nkind; but other hands and other minds are required to
direct the issue and shape the result. The master spirit of the occasion
is born thereof. Ulysses S. Grant had absolutely no part in bringing
about that great conflict of ideas and systems which culminated in the
war of the rebellion; nor had he even figured prominently in the field
of military achievement until long after hostilities were commenced, and
the struggle had assumed proportions entirely unforeseen by, and
actually appalling to, not only the people themselves, but those In
control of active operations in the field. But the emergency developed
the man required to meet it, and Grant came to the front.

So, too, in this later and greater conflict, which is to test the virtue
and determine the durability of popular government--whose outcome is to
decide whether political parties are to be the mere instruments through
which the people express their will, and whose relations can be changed
as the public good may seem to require, or whether the government itself
shall be subordinated to party, and its functions prostituted for the
perpetuation of party ascendency and the aggrandizement of corrupt and
selfish individuals--the leader in whom the hopes of those who contend
for the supremacy of the popular will, the surbordination of party-power
to public welfare, and the administration of the government in the
interests of the whole people, are now thoroughly centred, is one who
has gained no distinction in shaping partisan contests, and won no
laurels in the halls of legislation or the forum of public debate. He
is, simply, the man who, in the last few years, first in one, and then
in another still more important position of official responsibility, has
demonstrated more emphatically than any other in recent times (possibly
because circumstances have more generally drawn attention in his
direction) his thorough devotion to the doctrine that public office is a
public trust; and has, therefore, been selected as the best
representative and exponent of the popular idea in the great political
conflict about to be brought to an issue.

The purpose and scope of this brief article permit no detailed account
of the private life or public career of Grover Cleveland. Those who have
cared to do so have already familiarized themselves with the same
through the ordinary channels; yet, as a matter of record, a few salient
facts may be presented.

Grover Cleveland was born in