The standing committee system, which controls the gateways of legislation, is made up on a system of party apportionment whose effect is to give an insurgent faction of the majority the balance of power, and this opportunity for mischief was unsparingly used by the silver faction.
Such a situation could not be successfully encountered save by a policy aimed distinctly at accomplishing a redress of popular grievances.

But such a policy, President Cleveland failed to conceive.

In his inaugural address, he indicated in a general way the policy pursued throughout his term when he said, "I shall to the best of my ability and within my sphere of duty preserve the Constitution by loyally protecting every grant of Federal power it contains, by defending all its restraints when attacked by impatience and restlessness, and by enforcing its limitations and reservations in favor of the states and the people." This statement sets forth a low view of governmental function and practically limits its sphere to the office of the policeman, whose chief concern is to suppress disorder.

Statesmanship should go deeper and should labor in a constructive way to remove causes of disorder.
An examination of President Cleveland's state papers show that his first concern was always to relieve the Government from its financial embarrassments; whereas the first concern of the people was naturally and properly to find relief from their own embarrassments.

In the last analysis, the people were not made for the convenience of the Government, but the Government was made for the convenience of the people, and this truth was not sufficiently recognized in the policy of Cleveland's administration.