ful and a bitter contest, lasting until the latter part of July, ended with the election of Miller and Lapham to the Senate. Meanwhile the President's appointments had been confirmed. The new Postmaster-General had discovered colossal frauds in the Star Route Service of the Postal Department, and an effort was made to bring the criminals to justice. (See Star-Route Frauds.) The diplomacy of Secretary Blaine in regard to the war between Chile and Peru and the Panama Canal (q.v.) excited considerable newspaper criticism.
On July 2d President Garfield was shot by an assassin, a disappointed office-seeker, Charles J. Guiteau, and after lingering for seventy-nine days between life and death died, on September 19th, at Elberon, N. J. (See Garfield, James Abram) On the same day in New York, Vice-President Arthur took the oath of office as President.
Among the national events of 1882 were the passage by Congress of the Anti-Polygamy Bill, March 22d; the Apportionment Bill, increasing the number of Congressional Representatives to 325; and the Anti-Chinese Bill, suspending Chinese immigration for twenty years. The last was vetoed by the President, who, however, signed a subsequent bill limiting the term of suspension to ten years. Among the several State elections of this year, one at least had a national significance. In New York the lukewarmness of that wing of the Republican Party which had sympathized with General Garfield in his contest with the leaders of the faction to which Arthur was allied, and the indignation of the ‘Independents’ at the political methods pursued by President Arthur to secure the nomination and election of his friend, Charles J. Folger, as Governor of the State, resulted in the election of the Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland (q.v.), by the immense majority of 192,000 votes. The victory of the Democrats in Pennsylvania was also looked upon as to some extent a rebuke of the Administration, and especially of machine methods in politics. The question of civil-service reform was now pressed with renewed eagerness by its advocates; and the so-called Pendleton Bill, which had already passed the Senate, passed the House in January, 1883, and was signed by the President. See Civil-Service Reform.
The Republican National Convention of 1884 met in Chicago during the first week of June and the fourth ballot resulted in the nomination of James G. Blaine (q.v.) for the Presidency, and of John A. Logan, of Illinois, for the Vice-Presidency. The nomination of Blaine was secured in spite of bitter organized opposition of the ‘Independent’ faction in the Republican Party, popularly known as ‘Mugwumps’ (q.v.). The papers which represented the views of the ‘Independents’ withheld their support from Blaine, and indicated that they would cast their influence on the side of the Democratic candidate, in case some statesman of tried incorruptibility were chosen by the Democratic convention. It was generally understood that either Grover Cleveland or Thomas F. Bayard would be acceptable to them. When the convention met in July these two were the leading candidates on the first ballot. On the second ballot Cleveland secured the necessary two-thirds majority, and was declared the nominee. Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana, was nominated for Vice-President. Tickets were put in the field by the Prohibitionists (see Prohibition), who nominated John P. St. John, of Kansas, for President, and William Daniel, of Maryland, for Vice-President; and by the Anti-Monopoly and Greenback Labor parties, both of which nominated Gen. Benjamin F. Butler (q.v.), of Massachusetts, for President. The campaign which followed developed unusual excitement, party rancor, and personal recrimination. The election was unexpectedly close, and the result for a few days hung in doubt over conflicting returns in the pivotal State of New York; but the official count gave a plurality of 1047 to Cleveland, who received 219 electoral votes, while Blaine received 182, and a popular vote of 4,874,986, while Blaine received 4,851,981. St. John had a popular vote of 150,309, and Butler a popular vote of 175,370.
XXV. Administration of Grover Cleveland (1885-89). Cabinet.—Secretary of State, Thomas F. Bayard, Delaware, March 6, 1885. Secretary of the Treasury, Daniel Manning, New York, March 6, 1885; Charles S. Fairchild, New York, April 1, 1887. Secretary of Mar, William C. Endicott, Massachusetts, March 6, 1885. Secretary of the Navy, William C. Whitney, New York, March 6, 1885. Secretary of the Interior, Lucius Q. C. Lamar, Mississippi, March 6, 1885; William F. Vilas, Wisconsin, January 16, 1888. Attorney-General, Augustus H. Garland, Arkansas, March 6, 1885. Postmaster-General, William F. Vilas, Wisconsin, March 6, 1885; Don M. Dickinson, Michigan, January 16, 1888.
Cleveland was the first Democratic President to be chosen after the election of 1856. His administration from the outset was marked by a general application to the public service of the principles so long advocated by the friends of civil-service reform, the President applying the principles of the Pendleton Bill (see Civil-Service Reform) to many offices not specifically covered by the act. For the first time in half a century no sweeping changes were made in the public service on the accession to power of a new party.
In 1886 a bill passed Congress to regulate the succession to the Presidential office—a question that assumed some special importance on the death of Vice-President Hendricks. Among the important Congressional acts of this Administration were the new Anti-Polygamy or the Edmunds-Tucker Act (1887) dissolving the Mormon Church as a corporate body, and confiscating all the property of that Church in excess of $50,000; the Interstate Commerce Act (q.v.) of 1887; and an act (1888) absolutely prohibiting further immigration of the Chinese. With respect to legislation President Cleveland's administration was characterized by an unprecedented number of Presidential vetoes, the number aggregating more than 300, mostly of pension bills.
In December, 1887, President Cleveland sent to Congress a message devoted to the single question of the tariff. After stating that the estimated surplus in the Treasury in June, 1888, would be fully $140,000,000, he declared the existing tariff laws to lie the source of unnecessary taxation, and asked for a reduction of the duties on raw materials, especially on wool. In accordance with this recommendation, the so-called Mills Bill was introduced and passed the House. It removed duties aggregating $50,000,000 per
