Democrats had been out of office for twenty-four years. We can
hardly visualize or conceive now of their hunger for office.
The rule for rescuing people dying of starvation is to feed them
in very small quantities, and frequently. By trying this, the
president became one of the most unpopular of men who had ever
held office; in fact, so unpopular among the Democratic senators
and members of the House that a story which Zebulon Vance, of
North Carolina, told went all over the country and still survives.
Vance, who had a large proportion of the citizens of North Carolina
on his waiting list, and could get none of them appointed, said
that the situation, which ought to be one of rejoicing at the
election of a president by his own party, was like that of a client
of his who had inherited a farm from his father. There were so
many difficulties about the title and getting possession of it
and delay, that the son said: "I almost wished father had not died."

However, Mr. Cleveland, in his deliberate way did accomplish
the impossible. He largely regained favor with his party by
satisfying their demands, and at the same time so enlarged the
scope of civil-service requirements as to receive the commendation
of the two great leaders of the civil-service movement--George
William Curtis and Carl Schurz.

President Cleveland entered upon his second term with greater
popularity in the country than most of his predecessors. When he
retired from office, it was practically by unanimous consent.
It is among the tragedies of public life that he lost entirely the
confidence of his party and, in a measure, of the whole people
by rendering to his country the greatest public service.