CLEVELAND 



1420 



CLEVELAND 



give his reasons for removing certain officers. 

 The Senate's consent was necessary to their 

 appointment, but when the Senate demanded 

 that the President make public the documents 

 on which he based their removal he laid down 

 the principle that a President's papers were not 

 subject to the order of Congress. In other 



ELECTION OF 1884 



States shown in black were Democratic ; cross- 

 lined, Republican ; w^jte, non-voting territories. 



ways he maintained the dignity of the Chief 

 Magistrate. He prevented a rebellion among 

 the Mormons by concentrating troops at Salt 

 Lake City. In a dispute over Canadian fish- 

 eries he threatened to prohibit importation 

 from Canada except over American-owned rail- 

 ways, and he dispatched 3,000 marines to the 

 Isthmus of Panama to quell an insurrection 

 which threatened loss of American lives and 

 property. During his term he vetoed over 400 

 bills sent to him by Congress. Nearly two- 

 thirds of these were private pension bills, but 

 the most important of all the vetoed bills was 

 the Dependent Pension Bill, whose indefinite 

 terms would have opened the way to endless 

 confusion. Cleveland's frequent use of the 

 veto power gave him the nickname of the 

 "Veto President." 



Labor Troubles. During the whole of this 

 period the United States was disturbed by 

 labor troubles. There were many strikes in 

 different parts of the country, and relations 

 between labor and capital were generally un- 

 satisfactory. The Knights of Labor, an organi- 

 zation founded in 1869 on the principle that 

 "the injury of one is the concern of all," in- 

 creased its membership from about 100,000 in 

 1885 to more than 700,000 in 1886. The number 

 of strikes in 1886 was more than double the 

 number in 1885. In one of the strikes, affecting 

 the Gould system of railways, 6,000 miles of 

 railway were tied up, and a great strike at 

 the McCormick harvester plants in Chicago 



had its climax in the famous Haymarket Riot 

 (see CHICAGO, subhead History). President 

 Cleveland, in a message to Congress, advocated 

 an arbitration commission to settle industrial 

 disputes, but Congress took no action. 



Important Legislation. Although the Demo- 

 crats in the Senate of the United States during 

 the whole of his term were in the minority, 

 Cleveland's administration was noteworthy for 

 the enactment of a number of important laws. 

 First of these was a contract labor law, pro- 

 hibiting the importation of alien laborers under 

 contract. Other important acts were the Presi- 

 dential Succession Act (which see) of 1886; 

 a new Anti-Polygamy law, in 1887, dissolving 

 the Mormon Church as a corporation and con- 

 fiscating all its property over $50,000 in each 

 case; the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which 

 made the states the final judges in controversies 

 concerning the election of Presidential electors, 

 and thus was aimed to prevent disputes like 

 that of 1876; and the Chinese Exclusion Act, in 

 1888, which forbade further Chinese immigra- 

 tion. More important than any of these was 

 the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 (which 

 see), placing the railway and other common 

 carriers under the control of a Federal commis- 

 sion. During the last months of Cleveland's 

 administration Congress voted to establish a 

 Department of Agriculture, and also passed an 

 enabling act for the admission of North Da- 

 kota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington 

 to the Union. 



Local and Miscellaneous Events. One of 

 the most interesting events of these years was 

 the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in New 

 York Harbor, in 1886. The New Orleans Cot- 

 ton Exposition in 1885 and the destruction of 

 Charleston, S. C., by an earthquake in 1886 

 are also noteworthy. 



The election of Cleveland in 1884 showed 

 that the old political issues raised by the War 

 of Secession were dead. As if to bear witness 

 to this fact, during Cleveland's term occurred 

 the deaths of many of the men who had been 

 leaders during or immediately after the war. 

 Among these famous men were U. S. Grant, 

 George B. McClellan, Philip H. Sheridan, John 

 A. Logan, Winfield S. Hancock, Samuel J. Til- 

 den, Horatio Seymour, Roscoe Conkling, and 

 Cleveland's predecessor in the Presidency, 

 Chester A. Arthur. 



The Tariff and the Presidential Election of 

 1888. For a number of years the United States 

 government had faced the problem of an in- 

 creasing surplus in the treasury. During 



