had been rejected by the pension department, as not coming
within the law. Cleveland took the stand that, unless the soldier had
been disabled by the war, he had no just claim to government support,
and he vetoed scores of private pension bills, many of which were shown
to be fraudulent.

In other ways, his remarkable strength of personality soon became
apparent, and his determination to do what he thought his duty,
regardless of consequences. His message of December, 1887, fairly
startled the country. It was devoted entirely to a denunciation of the
high tariff laws, a subject on which the Democratic leaders had deemed
it prudent to maintain a discreet silence since the preceding election,
and which many of them hoped would be forgotten by the public. But
Cleveland's message brought the question squarely to the front, and made
it the one issue of the campaign which followed. Cleveland would have
been elected but for the traitorous conduct of the leaders in New York,
who had never forgiven him for the way in which, as governor, he had
scourged them. New York State was lost to him, and his opponent,
Benjamin Harrison, was elected, although his popular vote fell below
that of Cleveland by over a hundred thousand.

But Cleveland had his revenge four years later, when, in spite of the
protests of the leaders from his own state of New York, he was again
nominated on a platform denouncing the tariff, and defeated Harrison by
an overwhelming majority. And now came one of those strange instances of
party perfidy and party suicide, of which the country has just witnessed
a second example. In accordance with the platform pledges, a bill to
lower the tariff was at once framed in the House and adopted; but the
Senate, although Democratic in complexion, so altered it that it fell
far short of carrying out the party pledges. The leader in the Senate
was Arthur P. Gorman, of Maryland, and to him chiefly was due this act
of treachery. The President refused to sign the bill, and it became a
law without his signature. There can be little question that it was the
failure of the Democratic party to fulfil its pledges at that critical
time which led to its subsequent disruption and defeat.

Twice more did Cleveland startle the country with his extraordinary
decision of character. In the summer of 1894, a great railroad strike,
centering at Chicago, occasioned an outbreak of violence, which the
governor of Illinois did nothing to quell. Th