A strike of the men on the railroads tied up transportation.
Railroads are the arteries of travel, commerce, and trade. To stop
them is to prevent the transportation of provisions or of coal,
to starve and freeze cities and communities. Cleveland used
the whole power of the federal government to keep free the
transportation on the railways and to punish as the enemies of the
whole people those who were trying to stop them. It was a lesson
which has been of incalculable value ever since in keeping open
these great highways.

He forced through the repeal of the silver purchasing law by every
source and pressure and the unlimited use of patronage. His party
were almost unanimous for the silver standard and resented this
repeal as a crime, but it saved the country from general bankruptcy.
Except in the use of patronage to help his silver legislation, he
offended his party by improving the civil service and retaining
Theodore Roosevelt as head of the Civil Service Commission.
These crises required from the president an extraordinary degree
of courage and steadfastness.

While Mr. Cleveland was in such unprecedented popular disfavor
when he retired to private life, his fame as president increases
through the years, and he is rapidly assuming foremost position
in the estimation of the people.

Mr. Cleveland had a peculiar style in his speeches and public
documents. It was criticised as labored and that of an essayist.
I asked him, after he had retired to private life, how he had
acquired it. He said his father was a clergyman and he had been
educated by him largely at home. His father was very particular