THE new President was inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1885. Perhaps the history of the country has furnished no other example of such rapid rise to great distinction. Grover Cleveland, twenty-second President of the United States, was born in Caldwell, New Jersey, March 18th, 1837. With his father he removed to Fayetteville, New York, in 1840. Here the youth grew to manhood. His education was obtained in the common schools and academies of the neighborhood. In 1857 he removed to New York City, and became a student of law. In 1859 he was admitted to the bar, and four years afterwards was appointed Assistant District Attorney for Erie County. In 1869 he was elected Sheriff of the same county, and in 1881 he was chosen mayor of Buffalo. In 1882 he was elected governor of New York, receiving for that office a plurality of more than 190,000 votes. Before his term of office had expired he was called by the voice of his party to be its standard-bearer in the presidential campaign of 1884, in which he was again successful.

2. The last months of Arthur's and the first of Cleveland's administration were noted for the International Cotton Exposition at New Orleans. This, after the Centennial Exposition of 1876, was the greatest display of the kind ever held in the United States. The Exposition extended from December of 1884 to June of 1885, and was daily attended by thousands of visitors from all parts of the United States and from many foreign countries. The display was varied and full of interest. Intended, in the first place, to exhibit the wonderful resources of the South in her peculiar products, the exhibition was enlarged to include all branches of production and every species of mechanism and art. Among the incidental benefits of the Exposition may be mentioned the increased intercourse and consequent friendliness of the people of the Northern and Southern States.

3. The first year of Cleveland's administration was uneventful. The great question before the President was that of the Reform of the Civil Service. In attempting to substitute a new series of rules for appointment to office, by which the persons appointed should be selected rather for their fitness than for their party services, the President was greatly embarrassed. He found that the old forces in American politics were as active as ever, and that a reform was almost impossible under existing conditions.

4. The first great national event of the Cleveland administration was that of the Labor Agitations, which broke out in the spring of 1886. It was not until after the Civil War that the first symptoms appeared of a renewal, in the New World, of the struggle which has been long going on in Europe between Capital and Labor. The first difficulties of this sort in our country appeared in the mining regions, and in the factories of the Eastern States. The agitation soon spread to the West. As early as 1867 the peculiar method of action, called "striking," began among the laborers of the country. An account of the great railroad strike of 1877 has already been presented. (Pages 337 and 338.)

5. At the same time monopolies sprang up and flourished; and, coincident with this, American labor discovered the salutary but dangerous power of combination. When the trade season of 1886 opened, a series of strikes and labor troubles broke out in several parts of the country. The cities and towns were most involved in these agitations. The first serious conflict was on what is known as the Gould System of Railways, in the Southwest. A single workman, belonging to the Knights of Labor, and employed on a branch of the Texas and Pacific Railway, was discharged from his place. This action was resented by the Knights, and the laborers on a great part of the Gould System were ordered to strike. The movement was, for a season, successful, and the transportation of freights from St. Louis to the Southwest ceased. Gradually, however, other workmen were substituted for the striking Knights; but the end was not reached until a severe riot in East St. Louis had occasioned the sacrifice of much property and several innocent lives.

6. Far more alarming was the outbreak in Chicago. In that city the socialistic and anarchic elements were sufficiently powerful to present a bold front to the authorities. Processions bearing red flags and banners, with communistic devices and mottoes, frequently paraded the streets, and were addressed by demagogues who avowed themselves the open enemies of society and the existing order. On the 4th of May, 1886, a vast crowd of this reckless material collected in a place called the Haymarket, and were about to begin the usual inflammatory proceedings, when a band of policemen, mostly officers, drew near, with the evident purpose of controlling or dispersing the meeting.

7. A terrible scene ensued. Dynamite bombs were thrown from the crowd and exploded among the officers, several of whom were blown to pieces, and others shockingly mangled. The mob was, in turn, attacked by the police, and many of the insurgents were shot down. Order was presently restored in the city; several of the leading anarchists were arrested on the charge of inciting to murder, were tried, condemned, and four of them executed. On the day following the Chicago riot, a similar, though less dangerous, outbreak, which was suppressed without serious loss of life, occurred in Milwaukee.

8. The summer of 1886 is memorable on account of the great natural catastrophe known as the Charleston Earthquake. On the night of the 31st of August, at ten minutes before ten o'clock, without a moment's warning, the city of Charleston, S. C., was rocked and rent to its very foundations. Hardly a building in the limits of Charleston, or in the country surrounding, escaped serious injury; and perhaps one half of all were in a state of semi-wreck or total ruin.

9. The whole coast in the central region of the disturbance was modified with respect to the sea, and the ocean itself was thrown into turmoil for miles from the shore. The people in the city fled from their falling houses to the public squares and parks and far into the country. Afraid to return into the ruins, they threw up tents and light booths for protection, and abode for weeks away from their homes. Nothing before in the limits of our knowledge has been at all comparable with it in extent and violence, except the great earthquake of New Madrid in 1811.

10. The disaster to Charleston served to bring out some of the better qualities of our civilization. Personal assistance and contributions from all quarters poured in for the support and encouragement of the afflicted people. For several weeks a series of diminishing shocks continued to terrify the citizens; but it was discovered that these shocks were only the dying away of the great convulsion, and that they gave cause for hope of entire cessation rather than continued alarm. In the course of a few months the ruins were cleared away, business was resumed, and the people were again safe in their homes.

11. On the 4th of March, 1887, the second session of the Forty-ninth Congress expired. The work of the body had not been so fruitful of results as had been desired and anticipated by the friends of the government. On the question of the tariff nothing of value was accomplished. A measure of Revenue Reform had been brought forward at an early date in the session, but the act failed of adoption.

12. On the question of Extending the Pension List, however, the case was different. A great majority of both parties favored such measures as looked to the increase of benefits to the soldiers. At the first, only a limited number of pensions had been granted, and these only to actually disabled or injured veterans of the War for the Union. But it became more and more important to each of the parties to secure and hold the soldier vote, without which it was felt that neither could maintain ascendency in the government. The Arrears of Pensions Act, making up to those who were already recipients of pensions such amounts as would have accrued if the benefit had dated from the time of disability, instead of from the time of granting the pension, was passed in 1879; and at the same time the list of pensioners was greatly enlarged.

13. The measure presented in the Fiftieth Congress was designed to extend the pension list so as to include all regularly enlisted and honorably discharged soldiers of the Civil War, who had become in whole, or in part, dependent upon the aid of others for their maintenance. The measure was known as the Dependent Pensions Bill. Many opposed the enactment of a law which appeared to give the bounty of the government to the deserving and the undeserving alike, and to compel the worthy recipients of pensions to rank themselves with those who had gone into the army for pay, and had been brought to want through improvidence. A majority was easily obtained for the measure in both Houses of Congress, and the act was passed. President Cleveland, however, interposed his veto, and the proposed law fell to the ground.

14. The most important and noted legislation of the session was the act known as the Inter-State Commerce Bill. For some fifteen years complaints against the methods and management of the railways of the United States had been heard on many sides, and in cases not a few the complaints had originated in actual abuses. A large class of people became clamorous that Congress should compel railways to accept a system of uniformity as to all charges for service rendered. With this object in view the Inter-State Commerce Bill was accordingly prepared, and became a law.

15. In the spring of 1885 it became known that General Ulysses S. Grant was stricken with a fatal malady. The announcement at once drew to the General and ex-President the interest and sympathies of the whole American people. The hero of Vicksburg and Appomattox sank under the ravages of a malignant cancer, which had fixed itself in his throat. On the 23d of July, 1885, he expired at a summer cottage on Mount McGregor, New York. His last days were hallowed by the love of the nation which he had so gloriously defended. No funeral west of the Atlantic—not even that of Lincoln—was more universally observed. The procession in New York City was perhaps as imposing a pageant as was ever exhibited in honor of the dead. On the 8th of August the body of General Grant was laid to rest in Riverside Park, overlooking the Hudson. There, on the summit from which may be seen the great river and the metropolis of the nation, is the tomb of him whose courage and magnanimity in war will forever give him rank with the few master spirits who have honored the human race and changed the course of history.

16. Within scarcely more than a year from the funeral of Grant several other distinguished Union Generals fell. On the 29th of October General George B. McClellan died at his home at St. Cloud, New Jersey. After another brief interval General Winfield S. Hancock, senior Major-General of the American Army, breathed his last. In the mean time, within a brief period, Generals Irwin McDowell, Ambrose E. Burnside, Joseph Hooker, and George G. Meade, each of whom, in a critical period of the war, had commanded the Army of the Potomac, passed away. Before the close of 1886 Major-General John A. Logan, greatest of the volunteer commanders, who, without previous military education, won for themselves distinguished honors in the War for the Union, fell sick and died at his home, called Calumet Place, in Washington City.

17. In the mean time, several distinguished civilians had passed away. On the 25th of November, 1885, Vice-president Thomas A. Hendricks, after an illness of a single day, died suddenly at his home in Indianapolis. The life of Mr. Hendricks had been one of singular purity as well as of greatness. His character had been noted for its mildness and serenity in the stormy arena of politics. The goodness of the man in private life, combined with his distinction as governor, senator, and Vice-president of the United States, drew from the people every evidence of public and private respect for his memory. The body of the dead statesman was buried in Crown Hill cemetery, near Indianapolis. The funeral pageant surpassed in grandeur any other display of the kind ever witnessed in the Western States, except the funeral of Lincoln. Shortly after his death, the funds were easily subscribed by the people, for the erection of the magnificent bronze monument and statue standing at one of the entrances to the Capitol of Indiana.

18. The death of Hendricks was soon followed by that of Horatio Seymour, of New York. On the 12th of February, 1886, this distinguished citizen, who had been governor of the Empire State, and a candidate for the Presidency against General Grant, died at his home in Utica. Still more distinguished in reputation and ability was Samuel J. Tilden, also of New York, who died at his home, called Greystone, at Yonkers, near New York City, on the 4th of August, 1886.

19. To this list of deaths must be added the illustrious name of Henry Ward Beecher. To him, with little reservation, must be assigned the first place among our orators and philanthropists. He had the happy fortune to retain his faculties unimpaired to the close of his career. On the evening of the 5th of March, 1887, at his home in Brooklyn, he sank down under a stroke of apoplexy. He was nearing the close of his seventy-fourth year. He lived until the morning of the 8th, and quietly entered the shadows. He was followed to the grave by the common eulogium of mankind, and every circumstance of his passing away showed that he had occupied the supreme place among men of his class in America.

20. On the 23d of March, 1888, Morrison R. Waite, Chief-Justice of the United States, died at his home in Washington City. The death of this able jurist imposed on President Cleveland the duty of naming his successor. Judge Melville W. Fuller, of Chicago, was appointed, and confirmed on the 30th of April, 1888.

21. During the whole of Cleveland's administration, the public mind was swayed and excited by the movements of politics. The universality of partisan newspapers, the combination in their columns of all the news of the world with the invectives and misrepresentations of party leaders, kept political questions constantly uppermost to the detriment of social progress and industrial interests. Scarcely had President Cleveland entered upon his office as chief magistrate when the question of the succession to the Presidency was agitated.

22. By the last year of the administration it was seen that there would be no general break-up of the existing parties. It was also perceived that the issues between them must be made rather than found in the existing state of affairs. The sentiment in the United States in favor of the Constitutional prohibition of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors had become somewhat extended and intensified since the last general election. But the discerning eye might perceive that the real issue was between the Republican and Democratic parties.

23. One issue, however, had a living and practical relation to affairs, and that was the question of Protection to American Industry. Since the campaign of 1884, the agitation had been gradually extended. At the opening of the session, in 1887, the President, in his annual message to Congress, devoted the whole document to the discussion of the single question of a Reform of the Revenue System of the United States. The existing rates of duty on imported articles of commerce had so greatly augmented the income of the Government, that a large surplus had accumulated in the treasury of the United States. This fact was made the basis of the President's argument in favor of a new system of revenue, or at least an ample reduction in the tariff rates under the old. It was immediately charged by the Republicans, that the project in question meant the substitution of the system of Free Trade in the United States as against the system of protective duties. The question thus involved was made the bottom issue in the Presidential campaign of 1888.

24. The Democratic National Convention was held in St. Louis on the 5th day of June, 1888, and Mr. Cleveland was renominated by acclamation. For the Vice-presidential nomination the choice fell on ex-Senator Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio. The Republican National Convention was held in Chicago, on the 19th day of June. Many candidates were ardently pressed upon the body, and the contest was long and spirited. The voting was continued to the eighth ballot, when the choice fell upon Benjamin Harrison, of Indiana. In the evening, Levi P. Morton, of New York, was nominated for the Vice-presidency on the first ballot.

25. In the mean time, the Prohibition party had held its National Convention at Indianapolis, and on the 30th of May had nominated for the Presidency General Clinton B. Fisk, of New Jersey, and for the Vice-presidency John A. Brooks, of Missouri. The Democratic platform declared for a reform of the revenue system of the United States, and reaffirmed the principle of adjusting the tariff on imports with strict regard to the actual needs of governmental expenditure. The Republican platform declared also for a reform of the tariff schedule, but at the same time stoutly affirmed the maintenance of the protective system as a part of the permanent policy of the United States. Both parties deferred to the patriotic sentiment of the country in favor of the soldiers. The Prohibitionists entered the campaign, on the distinct proposition that the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors should be prohibited throughout the United States by Constitutional amendment. To this was added a clause in favor of extending the right of suffrage to women.

26. As the canvass progressed during the summer and autumn of 1888, it became evident that the result was in doubt. The contest was exceedingly close. The result showed success for the Republican candidate. He received 233 electoral votes, against 168 votes for Mr. Cleveland. The latter, however, appeared to a better advantage on the popular count, having a considerable majority over General Harrison. General Fisk, the Prohibition candidate, received nearly three hundred thousand votes; but, under the system of voting, no electoral vote of any State was obtained for him.

27. The last days of Cleveland's administration and of the Fiftieth Congress were signalized by the admission into the Union of Four New States, making the number forty-two. In 1887 the question of dividing Dakota Territory by a line running east and west was agitated, and the measure finally prevailed. Steps were taken by the people of both sections for admission into the Union. Montana, with her 146,080 square miles of territory, had meanwhile acquired a sufficient population; and Washington Territory, with its area of 69,180 square miles, also knocked for admission. In the closing days of the Fiftieth Congress a bill was passed raising all of these four Territories—South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Washington—to the plane of Statehood. The Act contemplated the adoption of State Constitutions, and a proclamation of admission by the next President. It thus happened that the honor of bringing in this great addition to the States of the Union was divided between the outgoing and incoming administrations.

28. Another Act of Congress was also of national importance. Hitherto the government had been administered through seven departments, at the head of each of which was placed a Cabinet officer, the seven together constituting the advisers of the President. Early in 1889 a measure was brought forward in Congress, and adopted, for the institution of a new department, to be called the Department of Agriculture. Practically the measure involved the elevation of what had previously been an Agricultural Bureau in the Department of the Interior, to the rank of a Cabinet office. Hitherto, though agriculture has been the greatest of all the producing interests of the people, it has been neglected for more political and less useful departments of American life and enterprise.