The Hon. Grover Cleveland.
V
This ended my personal relations with Mr. Cleveland. Thereafter we did not
speak as we passed by. He was a hard man to get on with. Overcredulous,
though by no means excessive, in his likes, very tenacious in his dislikes,
suspicious withal, he grew during his second term in the White House,
exceedingly "high and mighty," suggesting somewhat the "stuffed prophet,"
of Mr. Dana's relentless lambasting and verifying my insistence that he
posed rather as an idol to be worshiped, than a leader to be trusted and
loved. He was in truth a strong man, who, sufficiently mindful of his
limitations in the beginning, grew by unexampled and continued success
overconfident and overconscious in his own conceit. He had a real desire to
serve the country. But he was apt to think that he alone could effectively
serve it. In one of our spats I remember saying to him, "You seem, Mr.
President, to think you are the only pebble on the beach--the one honest
and brave man in the party--hut let me assure you of my own knowledge that
there are others." His answer was, "Oh, you go to ----!"
He split his party wide open. The ostensible cause was the money issue.
But, underlying this, there was a deal of personal embitterment. Had he
been a man of foresight--or even of ordinary discernment--he might have
held it together and with it behind him have carried the gold standard.
I had contended for a sound currency from the outset of the fiscal
contention, fighting first the green-back craze and then the free silver
craze against an overwhelming majority in the West and South, nowhere more
radically relentless than in Kentucky. Both movements had their origin on
economic fallacies and found their backing in dishonest purpose to escape
honest indebtedness.
Through Mr. Cleveland the party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Tilden was
converted from a Democrat into a Populist, falling into the arms of Mr.
Bryan, whose domination proved as baleful in one way as Mr. Cleveland's had
been in another, the final result shipwreck, with the extinguishment of all
but the label.
Mr. Bryan was a young man of notable gifts of speech and boundless
self-assertion. When he found himself well in the saddle he began to rule
despotically and to ride furiously. A party leader more short-sighted could
hardly be imagined. None of his judgments came true. As a consequence the
Republicans for a long time had everything their own way, and, save for
the Taft-Roosevelt quarrel, might have held their power indefinitely. All
history tells us that the personal equation must be reckoned with in
public life. Assuredly it cuts no mean figure in human affairs. And, when
politicians fall out--well--the other side comes in.