nd steady adherence on his part to the principles which he
deemed salutary to the nation. He was especially concerned in promoting
a non-partisan civil service. Congress in 1883 had passed the "Pendleton
Bill" (introduced by Senator George H. Pendleton) to classify the
subordinate places in the service, and to make entrance to it, and
promotion therein, depend upon competitive examination of applicants,
instead of mere political influence. The first test of the efficiency
and permanence of this law came with the shifting of political power at
Washington. The new president stood firmly by the new law. It applied
only to places of the rank of clerkships, but the president was
authorized to add others to the classified service from time to time. He
added 11,757 during his first term.

President Cleveland made large use of the veto power upon bills passed
by Congress, vetoing or "pocketing" during his first term 413 bills,
more than two-thirds of which were private pension bills. The most
important bill vetoed was the Dependent Pension Bill, a measure of
extreme profligacy, opening the door, by the vagueness of its terms, to
enormous frauds upon the treasury. In 1887 there was a large and growing
surplus in the treasury. As this money was drawn from the channels of
business and locked up in the public vaults, the president looked upon
the condition as fraught with danger to the commercial community and he
addressed himself to the task of reducing taxation. About two-thirds of
the public revenue was derived from duties on imports, in the adjustment
of which the doctrine of protection to native industry had a large
place. Cleveland attacked the system with great vigour in his annual
message of 1887. He did not propose the adoption of free trade, but the
administration tariff measure, known as the Mills Bill, from its
introducer Congressman Roger Q. Mills (b. 1832) of Texas, passed the
House, and although withdrawn owing to amendments in the Republican
Senate, it alarmed and exasperated the protected classes, among whom
were many Democrats, and spurred them to extraordinary efforts to
prevent his re-election.

In the following year (1888), however, the Democrats renominated
Cleveland, and the Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison of Indiana.
The campaign turned on the tariff issue, and Harrison was elected,
receiving 233 electoral votes to 168 for Cleveland, who however received
a popular plurality of more than 100,000. Cle