Public officers are the servants and agents of the people, to execute the laws which the people have made. - Grover Cleveland

These are days of special perplexity and depression, and the path of public duty is unusually rugged.

A sensitive man is not happy as President. It is fight, fight, fight all the time. I looked forward to the close of my term as a happy release from care. But I am not sure I wasn't more unhappy out of office than in. A term in the presidency accustoms a man to great duties. He gets used to handling tremendous enterprises, to organizing forces that may affect at once and directly the welfare of the world. After the long exercise of power, the ordinary affairs of life seem petty and commonplace. An ex-President practicing law or going into business is like a locomotive hauling a delivery wagon. He has lost his sense of proportion. The concerns of other people and even his own affairs seem too small to be worth bothering about.

Federal aid in such cases encourages an expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character.