New Jersey

Take Princeton and give Fourteen Points

wwilson I. Introduction

Woodrow Wilson was a President so full of promise to many in America, that it seemed shocking how dismally his eight years in office ended. The United States went from being a Great Power to being the Greatest Power while he was in office. But, despite all the lofty ambitions Wilson brought with him, his time as President was also marked by violent upheavals in all parts of society. The United States was a drastically different place from the time Wilson was inaugurated in 1913 than it was when he left in 1921.

II. Growing Up

The 28th President was born Thomas Woodrow Wilson on December 28, 1858 in Staunton, Virginia. His father was a Presbyterian minister who moved his family throughout various cities in the South. Young Thomas struggled with dyslexia through much of his childhood. Wilson originally attended college at Davidson, but didn’t like it there and dropped out. His father then pulled some strings and got his son admitted to the College of New Jersey (which would eventually become Princeton University). Wilson concentrated on the study of politics and wrote a senior thesis arguing that the President’s Cabinet should be responsible to Congress, as is the case in Britain.

Upon graduation from Princeton, Wilson enrolled in the University of Virginia to study law. Wilson didn’t like the study of law much and dropped out before finishing his studies; although, he would open a law practice for a brief period. Ultimately, Wilson opted to go back to school, enrolling in Johns Hopkins University’s relatively new doctorate program. He earned a Ph.D. in 1886. While in the process of earning that degree (the only President to hold such a degree), Wilson taught at Bryn Mawr College. He also authored Congressional Government, which would become an influential book in political science in its time. Wilson managed to write his book on Congress without ever once visiting Washington and observing Congress in action. But, he became an expert nonetheless.

III. From Ph.D. to the Presidency

Wilson, who dropped the name Thomas and just went by Woodrow sometime in the 1880s, moved on to Princeton to teach. He was one of the most popular lecturers on campus. His class on American government was THE class to take for upperclassmen. Wilson’s popularity among both students and faculty eventually got him promoted all the way to university president in 1902. Wilson, although a poor fundraiser, still managed to raise the profile of Princeton nationally. He became one of the most respected men in America. And, the Democratic party saw him as a Presidential material. He was sympathetic to the Progressive movement; but, he also would appeal to the Democrat’s base in the South because of his upbringing.

There was one problem, though. Wilson had never held elective office. To remedy that situation, Wilson stepped down from his Princeton job to run for governor of New Jersey in 1910. He won that election easily, and almost immediately began campaigning for President in 1912. The Republican party split in 1912 between the conservatives, led by President William Howard Taft, and the Progressives, led by former President Theodore Roosevelt. Taft won the Republican nomination. So, Roosevelt ran as a third party candidate. The beneficiary of all this was Wilson, who won the election fairly easily. Although Wilson won just 41.8% of the popular vote, he ended up with 435 electoral votes, the highest total recorded up to that time.

IV. Shaking Things Up

Calling his domestic policies “The New Freedom,” Wilson shook up the establishment in Washington. He ended the tradition of Presidents not addressing Congress in person. Since Thomas Jefferson took office in 1801, Presidents had communicated with Congress by sending a written message. But, Wilson presented himself to a joint session of Congress in April of 1913 to tell that body that he was ready to work with them to get things done. And, he felt it would be easier if they could talk to him face to face.

Wilson wanted to lower tariffs, feeling that high ones served only to protect corporate interests. To make up for the lost revenue from the tariffs, Wilson instituted an income tax (made possible by the 16th Amendment, which the Republicans had pushed through prior to Wilson taking office).

Additionally, Wilson started two government agencies that would have long lasting effect on the country. To help administer antitrust law, Wilson signed a bill establishing the Federal Trade Commission. And, to help bring more regulation and order to the banking industry, Wilson created the Federal Reserve System.

Wilson knew little about banking, but received a crash course from adviser Louis Brandeis. The Federal Reserve System established a series of regional banks, guided by a Board of Governors in Washington, that controlled the money supply, and oversaw banking regulations.

V. Jim Crow, Suffragettes, and Demon Rum

As a child of the Confederacy, Wilson didn’t forget his roots. Unfortunately, this meant that Wilson allowed Federal departments, most notably the Post Office, to segregate its workers. Wilson would oppose any type of civil rights legislation while President.

Wilson also faced an increasingly hostile women’s suffrage movement. Although Wilson never backed women’s suffrage, the 19th Amendment would eventually be ratified in 1920 toward the end of Wilson’s time in office, granting women the vote in all of the states.

Also, the Prohibition movement succeeded in getting the 18th Amendment ratified in 1920. Wilson was not a supporter of Prohibition. He vetoed the Volstead Act, which set up enforcement of Prohibition. This veto was subsequently overriden by Congress.

VI. Love Lost, Love Found

Wilson’s first wife, Ellen, passed away from kidney disease on August 6, 1914. The President’s grief was almost inconsolable. Wilson’s staff kept close tabs on him to make sure he didn’t try to hurt himself.

However, Wilson would meet someone new just six months after Ellen’s death. This woman, Edith Bolling Galt, was a widow who was prominent in Washington society. Wilson was quickly smitten with her. They would marry on December 18, 1915. Edith would become one of Woodrow Wilson’s most trusted advisers. Her role would be even more important in the final years of the Wilson administration. But, that would be getting ahead of the story.

VII. Trouble Brewing South Of The Border

One glaring gap in Wilson’s resume was foreign policy experience. Wilson knew little about the ways of diplomacy. His choice for Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, was a political appointment to keep Bryan’s wing of the Democratic Party happy.

Wilson soon faced a foreign policy crisis in his own neighborhood. Mexico was in a state of upheaval after longtime president Porfiro Diaz was overthrown in 1911. By 1913, Victoranio Huerta had managed to get himself installed as president.

However, Huerta refused to call for democratic elections. Wilson sent a series of emissaries to convince Huerta otherwise, but eventually gave up. Wilson sent in Army troops instead. General John Pershing led a force that landed at Veracruz that ended up leading to Huerta’s resignation. Wilson even tried forming alliances with Mexican Revolutionary figures such as Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. The former ended up splitting with the Carranza government (that was backed by the U.S.). Villa and his men would cause more headaches for Wilson.

VIII. Danger from Beneath

Although World War I began in August of 1914, Wilson didn’t think the United States would have much of a role in it at first, and that it would end quickly. This was either naive, or extremely wishful thinking on Wilson’s part.

As the two sides settled in to a long and bloody conflict, it was clear that the winner would be the side that either ran out of soldiers or money first. The United States had plenty of both at the time. Both sides needed U.S. goods to help them through the war. Since it was easier for the U.S. to ship goods to Britain rather than to Germany, the Allied Forces ended up getting the lion’s share of U.S. exports. Germany tried to get more money by asking the Wall Street firm of J.P. Morgan to help sell its war bonds; but, Wilson blocked that action.

Germany now felt that it had to stop the flow of U.S. goods into Great Britain by declaring the area around the island as a war zone. Any merchant ship suspected of carrying war materiel to Britain was subject to being sunk by German submarines.

This action by Germany represented a change in the way war had been conducted. People on ships that were sunk by submarines had little or no hope of rescue. The threat of a sudden attack made Atlantic crossings terrifying.

Hundreds of American lives were lost this way. Wilson’s first response was to issue a series of diplomatic notes to Germany, threatening all sorts of economic sanctions if it continued. Wilson did not wish to commit the U.S. to war as his reelection campaign was coming up in 1916.

IX. “He Kept Us Out of War”

Wilson’s opponent in 1916 was former Supreme Court justice Charles Evans Hughes. Although Theodore Roosevelt wished to run again, the Republicans felt that Hughes would present a slightly more moderate image than the bellicose Roosevelt, who was pushing for American entry into the war. One of Wilson’s campaign slogans was “He Kept Us Out of War.”

Hughes and the Republicans ran an especially poor campaign, rife with internal struggles over ideology. Wilson refused to attack Hughes during the campaign, remarking “One should not murder a man bent on committing suicide.” Nevertheless, Wilson won by a narrow margin in the popular vote (52-47) and by 23 in the Electoral vote (277-254). If Hughes had been able to carry California, which he lost by about 3,000 votes, he would have won.

X. About that war …

The British mounted an effective propaganda campaign against Germany in an attempt to rally American public opinion in favor of joining the war. British agents intercepted a message from German ambassador to the U.S., Arthur Zimmermann, that indicated that Germany hoped to get Mexico to join the war on the German side with the hope of reclaiming much of the American Southwest for Mexico.

Also, the Germans stepped up their submarine warfare, sinking several more American ships. By April of 1917, Wilson had come to the conclusion that the U.S. had to enter the war on the Allied side. Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war on April 2, 1917. It was approved four days later.

It took several months for the Americans to be able to send any troops to Europe. The Army was relatively small, with most of the fulltime soldiers occupied with matters in Mexico. Wilson asked Congress to allow conscription to swell the ranks. This was the first time conscription had been used since the Civil War.

There were many protests against conscription. Wilson and the Justice Department did not hesitate to prosecute anyone opposing the war effort. The nascent Communist Party was a favorite target of the Federal government.

Wilson also sent some troops to Russia in 1917 in an attempt to reverse the course of the Russian Revolution. That was … not successful.

XI. Why I’m Using These Numbers

Wilson was confident that the Allies (officially, Wilson said that the U.S. was not part of the Allies. He preferred the term “associate”) would win the war. And, before the bulk of the American forces arrived, Wilson issued his famous “Fourteen Points.” The two most important points were that secret treaties should be prohibited and that a permanent multinational peacekeeping organization (call it a “League of Nations”) should be established to maintain the peace.

French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau famously remarked (repeated in various forms) “Mr. Wilson bores me with his Fourteen Points; why, God Almighty has only Ten!”

Wilson was correct in thinking that the war would be over. American troops proved to be fresh enough to be allow the Allies to break the German lines. The war ended on November 11, 1918. Now all that was left to do was negotiate a peace treaty. What could possibly go wrong with that?

XII. It All Went Wrong

The Palace of Versailles would be the site of the peace negotiations. Wilson decided to travel there himself, an unprecedented move for an American president. Normally, such matters were reserved for Secretaries of State or specially appointed ministers. But, Wilson wasn’t going to allow such important business to be handled by his underlings. Wilson was received by huge throngs in Europe. He was, at the time, the most popular man on the planet.

But, Wilson could not translate his popularity into negotiating skill. He was not open to compromise. But, Clemenceau and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George weren’t open to compromise either. Wilson wanted relatively generous conditions for peace with Germany. The French and British wanted Germany to pay. And pay. And pay some more. And to give up territory. And then pay some more.

Eventually, Wilson would get his League of Nations, with a promise of collective security for all members, but he gave in on reparations. Wilson sailed back home to the U.S. expecting the treaty to be warmly received.

XIII. Irreconcilable Differences

Wilson presented his treaty to the Senate, expecting quick ratification. That was not to be. Senate Republicans, led by Massachusetts senator Henry Cabot Lodge, knew they had enough votes to block the treaty. The League of Nations horrified many Americans, who had no desire to see the country get involved in world disputes to which it was not a party.

Lodge delayed the vote on the treaty through the spring of 1919. (He started off by reading the entire treaty aloud into the record. That took two weeks.) Public opinion began to grow against the treaty. So, Wilson decided to take his plea to the people and embarked on a whistlestop campaign throughout the country. Republican senators, known as the “Irreconcilables,” dogged Wilson giving speeches counter to his position.

During the strenouous tour, Wilson took ill. Plagued much of his life by high blood pressure, Wilson suffered a massive stroke. He had to cancel the rest of the tour. Wilson had had several small strokes during his lifetime which had resulted in temporary paralysis of one of his hands. When he was in France for the treaty negotiations, on one day, Wilson suddenly asked an aid to help him rearrange the furniture in a particular room because he thought the green and red furniture were fighting with each other. It’s quite possible that Wilson may have been in a compromised state of health during the negotiations.

XIV. An Unhappy Ending

Wilson was left almost totally incapicitated by his stroke. Edith Wilson, along with personal aid Joseph Tumulty and physician Cary Grayson, kept Wilson’s condition hidden from almost everyone. Vice President Thomas Marshall was kept away from Wilson. Secretary of State Robert Lansing (who had succeeded Bryan in 1915) publicly asked if the President was competent.

Although no one knows for certain what was going on, there is enough evidence to think that Edith Wilson made many of the day-to-day decisions of the President. Tumulty also assisted in the decision making. Wilson was well enough to get messages to the Senate demanding that the Treaty of Versailles be approved as is, without any reservations or amendments. Wilson did not wish to see his beloved League of Nations be tossed aside.

However, the treaty would never gather enough votes for ratification, not even earning a majority, let alone the necessary 2/3 vote. Wilson entertained the idea of submitting the treaty to the people as part of a national referendum, but that proved Constitutionally impossible.

Wilson served out his term in isolation. He was not well enough to attend the inauguration of his successor, Warren Harding. Surprisingly, Wilson outlived Harding. Harding passed away on August 2, 1923. Wilson died in Washington, DC on February 3, 1924.

Other stuff: The author of this book is a professor at Texas A&M University; but, he lives in Austin.

Woodrow Wilson has a plethora of places named after him. The Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library is located in Staunton, Virginia. The Woodrow Wilson House is a museum in Washington, DC run by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. There is also the Woodrow Wilson Boyhood Home in Augusta, Georgia. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is a think tank in Washington, DC. Lots of people run into traffic on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge connecting Maryland and Virginia just south of the District of Columbia. The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Policy is part of Princeton University.

Wilson is buried at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. He is the only President to be buried in Washington.

Wilson was also the subject of a 1944 biopic called “Wilson.” It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, and won 5. It was also a box office flop.

Grover Cleveland by Henry F. Graff

May 12, 2009October 27, 2009Bob Timmermann9 Comments

President #22 and #24, C-SPAN Historians Ranking #21

I’m only telling you this once!

Often just regarded as a numerical oddity, Grover Cleveland served eight years as President during one of the most turbulent times in American history. America was still recovering from the Civil War. The nation was beset with violent labor strife. The economy teetered on the brink of collapse. European powers were stretching out their empires and there was pressure for the U.S. to join in the fun.

And the man in the middle of much of this change was Grover Cleveland, a man who had vaulted from being mayor of Buffalo in 1881 to the White House in 1885. And is the story of this man an inspirational one for all of us?

From reading Henry F. Graff’s slim (only 138 pages if you don’t count the notes or index) book about Cleveland, the answer is no. Graff, a former professor at Columbia, tries his best to make us believe that Grover Cleveland had some special attributes that made him an especially great president. But, for the most part, Graff writes about a man who moved up the political ladder, mostly because he appeared to be more honest than most politicians of the era. This is a very low standard considering the state of American politics at the time.

Stephen Grover Cleveland (he dropped Stephen when he was young) was born in Caldwell, New Jersey in 1837, but spent most of his formative years in upstate New York. In 1854, after his father’s death, Cleveland decided it was time to go off and start a career. He was going to go to Cleveland, Ohio (my law career has been stymied by having no city named Timmermann) to study law as an apprentice to another lawyer. However, Cleveland ended up going to Buffalo to study after an uncle there gave him some financial help.

Cleveland was set up with a position in Buffalo’s most prestigious firm: Rogers, Bowen, and Rogers. The firm was famous because former president Millard Fillmore used to be a partner in it. And to this day, it is the only law firm to produce two presidents.

After passing the bar, Cleveland worked as an assistant district attorney for Erie County, but lost an election for the D.A. job. During the Civil War, Cleveland hired a substitute to take his place in the Union Army (which was perfectly legal and above board at the time).

In 1870, Cleveland won his first race when he was elected sheriff of Erie County. Cleveland presided over two executions, throwing open the trap door for two different men who were hanged. At the end of his term, Cleveland started a successful private law practice.

In 1881, Cleveland was elected mayor of Buffalo. And one year later, New York Democrats, soured by scandals among Tammany Hall Democrats in New York City, nominated Cleveland to run for governor. And Cleveland won that race.

Suddenly, Cleveland was placed in one of the most high profile state government jobs in the nation. It made him a contender for the White House in 1884.

However, it didn’t take much to be a Presidential contender in 1884. American politics was not producing its finer candidates at the time. Cleveland’s opponents at the Democratic convention were Thomas Bayard, Allen Thurman, and Benjamin Butler. Cleveland won on the second ballot.

The 1884 election would be fought on many topics. None of them were particularly germane to the problems of the country, however.

The Republican nominee was former Speaker of the House and Secretary of State James Blaine. The Republicans still liked to use the Civil War as a campaign issue (it was known as “waving the bloody shirt”). This time out, they were thwarted in an attempt to capitalize on that issue. First, Blaine, like Cleveland, had not served in the Civil War. Second, Civil War veterans were starting to age and die off and no longer as powerful as a voting bloc for the Republicans. A spike in immigration added new voters with no memory of the Civil War.

The Republicans did turn up a potential problem for Cleveland. Namely, Cleveland was suspected of fathering an illegitimate child, and then taking that child from his mother. Cleveland was prepared for this issue, and had told Democratic party officials about it. When asked for advice about what to do, Cleveland famously replied, “Tell the truth.”

And in this case, honesty was the best policy. The child was likely not Cleveland’s, but the offspring of a married friend of his, Oscar Folsom. Cleveland, as a bachelor, let his name be used as the father to avoid scandal. Cleveland also had provided for the child’s upbringing, and also made sure that the child was adopted into a good home. (The mother likely suffered from mental illness or an addiciton.)

The Democrats countered the Republicans bastard charges by accusing Blaine of corruption for receiving kickbacks from an Arkansas railroad in 1876 in exchange for political favors. There were incriminating letters to back this up, one of which was marked “Burn this letter.” The Democrats would derisively chant that phrase during any Republican rally.

Finally, a few days before the election, Blaine was being introduced at a rally in New York by a Presbyterian minister who described the Democrats as the party of “rum, Romanism, and rebellion.” Blaine quickly tried to dissociate himself from the comments, but it was too late. The large number of Irish voters in New York were incensed, and they swung in favor of Cleveland.

Cleveland carried New York by a little over 1,000 votes. He won nationwide by 32,000 votes, with a healthy lead in the Electoral College, 219 to 182.

Cleveland was the first Democrat to assume the Presidency since the Civil War (if you count Andrew Johnson as a Republican, which he sort of was.) There were going to be changes.

However, the Democrats expected Cleveland to engage in wide scale firings of Republicans in government jobs. But Cleveland eased up a bit, angering many supporters who were hoping to have favors cashed in. Cleveland, following the lead of Presidents Hayes and Arthur, tried to continue to reform the Federal Civil Service, although such reforms were hard to get through a Congress used to dealing in political patronage mixed with a dash of corruption and a pinch of graft.

Cleveland angered veterans groups by vetoing numerous pension bills, many of which were pushed through Congress as political favors for men who did little or no fighting during the Civil War. Cleveland also ordered the Army to return all captured Confederate battle flags (to whom is unclear to me.)

In May of 1886, a bomb thrown into the crowd at a labor rally in the Haymarket section of Chicago killed seven police officers. This event would presage other violence surrounding attempts by workers to organize for the next 50 years.

Although he was a bachelor when he entered the White House, Cleveland wouldn’t remain one for long. He had developed a fondness for the daughter of his friend Oscar Folsom. This young woman was born with the name Frank, which she changed to Frances, because life is hard for a girl named Frank. Cleveland had known this woman since birth. He bought Frank her first crib. When she was 21, Cleveland married Frank. And in the White House no less.

Perhaps today if there were a 49-year old bachelor president marrying a 21-year old woman that he had known since she was an infant, people might be a bit put off. But in 1886, this wasn’t considered that unusual. And the Clevelands went on to have a long and happy marriage that produced five children. Cleveland would always call his wife Frank also.

Toward the end of his first term, Cleveland pushed for a lower tariff. He felt that the system in place was hampering trade (tariffs tend to do that.) And the current tariff was making more than enough money for the country as the Treasury actually had a surplus.

Although Cleveland didn’t exactly negotiate anything remotely like today’s NAFTA, the tariff dropped enough to anger the American business establishment. And that, in turn, caused a flood of money to pour into Republican campaign coffers.

In 1888, Cleveland would win the popular vote over Republican Benjamin Harrison by 90,000 votes. But, he lost the electoral vote by a 233-168 margin. New York proved to be the key state, as Harrison won it by 15,000 votes.

The election of 1888 was also marred by some political chicanery. A California Republican wrote a letter, using the pseudonym “Murchison”, to the British minister to the U.S., Lord Lionel Sackville-West, asking him who he thought would be the best candidate for British interests in the upcoming election. Sackville-West wrote back saying that he thought Cleveland would better serve England.

When this news (The Murchison Letter) hit the papers, Cleveland, who had prided himself on his independence, looked like a tool of the British. And his Irish supporters in New York moved over to the Republican side.

Historical legend says that Frances Cleveland told the White House staff in 1889 not to move around the furniture. Frances Cleveland said that she and her husband would be back in four years. Whether this was true is unclear, but the Clevelands did indeed return in 1893.

Harrison’s presidency was marred by a Populist uprising from rural interests, who demanded that the Federal Government start issuing more currency backed by silver* (which was being produced in mass quantities compared to gold.) This was combined with the Republicans imposing a very high tariff. So, there were fewer cheap goods coming into the country, and there was a lot of inflated currency around to spend (silver certificates). Hilarity did not ensue.

* To give you an idea of the problem, silver advocates wanted to maintain the arbitrary ratio of the price of gold being 16 times the price of silver. In 2009, the price of gold is about 65 times the price of silver. The disparity wasn’t as great in the 1890s, but it was still substantial. I’d explain this better, but I’m not paid to be an economist.

Another major labor action marred by violence, the Homestead Steel Strike of 1892, occurred a few months before the election. The Carnegie Steel Corporation hired Pinkerton detectives (Graff calls them “detectives”) as strikebreakers. Striking workers fired on the Pinkertons, killing ten of them.

The Democrats, with few other prospects on the horizon, trotted out Cleveland again in 1892. He was still popular, and he had still won the most popular votes the last time out. In the rematch, Cleveland bested Harrison by over 400,ooo votes, and won 277 electoral votes to 145 for Harrison and 22 for Populist Party candidate James Weaver. Cleveland became just the second president to win the popular vote three straight times, joining Andrew Jackson.

Cleveland’s second term began inauspiciously. The weather was bitterly cold on Inauguration Day and a small crowd came out to watch the ceremonies and parade.

Soon after taking office, a major financial crisis, the Panic of 1893, set in. All of the silver currency that was floating around was wreaking havoc with the financial system. Foreign creditors were demanding payment in gold. But, Western interests didn’t want to give up their silver. There wasn’t enough gold to pay foreign creditors.

To further complicate matters, Cleveland was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on his soft palate. Since Cleveland’s vice president, Adlai Stevenson (grandfather of this guy), was a silver money supporter (unlike Cleveland who backed the gold standard), there were grave concerns that the financial markets would collapse further upon the news of Cleveland’s illness.

Cleveland had his surgery done in secret, on a yacht that was floating up and down the Hudson River. First, surgeons removed the tumor, and then later a dental appliance was formed so that Cleveland’s mouth looked normal. His speech would be unaffected. News of Cleveland’s illness would not be made public until 1917.

The economy did recover. However, Cleveland used a method that would not be associated with the Democratic Party of today. Cleveland asked New York bankers, principally J.P. Morgan, to supply the government with enough gold (3.5 million ounces) to build up its reserves and help ease the credit markets. Morgan likely made millions of dollars from deals he negotiated with foreign suppliers. Morgan would later be asked by Congress to reveal how much he made on the deal. Morgan wouldn’t say.

Cleveland faced two major foreign policy crises in his second term:

The first was a border dispute between Britain and Venezuela. The British argued that the border of their colony, British Guyana, stretched much further west than what Venezuela thought. This would have given Britain a considerable chunk of the Orinoco Valley. Ships and soldiers prepared to fight before the two sides apparently realized that no one really cared about this border (and Britain was caught up in the Boer War).

The second problem was with Hawai’i. In 1893, a group of American plantation owners dethroned Queen Liliuokalani and established a provisional government, hoping for annexation by the United States. However, Cleveland refused to annex the islands. He rejected the idea that the U.S. Government would sponsor the overthrow of a legitimate government. Cleveland’s objections only served to postpone annexation until 1898, when he was out of office.

Cleveland faced another labor problem in 1894 when Pullman workers went on strike. This led to a strike by nearly all railroad workers in the country, crippling the transportation system.

The center of the crisis was in Chicago, where union leader Eugene Debs promised that the strike would prevent all trains, even those carrying the mail, from travelling through Chicago. Cleveland reacted by sending in soldiers to operate the train. His Attorney General, Richard Olney, received an injunction against the strikers. Once Debs violated the injunction, he was arrested and the strike was crushed.

The kindly mayor from Buffalo now appeared to be nothing more than a tool of Eastern capitalists. He was no longer the honest reformer of government.

In 1896, Cleveland toyed with the idea of another term. This time, the Democrats tried to tap into the Populist movement, nominating William Jennings Bryan, who made “free silver” (aka inflated currency), his platform. Cleveland watched his party go down to defeat, although he wasn’t broken up by it, as he thought Bryan would have ruined the country.

Cleveland retired to Princeton, New Jersey and did typical ex-president jobs, such as writing his memoirs, giving speeches, and picking up a lot of cash. He passed away in 1908.

Grover Cleveland’s time is a fascinating era in American history, with many different sociological and political changes. But from reading Graff’s book, it doesn’t seem that Grover Cleveland was nearly as interesting as the time he lived in. He was a man who was along for the ride. Graff describes Cleveland as man without charisma and without any knowledge of handling public relations (Cleveland made White House reporters wait outside for stories.). Grover Cleveland was not a person who defined his era. He just tried his best to get through it.

Other stuff: The Grover Cleveland Birthplace is located in Caldwell, Jersey. It is operated by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Cleveland’s unique status as the 22nd and 24th Presidents wasn’t decided officially until the 1950s. According to a New York Times article from January 10, 1950, the Congressional Directory identified Cleveland as both the 22nd and 24th President for the first time, changing Harry Truman from being the 32nd President to the 33rd. Truman believed he was the 32nd President, however. But, when Dwight Eisenhower was inaugurated in 1953, he identified himself as the 34th President. The 1950 article cites an opinion by an anonymous “State Department legal adviser” in 1945 that said that Cleveland had to be the 24th President as well as the 22nd because, logically, you couldn’t have the 22nd President serving in office after the 23rd.

Cleveland had a different running mate in each of his three presidential campaigns. Thomas Hendricks was his first Vice President (he also ran as Samuel Tilden’s running mate in 1876), but he passed away in 1885. Thurman was Cleveland’s running mate in 1888. Stevenson was his running mate in 1892. Stevenson would run for Vice President again in 1900 alongside Bryan.