When first nominated for the Presidency, Mr. Cleveland had little personal knowledge of public men outside of his own State. How rapidly he acquired the information necessary to a successful administration of the government was indeed a marvel. It was no "Cleveland luck" or haphazard chance that called into his first Cabinet such men as Bayard, Manning, Garland, Vilas, and Whitney. It can safely be asserted that Mr. Cleveland was an excellent judge of men and of their capacity for the particular work assigned them. As if by intuition, he thoroughly understood after a single interview the men with whom he was brought in contact. As an object lesson a better appointment to high office has rarely been made than that of Fuller to the chief justiceship of the great court. No less fortunate was his selection of Vilas to the responsible position of Postmaster-General. And yet both of these gentlemen were personally strangers to Mr. Cleveland when he was first named for the Presidency. His appointments to important diplomatic positions likewise strikingly illustrated his aptness in forming a correct estimate of men from whom his appointees were to be chosen. No incumbent of the Presidency was ever less of a time-server than Cleveland. "Expediency" was a word scarcely known to his vocabulary. Recognizing alike the dignity and responsibility of the great office, he was in the highest degree self-reliant. None the less he at all times availed himself of the wise counsel of his official advisers. In matters falling within their especial province their determination was, except in rare instances, conclusive. In no sense was his mind closed against the timely counsel of his friends. Far from being opinionated, in the offensive sense of the word, the ultimate determination, however, was after "having taken counsel from himself." The incident contributing perhaps more than any other to his defeat in 1888 was his tariff-reduction message to Congress one year prior to that election. An abler state paper has rarely been put forth. It was a clear, succinct presentation of existing economic conditions; in very truth an unanswerable argument for tariff reduction. It is not yet forgotten how promptly this message was denounced by the entire opposition press as a "free-trade manifesto," and how this cry increased in voice and volume until the close of the Presidential contest. And yet, in sending this message to Congress, Mr. Cleveland was entirely consistent with himself. Its utterances were in clear accord with the platform upon which he had been nominated and with his letter of acceptance. It is one of the anomalies of politics that the clear-cut sentences measurably instrumental in compassing his defeat in 1888, were upon the banners of his triumphant partisans in the campaign of 1892.