Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1885 — IT WILL BE DEMOCRATIC. [ARTICLE]

IT WILL BE DEMOCRATIC.

No Doubt as to the Political Characterof President Cleveland’s Administration. Henry Watterson’s Impressions—What United States Senator Voorhees Thinks. WATTERS ON, The Louisville Editor’s Impresgions After a Week’s Sojourn in Washington. After spending a week at the nationalcapital, Henry Watterson, of the Lonisville Courier-Journal, sent the following to his - paper as expressive of his impressions of President Cleveland and his administration; On a certain occasion Artemus Ward stepped m front of hie canvas, and, pointing to the passing scene, said to nis audience: "Ladies and gentlemen, these are horses. It was only this merning that thegartist came to • me. with tears in his eyes, and* exclaimed: '1 can conceal it from you no longer, Mr. Ward, they are horses.’” In its entire utterances and appointments, the administration has spoken to the country. It can conceal it no longer. It is a Democratic administration. For my part I have never doubted this in the least. If I had been jriven the making of it I could not have better suited myselt. Indeed, I have been so well pleased that I. have been content to stay at home and play at philosophy, leaving others to play at patronage,. Quite satisfied that the President and the emineat and accomplished men with wuom he has surrounded himself might be trusted to give us a civil service capable and clean; to handle the public business with fidelity and efficiency, and to discharge adequately their obligations, hoth to the people and to the party. Personal contact and opportunities for getting at both sides of 1)0 j and dispute have strengthened these original impressions, and 1 am happy to say that the case of sore eyes with which 1 started from home has entirely disappeared. President is a less reserved and a more likable man than I had been in the habit otthinking him. He is at once exact and exacting, but there is beneath his unmistakable busi-ness-like purpose and exterior a doughtiness ot spirit and an engaging candor which come out strong on very little provocation, and which save his manners from severity. Genial is hardly the word to describe the sunny side of him tor he is a serious man and a hard-worked and hard-working man. But he has the gift of appreciation, a simple school-boy love of fair play, and a repose altogether unaffected and complete, and singularly lacking both in cynicism, and vacuity. I observed the latter of these admirable qualities in Miss Cleveland, whose rapid advancement and elevation to the highest social honors and duties have in no wise disconcerted her, and who wilLddd one more name tothe very short list of ladies who have s gnalized. and adorned the mistress-ship of the ExecutiveMansion. Her brother is not so deeply or seriously read as she, not so much of a doctrinaire,, if. indeed, a doctrinaire at all, for I should say he has been a student lather of men than of books; but he has an undeniable genius for command, and for one of so little ostentation is the most unpromising subject of familiarity imaginable. His weight and reach of brain have, perhaps, never been tested or measured. He has yet to put forth his full mental pdwers and resources. Time,-which develops, can only disclose the nature and extent of these. Blit thereis one thing about him which nothing can obscure, which shows itself in all he says and. does, and which is blazoned upon all his aspects. That is character. And the older I grow,, and the more I see of life and men, the more respect I have tor character when Wrought in contrast with intellect. Many a man called dull and slow has by honest purposes and inflexible will, enlightened by nothing more luminous than plain good sense, conferred inestimable ' blessings upon his kind, while the history of the world is full of examples of curses wrought by brilliance corrupted and genius misapplied. Mr. Cleveland is a plain, sober man. Tnere is nothing dramatic or sensational about him. Hellas not,like so many long conscience and a short memory. His hates and his loves arefew, positive, and sincere. He has shown himself abundantly able to say “no,” and yet, as I have seen him, no man has a livelier wish to gratify the wishes of others. He wants to do the right thing and the kindly thing, and there is not the smallest doubt that since his election, he has been inspired by the truest spirit of justice and the most conscientious sense of duty, equally loyal to his great place and to his party, asking no favors and looking to his work to, vindicate itself. Very great forbearance and a patient temper should be extended by the publ.c to such a public servant. He selected his political advisers, by the rule of fitness, and he has inspired them with his own business-like spirit. The departments are in hands most uniform and methodical. In every one of them there circulates the atmosphere of the workshop. To say nothing: about practical benefits and utilitarian performance and nromise, all this has a moral value incalculable. It is in itself a sort of democracy—and a much-needed sort at that. After twenty-four years of absence from, power, the Democratic party has, by little 1-ess-than a miracle, come into custody of tue National Government. Whether it retains that custody will denend upon the success or failureof the men it has delegated to represent it. The party is on trial. Inevitably it is bound to stand or fall by its administration. It c tnnot atiord to quarrel with this upon matters of detail, or lightly to criticise it. There will be time enough to disown it when it violates itspledges. In the meantime Democrats should, remember that it is composed of Democrats;, that the Democrats who compose it have'their rights with the rest, and no one of them has given the smallest reason for anybody to distrust him. I have encountered but one spitit. here, and my opportunities for forming a judgment have been the mod, ample, and this is a spirit of loyalty to the party and to the country. I will state; my life upon the sincerity of this,, and I assure the disappointed# and ‘doubting among Democrats that if the President should go faster than he is going he would surely run. his bark ashore. One story is good until another is told. The administration that'-sta rts out to please everybody will end by pleasing nobody. This administration is trying to do its ciuty. Beset on all sides by complication and badgered day in and day out by importunities, it has kept its temper passing well, and has made no more mistakes than are common to new-comers in office, and not so many as mighthave been expected.