Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 02.djvu/287

 CLEVELAND

CLEVELAND

the 50th congress, Dec. 3. 1888, deprecated the widening of the gulf between the employers and the employed and regretted that the fortunes realized by the manufacturers resulted from the discriminating favor of the government and were largely built upon undue exactions from the masses of our people. He congratulated the peo- ple on the recovery of 80,000,000 acres of the pub- lic domain from illegal usurpation, improvident grants, and fraudulent entries and claims, to be taken for the homesteads of honest industry ; on the rapid strides in the acquirements of practical education made by Indian youths in government schools, and on the general peace maintained with the Indian tribes. On February 1 the sen- ate rejected the British extradition treaty. An act had been passed by the House May 21, 1888, making " the Department of Agriculture an ex- ecutive department the head of which shall be a cabinet oflicer,'' which act was amended by the senate Sept. 21, 1888, referred to a conference committee, and finally reached the President Feb. 11, 1889, when he signed the bill and appointed Norman J. Colman of Missouri, secretary of agriculture and a member of the cabinet. Secre-

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tary Lamar resigned the portfolio of the interior, Jan. 8, 1888, and on the 16th the President ap- pointed him associate justice of the supreme court. On January 12, Secretary Vilas resigni;d as postmaster-general to succeed to the depart- ment of the interior and Don M. Dickinson of Wisconsin was made postmaster-general. On Oct. 1, 1888, the President signed the Chinese ex- clusion bill. The Democratic national conven- tion assembled at St. Louis, Mo., June 5, 1888. renominated Mr. Cleveland to the presidency, which nomination he accepted on Sept. 9, 1888. On November 6, he failed of an election, securing 168 electoral votes, and Benjamin Harrison, the Republican candidate, securing 233, while of the popular vote, Mr. Cleveland received 5,538,233, and Mr. Harrison, 5,440,216 — 98,017 less than the defeated candidate. On Oct. 20, 1888, con- gress adjourned after holding the longest session in its history. The term of Mr. Cleveland's first administration expired on March 4, 1889, and he removed to New York city where he engaged in the practice of law. In 1892 he was again a can- didate before the Democratic national conven-

tion that met in Chicago, June 21, and by a vote of 617 out of 908, and against the emphatic pro- test of the delegation from his own state, he re- ceived the nomination for President. In the following November he was elected the 24th President of the United States, the electoral vote standing Cleveland, 277 ; Harrison, 145, and J. B. Weaver, 22. Of the popular vote he received 5,556,918; Harrison, 5,176,10«; Weaver, 1,041,028. He was inaugurated March 4, 1893, and his cabinet was announced as follows: Walter Q. Gresham of Illinois, secretary of state: John G. Carlisle of Kentucky, secretary of the treasury; Daniel S. Lament of New York, secretary of war ; Rich- ard Olney of Massachusetts, attorney- general ; Wilson S. Bissell of New York, postmaster-gen- eral; Hilary A. Herbert of Alabama, secretary of the navy; Hoke Smith of Georgia, secretary of the interior; and J. Sterling Morton of Ne- braska, seci'etary of agriculture. A special ses- sion of the senate confirmed the presidential appointments and immediately thereafter the President recalled from the senate a treaty pend- ing before it for the annexation of Hawaii. Mr. Cleveland called an extra session of the 53d con- gress to meet Aug. 7, 1893, to consider measures for the relief of the treasury and country, inci- dent to a prevailing monetary crisis. At the close of his first term, he had left in the treasury a cash balance of over §281,000,000 of which more than §196,000,000 was gold. Mr. Harrison had left in the treasury, March 3, 1893, a cash balance of less than §146,000,000, of which less than §103,000,000 was gold. The appropriation made by congress had been excessively liberal and the McKinley tariff failed to supplj' the needed reve- nue. The country looked with alarm upon the gradual decrease in the gold reserve and feared that the treasury notes, provided for in the Sher- man act, would be no longer redeemed in gold. President Cleveland announced, througli Secre- tary Carlisle, that the gold payment would be maintained at all hazard, and this announcement checked the panic for the time ; but in May the banks began to break, India closed her mints to the free coinage of silver, and the price of silver bullion fell. In his message the President strongly urged the repeal of the silver purchase act of July 14, 1890. This policy divided the Democratic party and on November 1, after a protracted and exhaustive debate, the bill known as the Voorhees bill, a substitute for the Wil- son repeal bill, was adopted, the liouse concur- ring in the senate amendment, and it received the approval of the President on the same day. On November 3 the Chinese exclusion bill was passed by the senate, becoming a law by the ap- proval of the President, and both houses ad- journed to meet in regular session, Dec. 4, 1893.