John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

Towards the close of Cleveland's first term the Sun denounced the Mills bill, providing for a horizontal reduction of the tariff, and praised the McKinley act as establishing the most useful and the most scientific tariff that the United States had ever had. While it frankly admitted that the time had come for “the reconstruction” of the tariff, it strongly contended that its “abolition” would be ruinous to the Democratic party and injurious to the country at large. It favored the upbuilding of the navy, and praised William C. Whitney, the secretary of that department, as the only member of Cleveland's cabinet that had proved himself equal to the exigencies of his high position. It maintained its hostility to Secretary Bayard and Minister Phelps, on account of their alleged attitude of unfriendliness towards the Irish and the Irish cause. It received the proceeds of a popular subscription for the benefit of the Irish movement under the leadership of Parnell. On the publication of an imprudent letter of Sir Lionel Sackville-West, the British minister, advising a citizen who had been a British subject to vote the Democratic ticket, it called for the dismissal of the minister, and had the satisfaction of seeing him on his way back to England within the short period of three days. It praised the President warmly for the spirit and promptitude of his action, and urged all citizens to vote for him rather than for General Harrison. With all the shortcomings of the Democrats in Congress, and all the objections which it had recorded against Cleveland and his .management, the Sun preferred to see him re-elected than to see the Republicans again called back to power.

Although Dana had been one of the first of the American editors to call attention to the phenomenal increase of corporations, he was also one of the first to call attention to their great economic utility, and to the necessity of dealing with them fairly and justly. So philosophical were