The preservation of what we have will be the great question. This is the richest country and the most prosperous country, and I believe that the people have sense enough to continue the policy that has given them those results. I never want to see the civilization of the Old World, or rather the barbarism of the Old World, gain a footing on this continent. I am an American. I believe in American ideas—that is to say, in equal rights, and in the education and civilization of all the people.
—New York Press, June 3, 1888.
CLEVELAND AND THURMAN.
Question. What do you think of the Democratic nominations?
Answer. In the first place, I hope that this campaign is to be fought on the issues involved, and not on the private characters of the candidates. All that they have done as politicians—all measures that they have favored or opposed—these are the proper subjects of criticism; in all other respects I think it better to let the candidates alone. I care but little about the private character of Mr. Cleveland or of Mr. Thurman. The real question is, what do they stand for? What policy do they advocate? What are the reasons for and against the adoption of the policy they propose?
I do not regard Cleveland as personally popular. He has done nothing, so far as I know, calculated to endear him to the popular heart. He certainly is not a man of enthusiasm. He has said nothing of a striking or forcible character. His messages are exceedingly commonplace. He is not a man of education, of wide reading, of refined tastes, or of general cultivation. He has some firmness and a good deal of obstinacy, and he was exceedingly fortunate in his marriage.
Four years ago he was distinctly opposed to a second term. He was then satisfied that no man should be elected President more than once. He was then fearful that a President might use his office, his appointing power, to further his own ends instead of for the good of the people. He started, undoubtedly, with that idea in his mind. He was going to carry out the civil service doctrine to the utmost. But when he had been President a few months he was exceedingly unpopular with his party. The Democrats who elected him had been out of office for twenty-five years. During all those years they had watched the Republicans sitting at the national banquet. Their appetites had grown keener and keener, and they expected when the 4th of March, 1885, came that the Republicans would be sent from the table and that they would be allowed to tuck the napkins under their chins. The moment Cleveland got at the head of the table he told his hungry followers that there was nothing for them, and he allowed the Republicans to go on as usual.
In a little while he began to hope for a second term, and gradually the civil service notion faded from his mind. He stuck to it long enough to get the principal mugwump papers committed to him and to his policy; long enough to draw their fire and to put them in a place where they could not honorably retreat without making themselves liable to the charge of having fought only for the loaves and fishes. As a matter of fact, no men were hungrier for office than the gentlemen who had done so much for civil service reform. They were so earnest in the advocacy of that principle that they insisted that only their followers should have place; but the real rank and file, the men who had been Democrats through all the disastrous years, and who had prayed and fasted, became utterly disgusted with Mr. Cleveland's administration and they were not slow to express their feelings. Mr. Cleveland saw that he was in danger of being left with no supporters, except a few who thought themselves too respectable really to join the Democratic party. So for the last two years, and especially the last year, he turned his attention to pacifying the real Democrats. He is not the choice of the Democratic party. Although unanimously nominated, I doubt if he was the unanimous choice of a single delegate.