{"id":18138,"date":"2024-07-08T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2024-07-08T16:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=18138"},"modified":"2024-09-03T19:40:55","modified_gmt":"2024-09-03T23:40:55","slug":"24-cleveland-grover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=18138","title":{"rendered":"#24. Cleveland, Stephen Grover"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Linda Lou Burton posting from Little Rock, Arkansas <\/em>\u2013 Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837 \u2013 June 24, 1908) was the 24th president of the United States, from 1893 to 1897. He was also the 22nd president of the United States, we talked about him just two days ago. It\u2019s tempting to reference Jack Nicholson\u2019s famous line in The Shining<\/em> when we think about the Cleveland\u2019s return to the White House – \u201cHoney I\u2019m Home!\u201d But it was a far different White House than they\u2019d left, due to Caroline Harrison\u2019s non-stop renovation and clean-up buzz. Frances Cleveland must have been pleased with more bathrooms, and fewer rats. Grover however, was faced with a political disaster. And lots more rats. The Panic of 1893 struck the stock market, and the economic downturn was laid squarely and unfairly at Grover\u2019s feet. Twelve days before he was inaugurated the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad went bankrupt, that was one clear sign the nation\u2019s economy was already in serious trouble. The 1892 cotton crop had been poor, the cash flow from foreign investors was down due to financial crises in Europe and South America. There was no central banking system in the US, so the government had little control over the money supply. It\u2019s a wonder Grover didn\u2019t turn around before he even unpacked.<\/p>\n

But They Like Me<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>He did have some things to smile about though. Three times in a row he\u2019d won the popular vote in a nationwide presidential election! He knew for sure he had supporters out there, somewhere. And two of those times he\u2019d won the most ELECTORAL votes, the last by huge margins \u2013 277 to 145. He had a nice family by his side this time around; daughter Ruth was 17 months old, and Frances, pregnant for the second time, was as pretty as ever, but with a softer, more maternal glow. Now she was aware of the responsibilities of being the wife of a president, though one role was reversed. This time she was the protector in their relationship. Frances recognized how much more difficult things were for Grover. As panic spread across the country, she witnessed a steady decline in his health. He tired more easily, and shockingly, was diagnosed with oral cancer just three months after being back on the job. Frances took responsibility for keeping his condition secret; his doctors agreed and performed the complex operation on a yacht moored off Cape Cod. The tumor on the roof of his mouth, his left jawbone, and five teeth were removed; his speech was affected. Frances wrote letters on his behalf, blaming \u201crheumatism\u201d for his absences.<\/p>\n

The science of the day was able to make a prothesis that corrected the most obvious problems \u2013 the shape of his face was brought back into alignment, his famous mustache was untouched, and he was able to speak clearly. Amazingly, that surgery remained a secret until sometime after Grover\u2019s death in 1908.<\/p>\n

Escaping<\/strong><\/p>\n

Privacy is hard to come by when you are famous. Back in Term 1, when the press clung to Frances like white on rice, Grover bought an \u201cEscape House\u201d for occasional relief. Woodley Mansion, situated on a hill with a sweeping view of its 29-acre grounds, was built back in 1802 and wasn\u2019t too far from the White House. If you\u2019ve ever been in DC in the summertime, you know how humid and miserable the lower parts of the city can be, so imagine those days before centralized air conditioning. A house on a hill is more apt to catch a breeze, and if you\u2019re one of those folks who can\u2019t \"\"<\/a>leave town in the summer (or if you\u2019re pregnant), you need a breeze. Martin Van Buren escaped to Woodley during his presidency; Grover and Frances took advantage of its cool spaciousness twice; the first time was to protect Frances, the second was more about protecting Grover, and the children. Frances was not in favor of exposing the Cleveland children to public view! And since she wound up being not only the first (and youngest) person to marry in the White House, and then the first to have a baby in the White House (Esther was born September 9, 1893), and then a third pregnancy (Marion was born July 7, 1895 at Gray Gables) the pressure simply never let up. For her, or for Grover.<\/p>\n

Spiraling<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Let\u2019s cut straight to the chase. Grover couldn\u2019t fix the country. He didn\u2019t mind hard work. He hated wastefulness and corruption. And he wasn\u2019t afraid to say, and do, what he believed to be right. So why didn\u2019t that work? American historian Henry Graff \u00a0(1921-2020) wrote this about Grover\u2019s actions during his presidency:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026his reluctance to provide the country with a clear, ideological direction or to bend Congress to his will indicated his conception of his duties. In his mind, it was enough for him to be hard working, honest, and independent.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I call to your attention a poem I studied in high school (we all did) written in 1895 while Grover was in office: \u201cIf\u201d by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936). Remember it?<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you,\u00a0<\/em>If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too; <\/em>If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don\u2019t deal in lies.\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Rudyard could have been speaking directly to Grover, it seems. But Kipling, a British poet born in India, was writing to his son, inspired by an event during the Boer wars in South Africa. As what we now dub the Victorian Age<\/em> was coming to an end, the entire world was undergoing drastic changes. And in the United States, as hundreds of banks and businesses failed and unemployment rates rose to 20%, Grover distanced himself from party machines, made decisions he believed were good, and was endlessly pelted. When offered the opportunity for a third term, he refused.<\/p>\n

Or being lied about\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Two stories niggled at Grover\u2019s craw to the last \u2013 you can believe the worst versions, or dismiss them as mud-slinging meanness. The \u201cIllegitimate Child\u201d story was cartooned during his first run for President in 1884 as the juicy tidbit \u201cMa Ma, Where\u2019s My Pa?\u201d It referred to an event ten years earlier when Grover was practicing law in Buffalo. A 38-year-old widow named Maria Halpin claimed he was the father of her child. Admitting the child \u201ccould have been\u201d his, he made provisions for the boy\u2019s care. From that point the stories go in vastly different directions. Grover took advantage of her. Took the child away from her. Had her committed to an insane asylum.<\/em> OR: Lots of fellows visited Maria including Grover\u2019s law partner Oscar Folsom, but all the other guys were married. Grover was a 37-year old bachelor with no wife to upset, so he shouldered the blame.<\/em> Whatever is true, and to what degree, the boy\u2019s name was recorded as Oscar Folsom Cleveland.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The \u201cUnpaid Veteran\u201d story involves a man named George Brinski. Born in Poland, George arrived in America in 1851. He worked shipping lines in the Atlantic until 1860, then switched to the Great Lakes route between Chicago and Buffalo. In 1863 Grover\u2019s name was pulled for the Union draft. A provision of the Enrollment Act of 1863 allowed the hiring of a substitute, and about 10% of the 290,000 whose name was drawn did just that. Grover was Assistant District Attorney in Erie County at the time, at age 26 single and supporting his mother and younger sisters. On August 5 he hired George Brinski to take his place and George was sworn in to Company F of the 76th<\/sup> New York Infantry. Before he saw action he was injured while working on a supply train, and reassigned as a hospital handyman. On August 11, 1865 he was mustered out of the army and returned to working on the lakes. It was 1885 when George came to the newly inaugurated president and asked for help, which Grover reportedly refused. George died in 1887. Which is true \u2013 in 1863 did Grover honor duty to his mother or shirk duty to his country? In 1885 did Grover ignore a sick old man or was George just asking for a handout?<\/em> It is true that on February 11, 1887 Grover vetoed House bill 10457 \u201cAn act for the relief of \u2026honorably discharged soldiers and sailors who are now disabled\u2026” which would have provided pensions to veterans who became disabled in the years after their military service and not because of it. A hot issue.<\/p>\n

If you can keep your head\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s much easier to measure the size of a lake when you\u2019re not sitting in the middle of the puddle. Analyzing Grover\u2019s character (would I invite this man to my party?) is easier now than back when all the squabbling was going on. When Grover and Frances left the White House on March 4, 1897, they moved to Princeton; son Richard was born that October. For a time Grover was a trustee at Princeton University. When Theodore Roosevelt took office in 1901, Grover often consulted with him. Another son, Francis, was born in 1903. In 1906 a group of New Jersey Democrats considered Grover a possible candidate for the Senate. But his health had worsened, and on June 24, 1908 he died after suffering a heart attack. He was 71. Out of all that has been said about Grover, I think his deathbed words explain him best \u2013 \u201cI have tried so hard to do right.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Grover died, Frances was 44 years old and the four children were ages 5 to 15 \u2013 the oldest, Ruth, had died of diphtheria 4 years earlier. Frances and the oldest two children attended the memorial service for Grover at Carnegie Hall in March 1909; President William Howard Taft, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Melville Fuller, New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes, and New York City Mayor George McClellan were among the speakers at this tribute. The New York Times headlines read: CARNEGIE HALL FILLED AS NATIONAL LEADERS EULOGIZE CLEVELAND: CALLED IDEAL AMERICAN.<\/p>\n

Frances. And Then. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Refusing the widow\u2019s pension she was legally entitled to, in September Frances headed for Europe with her children, where they stayed till the following May. Three years later she married Thomas Preston, a professor of archaeology and acting president at Wells College where she still served as a trustee. The Prestons moved to London in 1914, but when World War I began, they returned to the United States. Frances was appointed head of the speakers bureau of the National Security League where she was responsible for organizing rallies and other events to support the war effort.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Frances became more outspoken in her political beliefs as she grew older. She was an opponent of women\u2019s suffrage; however she did begin voting after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. She supported Franklin Roosevelt as president in 1932, and then Harry Truman. During the Truman presidency she was invited to a luncheon at the White House where she met General Dwight Eisenhower. As the story goes, Eisenhower didn\u2019t recognize her and asked where in the city she used to live. Her answer (and don\u2019t you know she was hiding a mischievous smile): \u201cThe White House.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frances died in her sleep October 29, 1947 at son Richard\u2019s home in Baltimore, where she\u2019d come to help him celebrate his 50th<\/sup> birthday. She was 83. Three graves rowed side by side in Princeton\u2019s Nassau Cemetery bear the Cleveland name today: Ruth Cleveland 1904, Grover Cleveland 1908, and Frances Cleveland 1947.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>My favorite \u201cFrances Story\u201d is how she wowed the White House staff because she\u2019d get down on the floor to play with her children, something they\u2019d never seen a First Lady do. I think I\u2019d want those kids to come to my party too. Stories to tell?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linda Lou Burton posting from Little Rock, Arkansas \u2013 Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837 \u2013 June 24, 1908) was the 24th president of the United States, from 1893 to 1897. He was also the 22nd president of the United States, we talked about him just two days ago. It\u2019s tempting to reference Jack Nicholson\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4031],"tags":[4079,468],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18138"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18138"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26783,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18138\/revisions\/26783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}