CLEVES — CLIFFORD votes and Mr Harrison 145. Mr Cleveland’s second term embraced some notable events. The most important was the repeal of the silver legislation, which had been a growing menace for fifteen years. Nearly $600,000,000 of “fiat money” (currency circulating on the faith of the Government) had been thrust into the channels of commerce in addition to $346,000,000 of legal tender notes that had been issued during the civil war. A reserve of $100,000,000 of gold had been accumulated for the redemption of these notes. In April 1893 the reserve fell below this sum. A panic ensued. President Cleveland called an extra session of Congress to repeal the silver law. The House promptly passed the repealing act. In the Senate there was a protracted struggle. The Democrats now had a majority of that body and they were more decidedly pro-silver than the Republicans. The president had undertaken to coerce his own party to do something against its will. This was perhaps his greatest public service. The repealing bill passed the Senate 30th October. The mischief, however, was not ended. The deficit in the Treasury made it inevitable that the gold reserve should be used to meet current expenses. Holders of the Government’s legal tender notes anticipating this fact presented them for redemption. Borrowing was resorted to by the Government. Bonds were issued and sold to the amount of $162,000,000. The business world was in a state of constant agitation. Bank failures were numerous and commercial distress widespread. The Republican party, which had laid the train for this disaster, escaped unhurt, because the final explosion took place during a Democratic administration. The underlying causes were too involved and intricate for popular understanding. Among the consequences of the panic was a reduction of wages in many employments, accompanied by labour troubles more or less serious. The centre of disturbance was at Chicago where one Debs, a labour agitator, undertook to compel the Pullman Palace Car Company to raise the wages of its workmen, by boycotting its cars. Twenty-three railways were disabled at one time by the refusal of their employees to operate trains containing Pullman cars, or allow others to do so. The disorder extended to the Pacific coast, causing riot and bloodshed in several places. President Cleveland waited a reasonable time, as he conceived, for the governor of Illinois to put an end to the disorder in that state. On 6th July 1894 he directed the military forces of the United States to clear the way for trains carrying the mails. The rioters in and around Chicago were dispersed in a single day, and within a week the boycott was everywhere broken. No act of his career gave Mr Cleveland more eclat than the suppression of the Debs riots. On 17th December 1895 President Cleveland astounded the country and the civilized world by sending a special message to Congress virtually recommending war against Great Britain unless she should accept his views respecting an undetermined boundary line between Venezuela and British Guiana. Mr Cleveland’s foreign policy hitherto had been marked by prudence, conservatism, and a scrupulous regard for the rights of other peoples. He had put a strong curb on Cuban filibustering. He had withdrawn a treaty negotiated by his predecessor to annex Hawaii, because, as he said, its lawful government had been overthrown by the diplomatic and naval representatives of the United States. In short, he had won almost unbounded confidence, and now when his voice was for war he carried the country with him as no other man could have done. Yet a large body of sober-minded people throughout the country, who had been Mr Cleveland’s firm supporters and his chief reliance in all previous emergencies, were now detached from him, more in
113
sorrow than in anger. In the money market the Venezuela message came as “a bolt from the blue.” A panic of great severity ensued, a run on the Treasury began, and the president was compelled to make a fresh loan, in time of peace, of $100,000,000. On 12th November 1896 an agreement was made for arbitration of the Venezuelan controversy, in which the contention of Great Britain wTas safeguarded by a clause that adverse holding during a period of fifty years should make a good title. It has been said that Mr Cleveland was vindicated by the result, but this view overlooks two facts of importance, viz., that war was avoided only by the calmness of the British ministry and the British public; and that Mr Cleveland gave the greatest spur and impetus to the war spirit among his countrymen that the present generation has known. On 8th January 1897 Mr Cleveland transmitted to the Senate a treaty for the arbitration of all future differences between the United States and Great Britain, earnestly recommending its approval. The Senate did not ratify this treaty, but its aims have been partially accomplished on a larger scale by the agreements of the Hague Conference. During his second term Mr Cleveland added 44,004 places in the civil service to the classified list, bringing them within the rules of the merit system. This was a greater number than all that had been placed in the list before, and brought the whole number up to 86,932. Mr Cleveland’s second term expired 4th March 1897, and he then retired into private life in the university town of Princeton, New Jersey. (h. Wh*.) CBeveS* in German Kleve, a town and watering-place of Prussia, in the Rhine province, between the Rhine and the frontier of Holland, 40 miles by rail north-north-west from Crefeld. It has a monument to the legendary Knights of the Swan (1882); a collection of antiquities, preserved in the town hall; and an agricultural school: also, manufactures of cheese, tobacco, agricultural implements, &c. Population(1885), 10,170; (1895), 10,986; (1900), 14,678. Clichy, or Clicky la Gakenne, a town of France, department of Seine, in the arrondissement of St Denis, and immediately north of the outer circle of Paris, of which it is a suburb. Its manufactures include oil and starch. It was a residence of the Merovingian kings, and was then known as Clippiacum. Population (1881), 24,223 ; (1891), 30,561 ; (1901), 39,521. Clifford, William Kingdon (1845-1879), English mathematician and philosopher, was born 4th May 1845 at Exeter, where his father was a prominent citizen. He was educated at a private school in his native town, at King’s College, London, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was elected fellow in 1868, after being second wrangler in 1867 and second Smith’s prizeman. In 1871 he was appointed professor of mathematics at University College, London, and in 1874 became fellow of the Royal Society. In 1875 he married Lucy, daughter of John Lane of Barbados, a lady who has since won distinction as a novelist. In 1876 Clifford, a man of high-strung and athletic, but not robust, physique, began to fall into illhealth, and after two voyages to the South died during the third of pulmonary consumption at Madeira, 3rd March 1879. His works, published wholly or in part since his death, are Elements of Dynamic (1879-87), Seeing and Thinking, popular science lectures (1879), Lectures and Essays, with an introduction by Sir F. Pollock (18 < 9), Mathematical Papers, with an introduction by Henry J. S. Smith (1882), and The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences, completed by Professor Karl Pearson (1885). Owing to his early death, Clifford’s abilities and achievements cannot be fairly indeed without reference to the opinion formed of S. IIL —15
