Contemplating Grover Cleveland’s radical SOTU address
Thursday, February 2nd, 2006I note this in this list of Memorable State of the Union Addresses:
Grover Cleveland, as he was leaving office after his defeat for reelection in 1888, sounded the most radical note of any president in history. In his final message to Congress he denounced American corporations and exclaimed that they were “fast becoming the people’s masters.” At the end of his second term he denounced the trusts, assailing them as “palpable evils.”
The entire paragraph:
As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.
Ah. Grover Cleveland. He won three consecutive popular vote counts. And two non-consecutive electoral vote counts. And what the heck am I supposed to make of his radical finale? I guess it’s the equivalent of Eisenhower’s farewell address on the Military Industrial Complex. You wait until the end to address something that is slapping the nation that during your actual tenor as most powerful figure in the nation you did not have the wherewithall to address. Case in point: Grover Cleveland actually faced Impeachment.
New York Times, 5-24-1896, “More Populistic Babies: Representative Howard’s Impeachment Scheme Killed by the House”
I stop here to note that the New York Times is doing a bit of editorializing within its “straight” coverage.
The populistic mania took a new form in the House today, when Mr. Howard of Alabama made a bid for blackguardly notoriety of the Tillman sort. He asked for the impeachment of President Cleveland and presented resolutions providing for investigations.
Not more than three Representatives gave their voice of assent to his insanity. This is the document presented by the latest member of the Tillman Rabies Association.
I do Impeach Grover Cleveland, President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemenors on the following grounds:
1. That he has sold or directed the sale of bonds without authority of law.
2. That he sold or aided in the sale of bonds at less than their market value.
3. That he directed the misappropriation of said bond sales.
4. That he directed the Secretary of the Treasury to disregard the law which makes United States notes and Treasury notes redeemable.
5. That he ignored and refused to have enforced the anti-trust law.
6. That he has sent U.S. troops into the State of Illinois without authority of law and in violation of the Constitution.
7. That he has corrupted politics through the interference of Federal office holders.
8. That he has used the appointing power to influence legislation deterimental to the welfare of the people,
Be it Resolved by the House of Representatives that the Committee of the Judiciary be directed to ascertain whether these charges are true, and if so to report to the House such action, by impeachment or otherwise, as shall have authority to send persons and papers.
Mr. Dingley (Rep. MO) raised the question of consideration, and by an overwhelming vote, the House refused to consider the matter, only two or three scattering “yeas” being heard, and Mr. Howard apparently not voting for his own proposition.
Okay. It got only slightly furthur than the proposed Impeachment of George Herbert Walker Bush (there was a Houston, Texas Representative who pushed it in sub-committee), but there it is nonetheless… a Populist decrying a “Borbourn Democrat”, on the eve of the national Democratic Party more or less rejecting Cleveland and sucking itself to the winds of the third party Populist movement — which come to think of it broke the deadlock of the two party platforms being virtually identical, as with:
10-28-1896, William Jennings Bryan:
“I find special gratification in being permitted to speak to the people of Bloomington, for this is the home of the Vice President of the greatest nation on God’s footstool. We who have been keepers of the Democratic faith love Adlai Stevenson not only for what he is, but we love him because he is all we have left of the last National Democratic ticket.
The Bible tells you of the father who loved the prodigal son when he returned. I tell you of the Democratic father who loves the son who went not astray. How we shall feel for the prodigal son if he comes back I cannot say, but, my friends, I know how we feel toward those who stayed home instead of going out to feed the hogs of the other people.
If you have any doubt as to the Democracy of our position on the money question, I want you to read what the Republican Candidate for Presidency says in a speech from the front porch.
‘Every dollar representing one hundred cents and good not only among our own people, but wherever trade goes, in every mart and market place in the world.’
Now remember what he says. Speaking of this dollar, he says: ‘It was made by the Republican party, but let me say while it was made by the Republican Party, the Administration of Grover Cleveland has maintained it.’
He tells you that Grover Cleveland has simply carried out the policy of the Republican Party, and inferentially tells you that Republican success means that the Republican Party will carry out the policy of Grover Cleveland.
My friends, these are strange times. You will not find in our political history another instance where a presidnet has been thrown overboard by his own party only to be caught up and idolized by the opposition party. Yet that is what you find today. The only people who are commending the financial policy of Grover Cleveland are the men who are trying to elect a Republican President to continue that policy for four years more.”
