http://www1.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/us-history/American-History-Labor-Unrest-Marks-Clevelands-First-Term-92881554.html5 May 2010
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Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.
Grover Cleveland was elected president of the United States in eighteen eighty-four. He was the first Democratic Party candidate to win a presidential election in almost twenty-eight years.
Grover Cleveland defeated James Blaine, a senator from the Republican Party. The election was very close. Many Republicans did not vote for their own candidate. They voted for Cleveland instead. They believed he was honest and that Blaine was not.
This week in our series, Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe tell us about the presidency of Grover Cleveland.
KAY GALLANT: Cleveland began his administration by announcing that he would reduce waste in the government. He would make government more like business. He said he would support reforms to let ability -- not politics -- decide who would get government jobs.
Democratic Party leaders were quick to protest. They explained to Cleveland that the party owed jobs to those who had worked for his victory. Cleveland had to compromise. He permitted about eighty thousand government jobs to be taken from Republicans and given to Democrats. This left twelve thousand jobs. These would be given to people who did the best on government examinations.
Cleveland's decision angered Republican reformers who had voted for him. They accused him of surrendering to the leaders of the Democratic Party.
HARRY MONROE: On other issues, however, Cleveland refused to compromise. He opposed government economic aid to any industrial group. He vetoed a bill giving aid to farmers whose crops had failed. And he vetoed another bill giving more money to men who had served as soldiers during America's civil war of the eighteen sixties
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