The story of the Sun, New York, 1833-1918 / by Frank M. O'Brien.

"THE SUN" AND YELLOW JOURNALISM 421
attitude in the Hayes-Tilden scandal, and he believed
that Butler, if elected President, would shake things up
in Washington. The Sun supported him " as a man to
be immensely preferred to either of the others and as
a protest against such nominations." Dana personally
announced that sooner than support Blaine he would
quit work and burn his pen.
In 1885, opposing Cleveland's free-trade policy, the
Sun vigorously supported Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania, a protectionist Democrat, for speaker of the
House, as against John G. Carlisle, of Kentucky, a freetrader; but Randall was beaten.
The Sun ridiculed Cleveland's theories of civil-service
reform, although it believed that real reforms were
needed. On this point Dana wrote, in a letter:
I do not believe in the establishment in this country
of the German bureaucratic system, with its permanent
staff of office-holders who are not responsible to the
people, and whose tenure of place knows no variation
and no end except the end of life. In my judgment a
genuine reform of the evils complained of is reached by
the vigorous simplification of the machinery of government, by the repeal of all superfluous laws, the abolition
of every needless office, and the dismissal of every needless officer. The true American doctrine on this subject
consists in the diminution of government, not in its
increase.
For all of its opposition to Cleveland, whom it dubbed
the " stuffed prophet," the Sun preferred him to General
Harrison in the campaign of 1888. It feared a return
to power of the influences which it had combated during
the administrations of Grant and Hayes. Four years
afterward, however, the Sun was strongly against the
third nomination of Cleveland.
In Mr. Cleveland's second term the Sun supported his
course when Dana believed it to be American. While