Let us now sum up the progress of civil service reform under Cleveland's first administration. The Pendleton law was much strengthened and may be said to have been firmly established. While the sections of the law regarding political assessments might be easily evaded, the assessment of office-holders in Washington had wholly ceased and the practice had elsewhere largely disappeared. Through extensions as well as in the ordinary course of national growth, Cleveland left 27,380 places in the classified service against the 15,573 which he found there when he took his seat. His work in the unclassified service shows that in becoming a reformer he had not ceased to be a Democrat. In the presidential post-offices he had made practically a "clean sweep"; and, taking no account of appointments due to decease or "vacancy, ," he had made changes in nearly one-half of the other presidential offices. Moreover, almost all of the fourthclass post-offices had been filled by Democrats. There were likewise inconsistencies in his displacements; mistakes were made, and, in some cases, injustice was done. Yet it is true, as Curtis said in his frankly critical annual address of 1887, "Under this administration much has been gained for reform." And Charles F. Adams wrote judiciously (July, 1892): "Upon the issue of a reformed civil service, Cleveland showed himself as much in advance of both parties as it was wise or prudent for the recognized leader of one of those parties to be."

Cleveland entered upon his second term under favorable conditions for civil service reform. Though Harrison, in respect to 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 in 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. He was the most popular man in the country and 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 of the first. This was partly due to his not giving the same attention to appointments that he had given four years previously. He was now occupied with weightier matters and left the disposition of the offices mainly to his subordinates. Josiah Quincy, who had been regarded as favorable to civil service reform and had received the appointment of Assistant Secretary of State, was a diligent wielder of the political axe. Indeed, Schurz, who had become president of the National Civil Service Reform League on 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 Grant-like fidelity and tenacity. The Treasury, Interior, and Post-Office Departments were unable to withstand the eager importunities of officeseekers 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 1,143 Harrison's record of changes for the same period, which were made by a master of the politician's art (the number under Harrison was over 24,000; on percentages the Democratic showing is better, 34 to the Republican 37; the difference is owing to growth). During the first year of the new administration Cleveland changed 1,720 presidential post-offices to Harrison's 1,698 although, because of the increase in the number of offices, his percentage was 53 to Harrison's 65. Yet this large number of displacements is evidence 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 we must deem charitable even the remark of the Springfield Republican: "President Cleveland's civil service record to date is a maze of theatrical contradictions" (December 2, 1893). Exasperated at the fault-finding, the President could not refrain from retort, and, in his first annual message, 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 utferances, 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, to their other strong qualities, joined a power of literary expression, so that they had the ear of the whole public as well as of the believers in reform. It is fortunate for Cleveland that the decision does not rest on the written word, for his ponderous and labored sentences in contrast with Curtis's and Schurz's telling statements 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. During 1894 Cleveland added 5,468 places to the classified service, and next year made several extensions and revisions of the rules, all in the line of an enlargement of the merit system. He issued an order which required the filling of vacancies of a certain grade in the consular service by persons of proved capacity and fitness. During his last year he made a general revision of the rules which added to the classified service 32,095 new places. On his second accession to office he had found 42,928 places

under the civil service rules; he left 86,932, of which only 1,513 were due to growth. Truly did he say in his last annual message: "A most radical and sweeping extension was made by executive order dated the 6th day of May, 1896, and, if fourth-class postmasters are not included in the statement, it may be said that practically all positions contemplated by the civil service law are now classified." Schurz was almost ready to say nunc dimittis.

In conclusion, it may be safely affirmed that Cleveland did more for the cause of civil service reform than any President except Roosevelt, whose work both as commissioner and as President mark him as the chief promoter of this phase of good government; but Cleveland's task in his first administration was the more difficult.

Cleveland was not as successful in his effort to reform the tariff as in his work toward the reform of the civil service. The one might be accomplished by executive action; for the other he had to depend upon Congress and he was not entirely happy in his influence on legislative action. As soon as he was established in his office, he found himself confronted by the fact of a formidable surplus lying in the treasury. The excess of revenue over expenditure for the year ending June 30, 1885, was sixtythree millions and for the next year ninetyfour millions. In his first two annual messages he stated the condition and urged a reduction in the revenue from customs, but Congressd not heed his recommendations. More money than was needed for the administration of the government continued to be collected and the hoard in the treasury grew. In the summer of 1887, Cleveland was so perturbed by the threatening financial evils, due to the constantly accumulating surplus, that he determined on the unprecedented course of devoting the whole of his annual message to the one subject. On December 6, 1887, confronted by another excess of revenue over expenditures, this time of one hundred and three millions, he presented his views to Congress in one of his most notable State papers, the most remarkable message Senators and Representatives had heard since the days of Lincoln. During the three years ending June 30, 1887, one hundred and thirtyeight millions had been contributed to the

sinking fund by the calling in of outstanding three per cent bonds, these being payable at the option of the Government; in addition to the sinking fund requirements, nearly eighty millions of the surplus had been applied in the same manner. Since June 30, 1887, nearly nineteen millions, which retired all of the three per cent bonds, had also gone into the sinking fund. In the current fiscal year about twentyeight millions had been used in the purchase of four and four and a half per cent bonds not yet due. Still the excess of revenue would, it was estimated, reach one hundred and thirteen millions and the surplus in the treasury on June 30, 1888, one hundred and forty millions. "Financial disturbance" was threatened; "schemes of public plunder" were invited. After dismissing some suggested measures for disposing of the surplus, Cleveland argued that the people ought to have relief by a reduction of taxation, but that the internal revenue taxes, being confined to tobacco and spirituous and malt liquors not "strictly speaking necessaries," should not be touched. The relief should come therefore from a reduction of the tariff. Care should be taken not to injure in any way the working-man and not to sacrifice any proper interest of the manufacturer. It is not a question of "protection and free trade," he said; "it is a condition which confronts us, not a theory."

The message with its direct and pertinent argument was certain to appeal to the plain people, yet the singling out of wool from among the raw materials for "a removal or reduction" of duty, though from the freetraders' stand-point strictly logical, was a political mistake. This is much to be regretted, as Cleveland's courage, in defining plainly an issue and standing forth as a leader of his party, is entitled to the large measure of commendation which it received at the time. But his intelligence did not equal his courage. As he himself had said in a previous message, "our farmers and agriculturists number nearly onehalf of our population"; to carry a measure of tariff reform, they must be his chief reliance and the Western farmers already favored it. Yet his recommendation of free wool made of every farmer who owned a sheep a protectionist. The experience of political life and his study during the four

years of his retirement proved illuminating, for, in his denunciation of the tariff bill framed by the Democratic Senate of 1894, he termed it an "inconsistent absurdity" that "the wool of the farmer be put on the free list and the protection of tariff taxation be placed around the iron ore and coal of corporations and capitalists." But it does not appear that in 1887 he took counsel with any one on the policy of such a message as he finally wrote. A conference of Independents in New York, among whom were George William Curtis, Carl Schurz, and E. L. Godkin, all three tariff reformers, sent him word that they thought it inexpedient to urge a reduction of the tariff until after the presidential campaign of 1888, as such a recommendation would imperil his own re-election and would be more politic at the beginning than at the end of a presidential term.

The House, with its Democratic majority of thirteen, passed a bill on the lines of the President's message, but the Senate, with its Republican majority of two, substituted for it a bill enforcing the policy of high protection. Neither became a law during Cleveland's administration. The contest was transferred from Congress to the country where the issue was clearly made between Cleveland and his policy and the Republican platform adopted by the convention which had nominated Harrison. McKinley reported the platform and read in his most eloquent tones: "We are uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection. . . . We condemn the proposition of the Democratic party to place wool on the free list." The national revenue should be reduced "by repealing the taxes upon tobacco" and "the tax upon spirits used in the arts and for mechanical purposes," and, should these reductions not be sufficient, "we favor the entire repeal of internal taxes rather than the surrender of any part of our protective system." Cleveland said in his letter accepting a unanimous renomination that our opponents offer to the people “free tobacco and free whiskey" while we propose to relieve them from "the undue and unnecessary burden of tariff taxation now resting upon them." Few students of history and economics will hesitate to assert that Cleveland's was the better economic and business policy, the one tending to the greatest good

of the greatest number. But the country thought otherwise and elected Harrison. New York, which Cleveland had carried in 1884, was again the pivotal State; but now he lost it by thirteen thousand and Indiana as well by twenty-three hundred. It is generally conceded that the message of December, 1887, caused his defeat and it is not unlikely that the advocacy of free wool was the predominant factor. New York farmers owned one and a half million of sheep and produced annually six million seven hundred thousand pounds of wool. Indiana had over a million sheep producing five million pounds. The Oregon State election in June, an indication of November, gave a largely increased Republican majority; and this was a clear protest against the Democratic policy of free wool, the clip in that State being ten million pounds.

The Republican Congress under Harrison undertook the reduction of the surplus while giving adequate protection to American manufactures. McKinley in the House and Aldrich in the Senate were the leaders, and their efforts resulted in the McKinley bill, which was justly characterized as "protection run mad." The Republican legislators did not offer free whiskey, at which their platform had hinted, but they reduced the tax on tobacco and further, sacrificing a revenue of fifty-four millions, made raw sugar free. As free sugar would, however, ruin the sugar planters of Louisiana, a step backward in fiscal legislation was taken by giving a bounty of two cents per pound on all sugar produced in the United States. Lavish pensions legislation completed the obliteration of the surplus, so that on Cleveland's second accession to office, it was only two and a half millions, and the following year (ending June 30, 1894) there was a deficit of seventy millions, to which the panic of 1893 contributed in some measure. Fate had decreed that Cleveland should be tried by a varied experience; that he should grapple with a surplus during his first and with a deficit during his second administration, for neither of which was he responsible. Indeed it is obvious that had he been re-elected in 1888, there would have been no deficit in 1894. From the continual stormy scenes of his second administration I shall for the moment isolate his action concerning the tariff. This

method will possess the advantage of brevity, even though failing to present a comprehensive view of the diverse conditions surrounding his efforts to carry out any single policy.

The country repudiated the McKinley bill in the congressional elections of 1890. by an emphatic Democratic landslide; the Democrats chose 235 members of the House to the Republicans' 88 and the Populists' 9. As the Senate remained Republican, no reduction of the tariff could be effected, but the election of 1892 resulted in a Democratic Senate as well as President and House, so that, for the first time since the vote of 1856, the Democrats had full control of the executive and legislative departments of the government. As the verdict of 1888 had moderately favored protection, so the elections of 1890 and 1892 had been unmistakable indications that the country demanded urgently a substantial downward revision of the tariff. The President and the House of Representatives were eager to carry out the will of the country and the House, under the leadership of William L. Wilson and with Cleveland's sympathetic co-operation, passed by a vote of 204 to 140 a bill (February 1, 1894) which, though notably defective in certain details, supplied, on the whole, an honest and consistent programme for reduction of the tariff, and deserved a fair trial. It had the striking and readily comprehensible merit of placing iron ore, coal, and lumber on the free list, the more doubtful advantage of free wool; it retained free sugar, the great boon of the McKinley act to the people (although now questionable as a revenue measure), but it repealed the sugar bounties.

The action of the Senate shows how strongly intrenched was the system of protection. While a majority of the Democratic Senators were willing to agree to the Wilson bill, a number of them were secretly opposed to it and two were open and determined in their opposition. These two, Gorman of Maryland and Brice of Ohio, were as good protectionists as McKinley and so convinced that the bill meant ruin to many manufacturing industries that they preferred no legislation whatever to any that did not safeguard certain interests. Gorman was a good parliamentary leader and, having both avowed and silent support

in his party, he dictated the policy of the Democratic Senate and eventually that of Congress. "I can afford to oppose this bill and beat the President," he said to Andrew Carnegie, "but I cannot afford to oppose and be beaten by him." The open confidence of Carnegie and other Republican manufacturers in Gorman and Brice, ought to have aroused the suspicion and partisanship of the Democrats and Populists who were devoted to tariff reform, and incited them to resent dictation by two of their number and to demand that their majority of seven be employed to register the will of their party as presented in their platform, as declared at the polls, personified in their President, and as formulated by the House. That this was not the result was due to circumstances well illustrated by the remark of the London fish dealer: "I am in favor of free trade in everything but herring." The Senators from Maryland, West Virginia, and Alabama were against any bill placing coal and iron ore on the free list, and they were upheld by well-known Democratic magnates at the North who were largely interested in the production of these minerals. The Senators from Louisiana insisted that her sugar planters should not be sacrificed, and Senator Murphy of New York, who lived at Troy, demanded that the industry of his town be protected, and obtained a duty on linen collars and cuffs almost as high as that in the McKinley bill (McKinley bill thirty cents per dozen and forty per cent ad valorem; Wilson bill thirty-five per cent ad valorem; Senate bill thirty cents per dozen and thirty per cent ad valorem.) Gorman worked on these different local interests astutely and with marked success. Thus far he framed his bill according to Republican precedents, but there was worse behind. The words of the President and of Wilson, and a mass of facts supporting their guarded utterances, indicate that the sugar schedule, which was rendered unduly favorable to the Sugar Trust, was secured by that corporation's method of indirect bribery and corruption.

The Senate made six hundred and thirtyfour amendments to the House bill and then passed it by 39 to 34 (July 3, 1894). It went as usual to a conference and the decided disagreement between the House and the Senate was aggravated by a quarrel

between the President and the Senate, which came to a head from Wilson's reading in the House a letter from Cleveland, in which he denounced the Senate bill as a disregard of Democratic pledges and an abandonment of principles to the extent of "party perfidy and party dishonor." The letter was not tactful but honest; bad politics, yet, if we take its measure not at the moment but in the long run, good statesmanship. It gave rise to an angry discussion in the Senate in which Gorman had the sympathy of most of his brother Democratic Senators and it seems to have strengthened his leadership. Had Cleveland understood Congress and possessed the art of facile negotiation that belonged to his successor, McKinley, he could undoubtedly have brought the contest between himself and Gorman to a drawn battle and so secured a better bill. He might, it is true, have been more flexible and serene, yet his bold grapple with the opponents in his own party is an inspiration now to those who wish to apply sound economic doctrine to the conduct of our national affairs.

The Committee of Conference wrangled for eleven days but failed to come to an agreement. A second conference was had. Gorman stood firm on the ground that it must be the Senate bill or nothing, and in the end compelled the House to surrender. This chapter of tariff reform ended ignobly. The bill that was passed was like the old Republican article, differing only in degree, except that wool and lumber were placed on the free list. Truly did Cleveland write in a public letter, "the livery of Democratic tariff reform has been stolen and worn in the service of Republican protection." Gorman was the father of the law posing as the conservative protector of American industries against what was regarded as the revolutionary designs of the President and the House. Yet if the history and traditions of the party and the platform of 1892, on which the Democrats came into possession of the government, are the test, the faithful Democrat is Cleveland, not Gorman.

The President pursued a dignified course. He could not sign a bill which he had denounced. If he vetoed it, the McKinley bill, which he deemed the worse of the two, remained on the statute book. He therefore allowed it to become a law without his signature (August 27, 1894).