In the fall of 1891 I was a delegate to the Democratic State Convention at Saratoga and was a member of the platform committee. One of the questions to be solved was: What should be our position regarding silver? Cleveland's statement of his position during his first term had lost him the Presidency.

Quite purposely Cleveland had boldly accentuated, while in office, the outstanding issues then before the country—the tariff and sound money—without any regard to political consequences. His friend, Richard Watson Gilder, has said of him in this connection:[1]

Every once in a while Cleveland "threw away the Presidency," and I never saw him so happy as when he had done it; as, for instance, after the tariff message, and now again after the silver letter.

Cleveland, while not a scholar, was ultra-conscientious and had an honest and logical mind that dealt with fundamentals. He would "mull over" (that is the very phrase I have heard him use) a question until he got to the bottom, and there he would start to build up his premises and arrive at his decisions. Because of the surplus accumulating in the Treasury he had been impressed more and more with the fact that the taxes and the tariff should be reduced. He realized, during the spring and summer of 1887, that the rapid increase of this surplus was becoming a menace to the stability of our financial system, and he felt it his duty to provide some means for averting commercial disaster. At the opening of Congress that year, instead of a message covering all of the Government activities as was the invariable custom, he prepared one devoted exclusively to the revenue system and to the necessity of reducing the tariff. He gave much care and deliberation to this message, but none to the political consequences.

Again later, when the free coinage of silver became a topic of prominence, the Reform Club of New York invited him to attend a banquet at which this question was to be discussed. Many of his friends advised that he remain silent on the subject, in order not to mar his chances for reëlection. Cleveland, however, accepted the invitation and boldly announced his position regarding "the dangerous and reckless experiment of free, unlimited and independent silver coinage." That was too much for the machine men of the party; the note of Cleveland's doom was sounded from one end of the country to the other.

After his retirement partisan bitterness largely disappeared, and it soon became a foregone conclusion that he would again have to stand for the Presidency. Although he had occupied the President's chair only one term, I doubt whether any ex-President of our time, with the exception of Roosevelt, carried with him into private life a deeper interest or a higher esteem on the part of the great body of the people. His rugged honesty of purpose and determined stand for the best principles in our public life were more and more appreciated and valued. During the entire period between his defeat and his reëlection he was the most distinguished representative of his party.

When the silver question came up in the State Convention at Saratoga, a few others and myself contended for a sound money plank. We met with opposition from a majority of the platform committee. Richard Croker, boss of Tammany Hall, had not up to that time bothered much about the subject. I laid before him the reasons underlying the question and got him to throw his powerful influence and help on our side, and we succeeded in the end in incorporating a strong sound money plank.

Cleveland expressed his satisfaction with that accomplishment in the following note to me:

816 Madison Avenue
Sept. 27, 1891

My dear Mr. Straus:

I have a suspicion that you had much to do with the formation of the silver plank in the platform adopted at Saratoga. I am so well satisfied indeed that you thus merit my thanks as a citizen who loves the honor of his country and as a Democrat who loves the integrity of his party, that I desire to tender them in this frank informal manner.

Yours very truly

Grover Cleveland

I may add here that upon his retirement in 1889 Cleveland came to New York to live, and the pleasant relations I had had with him in office became close and intimate.