his object, he might have secured it. On the other hand, he has
befriended many a poor client to his own cost; and, while failing in
many cases to collect the fees which were his due, he has contributed to
public and private charities with a liberal, but unostentatious hand.
Though he has never posed as a "working-men's candidate" for official
preferment, the laboring people of his city and section have long known
him as the true and sympathetic friend of every honest son and daughter
of toil.

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