Public approval of the energy and decision which President
Cleveland displayed in handling the situation was so strong and
general that it momentarily quelled the factional spirit in
Congress. Judge Thomas M. Cooley, then, probably the most eminent
authority on constitutional law, wrote a letter expressing
"unqualified satisfaction with every step" taken by the President
"in vindication of the national authority." Both the Senate end
the House adopted resolutions endorsing the prompt and vigorous
measures of the Administration. The newspapers, too, joined in
the chorus of approval. A newspaper ditty which was widely
circulated and was read by the President with pleasure and
amusement ended a string of verses with the lines:
The railroad strike played merry hob,
The land was set aflame;
Could Grover order out the troops
To block the striker's game?
One Altgeld yelled excitedly,
"Such tactics I forbid;
You can't trot out those soldiers," yet
That's just what Grover did.
In after years when people talk
Of present stirring times,
And of the action needful to
Sit down on public crimes,
They'll all of them acknowledge then
(The fact cannot be hid)
That whatever was the best to do
Is just what Grover did.
This brief period of acclamation was, however, only a gleam of
sunshine through the clouds before the night set in with utter
darkness. Relations between President Cleveland and his party in
the Senate had long been disturbed by his refusal to submit to
the Senate rule that nominations to office should be subject to
the approval of the Senators from the State to which the nominees
belonged.
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