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-
«irAY «A9I.I»
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, through 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 house 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.
