The writing of the message was a serious task for Mr. Cleveland. He realized that its effect depended upon the completeness of his argument and his making himself clear and convincing to plain people. It was really a literary task, and Mr. Cleveland was not a literary man. He was a lawyer, accustomed to presenting what he had to say in the forcible and exact but more or less technical and ponderous terms of the law. He had a taste, too, for sonorous and unusual words and phrases, but now he wanted to be simple,—as simple as he could be, and still be dignified. For weeks he kept his message within reach in the drawer of his White House work-table, whenever he had a moment, taking it out to add to and to correct. Finally he had the structure worked out to his satisfaction. He would begin at the end of the story with what the high tariff had done, the dangers and hardships it had brought on the country, and he would tell Congress plainly, this is your work and you alone can remedy it. With dignity and clearness he worked out the situation: “You are confronted at the threshold of your legislative duties,” he wrote Congress, “with a condition of the national finances which imperatively demands immediate and careful consideration. The amount of money annually exacted through the operation of present laws, from the industries and necessities of the people, largely exceeds the sum necessary to meet the expenses of the Government.... This condition of our Treasury is not altogether new; and it has more than once of late been submitted to the people’s representatives in the Congress, who alone can apply a remedy. And yet the situation still continues with aggravated incidents, more than ever presaging financial convulsion and widespread disaster.... If disaster results from the continued inaction of Congress, the responsibility must rest where it belongs.”