AN UNFINISHED STORY

A review of Robert Dallek’s An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963 (2003)

(Rating 5 of 5)

Robert Dallek's biography on John F. Kennedy is very well titled. It is a work that leaves you a little unsatisfied. Not because Dallek did a bad job, quite the contrary it is a very good book, but in the end you just feel like you watched a really good movie that ends suddenly and very incomplete. There is a lot of huff made in comparing Kennedy to President Lincoln, in the years they were elected, names of their vice presidents/successors, etc, etc. However, it is important to note the major difference of Lincoln serving a full term plus, and Kennedy's dying at the start of his re-election bid. Lincoln's story climaxes at the Gettysburg Address and concludes at his second inaugural, when he is later murdered by John Wilkes Booth, the mission that he started had already been completed beyond his, Lincoln's, wildest dreams. The Union had been saved and slavery, which he wanted to put on the path to destruction, was destroyed; Lincoln had fulfilled his place in history. Kennedy had been able to complete a good deal of the ground work that he needed to accomplish in his historic mission. The bill that would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been proposed to the Congress; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had stated was the most powerful civil rights legislation ever proposed by a president. To help settle some of the political damage that it was going to cause in the South, Kennedy went to campaign in Dallas, Texas where he would lose his life.

Dallek's story begins with the history of the two families that would create John F. Kennedy, the Kennedys and the Fitzgeralds. Joseph P. Kennedy marries Rose Fitzgerald the daughter of Mayor John 'Honey Fitz' Fitzgerald uniting their two families. They would name their second son after his maternal grandfather. Everyone in the family expected a lot of John's older brother, Joe, Jr., who John was very close to growing up. His other brothers were far too young for him to have much of a relationship with. Kennedy's youth, although blessed with wealth, was cursed by a lack of health; he was always ill and spent a great deal of time with doctors. Throughout the whole misadventure Kennedy would maintain good humor about his situation.


(Joseph P. Kennedy)


(Rose Kennedy)

“More puzzling medical problems punctuated Jack's second year at Choate. In January and February 1933, 'flu-like symptoms' plagued him, as well as almost constant pain in his knees. 'Jack's winter term sounded like a hospital report,' a fiftieth-anniversary remembrance of his attendance at the school recounted, 'with correspondence flying back and forth between Rose Kennedy and Clara St. John [the headmaster's wife]. Again, eyes, ears, teeth, knees, arches, from the top of his head to the tip of his toes, Jack needed attention.' X-rays showed no pathology in his knees, and so his doctor attributed his difficulties to growing pains and recommended exercises and 'built up' shoes.” p.34-5

(The Kennedy family)

Nevertheless he would through sheer determination, get himself in shape enough to join the Navy and serve as a P.T. boat captain. He would famously captain the PT-109 and would get his most of his crew to safety when an enemy destroyed their boat. Unfortunately, for the Kennedy family they would suffer two tremendous tragedies during the war. The first, which took place before JFK's command, was his sister Rosemary's botched lobotomy that took her personhood. The second was the death of Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. who was killed on a secret mission.


(Lt. Kennedy as captain of the PT 109)


(Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., killed in action)


(Rosemary Kennedy personhood stolen by doctors)

When the war was over JFK, began to pursue his own political career, his father's ended the moment he misjudged the political situation of World War II, going as far to praise the German Dictator Adolph Hitler. The young Kennedy, however, was going to rise and rise fast. Kennedy wrote a book, Why England Slept, in which he separated himself from his father's opinion of World War II. He would be elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1946. There he would befriend another freshman Congressman, named Richard M. Nixon. A pure status-type of politician Congressman Kennedy became bored of the House and, in 1952, ran for the United States Senate against the incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge II, whose grandfather for whom he was named, helped bring down Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations proposal. Kennedy would win and would enter the Senate that would soon be ruled by an all-powerful majority leader named Lyndon B. Johnson. Kennedy's eight years in the Senate were rather unremarkable but he did find the time to write, or at least be the leader chief editor, for the Pulitzer Prize winning book Profiles in Courage.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy changed history by running for president, not just being the first Catholic to win the office, but he changed the way presidents were nominated. Kennedy took the primaries more seriously than any candidate in the past; enough so that when the convention started Kennedy was able to capture it on the first ballot. The master of the Senate, much to the suffering of the candidate’s younger brother, Robert F. Kennedy, was going to be on the ticket for vice president. Kennedy would go the general election facing his old friend Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Together they were going to participate in the first televised presidential debates. Nixon seemed to win on substance but Kennedy would win on style. When Election Day, came Kennedy would prevail in one of the closet elections on record and would take office on January 20, 1961.


(President John F. Kennedy)

“In the final analysis, the most important question is not why Kennedy won but why his victory was so narrow. Harry Truman was amazed at the closeness of the race. “Why, even our friend Adlai would have had a landslide running against Nixon,' he told Senator William Benton of Connecticut. Given the majority status of the Democrats, the discontent over the state of the economy and international affairs, and Kennedy's superior campaign and campaigning, he should have gained at least 52 or 53 percent of the popular vote. Everyone on his staff had predicted a victory of between 53 and 57 percent. The small margin shocked them. What they missed was the unyielding fear of having a Catholic in the White House. Although about 46 percent of Protestants voted for Kennedy, millions of them in Ohio, Wisconsin, and across the South made his religion a decisive consideration. It was the first time a candidate had won the presidency with a minority of Protestant voters.” p.296

(The President and his First Lady, Jackie Kennedy)

Kennedy's presidency has been described as Camelot and there certainly was that feel. A new young President and his family had moved into the White House and things were going to be different. Kennedy's administration would change the nation in a number of ways; this presidency saw an increase of national support for NASA and the moon program. In addition, there were some real highs and lows of the Cold War. The botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba was a national embarrassment but more importantly President Kennedy saw us through the scary Cuban Missile Crisis.




(President Kennedy revels the First Pet to his two excited young kids)

“The Peace Corps proved to be one of the enduring legacies of Kennedy's presidency. As with some American domestic institutions like Social Security and Medicare, the Peace Corps became a fixture that Democratic and Republican administrations alike would continue to finance for over forty years. It made far more friends than enemies and, as Kennedy had hoped, convinced millions of people abroad that the United States was eager to help developing nations raise standards of living.”p.340

President Kennedy with Vice President Johnson)


(Attorney General Robert Kennedy)


(The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. played a role to the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations similar to that of Fredrick Douglass during the Lincoln Administration)

On Civil Rights, like Lincoln a hundred years before him, he would be pressured from all over the political spectrum, to the advocates on the ground he was too slow and to conservatives he was too fast and radical. The first two years of his presidency, Kennedy wanted to move slowly though executive actions rather then fight for legislation. Later the President began to take more forceful action on that front, but he not live to finish the job. That would be carried on by his successor President Lyndon B. Johnson*.


(A son's final farewell)

Assassination creates secular saints. When Lee Harvey Oswald, murdered the President on November 22, 1963, Kennedy's martyred image would aid the new administration in establishing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  It would continue to be an asset for President Johnson as he established the Great Society. Dallek does an incredible job detailing these events, and I strongly recommend this book.

*That is something Lincoln did not have, his replacement, President Andrew Johnson, caused all sorts of problems during his incompetent stay as the nation's chief executive.

{Videos taken from YouTube}

I LIKE IKE

A review of Michael Korda’s Ike: An American Hero (2007)

(Rating 5 of 5)

Michael Korda’s Ike is a fascinating look into one of the most famous men of the twentieth century. He was a first-rate solider and statesman, this life-long solider would leave office warning the nation of the growing military-industrial complex. This is an incredible story of a boy from Abilene, Kansas who would rise to become one of the most famous figures on the world stage. If history had not intervened he probably would have retired from the army a bird colonel and we never would heard about him.

The book begins with Korda explaining how the United States mistreats its heroes of the past, through endless amounts of revision it tears down one giant after another. Then the narrative shifts to the moments before the great invasion of D-Day. General Eisenhower is making not only on the most important decisions of his life, but in all of world history. Then from there the story changes again, it goes back to his time as a boy. Actually Korda spends a minute trying to explain the entire family history leading up to the birth of David Dwight Eisenhower whose first two names would later be switched around. There is almost no hint of what was ultimately going to come. His army career is pretty basic he moves slowly up the chain of command with his commanding officers seeing his greatest value as coaching the base’s football team.


(Dwight D. Eisenhower of World War I)

Eisenhower gets married to Mamie Doud, and she ends up becoming a typical Army wife always looking to ‘push hubby’ through. Eisenhower played no significant role in World War I; he was just a staff officer, although, he did run into another officer, only slightly senior to him, George Patton.


(Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie)

“Both men were fiercely ambitious, but Ike did his best to conceal his ambition, whereas Patton wore his on his sleeve. Unlike Ike, Patton was eccentric, erratic, vain, deeply emotional, and a full-fledged military romantic, in love with the whole idea of glory, capable of writing, as Ike would surely not have been, of his beloved cavalry, ‘You must be: a horse master, a scholar; a high minded gentleman; a cold blooded hero; a hot-blooded savage.’ Such words—and sentiments—came easily to Patton, who saw himself (and wanted others to see him) as a cavalier, a swashbuckling hero on horseback, a student of war history and war poetry; and who at times seriously believed himself to be the reincarnation of great warriors of the past. Perhaps no solider has ever had a more romantic view of war, and, at the same time, a better understanding of its hard practicalities, than Patton.”p.148

(General Patton)

Dwight D. Eisenhower spent sixteen years at the rank of major. He was just a major when Herbert Hoover was elected president in 1928, which is odd when it is considered that Major Eisenhower would be the next Republican to win election. Eisenhower spent a few good years as the top aid to General MacArthur when the General was the Chief of Staff of the United States Army. At this point Eisenhower had actually made lieutenant colonel.


(Herbert Hoover the last president elected before Eisenhower)

“MacArthur’s remaining year as Army Chief of Staff was painful, as Roosevelt, with the deft political cunning for which he soon became famous, carefully undercut the position of the person he regarded as one of the two ‘most dangerous men in America,’ while all the time continuing to profess admiration and warm affection for him, he was only too aware that the New Dealers, as they were already beginning to be known, viewed him with deep suspicion, hated him for his reactionary political views, and were afraid he might harbor political ambitions which would bring him in open conflict with the administration—that he might become, in fact, the proverbial ‘man on a white horse’ in the event of a fascist putsch in America. In short, their feelings about General MacArthur were a paranoid as his about them.”p.205

(General MacArthur)

When World War II broke out Eisenhower would begin to make his mark on the world, in a little over three and half years he would rise from lieutenant colonel to five-star-general. In that time he over saw the invasion of Sicily and the invasion of the Italian mainland. As the Supreme Allied Commander, he had to be both politician and solider. He was great at both roles. In the politician angle he had great success, especially in Britain. While in Britain there was one lady there named Kay Summersby, who Eisenhower may have known a little too well. She was officially his chauffeur but she proved to be a lot more than that.


(Ike as general)


(Ike's wartime gal)

“Perhaps the only people of consequence who snubbed Kay were King George VI, who was always petrified by the slightest hint of an improper relationship because of the misfortunes of his older brother, and who deliberately treated her like a chauffeur, which is to say a servant; and General Marshall, who considered part of his job to telephone Mamie once a week, and was deeply suspicious of Kay Summersby. Whatever virtues Ike may have had, however—and he had many—discretion about his friendship with Kay was not one of them, and people can hardly be blamed then or now for drawing the logical conclusion.”p.284

(King George VI did not like Kay)

During the D-Day invasion Eisenhower, like General Grant in the Civil War—as Kordra points out—was concerned with armies not territories. His primary mission was to defeat the Army of Germany not to capture particular points of real estate. It was this attitude that attracts his primary criticism as a general. However, it was Eisenhower who kept allies bound together and united no matter how hot-headed their leaders’ personalities may have been, Eisenhower got the best out of each of them.


(The General giving orders)

“Since 1945, almost everybody has had a say about the supposed mistakes that were made in the last year of the war—especially the presumed failure of on the part of the western Allies to take Berlin and the failure to confront the Soviet Union over the borders and the independence of the eastern European countries. Many if not most of these have been blamed on Roosevelt, but it should always be borne in mind that the president did not live to write his own memoirs, or to criticize those of others. Ike, when he came to write his, was careful not to join in postwar criticism of Roosevelt. Ike himself had shown no interest in wasting the lives of American soldiers to get to Berlin, and several times he offended even angered Churchill by going over the heads of the prime minister and the president to deal directly with Stalin, as if he himself were a head of state, to ensure that there would be no accidental clashes between Allied and Soviet troops as their front lines began to touch.” p.432-3

When Eisenhower he served in a number of posts, finally, in 1952, Eisenhower decided to run for the Republican Nomination for president. He would win beating Senator Robert Taft, and he would go on to win the election against his Adlai E. Stevenson. He would have an eventful and successful presidency. Under him there would be an inter-state highway system and an end to the Korean War. He would send soldiers to protect the ‘Little Rock Nine’ students who braved the way against segregation in education and all other aspects of life. The Cold War would continue with spy planes and talks of a ‘missal gap.’ There also was the crisis in Hungry and Suez Canal.

“It was the end of more than Eden’s career—it was the end of Britain’s remaining pretensions to independent, imperial power; it was the end of the fiction, still persisting from World War II, that the United States, Great Britain, and France were equal world powers. (Britain would shortly abandon Malaya, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, and much else besides; France would shortly lose Morocco, Algeria, and most of its African colonies.)


(President Dwight D. Eisenhower)

Ike had acted swiftly, decisively, and undeniably for the good; and although he felt great sympathy for his old friends in Britain, and even greater sympathy for the gallant but ill-advised Hungarians, he carefully managed events to avoid a clash with the Soviet Union, and he preserved peace—not a perfect peace, to be sure, or one without victims and compromises., but still peace. The Soviet Union had threatened to use atomic weapons on London and Paris at the height of the Suez Crisis, and in order to discourage American intervention in Hungary, but Ike had taken all this blustering calmly in his stride and kept a firm control of events.” p.693-4

Eisenhower retired for good, in 1961, when his successor John F. Kennedy, who had beaten Ike’s vice president, Richard Nixon, took office. He would live into 1969, just long enough to see Nixon, whose daughter would marry his grandson, become president.



Michael Korda wrote a great biography on the thirty-fourth president very detailed and informative. There are also historical allusions to other time periods littered thought the book, which as a history buff, I really do appreciate that. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wanted to know more about Dwight D. Eisenhower and World War II.

{Videos are as follows, the first is an Ike campaign ad made by Walt Disney, the second is President Eisenhower's famous farewell address.}

A QUIET PRESIDENT

A review of Robert Sobel’s Coolidge: An American Enigma (1998)

(Rating 4 of 5)

Robert Sobel does a very good job depicting one of our least known presidents. Calvin ‘Silent Cal’ Coolidge presided over one of the most prosperous times in our nation’s history, but like many other successful presidents they get over shadowed by larger ones. Coolidge is described in this book as the ‘last nineteenth century president’ and that is a fair title. Coolidge was admired by President Ronald Reagan and by libertarians today, although whether Coolidge would acknowledge any of them is an open question.

John Calvin Coolidge grew up in Vermont but as an adult he moved to Massachusetts to be a lawyer. He would marry Grace Goodhue and have two children together. Starting a career in local politics that would see him rising all the way to mayor; he moves up to the state senate where he is elected that body's president. He then earned the Republican nomination for Lt. Governor of Massachusetts where he would serve for three one-year terms under Samuel McCall.


(Grace and Calvin Coolidge)


(The whole Coolidge gang)

In 1918, he ran for governor as a candidate against prohibition and for women’s suffrage. He won the election and took office as Governor. His most famous action was when the Boston’s police when on strike, Governor Coolidge declared it illegal and fired the strikers. This would inspire President Reagan during the air traffic controllers' strike.


(President Reagan greatly admired Coolidge)

“Now Coolidge took center stage. Meeting with reporters, he called the strike ‘desertion of duty’ and he indicated complete support for Curtis, whose next step was to declare that the now vacant positions on the force would be filled by new recruits. The Central Labor Union petitioned Coolidge to reconsider and reinstate the strikers, talking vaguely of the possibility of a general strike. Important Boston businessmen who may have feared violence from the dismissed strikers supported this position. When they observed that the strike might cost him his office, Coolidge snapped back, ‘It is not necessary for me to hold another office.’ But Coolidge having carefully considered his actions, knew that his position was quite popular, and bound to win rather than lose votes.” p.142

In 1920, the Republicans nominated Governor Coolidge for vice president. He and Warren G. Harding prevailed over the team of Cox and Roosevelt. Coolidge became the first Vice President to attend Cabinet meetings but still had very little to do. Which turned out not to be a bad thing, for when President Harding’s administration was rocked by scandal the Vice President remained untouched. Coolidge was visiting his father when the news came of Harding’s death, his father, a public notary, swore his son in as president.


(President Warren G. Harding, Coolidge's corrupt boss and predecessor)


(Sworn into office by his own dad)

As, president Calvin Coolidge would almost get rid of the entire income tax—except to the richest one percent—, increased the estate tax, and establish the gift tax. His presidency was one of the most prosperous on record, and he was elected president in his own right in 1924, defeating John Davis. He was, unfortunately, the first president since Lincoln to lose a child in the White House. Calvin Jr., died of blood-poising due to an infected blister. Coolidge would unsuccessfully try to get an anti-lynching bill passed.


(President Calvin Coolidge)




(President Herbert Hoover, Coolidge's Secretary of Commerce and failed successor)

After the presidency he spent four years in retirement watching the country sink into the Great Depression under his successor Herbert Hoover. He would die shortly after the 1932 presidential election of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Sobel presents are very human Calvin Coolidge an unconventional politician who had unconventional success. Sobel presents not only Calvin Coolidge but his world, where Babe Ruth his sixty runs and Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic solo.

{Video is the first presidential film ever!}

IDEALISTIC VISIONARY

A review of Kendrick A. Clements’s Woodrow Wilson: World Statesman (1987)

(Rating 4 of 5)

Kendrick Clements presents a very good and well organized biography of President Woodrow Wilson. In eleven well written chapters he details and explains the life of this very complicated President. Wilson’s life takes many interesting turns, he starts out in life and politics as a die-hard imperialist, his position starts to transform into what he would later call ‘collective security.’ Clements lays this out brilliantly in his Wilson narrative.

The first few chapters focus on his youth and educational background. He was born Thomas Woodrow Wilson, and ultimately choosing to go by the middle name. Wilson would make a career in academia writing several papers on government. In this, his position often shifts, in his first major work,Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics, Wilson describes the American Government as inefficient and desires a parliamentary government, like the government in Great Britain. Although his first major work is a sharp critique of the American system, it was nevertheless was an important study to the American way of government. As time goes on Wilson changes his position and starts studying and writing more positively about U.S. Constitutional government, due to his admiration of President Grover Cleveland. In his last academic work, Constitutional Government of the United States, Wilson wrote a positive piece on American Government based on the presidencies of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt; he was impressed by the office of the president stating it was as big as the one who occupies it. Wilson would become the President of Princeton University, before leaving to take up politics.


(President Grover Cleveland who Wilson admired)

In 1910, Wilson was elected Governor of New Jersey over his opponent Vivian M. Lewis. As the new Governor, Wilson began a process of reform. Wilson established state primaries, reformed the public utilities commission, and established worker compensation laws to protect ordinary people. Wilson was being seen by many as a person who should be put in charge of the entire nation.

“Within the narrow goals set out by progressivism, Wilson was a marked success as governor of New Jersey. He and other progressives demonstrated that state government could be revitalized to deal with modern society. The irony of his success, however, was that triumph at the state level made him a national figure and a potential candidate for the presidency. The best leaders were thus plucked from the states and thrust upon the national stage, where to be successful they had to argue that the very problems they had been dealing with effectively at the state level could only be attacked from Washington. The success of state reform movements seemed to doom them and to focus attention on the national government. Wilson, for one, certainly made no attempt to resist the siren’s song.” p.73

(Although opponents in 1912, Wilson continued TR's tradition of a strong president)


(William H. Taft, Wilson's predecessor as president and 1912 opponent)

In the famous election of 1912, Wilson defeated both William H. Taft and Theodore Roosevelt to capture the presidency. The first President, who had made an academic study of the presidency before entering it, was going to have tremendous success. Wilson would be able to get almost whatever he wanted out of the Congress. He would create the Federal Reserve, and reestablish the presidential tradition of delivering the State of the Union to the Congress in person. He would also make a great deal of economic reforms to help low income people.


(President Woodrow Wilson)

Unfortunately he also, as President, issued executive orders, that segregated the Federal Government for the first time in history. Defenders might point out that he was a moderate when a great deal of the Congress wanted to expel all African-Americans from Federal jobs, and action that Wilson refused to do. However, Wilson's actions were harmful to many people and a long-term government mistake.

“Yet there were ways in which Wilson’s detachment was a liability. Because his decisions were based on principal rather than being expedient reactions to immediate problems, he spent a great deal of time alone, reading, thinking, and writing. Some people thought him cold and aloof. He had no social ambitions, did not entertain extensively in the White House, and seemed to avoid rather than cultivate the social contacts with politicians that are the channels though which a great deal of public business flows though Washington.” p.103

(Wilson at work)

In 1916, Wilson would narrowly win re-election, over Charles Even Hughes, under the slogan that he kept us out of the war. Wilson however, thanks to the Zimmerman note and the sinking of the Lusitania, would end up having the United States Congress to declare war. The United States spent little time in the war, but after is where Woodrow Wilson made his big splash; the Fourteen Points and the League of Nations proposal were historic and unprecedented. They would change the very nature of foreign relations for all nations. Unfortunately, the only major nation that did not join the new League was the United States, Wilson had alienated his support at home and his treaty failed to win U.S. Senate ratification.


(Anti-Wilson cartoon)

“Just as the stroke impaired Wilson’s ability to concentrate, so it seemed to narrow and limit his mind, stripping away his political skills and ability to deal with complexities, bringing emotion very near to the surface, and intensifying his deep-seated tendency to judge all issues as right or wrong. On such matters he could be clear and decisive, firing Lansing for his disloyalty on the treaty and for encouraging a movement toward intervention in Mexico, refusing to see House because he thought the colonel had given away too much in Paris. Unwittingly, Edith and Dr. Grayson contributed to his oversimplification of issues by shielding him from his problems that might be complicated and unpleasant. Because, like many stoke victims, he denied the severity of his own illness, Wilson really believed that he was quite himself. By 1920 he was even talking about running for a third term to vindicate his stand on the league.” p.216

Toward the end of his presidency he had a stroke, and was mostly unable to function as the President, his wife, Edith, (who he married during presidency after his first wife, Ellen, had died) would to bring papers for him to sign so no one would know of his condition.


(Edith Wilson helped her husband run the country when he had a stroke)

His time in his post-presidency was very short. He did, however, outlive his own successor—Warren G. Harding died in 1923—where Wilson lived until 1924. Clements wrote an awesome biography that details all of these events and much more. I highly recommend this book to anyone.

{Video is from Historic Films Stock Footage Archive.}

A PRESIDENT SO NICE THAT WE COUNT HIM TWICE

A review of H. Paul Jeffers’s An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland (2000)

(Rating 4 of 5)

H. Paul Jeffers does not like footnotes, and he shares this opinion with Theodore Roosevelt, because footnotes ‘ruin the narrative’. Well, I like footnotes, it makes looking up information that much easier, but I am willing to let the author have his preferences, after all, he does have a brilliant narrative. Jeffers describes the life of President Grover Cleveland and the world in which he lived.

One of the things that becomes very apparent when reading this book is what a nice an honest man Cleveland really was—hence the title. That may sound amusing but I am serious! When looking at his life and political career, it is easy to spot things that one may disagree with, but it is a respectful disagreement that requires no question into the ethics of his character. Cleveland is a Democrat but his politics are difficult to place in a modern left/right spectrum, since what consists of the political ‘left’ and ‘right’ changes over the decades it is hard to tell where he would fit in, some of his positions on issues could go either way.

Born Stephan Grover Cleveland, and like the author of his book, choose to answer by his middle name amongst friends and professionals. He was born in 1837, and during the Civil War he did not fight but paid a replacement, so it can be said he was our first draft dodger president, although his action was legal. It is important to point out that he never tried to cover this up and, if asked, openly admitted to it.

Cleveland’s profession, like many presidents, was the law. As a lawyer, he began at law firm before starting his own practice and he later went on to become an assistant district attorney, running for the top job but losing the election to his own roommate in 1865. In 1870, Cleveland was elected the Sheriff of Erie County, as Sheriff he refused to have his deputies perform the gruesome task of an execution, and handled both that occurred under his watch. After his two-year term was over, he would go to private practice.

Cleveland would resume a political career that would launch him straight to the presidency in four years. In 1880, he was approached by local Democratic Party officials to run for mayoralty of Buffalo, he accepted and defeated his opponent Milton C. Beebe in the general election. Mayor Cleveland began to tackle corruption at City Hall. When the City Council accepted the highest bid for a street cleaning project because of the political connection of the bidder, the new Mayor vetoed that decision in his first stand against corruption.

This would launch a campaign for the governor’s mansion. In 1882, Cleveland ran and won the office of Governor of New York, defeating his opponent Charles J. Folger rather handily. As Governor, Cleveland would earn many admires including a young state legislator named Theodore Roosevelt. His elevated train veto was the mark of a reform in government that the state had not seen in a good deal of time. People started to think they would like to see this action at the national level.

“He did so not because he was paying a political debt, as critics charged. He rejected it, like so many other bills placed before him as mayor of Buffalo and governor, because he considered it poorly drafted. This was an objection in which the author of the measure eventually concurred, calling his own bill ‘a very shabby piece of legislation, quite unfit to find a place in the statute book.’ Roosevelt was not assuaged and said so in harsh language in a widely published speech. Grover discounted it as typical but momentary Roosevelt passion.” p.91

(Young TR is impressed with Governor Cleveland)

After a convention, battle Governor Cleveland won the Democratic Presidential Nomination of 1880. His election against the Republican James G. Blaine of Maine would be labeled, the public sinner vs. the private sinner. Blaine’s corruptions were laid bare and Cleveland’s personnel life was attacked. Cleveland prevailed however and defeats Blaine in the general election.


(Anti-Cleveland cartoon)

“With election day drawing closer, Grover remained in Albany in the welcome company of Oscar Folsom’s widow and their pretty daughters, Frances, officially his ward. Awaiting the vote, he was assured of the support of two of New York’s mightiest newspapers. The influential Herald had informed its readers, ‘We are told that Mr. Blaine had been delinquent in office but blameless in public life, while Mr. Cleveland has been the model of official integrity, but culpable in his personnel relations. We should therefore elect Mr. Cleveland to the public office which he is so well qualified to fill, and remand Mr. Blaine to the private station which he is admirably fitted to adorn.’” p.117

(James G. Blaine)

As the President of the United States, Grover Cleveland continued his reforming ways by taken on a fight on corruption that was started by Chester A. Arthur as the Civil Service Reform. Cleveland created the Inter-State Commerce Commission. He also reduced tariffs and upheld the gold standard.


(President Cleveland)

He also decide to get married, he married Frances Folsom, a young woman in her twenties who was the daughter of his late friend Oscar Folsom. The couple would go on to have five children together.


(First Lady Frances Cleveland)

“He proposed to Frances about a year earlier, in a letter to her when she was visiting relatives in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She accepted and they agreed to keep the engagement secret until such time as Grover was ready to announce it. Mary and others of the family who learned of the betrothal honored his request to keep that fact to themselves. This soon would prove to be difficult as Washington, D.C., stirred with rumors and heated speculation that the president would not be a bachelor much longer. The nominee for bride among the gossips was the widow Folsom. The more daring stated with certitude that it would be her daughter.” p.171

(Cleveland Family)

Not all was well, however, Cleveland would, although re-nominated by the Democrats, would lose the general election of 1888 to Benjamin Harrison, the grandson of President William Henry Harrison. Cleveland won the popular vote but the Electoral College kicked him out.


(President Benjamin Harrison)

The former President would try to return to law practice, which he felt foolish, arguing before judges whom he appointed. As time went on, he was critical at what the government was doing and in 1892 threw his hat back into the ring. Nominated by the Democrats for President for the third time in a row*, Cleveland headed into the rematch. This was only election in history in which the incumbent president faced his own predecessor. This time Cleveland won both the popular and Electoral College vote. The twenty-second president had just become the twenty-fourth.




(President again)

Unfortunately, for Cleveland the second term began with a financial panic, and labor unrest. The Pullman strike was a threat to the nation, since it crippled the railroads, and President Cleveland had to send troops out to suppress it. President Cleveland also had to deal with more foreign policy issues then he had in the past. He did successful arbitrate a dispute between the British Empire and Venezuela over territory.

The President would retire after his second term and be replaced by William McKinley; although of the other party, McKinley was the candidate who Cleveland preferred. He would have a quiet retirement as a trustee of Princeton University. He would perform one last act of public service; President Theodore Roosevelt had him serve on the Commission on the Coal Strike of 1902, which ended positively for all.

When he died in 1908, the last words that the former President had said was, “I tried so hard to do right.” H. Paul Jeffers captures not just President Cleveland but also his world, everything from Eugene V. Debs and Lizzy Borden can be found here.

*No one had done that since Andrew Jackson.

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