of the limitations placed upon human endurance oblige me to decline from and after this date all personal interviews with those seeking appointments to office, except as I, on my own notion may especially invite them. The same considerations make it impossible for me to receive those who merely desire to pay their respects except on the days and during the hours especially designated for that purpose. I earnestly request Senators and Representatives to aid me in securing for them uninterrupted interviews by declining to introduce their constituents and friends when visiting the Executive Mansion during the hours designated for their reception. Applicants for office will only prejudice their prospects by repeated importunity and by remaining in Washington to await results." 1

Josiah Quincy, who had been regarded as favorable to civil service reform and had received the appointment of Assistant Secretary of State, proved a diligent wielder of the political axe. Indeed Schurz who had become president of the National Civil Service Reform League on

1 May 8, 1893. Richardson ix. 399.

the death of Curtis said in his annual address of 1894, "No spoilsman in that office had ever turned over the consular service from one party to the other with greater thoroughness and despatch." Quincy defended himself by saying that he had turned out bad and put in good men and Cleveland stood by his subordinate with Grantlike fidelity and tenacity. The Treasury, Interior and Post-Office Departments seemed impotent before the onslaughts of the office seekers and were censured at length by the reformers. The Postmaster-General had their confidence but his assistant so swung the axe among the fourth-class postmasters that, during the first year, he exceeded by 1143 Harrison's record of changes for the same period, - a record established by a master of the politician's art. The number of changes under Harrison was over 24,000; on percentages the Democratic showing is better, 34 to the Republican 37, the difference being due to the increased number of post-offices. During the first year of the new administration Cleveland changed 1720 presidential post-offices to Harrison's 1698 although, because of the increase in the number of offices, his percentage was 53 to Harrison's 65. Yet this large number of displacements makes it sufficiently clear that Cleveland was employing the patronage to advance his financial and tariff policies. During the first nine months of his administration, the reformers were so sharp and persistent in their censure that even the comment of the Springfield Republican seemed charitable. "President Cleveland's civil service record to date," said this newspaper, "is a maze of theatrical contradictions." Exasperated

1 Dec. 2, 1893.

at the continued fault-finding, the President could not withhold a retort; in his first annual message he spoke of "the querulous impracticability of many self-constituted guardians" of civil service reform.

I am not concerned with striking a balance between the reformers' criticisms and the President's defence. Despite Quincy's old-fashioned and ruthless decapitations and the partisan activity of the Treasury, Interior and Post-Office Departments, Cleveland, in both public and private utterances, remained faithful to the principle of civil service reform. It must be remembered that twelve years previously, all these removals and new appointments would have been considered a matter of course and that the quickened public conscience was largely due to the civil service reform associations, to the representative body, the National League, and to Grover Cleveland. The National League was fortunate in its first two presidents, Curtis and Schurz, who in addition to their other strong qualities possessed a remarkable gift of literary expression that gained for them the ear of the entire reading public as well as of the believers in reform.

It is fortunate for Cleveland that the verdict of history need not, in this instance, rest wholly on the written word, for his ponderous and labored utterances in contrast with Curtis's and Schurz's pithy criticisms would surely lose him the case. When good and true men fall out, the lover of righteousness may well be puzzled, but the historian has an advantage over statesman and reformer in his knowledge of the end. The backslidings due to "offensive partisanship" bulk small in comparison with the impetus Cleveland gave to good administration

by his work for the classified service. He retained Theodore Roosevelt as member of the Civil Service Commission; the two worked together in harmony, and the President was keenly sensible of his loss when Roosevelt thought a higher duty called him to New York.

An important event was the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago during the late spring, summer and autumn of 1893. Eighteen hundred ninety-two would have been the proper year for the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America, but it was impossible to get ready and the Fair was postponed until the next year, which turned out to be one of financial panic that convulsed the country. The financial failures, the check to enterprises, the difficulty of obtaining actual currency for needed wants were added to the ordinary hindrances of launching so great an enterprise. Resolute men overcame them by their indomitable energy and proved themselves worthy of their remarkable city. In the artistic creation, they builded wisely when they appointed Daniel H. Burnham, an architect of Chicago, Director of Works. Assembling together the best architects of the country, he superintended an architectural display that gave all visitors a supreme delight and has remained in American memory a fond possession. "The grand style," wrote Francis D. Millet, an artist who met a heroic death at the sinking of the Titanic, "the perfect proportions and the magnificent dimensions of the buildings of the World's Columbian Exposition, excite a twofold sentiment in the mind of the visitor - wonder and admiration at the beauties of the edifices and regret and disappointment that they are not to remain as monu