MR GROVER CLEVELAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14926, 31 August 1910, Page 7

MR GROVER CLEVELAND

PROPOSED 'NATIONAL MEMORIAL. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. NEW YORK, August 29. Towards the sum of £20,000 required for the proposed tower at Princetown, to bo Taised as a national memorial to Grover Cleveland, twice President of the United States, £15,000 has already been received. • Mr Graver Clovel.vid, Democratic President of the United States from 1884-88 and from 1892-96, died at his homo at Princeton, Now Jersey, on. June 24, 1908. As soon as tho mournful intelligence reached him Mr Roosevelt issued a proclamation culogjsing the Democratic statesman's great services to ths nation, and ordering tho flags of the White House Mid departmental buildings to bo displayed at halt-mast for 30 days. The obituary notices described Mr Cleveland as a great man and a great President, though not gifted with imagination or artistic tastes. His biographers, with scanty an exception, accepted Mr Cleveland's own estimate of the significance of the sensational Venezuelan episode, when ho threw down tho gauntlet to Lord Salisbury, and declared that his action won internationalrecognition of tho Monroe- Doctrine.

Mr Cleveland will always 6tand out in history ns ono who achieved his popularity by invariably placing the interests of the nation above lihosa of classes, however influential tho latter might be. He again and again ■refused' as President to sanction measures- designed solely in the interests of the Democratic party, though his own political fortunes wore thereby greatly imperilled. He voted and worked against his party when, in 1896 the candidature for tho Presidency of Mr Bryan, tho " free silver" champion, caused tho great mass of Democrats to forsake the great aims they had so long followed iii. order to pursue a political and fiscal chimera.

Mr Cleveland was the son of a Presbyterian clergyman, and was born on March 18, 1837. When 14 years of ago he was appointed a salesman in a village store. Jjaicr on ho obtained a situation in the Institution for the Bljnd in New York, whoro his elder brother William was engaged as a teacher. After a year thus occupied ho went to Buffalo, and entered' a lawyer's office. In 1881 lie was elected Mayor of Buffalo, and from' this point his public career may be said to have dated. Next year he was elected Governor of Now York by an enormous majority. In this move exalted office he played the same rolo of municipal roformor that had distinguished him when Mayor of Buffalo. In 1884 he was nominated as Democratic candidate for the Presidency. At the Presidential election of, 1888 he was defeated: by General Harrison. Mr Cleveland immediately resumed bis practice as a lawyer, which,brought him a, large, income. The Congress cleotions of 1890 resulted in the defeat of the Republicans, and Mr Cleveland became the accepted Democratic candidate for the Presidency.

Ho played an important part ■in tho Anglo-American dispute in regard to. Vonejuela, and in tho folief of pessimists of the time nearly brought the two countries to war. It is only charitable to suppose that for onco in his life he allowed his better judgment to be overridden by the impetuous policy of a- subordinate, or ho would never have adopted- the arrogant' and bellicose sentiments which he expressed in the famous Message to Congress on tho Venezuelan question. That-question-was subsequently settled by the peaojful means of arbitration, but it was lon.g before the flapping of the American eagle's wings in the British lion's faoa which it occasioned was forgotten. ' . Sihco'lß96 Mr Clove-land lived' quietly at his''homo in, Princeton, New Jersey. He had amassed a large fortune from his legal practice, and wus tho owner of a great part of tho stock of the Equitable Life Assurance Society.