THE PERSONAL FORCE OF CLEVELAND.
By E. Jay Edwards.
In his eulogium upon President Garfield, Mr. Blaine touched with impressive emphasis upon the rapidity with which honors came to him. Within six years after Williams College had sent Garfield forth equipped, “he was successively president of a college, State Senator of Ohio, Major-General of the Army of the United States, and a Representative-elect to the national Congress. A combination of honors so varied, so elevated, within a period so brief and to a man so young, is without precedent or parallel in the history of the country.”
Those whose privilege it was to hear that matchless eulogy will not forget the meaning glance with which Mr. Blaine, lifting his eyes from his manuscript, swept that splendid company before him, the President and his Cabinet, the Justices of the Supreme Court, in their silken robes, the deliberate Senate and impetuous House, and the remaining distinguished heroes of the war, in brilliant uniform, as though saying to them, “You at least can understand how wonderful a thing it is to so speedily gain such honors as these.”
Yet before the echoes of this eulogy had ceased, a political career had been begun which was to be more marvellous in its successes and the celerity of its successive achievements than that of Garfield. Within ten years after Mr. Blaine pronounced this eulogy, a man then unknown beyond the city in which he lived had been chosen Governor of New York by a plurality unparalleled in the history of any State; had stepped from that office before its term was ended to the chair of the Chief Executive of the nation, and had again been elected to the presidency; and elected the second time while a private citizen—an unmatched political honor.
The swiftly succeeding successes of Garfield are no longer unparalleled and unprecedented; that distinction is now Grover Cleveland’s. Carrying a torch as a private in evening campaign processions in 1880, he was to be four years later the successful presidential candidate of his party. He had gained no distinction for subtle or extraordinary strategy; he had not sat as a member in a legislative hall; his name had been associated with no important measure conceived and executed for public good; not of social inclination, not greatly learned, possessing no wide acquaintance, and having somewhat limited experience, he, nevertheless, revealed himself to the American people within the short space of two years as a man of extraordinary personal force, the quality of which is a puzzling mystery, which men of intellectual power seem to find a fascination in trying to analyze.
What is this mysterious and impressive quality? We may tell its manifestations; its influence has made history.
“What is it that is so impressive and overwhelming about your friend Governor Cleveland?” said a distinguished politician to the late Daniel Manning, at a time when Mr. Manning was with great skill directing the politics that had Cleveland’s first presidential nomination in view.