elected James B. Grant Governor by 2,300; Nevada elected Jewett W. Adams by 1,200; Connecticut elected Thomas M. Waller by 4,100; New Jersey elected Leon Abbett by 2,010; Pennsylvania (where two Republican tickets were nominated) elected Robert E. Pattison by over 40,000, and New York chose Grover Cleveland by 192,854.

DEM

CHAPTER VI.

MAYOR OF BUFFALO.

As a

EMOCRACY was everywhere instinct with the reform movement and with the vitality of new issues. staunch Democrat Grover Cleveland had participated actively and earnestly in all the campaigns of the period. But the movement had a direct personal meaning to him. In its impulses and aims it coincided with his own ideas of political honesty and his conceptions of the duties and obligations of citizenship. As sheriff of Erie county he had sought to work out complete administrative reform, and the respect with which he left that office was abundant testimony to the success with which his ideas had been applied in practice. His long service for the Democratic party, his skill as a politician, his position in the community and the soundness of his opinions of men and policies made him at this time one of the most trusted counselors of the Democracy of Erie county.

In 1881 an important election for Mayor in the city of Buffalo was to be held. Reform influences were already a power in the politics of the city, and the demand for an improvement in local government became general. Abuses were known to exist in some departments of municipal affairs and suspected to exist in others. The tax rate of the city was out of all proportion to the proper expenses of government and was bearing down heavily on rich and poor alike. Democratic leaders knew that there was a great opportunity before the party if they could find the man to improve it. A candidate was needed who would give to the city by his character and courage the assurance that the municipal government would be conducted for the

benefit of all. The question of the mayoralty nomination was made the subject of earnest consultation among leading Democrats and they turned at once to Grover Cleveland as the man for the occasion.

A committee was deputed to speak with him on the subject of accepting the nomination. At first he was unwilling to consider the proposition. All that he could do for the party he would be glad to do, and if another candidate were named he would exert himself to the utmost to secure his election. He did not desire the nomination himself, and he could suggest-as he subsequently did the names of half a score of leading Democrats, who could certainly be elected. The committee was not satisfied with the answer, and urged him in the name of the Democratic party to accept the nomination himself. Prominent citizens of Buffalo, who were not directly interested in politics, joined in pressing him to take the nomination in the name of the city as well as the party. Finally he consented on condition that the ticket which he was to head should embrace the names of men who represented distinctly the reform issue, and would co-operate willingly in a reform administration. There has never been a more conspicuous instance in which the office sought the man than when Grover Cleveland consented to stand as the Democratic candidate for Mayor of Buffalo on a reform platform.

The Democratic city convention met at the fixed date, and Grover Cleveland was nominated by acclamation. He was summoned before it, and willingly came. He desired that there should be no misunderstanding of his intentions, if elected, to be Mayor of the whole city of Buffalo, and in the punishment of fraud and the prevention of corruption to know no distinctions among men except those based on honesty and dishonesty, ability or incompetency.

With the acceptance of the nomination and the consequences that flowed from it, Grover Cleveland became a

figure in national politics. From the Buffalo Democratic city convention in 1881, to the Democratic national convention at Chicago in 1884, the steps have been *few, direct and logical. The platform, which he promulgated for himself in that canvass, is a platform on which to-day he could appeal to the great party that has placed him in nomination for the office of President and to citizens of the country, without regard to party, who believe in an honest government.

Entering the hall and taking the stage, he said:

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION: I am informed that you have bestowed upon me the nomination for the office of mayor. It certainly is a great honor to be thought fit to be the chief officer of a great and prosperous city like ours, having such important and varied interests. I hoped that your choice might fall upon some other and more worthy member of the city democracy, for personal and private considerations have made the question of acceptance on my part a difficult one. But because I am a Democrat and because I think no one has a right at this time of all others to consult his own inclinations as against the call of his party and fellow-citizens, and hoping that I may be of use to you in your efforts to inaugurate a better rule in municipal affairs, I accept the nomination tendered to me. I believe much can be done to relieve our citizens from their present load of taxation, and that a more rigid scrutiny of all public expenditures will result in a great saving to the community. I also believe that some extravagances in our city government may be corrected without injury to the public service. There is, or there should be, no reason why the affairs of our city should not be managed with the same care and the same economy as private interests. And when we consider that public officials are the trustees of the people and hold their places and exercise their powers for the benefit of the people, there should be no higher inducement to a faithful and honest discharge of public duty.

These are very old truths; but I cannot forbear to speak in this strain to-day, because I believe the time has come when the people loudly demand that these principles shall be sincerely, and without mental reservation, adopted as a rule of conduct. And I am assured that the result of the campaign upon which we enter to-day will demonstrate that the citizens of Buffalo will not tolerate the man or the party who has been unfaithful to public trusts. I say these

things to a convention of Democrats, because I know that the grand old party is honest, and they cannot be unwelcome to you. Let us then, in all sincerity, promise the people an improvement in our municipal affairs; and if the opportunity is offered to us, as it surely will be, let us faithfully keep that promise. By this means, and by this means alone, can our success rest upon a firm foundation and our party ascendancy be permanently assured. Our opponents will wage a bitter and determined warfare; but with united and hearty effort we shall achieve a victory for our entire ticket. And at this day, and with my record before you, I trust it is unnecessary for me to pledge to you my most earnest endeavors to bring about this result; and if elected to the position for which you have nominated me, I shall do my whole duty to the party; but none the less I hope to the citizens of Buffalo.

The effect of the address was electrical. Buffalo was thrilled at the words of one whose partisanship for more than twenty years it had known to be of the strongest and most uncompromising character; but who dared openly to take the invincible ground that party interests and the public interests are identical. The truth of every word that Grover Cleveland spoke was not doubted. His reluctance in accepting the nomination had been no secret. The modesty and promptitude with which the nomination was taken when the party called him in unmistakable tones elicited the approval of every citizen. The declaration that "public officials are the trustees of the people and exercise their powers for the benefit of the people," trite as it was, acquired a new and vital significance when it fell from his lips. The tribute to the traditional worth and honesty of the great Democratic party evoked the most tumultuous applause, and in the heart of every Democrat present roused the desire to keep the party true to its historical principles. Finally the brief and unassuming reference to his own record as a Democrat and a citizen carried with it a conviction that every pledge would be fulfilled in the spirit and to the letter.

A few days after the nomination had been made, the