Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1887 — CLEVELAND SAYS NO. [ARTICLE]

CLEVELAND SAYS NO.

Sensational Statement Published bj a Leading Western Domocratic Journal. The President Will Not Under Any Circumstances Accept a Second Term. A special disAtch from Washington to ■the St. Louis Republican gives this rather startling information: • President Cleveland neither wishes nor will accept a renomination. This will be startling information to the country, setting at rest the important question of a second term, now the snbject of interested consideration in political ■circles everywhere. The correspondent of the Eepub.ican has the highest possible authority for the statement, however, and it can be depended upon as strictly and entirely true. It comes from the President himself, who made a declaration to this effect Wednesday to a prominent Democratic Senator from one of the Western states, who is on terms of especial intimacy at the White House. The President spoke with so much deliberate earnestness and such studied emphasis that the Senator with whom he was talking is certafn there is no reason to question his perfect and entire sincerity. His manner, no less than his words, indicated that the declaration was simply the decision of a firm resolution which had resulted from careful consideration of all phases of the matter. The President said he had not given any intimation of his feelingß to the representatives of the press for the simple reason that he felt nothing he might say about not wishing or being willing to take a second term would bo believed. "1 hardly expect anybody to believe it,” he said, “except my wife, but it is so none the less.” Continuing, he added: “Kverything I do, every appointment I make, they think it is to secure re-election. On the contrary, 1 am counting the days that remain until my release from office, just as if I were a prisoner in confinement.” No man, he said, could endure the severe strain of such lal or, at once physical and mental, for a longer period than four years without risk of permanent injury to his health. For these reasons he could not think of a continuance of his term beyond the four years he has now half completed. Nothing, he' said to his Senatorial visitor, would persuade him to alter this resolution, which ho had deliberately formed. He did not want a second term, and he did not believe there were any obNgations of public duty which could require him to forego his personal wishes. The Senator, who has repeated this significant conversation to his friends, says that while the President was not talking for the purpose of getting his views about re-election before the public, there was no intimation that he desired his words to be regarded as confidential. The Senator has spoken freely of the interview to personal friends without any injunction of secrecy, and it is not unlikely this private discussion of the matter will eventually provoke Borne formal and public utterance by the President. The Senator is quite sure there was none of the coy strategy of the artful politician wbo thinks by this dovice to appear as being sought by rather than seeking the office in this disavowal of second-term ambition by President Cleveland. He is convinced that every word is meant for just what it implies, and that it will be wholly useless to plan the next campaign on the basis of a renomination of Cleveland. The President was specific and decided In saying he could not be induced by any possible considerations to change his mind, that there was nothing in the way of argument which could be brought to bear to alter a resolution determined alike by every consideration of personal comfort and happiness and by the most conscientious regard for what could fairly be asked of him as a patriotic servant of the people.