where his personal character and attributes, as well as his
qualifications for positions of high public trust, are most thoroughly
known.

As governor of New York, which position he has occupied for the last
twenty months, first with a Democratic and later with a Republican
legislature, Mr. Cleveland has followed the same rule of official
conduct adopted for his guidance in other positions. Mindful of all
proper obligations to his own political party, he has never permitted
party demands to stand in the way of his duty to the public and the
State. Believing, to quote his own language, "in an open and sturdy
partisanship which secures the legitimate advantages of party
supremacy," he also believes that parties were made for the people, and
declares himself "unwilling, knowingly, to give assent to measures
purely partisan which will sacrifice or endanger the people's
interests." In the office of governor, as well as in that of mayor, he
has made vigorous but discriminate use of the veto power, and in the one
case, as in the other, it has invariably been found, upon candid
investigation, that his action has been taken under a profound sense of
the binding authority of the fundamental law, and with an unflinching
regard for the rights and interests of the whole people,--however
violent, at times, may have been the denunciation of demagogic
opponents, or clamorous the protests of those who sought merely
temporary advantages in particular directions, regardless of ultimate
results upon the general welfare. In this, as in other positions, his
general line of action has been such as to command the hearty approval
of patriotic men of all parties; and if he has incurred the hostility of
any, it has been through his opposition to the schemes of corrupt rings
and the purposes of selfish individuals, which he regarded detrimental
to the public good; or through his support of wholesome measures,