notable was in his own state of New York, where his Secretary of
the Treasury and personal friend was overwhelmingly defeated for
governor by Grover Cleveland.

The unprecedented majority which Cleveland received in this election and
his excellent administration as Governor of New York secured for him the
Democratic nomination for President in 1884. New York State decided the
election, but the vote was so close that for some days the result was in
doubt and the country was nervous lest there should be another disputed
Presidency; in the end it was determined that Cleveland had carried that
state by a plurality of 1149. Cleveland was the first Democratic
President elected since 1856; the Democrats had been out of office for
twenty-four years, and it had galled them to think that their historic
party had so long been deprived of power and patronage. While many of
their leaders had a good record on the question of Civil Service Reform,
the rank and file believed in the Jacksonian doctrine of rewarding party
workers with the offices, or, as most of them would have put it, "To the
victors belong the spoils." With this principle so fixed in the minds of
his supporters, it became an interesting question how Cleveland would
meet it. No one could doubt that he would enforce fairly the statute,
but would he content himself with this and use the offices not covered
by the act to reward his followers in the old Democratic fashion? An
avowed civil service reformer, and warmly supported by independents and
some former Republicans on that account, he justified the confidence
which they had reposed in him and refused "to make a clean sweep." In
resisting this very powerful pressure from his party he accomplished
much toward the establishment of the merit system in the civil service.
It is true that he made political changes gradually, but his insistence
on a rule which gained him time for reflection in making appointments
was of marked importance. It would be idle to assert that in his two
terms he lived wholly up to the ideal of the reformers; undoubtedly a
long list of backslidings might be made up, but in striking a fair
balance it is not too much to say that in this respect his
administration made for righteousness. All the more credit is due him in
that he not only resisted personal pressure, but, aspiring to be a party
leader for the carrying out of a cherished policy on finance and the
tariff, he made more difficult the accomplis