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It was the McKinley Tariff, which raised the cost of goods, and the profligacy of Congress altogether which inflamed Grover Cleveland to run for another term. tariff reductions and economy in government were his platform, and he won almost 400,000 more votes than Benjamin Harrison in 1892. Soon after his election, he underwent a secrete operation for cancer of the mouth, as a team of nine doctors worked on him on a yacht traveling up Manhattan's East River under the cover of night.
The country was in the grip of a seemingly unliftable depression - banks and corporations failed daily and the gold supply in the treasury was dwindling dangerously. For Cleveland, the solution was sound currency. He sought to repeal the Silver Purchase Act of 1890, which he saw as both inflation - increasing and investment - inhibiting. In foreign affairs, he refused to annex Hawaii, and he boldly enforced the Monroe Doctrine, teaching England to take the U.S. seriously as a world power.
At the 1896 Democrat Convention, Cleveland was pushed aside in favor of William Jennings Bryan. After leaving office, he settled in the town of Princeton, where he became an active trustee of the college.
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