Grover Cleveland

The United States has had 43 Presidents in its history. But only 42 men have held the office.

Wait….what ?

Well, the individual who counts as two of our Presidents served in the White House from 1885-1889 and again from 1893-1897. And as the only man to serve two non-consecutive terms as President, Grover Cleveland holds a unique place in American history.

Steven Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, New Jersey on March 18, 1837. He dropped Steven from his name as a youth and grew up in western New York. Cleveland worked as a lawyer and then served as mayor of Buffalo and governor of New York in the early 1880s as a Democrat. With Americans growing weary of Republican Presidents in the post-Civil War period, Democrats sensed they had a possible winner in the honesty and integrity found in Cleveland. And they were right. Cleveland defeated Republican James Blaine in the 1884 election and became the nation’s first Democratic President since James Buchanan – a stretch of almost 25 years.

Cleveland was known as a tireless, individualistic worker in the White House. He believed in the gold money standard, and in self-reliance of states and the country’s citizens. Repeatedly he turned down pension requests from Union Civil War veterans and their widows, calling them excessive, and denied aid to Texas after it suffered through drought in 1886. One of Cleveland’s major proposals was a reduction in the country’s protective tariff, which would have meant an increase in free trade. This issue divided the Democrats near the end of his first administration, which opened the door for a Republican challenge in 1888. And the Republicans capitalized. Indiana’s Benjamin Harrison proved a worthy opponent to Cleveland in the 1888 election. Although Cleveland won the popular vote, he was defeated by Harrison in the Electoral College.

Cleveland returned to private life but remained an interested observer in the U.S. political scene. Failed legislation and an uprising of the nation’s farmers put Harrison’s presidency on thin ice, to the point where Republicans discussed nominating another candidate in 1892. A third political party – the People’s, or Populist Party - also gained traction as it represented the farming community and advocated coinage of silver. Democrats felt Cleveland was their best hope among the possible nominees, and he was chosen on the first ballot at the 1892 Democratic convention. In what author Henry Graff described as one of the “dullest in memory” campaigns, Cleveland won the popular and electoral vote in 1892 and returned to the White House.

His second administration was marked by a major event – the Panic of 1893, which kept the country in a depression for nearly four years. The great financier J.P. Morgan was called on to buy government bonds and keep the nation’s gold reserve intact. Cleveland increased his workaholic reputation and went further into seclusion in the White House, as he did in his first term. Sensing a lame duck, the Democrats turned away from Cleveland in 1896 and nominated the great orator William Jennings Bryan as its nominee. Cleveland left office the following March. He died on June 24, 1908.

I finished Henry Graff’s biography of Grover Cleveland this week. Graff presents Cleveland as an honest, hard-working president, who sought to surround himself in his administration with the “best men”. His long-time friends and associates were passed over for better qualified candidates, as Graff explains, which was a departure from the spoils system. Cleveland was not regarded as a particularly dynamic leader, and was excessively modest after his first election win in 1884. He regarded his impending presidency “as a dreadful self-inflicted penance for the good of my country. I see no pleasure in it and no satisfaction, only a hope that I may be of service.”

Some other interesting anecdotes about Grover Cleveland:

1) The Civil War was in full swing in 1862, as the 25-year old Cleveland worked in a law office in Western New York. But Cleveland was not called to military service. As Graff explains, Cleveland “…legally avoided the military draft by obtaining a substitute, a thirty-two-year-old Polish immigrant, to take his place for $150 – and who, it must be noted, survived the war.”

2) Grover Cleveland is the only President who ever married in the White House itself. On June 2, 1886, the 48-year old Cleveland married 21-year old Frances Folsom in the executive mansion.

3) The Clevelands’ oldest child was named Ruth, born in 1891. She died at age 13 and was given the name “Baby Ruth” by the newspapers. In 1921, the Curtiss Company gave one of their candy bars her name, and so was born the “Baby Ruth” bar.

4) Cleveland was diagnosed with a cancerous lesion in his mouth shortly after he returned to office in 1893. He needed surgery, and in order to keep the procedure from the American public, doctors operated on him aboard a yacht in New York’s East River. The public amazingly did not find this out until one of his doctors spoke about the surgery in 1917.

5) Cleveland is one of only two men to win at least three popular elections in U.S. presidential history. Franklin Delano Roosevelt won four straight from 1932-1944.

All in all, an interesting book from Henry Graff on Grover Cleveland, our 22nd (and 24th) President.

 John Quincy Adams                         Andrew Jackson      

The Election of 1824 was a landmark election in American history for several reasons. The most notable was this: it remains the only Presidential election in U.S. history where the winner did not have the most votes in either the popular election or in the Electoral College. John Quincy Adams initially was the beneficiary of this result, but, over the course of his four years in office, was eventually undone by it.

Background

There were four major candidates for President in the 1824 election:

• Andrew Jackson, military general and hero of the Battle of New Orleans
• William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury
• Henry Clay, Speaker of the House of Representatives
• John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State

It is interesting to note how different the campaigns were conducted in this time period compared to today. Samuel Flagg Bemis, in his book “John Quincy Adams and The Union” (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1956), writes that, “There was no campaign by any of the candidates in the sense of going about the country making speeches on the issues of the day…they were all rivals who believed in much the same things, in a contest of personalities.”

Since no candidate received a majority of the electoral votes, the election was submitted to the House of Representatives, who would choose among the top three, as outlined in the Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution. This meant that Clay was eliminated. Crawford was also cast aside, as he had suffered several paralyzing strokes during the campaign. The choice came down to Jackson or Adams.

The “Corrupt Bargain”

Andrew Jackson’s supporters believed that since the General had a plurality in each of the vote totals, that he should naturally be declared the winner. Adams and his supporters, meanwhile, worked hard to gain favor with individual state delegations. But perhaps most importantly, Henry Clay wielded tremendous power in the House. He eventually cast his support behind Adams, who was declared the winner in February of 1825. Not long after, Adams appointed Clay as his Secretary of State. This conflict of interest (real or perceived) resulted in condemnation from the Jackson camp, who declared this new arrangement between Adams and Clay a “corrupt bargain“. This charge of corruption would haunt Adams throughout his presidency and stalled many of his Presidential initiatives.

The Election of 1828

The Jackson camp was relentless in its criticism during the four years of Adams’ administration and repeated their claims that Adams’ presidency was “illegitimate”. Adams favored programs that would have introduced many improvements on a national scale, but Jackson’s group felt this put too much power in Adams’ administration’s hands. The end result was a re-introduction of the two-party system to America, with Jackson (Democratic) and Adams (National Republican) serving as the perceived heads of each party. The campaign of 1828 was essentially a smear campaign between the two groups, but Jackson and his supporters pushed their message through. Jackson defeated Adams fairly convincingly in 1828 (by a count of 178 to 83 in the Electoral College).

With it ended the presidential career of one of America’s most distinguished citizens.

I recently read David Greenberg’s Calvin Coolidge – part of the American Presidents series of short presidential biographies. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Greenberg’s biography of Coolidge is a crisp, well-balanced portrait of “Silent Cal”, our 30th president. Coolidge was a champion of limited government and a true believer in American business above all. “The chief business of the American people is business,” he famously said once. Coolidge became President on August 2, 1923 after the sudden death of Warren G. Harding, and provided a steady, cautious hand throughout his nearly six years in the White House. While he presided over an enormously prosperous period in our history during “The Roaring Twenties”, his critics felt he was at times too lax to the challenges of the times. Coolidge’s governing style (or lack thereof) failed to head off the coming of the Depression, as he always believed that the market would correct itself, without a need for government intervention. Greenberg felt that Coolidge’s values were somewhat out of place in the 20th century, but those strong values guided Coolidge and the American public loved him for it. “He did not deplore corporate capitalism, or technology, or even consumer spending; he accepted these elements of modernity while trusting in his religious faith and staying vigilant against moral decay,” writes Greenberg of Coolidge.

One interesting note: one of the first things Ronald Reagan did after taking office in 1981 was to replace a portrait of Harry Truman with one of Coolidge. Reagan noted that a popular criticism of Coolidge, that he did “nothing” as President, was perhaps one of his greatest strengths. Coolidge liked to let things play themselves out, which served him and America well during the rich 1920s, but may have failed to prevent The Great Depression which kept the Republicans out of the White House for nearly twenty years. On another note, I found it ironic that someone known for being short with words was the first President of the radio age. Coolidge’s radio addresses reached millions. By the way, “Keep Cool With Coolidge” was the 1924 campaign slogan that helped Coolidge ride to a landslide victory over John W. Davis, who totalled the lowest percentage of the vote of any Democrat in election history.

Here are a few of my favorite anecdotes and quotes from “Silent Cal”:

1) Once at a dinner while in the White House, a woman mentioned to Coolidge that she had bet her friends that she could get more than three words out of him that night.

Coolidge’s response to her ? “You lose.”

2) Reflecting his passive approach to problem-solving, Coolidge once said, “If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you and you have to battle with only one of them.”

3) Greenberg gave a great example of how unassuming Coolidge was to those around him. Once while vice-president, he attempted to return to his hotel after it was evacuated by fire. He was stopped by a fire marshal.

“I’m the vice-president,” said Coolidge.

“What are you vice-president of ?” asked the marshal.

“I am the vice-president of the United States,” answered Coolidge.

“Come right down,” said the marshal. “I thought you were vice president of the hotel.”

Kudos to David Greenberg on his biography of Coolidge. What an interesting book, especially on a President I didn’t know much about or have any burning interest to learn more on.

On May 8, I attended a talk at the Westport (CT) Public Library given by author and schoolteacher Jim Cullen about his new book, Imperfect Presidents: Tales of Misadventure and Triumph. Mr. Cullen analyzes eleven U.S. presidents and presents a success alongside a failure for each of the eleven. Unfortunately, I have not yet read the book, but I found Mr. Cullen’s presentation very enjoyable. He rates JFK in the “overrated” category and feels that the recent hoisting of Truman into the “top 5″ list of presidents is somewhat undeserved. On the other hand, he feels the constant accolades given to Washington are justified and that his greatness is not only well deserved, but somewhat less understood because of the time period. He describes Lincoln as perhaps the first “media” president with means of communication much more prevalent of course than Washington’s time, and perhaps why Washington’s greatness is more “distant” than Lincoln’s.

I was impressed with the turnout. The room was completely filled and the library staff had to scramble to add more seats. Many in the audience wanted to discuss more of the modern era presidents (Nixon, Reagan, Ford) and not surprisingly, many had strong opinions on George W. Bush. Others asked Mr. Cullen to handicap the 2008 race and he felt that this could be a watershed-type election. He wouldn’t offer a prediction on nominees. But he noted how much times have changed in that the Republicans may have a nominee with a vowel on the end of his name (Giuliani), which drew a laugh from the audience. The interest was so high that the library staff finally had to cut off questions from the audience so Mr. Cullen could begin signing books. All in all, a very enjoyable event.