When, in the autumn of 1881, the people of the great city of Buffalo, the third in the Empire State in population, and the second in commercial importance, tired of the corruption, the robbery, and oppression of the ring rule, which had fastened its grip upon them under long years of Republican ascendency, turned at last to the Democratic party for relief, the Democracy of the city saw in Grover Cleveland the one man of all others with whom as their candidate for mayor, they might reasonably hope to win, not simply a partisan triumph, but a victory for honest government in which all patriotic citizens might well rejoice. Much against his own will, after repeated solicitation on the part of leading Democrats, and many Republicans, who appreciated his character and fitness, he again consented to become the candidate of his party for responsible office; and, at the election which followed, so great was the desire for a change in municipal matters, and so general the confidence in Mr. Cleveland as the man under whose direction the needed reform might be effected, that his majority for mayor was about three thousand five hundred, or nearly the same figure with which the Republican ticket had ordinarily triumphed.
Entering upon the duties of his office as mayor, January 1, 1882, he soon gave practical assurance of the fact that the people of Buffalo had made no mistake in the selection of their chief municipal servant. In his first message to the Common Council, which was replete with sound, practical suggestions, he said:
It seems to me that a successful and faithful administration of the government of our city may be accomplished by constantly bearing in mind that we are the trustees and agents of our fellow-citizens, holding their funds in sacred trust to be expended for their benefit; that we should at all times be prepared to render an honest account to them touching the matter of its expenditure; and that the affairs of the city should be conducted as far as possible upon the same principles as a good businessman manages his private concerns.
It suffices to say that, so far as the mayor himself was concerned, and so far as his power and influence extended, he lived up fully to the letter and spirit of this suggestion. Although hampered by an adverse political majority in the Common Council, still measurably under the influence of the old rings, and more intent upon preventing the mayor from winning public favor which might, perchance, inure to the benefit of his party (though standing himself entirely beyond party in his relations to the public welfare), than upon the faithful discharge of their own duties, he succeeded, by the force of his own earnest personality, by searching investigation into the workings of all the departments of city affairs, by the ruthless exposure and denunciation of various corrupt schemes of jobbery and plunder, and by the persistent recommendation of measures and methods which commended themselves to his judgment, in accomplishing much in the way of the reform for which his election had been sought. He used the veto power with a vigor and a significance which had characterized the action of no predecessor in the office, and often regardless of the fact that its exercise might be distorted by designing enemies, personal or political, to insure him at least the temporary disapprobation of large classes of citizens; but he used it only when fully satisfied, through patient research and careful deliberation, that duty and obligation imperatively required it. It is conceded that in his brief year's administration he saved a million of dollars to the city treasury, stamped out numerous abuses, and stimulated the spirit of faithful devotion in various branches of the municipal service. Men of all parties unite in saying that the city of Buffalo was never favored with the services of a more faithful, conscientious, and thoroughly impartial executive head.
But he was not to continue the work of administrative reform in that particular field of labor. The people had called him "up higher." His reputation as a true Democrat, an honest reformer, and a faithful public servant, had spread abroad through the State, and when the Democratic State Convention assembled in the early autumn of that year it was clearly apparent that the nomination of Grover Cleveland, the reform mayor of Buffalo, as the candidate of the party for the supreme magistracy of the Empire State, was the one certain guaranty of overwhelming Democratic victory at the polls. That nomination was promptly made, and the result which followed was without parallel in the annals of American political history. He was elected governor by a majority of nearly two hundred thousand, and, although internal dissensions in the Republican party, then existing, contributed largely to the general result, the most significant feature of the election is found in the fact that the largest relative Democratic gain was made in his own county of Erie, where he received upwards of seven thousand majority against more than three thousand majority for Garfield in the last presidential election, showing him strongest before the people where his personal character and attributes, as well as his qualifications for positions of high public trust, are most thoroughly known.
As governor of New York, which position he has occupied for the last twenty months, first with a Democratic and later with a Republican legislature, Mr. Cleveland has followed the same rule of official conduct adopted for his guidance in other positions. Mindful of all proper obligations to his own political party, he has never permitted party demands to stand in the way of his duty to the public and the State. Believing, to quote his own language, "in an open and sturdy partisanship which secures the legitimate advantages of party supremacy," he also believes that parties were made for the people, and declares himself "unwilling, knowingly, to give assent to measures purely partisan which will sacrifice or endanger the people's interests." In the office of governor, as well as in that of mayor, he has made vigorous but discriminate use of the veto power, and in the one case, as in the other, it has invariably been found, upon candid investigation, that his action has been taken under a profound sense of the binding authority of the fundamental law, and with an unflinching regard for the rights and interests of the whole people,however violent, at times, may have been the denunciation of demagogic opponents, or clamorous the protests of those who sought merely temporary advantages in particular directions, regardless of ultimate results upon the general welfare. In this, as in other positions, his general line of action has been such as to command the hearty approval of patriotic men of all parties; and if he has incurred the hostility of any, it has been through his opposition to the schemes of corrupt rings and the purposes of selfish individuals, which he regarded detrimental to the public good; or through his support of wholesome measures, calculated to protect the body politic, and thwart their illegitimate designs in other directions.
And now, Grover Cleveland stands before the people of the whole country the duly nominated candidate of the Democratic party for the highest office in the gift of the Republic; while his candidacy is indorsed and enthusiastically supported by tens of thousands of pure and unselfish men of the opposite party, who see, through his election, the only hope of a return to constitutional methods and honest practices in the administration of the Federal Government, without which ere long the complete and irremediable subversion and destruction of the government itself will be accomplished. This candidacy comes not through his own seeking. Grover Cleveland never sought an office in all his life. He has consented to serve his fellow-citizens in public station only at their solicitation and command. He has served them faithfully and well so far as he has been called, and none need fear that, if called to still higher responsibilities and a broader field of duty, he will not prove equal to the emergencyequally true to himself and his trust.