The situation in 1893 was one that might well have shaken the stoutest heart. International difficulties were in sight that threatened unusual dangers; labor troubles of unprecedented complexity and importance were at hand; the question of the currency remained unsettled, the treasury was in a critical condition, and an industrial panic had already begun. Each of these difficulties will demand detailed discussion at a later point.[3] To no small degree, the settlement of the political and economic issues before the country was complicated by the unmistakable drift toward sectionalism, and by the particular characteristics of the President. If the administration pressed a tariff reduction policy, it would please the South and West but bring hostility in the East. The demands of the West, so far as the Populists represented them, were for the increased use of the powers of the federal government and the application of those powers to social and economic problems; but the party in power was traditionally attached to the doctrine of restricted activity on the part of the central authority. The sectional aspects of the silver question were notorious; and only the eastern Democrats fully supported their leader in his stand on the issue. The personal characteristics of President Cleveland have already appeared.[4] He had a burdensome consciousness of his own individual duty to conduct the business of his office with faithfulness; a courageous sense of justice which impelled him to fight valiantly for a cause that he deemed right, however unimportant or hopeless the cause might be; a reformer's contempt for hypocrisy and shams, and a blunt directness in freeing his mind about wrong of every kind. He had the faults of his virtues, likewise. Sure of himself and of the right of his position, he had the impatience of an unimaginative man with any other point of view; he was intransigent, unyielding, rarely giving way a step even to take two forward. It seems likely that his political experience had accentuated this characteristic. For years he had thrown aside the advice of his counsellors and had shown himself more nearly right than they. As Mayor of Buffalo he had used the veto and had been made Governor of the state; as Governor he had ruggedly made enemies and had become President; as President he had flown in the face of caution with his tariff message and his Reform Club letter and had three times received a larger popular vote than his competitor. And each time his plurality was greater than it had been before. If he tended to become over-sure of himself, it should hardly occasion surprise. Furthermore he looked upon the duties and possibilities of the presidential office as fixed and stationary, rather than elastic and developing. He was a strict constructionist and a rigid believer in the checks and balances of the Constitution. Although constantly aware of the needs and rights of the common people, such as composed the