“Surely no more lonely and pathetic figure was ever seen assuming the powers of government. He had no people behind him, for Garfield, not he, was the people’s choice; he had no party behind him, for the dominant factions of his party hated his name, were enraged by his advancement, and distrusted his motives. He had not even his own faction behind him, for he already knew that the just discharge of his duties would not accord with the ardent desires of partisanship, and that disappointment and estrangement lay before him there. He was alone. He was bowed down by the weight of fearful responsibility and crushed to earth by the feeling, exaggerated, but not unfounded, that he took up his heavy burden surrounded by dislike, suspicion, distrust, and condemnation as an enemy of the martyred Garfield and the beneficiary of his murder. Deep and settled melancholy possessed him; almost despair overwhelmed him. He went to power walking through the valley of the shadow of death and ascended the steps of a throne as one who is accused goes to his trial. He was wise in statesmanship, firm and effective in administration. Honesty in national finance, purity and effectiveness in the civil service, the promotion of commerce, the recreation of the American Navy, reconciliation between North and South, an honourable friendship with foreign nations, received his active support. “The genuineness of his patriotism, the integrity of his purpose, and the wisdom of his conduct, changed general distrust to universal confidence, reëstablished popular belief in the adequacy of our constitutional system in all emergencies, and restored an abiding trust in the perpetuity of our government. He himself greatly aided to make true the memorable words of his first inaugural: ‘Men may die, but the fabrics of our free institutions remain unshaken.’” CHAPTER VII FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF GROVER CLEVELAND _March 4, 1885, to March 4, 1889_ The fourth of March, 1885, dawned fair and warm, the finest weather ever known in the history of the city of Washington on Inauguration Day. Cleveland luck had captured the weather. The city seemed to respond to the spring air, and block after block blossomed with fluttering banners, waving flags, and tri-coloured bunting. Huge lithographs of Cleveland and Hendricks were displayed in store windows, as well as from the windows of residences. The usual tribe of vendors of canes, buttons, noise-makers, and such, seemed to have multiplied their numbers until they were thick upon every block of the line of march.