"
But apart from any particular error in the management of the
Treasury, the general policy of the Administration was much below
the requirements of the situation. The panic came to an end in
the fall of 1893, much as a great conflagration expires through
having reached all the material on which it can feed, but leaving
a scene of desolation behind it. Thirteen commercial houses out
of every thousand doing business had failed. Within two years,
nearly one fourth of the total railway capitalization of the
country had gone into bankruptcy, involving an exposure of
falsified accounts sufficient to shatter public confidence in the
methods of corporations. Industrial stagnation and unemployment
were prevalent throughout the land. Meanwhile, the congressional
situation was plainly such that only a great uprising of public
opinion could break the hold of the silver faction. The standing
committee system, which controls the gateways of legislation, is
made up on a system of party apportionment whose effect is to
give an insurgent faction of the majority the balance of power,
and this opportunity for mischief was unsparingly used by the
silver faction.
Such a situation could not be successfully encountered save by a
policy aimed distinctly at accomplishing a redress of popular
grievances. But such a policy, President Cleveland failed to
conceive. In his inaugural address, he indicated in a general way
the policy pursued throughout his term when he said, "I shall to
the best of my ability and within my sphere of duty preserve the
Constitution by loyally protecting every grant of Federal power
it contains, by defending all its restraints when attacked by
impatience and restlessness, and by enforcing its limitations and
reservations in favor of the states and the people.
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