CLEVELAND, (Stephen) Grover, 22d President of the United States: b. Caldwell, N. J., 18 March 1837; d. Princeton, N. J., 24 June 1908. Grover was the fifth of a family of nine children born to Rev. Richard F. Cleve land, a graduatc of Yale (1824) and Presby terian clergyman, and Ann Neal, the daughter of a Baltimore merchant of Irish descent. He received a common school and academic edu cation at Fayetteville and Clinton, N. Y., the successive residences of the family after leav ing Caldwell, and was preparing for college when his father's sudden death (1853) changed his prospects entirely. To support himself and to aid in providing for the rest of the family he secured a clerical position in the New York Institution for the Blind, where his older brother William was a teacher. In 1855 he started West, but on his way stopped at Buf falo to visit an uncle, Lewis F. Allen, a stock breeder and publisher of 'The Herd-Book of American Short-Horn Cattle.) His uncle ad vised him to stay in Buffalo and employed him in the preparation of the 'Herd-Book,' until a position as clerk and copyist was secured in a law office, August 1855. He at once set to work with perseverance and industry to malce himself useful and master the rudiments of the law, with the result that in 1859 he was made managing clerk of the firm at a salary of $600 (increased to T1,000 in 1863) and admitted to the bar. Dunng the war, his two brothers being in the Union army, the support of his mother and sisters fell upon him. Unable to enlist, he borrowed money to pay for a sub stitute. In 1863 he was appointed assistant dis trict attorney of Erie County, serving with zeal and energy. He attended every one of the .12 grand juries which met during each of the three years of his term and presented in full a majority of the cases. As the Democratic can didate for district attorney in 1865 he was de feated by his friend Lyman K. Bass. In 1869 he became a member of the law firm of Lan ning, Cleveland and Folsom. Elected sheriff of Erie County (1870), he performed his duties faithfully and used his leisure in prosecuting further professional studies. At the end of his term (1873), he joined the firm of Bass, Cleve land and Bissell, acquired increasing success in practice and took a still higher position at the bar. In 1881 the citizens of Buf falo determined to check the flagrant corrup tion in the city government. Cleveland was elected mayor on the Democratic ticket by a majority of 3,500 though the Republican State ticket received an average majority there of .1,600. As mayor, he displayed a thorough knowledge of the laws and a clear perception of the needs and rights of the city. He insisted upon placing public interests above party claims; saved the city over $1,000,000 by pre venting corrupt schemes and bargains; and won the gratitude of people and press irrespective of party. On 22 Sept. 1882 he was nominated for governor against the Republican candidate, Charles J. Folger, and elected by the unprece dented majority of over 192,000 votes. As gov ernor he conducted a thoroughly business-like administration, making frequent use of his veto power, but his vetoes were always clearly in accord with his duty under the law. His record as mayor and governor won for him the Demo cratic nomination for President, 10 July 1884. The ensuing campaign was unusually bitter. Its broad distinguishing feature was the rise in the Republican party of the independent or "mug wump" movement supporting Cleveland. Dur ing the contest, discussion of the record in Congress of James G. Blaine, his Republican opponent, was met by virulent counter attacks upon Cleveland's personal character. At the election Cleveland received 219 electoral votes to 182 cast for Blaine, and was inaugurated President 4 March 1885, having resigned his governorship on 6 January. Only the briefest
mention can indicate the important and diffi cult questions that marked his administrations. His first message recommended a reduction of the tariff, the extension of civil service reform, regulation of the presidential succession and the settlement of the fisheries dispute with Great Britain. His removals from non-politi cal offices were less sweeping than those of any President since Jackson; of 987 bills passed by Congress up to 5 Aug. 1886 he vetoed 102, chiefly private pension bills; he won a sharp contest with the Senate over suspensions and nominations; and devoted his 1887 message en tirely to the existing tariff, denouncing it as vicious and unnecessary and demanding the abolition of duties on raw materials. Defeated for re-election in 1888, he retired to the prac tice of law in New York city (1889-93). Re elected in 1892, he took office in 1893 in the midst of threatening currency and financial conditions. His inaugural declared that "so far as the executive branch of the government can intervene, none of the powers with which it is invested will be withheld when their ex ercise is deemed necessary to maintain our na tional credit or avert financial disaster." Ac cordingly he forced the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, killed the bill for coining the seignorage, maintained the treasury's gold reserve by the successive issue of government bonds and saved its credit throughout the world, despite furious opposition by large sections of his own and the Republican party favoring the free coinage of silver. He repudiated the Ha waiian annexation treaty made by President Harrison, enforced the neutrality laws during the troubles in Cuba, while firmly supporting American interests there, and insisted upon ar bitration of the British-Venezuelan boundary dispute. During the Chicago strike in 1894, he effectively asserted the executive's right to in terfere in State affairs in the interest of law and order. At the close of his term he settled in Princeton, N. J., where he resided till his death. He delivered an annual series of lec tures on public affairs at Princeton University and wrote a number of articles on important questions with which he was required to deal while President. In 1904 he was much talked of as a candidate for a third term, but em phatically declined to be so considered. In 1884 Cleveland's popular majority was 62,683; in 1888 it was 98,017; in 1892 it was 380,810.
President Cleveland's messages and other public papers will be found in Richardson's 'Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789 1897> (Vols. VIII, IX, Washington 1898). A collection of his magazine articles appeared in book form (1904) under the title
Campaign lives of Cleve land by Thomas W. Handford and Eugene T. Chamberlain, Wm. Dorsheimer, Pendleton King and Deshler Welch, appeared in 1884; of these Hanford-Chamberlain's is the fullest and most authentic. Consult also Foster,