Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/128

104 a small degree, many of the active politicians in the Democratic Party, high and low, were opposed to Mr. Cleveland's nomination, and many others, frightened by this opposition, although appreciating Mr. Cleveland's eminent fitness, became doubtful about his availability. How, then, was his nomination brought about? By a spontaneous uprising of the bulk of the rank and file of the party against that opposition; by a demonstration of public opinion inside of the party so vigorous, so clear, so imperative, that the opposing politicians could not withstand it. What may well be called the people of that party, North and South and East and West, peremptorily demanded the nomination of Grover Cleveland, and they carried their point. There was no machinery in motion behind that movement. There was no work in it. Whatever there was of machinery and work was against him. So the district and State conventions pronounced in Cleveland's favor; so the National Convention was carried. As a gentleman who occupied the best post of observation wrote me about the Chicago Convention: “It was not a fight at all. We had not to swear fealty to one another. It was a grand enthusiastic rush over the whole field. You never saw anything like it.”

What was it that produced among the people so strong a feeling for Grover Cleveland? Not magnetism of personality, for he cannot be said to be a magnetic man; not brilliancy of abilities, for he is more a solid thinker and worker than a brilliant man; not anything in his past life appealing to the popular imagination, for his past life has been rather prosy than interesting in the romantic sense. Nor can it be said that there was between Mr. Cleveland's political and economic views and the wishes of the people so inspiring a correspondence as to kindle a flame of enthusiasm for his person. To be sure, he was looked upon as the natural standard-bearer in the struggle