Happy President’s Day! Last year for president’s day, I did a post about Abraham Lincoln. Two years ago, I did a post about Thomas Jefferson. This year, it’s a less famous president, Grover Cleveland.

Grover Cleveland was the only Democrat to be elected president between the Civil War and World War I. His great great grandfather Aaron was friends with Benjamin Franklin. His great grandfather (also named Aaron) was an abolitionist way back in the 1790s. His father Robert was a Presbyterian minister and his mother owned a slave before her husband made her send her slave away.

Stephen Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, New Jersey in 1837. He was the fifth of nine children. He was named in honor of his father’s predecessor who had founded the Caldwell church. He ended up dropping the Stephen from his name, although he was known as Big Steve to his friends.

When he was four, the family moved to Fayetteville, New York. They were poor and his father was strict. They had family worship nightly, but the family had fun as well playing parlor games, having candy pulls and popcorn parties, and going to the local swimming hole. Grover was a lifelong fisherman. He and his eldest brother William played pranks like ringing the academy bell in the middle of the night to wake everyone up or removing their neighbor’s front gates.

As a teen, his chores included cutting wood, carrying water, and hoeing the garden. He was big and muscular for his age. He wasn’t a particularly brilliant student, but when he was 15, he organized a debating society which held lectures and discussions rather than formal debates. In one, he argued a lawyer shouldn’t defend a client that he knows is guilty, a view he held onto for the rest of his life.

His father, whose health had been failing, died about a year later. Grover abandoned his plan to go to college as the family could no longer afford it.

He worked with his favorite brother William at the New York Institute for the Blind, a public asylum with 116 inmates aged 8 to 25 drawn from the poverty-stricken homes around the state. Grover taught the younger students basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. Fellow faculty member Fanny Crosby, blind from infancy, was one of the nation’s most popular hymn writers. The halls were cold, the food was nearly inedible, and the pay was low. The Superintendent was cruel. It was the bleakest time in his life.

The Cleveland boys left the institute after a year, William to enter seminary and Grover to begin his law career. (He refused an offer from a wealthy Presbyterian to pay for his education to become a minister.)
Grover became a Deist after leaving home, although he retained a black and white view of the world in which everything was either right or wrong.

His wealthy uncle in Buffalo offered him a job editing a book about cattle and used his connections to get Grover an apprenticeship at one of Buffalo’s top law firms. The first day, they forgot he was there and left for lunch without him. He vowed to be better remembered in the future.

Grover lived with his aunt, uncle, and cousins until he made enough money to move into a boarding house. When his aunt Margaret ranted about religion, Grover would grit his teeth. This happened so often, he worried his teeth would crumble like chalk in his mouth.

At 22, he was admitted into the New York bar. He became a senior clerk with a salary of $1,000 a year. He was a successful trial lawyer, although his oratorical skills weren’t great. He always did a lot of meticulous research to make up for his lack of eloquence. To make up for being bad with spontaneity, he committed his arguments to memory which impressed many.

During his early years as a bachelor in Buffalo, he was all business as a strict attorney, but after hours, he enjoyed playing euchre and poker and liked bawdy jokes and smutty tales. He liked German beer and the company of women. He would even sometimes engage in a street brawl over politics.

After a few years, he took a 40 percent pay cut to become assistant district attorney because it was a political job. It increased his reputation. He once argued four major cases concurrently and won all four. He often stayed up until 3 preparing for a case and woke up at 8. He once went 36 hours without sleep.

He was already involved in the Democratic party by this time, although his uncle was a leader in the Republican party. He fantasized about becoming a Supreme Court Judge and believed being a Democrat was the best way to do that since the Dems controlled Buffalo’s municipal government.

He admired Lincoln. He got out of being drafted during the Civil War by hiring a substitute to take his place. He lost the district attorney election and went into private practice. He attracted notice with some of his cases. In one, he defended 1,500 Irish nationalists who invaded Canada pro bono.

He got elected sheriff of Erie County but barely campaigned for it. It was unusual for a lawyer to become a sheriff, but it would double his income and he’d be able to send more money back home to help his mother and siblings. Buffalo was overrun with crime. It had more prisoners than any other county jail in New York. Corruption was also rampant. Cleveland would inspect deliveries himself to ensure contractors didn’t charge for a full load but only delivered half.

Cleveland executed murderers himself instead of hiring a hangman because he didn’t think it was right to make another man do something so abhorrent. He also hung up sheets to prevent spectators from watching the executions.

Two of his brothers were lost at sea during this time. After three years as sheriff, he didn’t seek reelection but went back to law, forming his own firm. He was the first one in the office every morning and the last one out every night. He worked with equal zeal and attention to detail whether the client was rich or poor. He’d often take cases without a fee due to his hatred of injustice.

In his free time, he loved having beer, sausages, and sauerkraut at Schenkelberger’s, his favorite saloon. He became obese. Rather than the parlor or theater, he preferred playing pinochle, poker, and sixty-six in saloons. He liked hunting, fishing, and horse racing. He always dressed up in public including a top hat. He didn’t like traveling or taking long vacations.

He didn’t court any women, preferring the occasional dalliance. When his sister asked when he’d get married, he said, “I’m only waiting for my wife to grow up.” She thought he was joking. He wasn’t.

Corruption was rampant in Buffalo politics on both sides, but there were calls for reform. Democrats selected Cleveland to run for mayor since he had a reputation for honesty. Reform-minded Republicans supported him since the Republican nominee was corrupt. Cleveland agreed to the nomination with conditions. He didn’t want the corrupt political boss Sheehan on the second spot on the ticket as comptroller. He wanted no purchasing of votes and he wouldn’t personally canvas the saloons.

Once elected, he set about cleaning the city… literally. 36 percent of deaths were due to diseases caused by poor conditions. He improved the sewer system, brought in clean water, and vetoed a bill awarding the contract for an exorbitant sum. He saved the city hundreds of thousands of dollars by insisting upon competitive contracts. He checked invoices personally to ensure there was no fraud or waste.

A man named Martin Flanagan had been sentenced to death, but Cleveland asked the governor for a stay of execution suspecting he’d been denied a fair trial. He discovered Flanagan’s lawyer had been drunk during trial, his short-bladed knife wasn’t exactly a good murder weapon, and the victim had a displaced heart he couldn’t have known about.

He convinced most of the jury Flanagan was innocent and they went with him to Governor Cornell to plead for Flanagan’s life. He also brought eyewitnesses and lots of documents. Impressed, the governor commuted Flanagan’s sentence and recommended Cleveland be his successor, even though they were from different parties.

President Arthur disliked fellow Republican Governor Cornell and tried to get one of his lackies elected in his place. This led the Democrats to look for an honest man to run for governor and they chose Cleveland. Again, reform-minded Republicans and independents supported the Democratic candidate.

At this time, his mother fell ill and he rushed home to spend the last weeks of her life with her. When he returned to Buffalo, his friends’ effort to nominate him for governor were underway. Amazingly, he got the nomination without owing anyone any favors. Again, he didn’t do much campaigning for himself and won in a landslide.

As governor, remarkably, he didn’t give any of his friends appointments. These instead went to people qualified for the jobs. He refused to give jobs to people who helped him get elected. He didn’t trust the legislature. He examined the facts pertaining to every bill thoroughly and vetoed any bill he concluded didn’t benefit the public. He sent back bills that needed to be modified. He vetoed bills despite the fact his friends would benefit from them. He even vetoed bills he himself supported if he felt they were unconstitutional or didn’t support the public interest.

He refused to delegate, only trusting himself to do this important work. He reviewed the details of hundreds of appeals for clemency personally, pardoning some, commuting some, and denying others. He instructed the superintendent of New York prisons not to mistreat or beat prisoners. He continued to live a simple life void of extravagance, although he did add a billiards table to the governor’s mansion. He would eat leftovers from official receptions.

He’d arrive at his office at 9 and work until 5, although he’d often return to the office and work from 8:30 to midnight. When he finally left for the day, he’d joke, “Well, I guess we’ll quit and call it half a day.”
He stayed up after 1 AM and woke up at 7. He reportedly had glassy eyes. Since he ate a lot and never exercised, local news reporters were worried about his health.

He often worked on Sunday, skipping church much to the pastor’s chagrin. He’d sometimes go to the Catholic church instead of the Presbyterian one simply because it wasn’t as far of a walk! When making excuses for not going to church he’d say with a wink, “Tell him that an ass fell into a pit.”

He rarely read for pleasure. When he did, he preferred history, biography, and poetry. He was able to memorize passages by the page. Occasionally, he would fish or go duck hunting and he played poker on Sunday afternoons. “My father used to say that it was wicked to go fishing on Sunday, but he never said anything about draw-poker.”

Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican up-and-comer in the state legislature, admired and respected Cleveland. They worked together to pass a civil service reform bill. However, they also clashed. Once a reporter witnessed Roosevelt lose it and have a temper tantrum over Cleveland vetoing some of his bills. Cleveland explained the bills had a good intent but contradicted themselves and needed to be cleaned up. Roosevelt insisted the bills be passed because of the principle of the thing. Cleveland slammed his fist on the desk and roared that he would veto the bills with such force Roosevelt fell backwards into a chair. Then Cleveland got back to work, leaving Roosevelt and the reporter to see themselves out.

Cleveland clashed with Tammany Hall, a group of corrupt Democrats that controlled New York. It was seen as political suicide within New York to clash with them, but it increased his standing with Democrats outside the state. The Mugwumps, a group of Republicans who didn’t support the official Republican nominee, threw their support behind Cleveland for president. When he learned he got the Democratic nomination for president, he said, “By Jove, that is something, isn’t it?”

Blaine, the Republican nominee, was an excellent orator and gave stump speeches throughout the country. Cleveland didn’t like to speak without thoroughly researching first, and gave only a couple speeches, devoting most of his time to his duties as governor.

The presidential campaign of 1884 was one of the dirtiest in American history with both candidates being dragged through the mud. Republicans claimed Cleveland would bring back slavery and cut veteran benefits. They claimed he was a womanizer, which actually had a kernel of truth to it. Worse, his friend Henry Ward Beecher tried to defend him by saying if every man who committed adultery voted for Cleveland, he’d win by a landslide. “I am afraid that I shall have occasion to pray to be delivered from my friends!”

Cleveland believed the best way to handle the scandal was to tell the truth about it. He believed that if he owned up to the facts, the unpleasantness would be quickly forgotten. And it was. He admitted to having an affair with Maria Halpin. She did have a child, although it’s unknown who the father was since she had other lovers. (She named the child after both Cleveland and his law partner.) She took to drinking and a judge sent her to a mental institution for a short time while the child was placed in an orphanage which Cleveland paid for.

Cleveland also gave Maria money to start a dress salon. She was a widow with two previous children she left behind with her family. She abducted her child from the orphanage. A judge ordered him returned. Cleveland then arranged for the boy to be adopted. The Republicans tried to keep the story alive in cartoons with captions such as “Ma! Ma! Where’s my Pa?”

Cleveland refused to go low in return. When given records that indicated Blaine’s wife was pregnant before their marriage, he burned them in the fireplace. When the news leaked to the press anyway, Cleveland instructed his campaign managers to let the matter lie.

Many voters didn’t care about Cleveland’s immorality in his personal life since his public record was impeccable, while Blaine was corrupt as a politician, enriching himself and friends at taxpayer expense and attempting to destroy evidence and falsify records. In one incriminating letter, Blaine wrote “Burn this letter” at the end. Democrats would chant this in marches meant to embarrass Blaine.

Cleveland was denounced for not fighting in the Civil War, but he explained the three Cleveland brothers of fighting age decided to draw lots. The two brothers who drew short strips of paper signed up. Grover, who drew the long strip, paid a sailor to take his place so he could provide for his poor mother and sisters.

New York was the only state that mattered in the election. Since the Tammany Democrats hated Cleveland, Blaine was expected to win. However, seven days before the election, a clergyman speaking for Blaine made an anti-Catholic statement, losing a half a million votes. Blaine also lost the working class vote by having a lavish “prosperity dinner” with two hundred of the richest men in the country.

Many newspapers announced Blaine had won. There were rumors of delayed and falsified returns. Cleveland supporters threatened to riot if their man wasn’t declared winner. Cleveland himself suspected fraud and later said if denied the presidency, “I should have felt it my duty to take my seat anyhow.” He barely won New York by a thousand votes.

From the time he was elected mayor of Buffalo, to governor of New York, to president, was less than four years. A truly meteoric rise. In 1885, days after being elected, he told an old friend, “Henceforth I must have no friends.” He refused to do any of his friends or family any political favors. He was more concerned with keeping a clean conscience. His old law partner and friend Bissell was angry he didn’t get a cabinet post and stopped being his friend (although they patched things up and Cleveland gave him a cabinet post in his second term).

He picked a geographically diverse cabinet, including two former Confederates, in order to help heal the nation.

The spoils system was responsible for massive corruption throughout the country. Over half the federal employees in some departments were redundant in order to give jobs to political supporters. Instead of hiring permanent employees, temporary employees would work only a month or a few days and be rotated out in order to give spoils to as many political supporters as possible.

Cleveland made it clear he intended to enforce the civil service reform measures passed by the previous administration. He even let some Republican supporters keep their current jobs if he found them competent, making him many enemies in his own party.

There were over 100,000 government jobs to fill. Cleveland obviously couldn’t personally examine everyone, so he delegated. Unfortunately, his underlings often still engaged in the spoils system, making him enemies in the reform movement.

His policy towards Native Americans was one of assimilation. Days before Cleveland took office, President Arthur had opened up nearly half a million acres of Winnebago and Crow Creek lands to white settlers. After hearing about atrocities suffered by the natives, Cleveland rescinded this order and ordered white settlers to evacuate. However, white people kept encroaching upon native land and conflict was inevitable. In response to an Apache attack led by Geronimo, Cleveland waged a small scale war to prevent a greater war.

Railroads and other corporations drove rightful homesteaders from their land. His agents discovered thousands of cases of fraudulent homestead claims and put a stop to it, recovering millions of dollars.

Western states that mined silver and their southern allies passed the Bland-Alison bill requiring the US government to make silver currency in 1878. The problem is a silver dollar was worth less than a gold dollar, but could be exchanged for a gold dollar, creating financial havoc. Cleveland called for the bill to be repealed, but not forcefully enough to overrule the pro-silver faction in Congress.

The White House only had a few dozen clerks and servants at this time. There was a single telephone and after hours, it got answered by whomever was closest. Cleveland, a steak and potatoes guy, dismissed Arthur’s fancy French chef, to keep the cook from the governor’s mansion. His nieces and nephews called him Uncle Jumbo due to his weight.

Before his marriage, his sister Rose served as First Lady. She found White House receiving lines boring and would silently conjugate Greek verbs to stave off boredom. She taught at a girl’s school and published essays on female writers. Cleveland however, believed “A good wife is a woman who loves her husband and her country with no desire to run either.” (Rose never married, but ended up settling in Italy with a wealthy widow with whom she was buried side-by-side.)

Frugal as always, Cleveland didn’t use any of the money allotted him to renovate the White House and he never used the presidential yacht. When he went deep sea fishing, he paid all expenses out of his own pocket. He met with the public three times a week.

Frances Clara Folsom Cleveland was the youngest First Lady (although Cleveland preferred to call her The President’s Lady). She became a celebrity. Women would style their hair “à la Cleveland” and pose like her in photos. She’d taken a pledge of abstinence as a child and would only sip the occasional brandy at social functions, usually drinking Apollinaris water.

She helped the causes of female education and female employment regardless of race. She founded the Washington Home for Friendless Colored Girls and personally delivered gifts for the Colored Christmas Club. She helped found the New Jersey College for Women. She knew French, German, and Latin. She was proficient at the new art of photography and was a talented pianist.

Cleveland first met his future-wife when she was born. He was 27 at the time. She was the daughter of his law partner. He’d bought her first baby carriage and bounced her on his knee. He called her “Frank” and she called him Uncle Cleve. When she was ten, her father died in a carriage accident. Cleveland was named her legal guardian and took responsibility for her and her mother, although they moved and he didn’t see much of them.

They corresponded while she was at college. (She graduated a year early.) He visited her when he could. He began to secretly court her his second year as governor. He sent flowers (and once a puppy) to her dorm room.

She was with him when he learned of his presidential nomination. A friend (Bissell) unknowingly remarked that “If one of you young fellows doesn’t take an interest in that pretty Miss Folsom the governor (Cleveland) is likely to walk off with her himself!” He didn’t know his joke would turn out to be true.

Cleveland proposed to her by letter in the summer of 1885 when she and her mother were about to leave for a nine-month trip to Europe. The engagement was kept secret, although an affectionate cable he sent to their departing ship leaked to the press. It was assumed he was marrying her mother. “I don’t see why the papers keep marrying me to old ladies,” he told a friend. “I wonder why they don’t say I am engaged to marry her daughter!”

When she returned, they got married in the White House in a small ceremony. He was 49 and she was 22. John Philip Sousa led the Marine Band in playing the Mendelssohn Wedding March. Although kept off hotel grounds, dozens of reporters observed the president on his honeymoon through binoculars. He called them “those ghouls of the press.” During a slow news day, reporters made up a story that Frances had stopped wearing a bustle and bustles immediately went out of fashion.

In 1886, there were twice as many strikes as any previous year. Cleveland was sympathetic to working men and urged management to compromise with them. The Missouri Pacific Railroad Strike affected six thousand miles of railroad. Perishable goods rotted along the tracks. The cost of provisions went through the roof. Many mills and factories were forced to shut down. Fights broke out between strikers and law enforcement. Several men died. The strike eventually ended with less than 20 percent of strikers keeping their jobs.

To get labor votes, Congress passed legislation calling for arbitration of railroad disputes, legalized trade unions, and prohibited the importation of contract labor. Cleveland wanted them to go further, but signed these laws as being the best he could get.

In Chicago, a fight between police and strikers turned into the Haymarket Riot of 1886 when an anarchist’s bomb escalated the situation and police began firing into the unarmed crowd. Eight men were found guilty by a biased judge and jury with four being sentenced to death and one killing himself by exploding a bomb in his mouth.

Because the White House didn’t have much privacy, Cleveland bought a house called Oak View and became something of a gentleman farmer. Frances and Cleveland loved dogs. Frances’ favorite was a French poodle she gave commands to in French.

Cleveland hated formal parties, but Frances convinced him they’d be politically advantageous. Pianos and sewing machines were offered to her in return for an endorsement, but Cleveland didn’t allow it. Tens of thousands of copies of her picture were sold and companies put her picture on products such as soap, perfume, liver pills, candy, ashtrays, and underwear without permission. Cleveland was furious. He asked congress to pass a bill forbidding it, but it failed to pass.

There was fraud in the Veterans Bureau. Soldiers who hadn’t been injured in the Civil War claimed to have injuries. People injured after the war claimed their injuries were war-related. Financially well off people claimed to be dependent relatives. Remarried widows claimed to still be single. Some collected checks for legitimate pensioners long dead. By the time Cleveland took office, there was a 500 percent increase in pension spending compared to twenty years ago when it should have decreased during this time.

To get around the Pension Bureau, fraudulent claims were taken directly to Congress which didn’t dare reject any for fear of being labeled unpatriotic. Cleveland would research these claims even though there were thousands of them. He approved the ones that had merit and vetoed the rest. He was portrayed as being an unpatriotic draft-dodger, and many of the claims got passed during the next administration, but he did slow the fraud down.

In 1887, he took a quick tour of the western and southern states which largely went well with approving crowds. (In 1887, he authorized the seizure of Mormon property until the Mormons abandoned polygamy.) In Memphis, the judge who welcomed him to the city suddenly dropped dead during Cleveland’s speech. While at the Saint Louis Fair Grounds, a woman threw a pancake onto Mrs. Cleveland’s lap to show her how good it was. The woman was fined $50 and costs.

Canada started arresting American fisherman and confiscated their boats after they illegally fished in Canadian waters. Cleveland wanted to negotiate a treaty, but the Senate blocked this. The Senate called for retaliation in the form of selectively blocking trade with Canada to benefit the New England fishing industry, but Cleveland called for all Canadian trade to be blocked which he knew they weren’t willing to do, so they backed down.

This willingness to stand up to Canada and by extension Britain won him support from Irish American voters. However, he lost the Irish vote and reelection due to a dirty trick. A Republican posing as a English American wrote a letter to the British envoy to the US asking if Cleveland was secretly pro-British and the envoy said he was. The Republicans published this letter two weeks before the election causing Cleveland to lose reelection.

When running for reelection, there were false claims that he beat his wife. He won more popular votes than Benjamin Harrison, but lost the electoral vote. There were other problems with his campaign. He refused to make speeches. His vice presidential candidate was old and sick, once stopping mid speech due to health concerns. His campaign manager wasn’t a huge fan of him.

Germany tried to annex the island nation of Samoa by secretly distributing arms and instigating a pro-German uprising led by a puppet ruler and forcing the rightful king into exile. Cleveland sent a flotilla of warships to protect Samoa’s sovereignty. War seemed inevitable when Harrison took office, but a hurricane destroyed both German and American flotillas before fighting could break out. Robert Louis Stevenson witnessed the event and wrote about it.

When the Clevelands left the White House, Frances told the butler to keep everything in good shape for they’d be back in four years. After leaving the presidency, Cleveland joined a prestigious New York law firm and spent a lot of time fishing and hunting with his favorite rifle which he named Death and Destruction. He would also repair toys or whittle a weather vane or reel for the neighborhood children.

He gave a few speeches during his retirement and remained popular with the voters, although he wasn’t interested in running for reelection at first. Corruption reigned during Harrison’s presidency from bogus pension requests, high tariffs to enrich manufacturers, silver miners who enriched themselves while debasing the nation’s currency, investors who stood to profit by forcefully annexing Hawaii, and Congress wanting to use the Treasury surplus for pork-barrel projects.

In 1891, Cleveland’s first child, Ruth, was born. A candy bar, still popular today, was named Baby Ruth in her honor.

Cleveland won reelection in a landslide, partly because Harrison made the unpopular decision to send in federal troops to break strikes. Cleveland didn’t campaign for himself, partly due to suffering from gout. His physician, Dr. Bryant, said Cleveland was “suffering from an excess of medicine rather than the lack of it.” He was one of those who “believes that if a little will do some good, a bottle full must be of great advantage indeed.”

While the Clevelands had been away, the Harrisons had installed electricity in the White House and added some bathrooms. The single telephone had been replaced by a switchboard and an operator. Rats were still a problem, though. When Baby Ruth played outside, tourists would sneak up and hug her, causing her mother to order the gates locked. Since fashion of the day allowed a pregnant woman to hide her condition, it was a surprise to the nation when Esther was born, the first child born to a President while in the White House.

Upon being reelected, Cleveland was the most popular president since Lincoln. He won in states that had been solidly Republican, he was supported by most of the major newspapers, and the President’s party controlled both houses of Congress for the first time since 1856. However, Cleveland squandered all this good will by being unwilling to compromise on anything.

For his cabinet the second time around, Cleveland made some controversial picks including a couple friends, a political supporter, a relative unknown, and even a Republican.

During the 1800s, colonists introduced diseases to Hawaii which reduced the native population by 80 percent. Second generation American missionaries took over the Hawaiian legislature and judiciary and passed laws disenfranchising most of the natives while allowing Americans living in Hawaii to vote. Shortly before Cleveland began his second term, the American military invaded Hawaii, a friendly sovereign nation, deposing the Queen and setting up a provisional government. Harrison tried to rush annexation, but Congress wanted to wait to see what Cleveland would do.

Cleveland wanted to annex Hawaii, but not by force. However, the provisional government refused to leave and he didn’t want to expel them by force. So he did nothing, leaving it to the next president to annex.

As the nation transitioned from an agricultural economy to an industrial one, many farmers across the nation were foreclosed upon resulting in economic deflation. Unregulated big companies crushed small businesses and slashed worker wages. Mortgage lenders charged high interest rates, railroads charged high shipping fees, and manufacturers charged a lot for machinery. Crops sold for less money. Economic problems in England and Australia impacted America, leading to the Panic of 1893, the worst depression in 20 years. Railroads shut down and there was a 15 percent unemployment rate. Some people starved to death.

The reckless spending of the Harrison administration didn’t help, nor did the fact The Sherman Silver Purchase Act required the government to exchange less valuable silver for more valuable gold, especially once the price of silver had dramatically fallen. Coxey’s Army, a group of thousands of unemployed people, marched from Ohio to Washington to demand the government do something. Police arrested the leader and the group disbanded. Cleveland called Congress into a special session to repeal the Sherman Act, which they did (after months of debate).

During this time, Cleveland discovered he had mouth cancer on his “cigar-chewing” side. News of the president’s illness could further exacerbate the financial crisis, so he kept it secret. The surgery took place at sea aboard a friend’s yacht. A sizable portion of his jaw was removed. One of the doctors leaked the story to the press, but the other doctors insisted it was just minor tooth surgery and the leaked story was dismissed.

Cleveland also wanted to lower tariffs, but he made so many enemies in the Senate by forcing the repeal of the Silver Act, that he couldn’t lower them as much as he wanted to. They did get lowered a bit, though.

George Pullman, maker of sleeping and parlor cars for the nation’s railroads, provided a village for his four thousand employees to live in, but he charged rent that was 25 percent higher than other Chicago neighborhoods, and charged ten percent higher for public water and gas. He lowered salaries 25 percent while the company was making millions of dollars. When employees asked for either lower rent or higher wages, he fired them. This led to The Chicago Pullman Strike of 1894.

Tens of thousands of men walked out around the country. Freight traffic into and out of the West was stopped. The strikers held peaceful protests which the newspapers mischaracterized as riots and warned that the union was full of anarchists who would blow up the federal buildings. Despite the objections of the governor of Illinois and mayor of Chicago, a false report convinced Cleveland to send in the military. He proclaimed martial law in Chicago and authorized putting the strikers in jail without trial. This caused violence to break out. Hundreds were wounded. Twelve were killed.

As the economic depression continued, farmers were hit hard by droughts, the falling price of crops, and farm foreclosures while the price of goods remained high. Taxes, in the form of tariffs, hit farmers and the working class harder than the rich. The railroads also raised the rates to ship grain.

The nation faced a financial crisis as the Treasury was running out of gold. Cleveland struck a deal with New York bankers to replenish the gold supply and prevent financial ruin, although he faced criticism from those who pointed out how much the bankers profited from this.

There was a boundary dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana, especially after gold was discovered in the region. Cleveland offered to be a mediator in the dispute, but Britain refused. The United States considered South America to be off-limits to European powers. If war broke out between England and Venezuela, Congress would involve the US in the conflict. Cleveland gave a saber-rattling speech before Congress, calling for force to defend Venezuela’s boundary against England. Many newspapers called for war. England finally agreed to arbitration and the threat of war passed.

Cuba wanted independence from Spain and people in the US wanted to help. Cleveland declared neutrality and tried to stop the filibustering expeditions. Congress wanted to force Cleveland to recognize Cuba diplomatically, which would have amounted to declaring war on Spain. He declined. He wanted to achieve a peaceable solution, but didn’t have time in the last days of his presidency to do anything.

Cleveland ended his presidency hated by many in his own party. Democrats from the west who wanted the US to use both silver and gold as currency hated Cleveland for his belief in the gold standard. During his last days in office, he refused to sign a bill which would prevent illiterate immigrants from entering America.

He moved to Princeton for retirement where he befriended Woodrow Wilson. Upon learning that one girl at his daughters’ school didn’t get a Valentine, tears welled up in his eyes and he dispatched a messenger to send a Valentine to her from him.

He enjoyed watching Princeton football games. Seats were reserved for him and his family. He also gave lectures at Princeton and was made a trustee. He liked playing billiards and cribbage. He avoided public appearances his first year of retirement, but after time, he became less hated as people realized he was right about the harms of the high tariff and silver. He spoke in New York to protest anti-Jewish pogroms in Kishnev.

In 1902, Roosevelt was preparing to send in the military to put down a coal miner’s strike when he received a letter from Cleveland urging him not to. With suggestions from Cleveland, Roosevelt settled the strike peacefully.

While attending the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Cleveland got a more vigorous sustained applause than the current President Roosevelt. He was even urged to run for a third term in 1904 which he declined to do.

In 1903, at the age of 66, his last child, Francis Grover, was born. Six months later, his firstborn child Ruth died suddenly at the age of 12 from diphtheria. Cleveland’s health began to decline. Suffering from rheumatism, he was often unable to leave bed for weeks at a time.

He felt Chinese immigration was a mistake. During his first term, he called for a ban on Chinese labors who left the country from reentering. During his second term, he didn’t want to entertain a member of the Chinese royal family in Washington as part of a worldwide tour, saying “the firing off of a bunch of Chinese firecrackers” would be “a more appropriate greeting.”

Although he spoke in favor of equality for blacks, he opposed a bill that enforced the Fifteenth Amendment. In 1903, he gave a speech calling blacks ignorant and lazy while also praising Booker T. Washington. He praised the South for forgiving black people for the horrors of Reconstruction! He claimed white people weren’t prejudiced against blacks, but rather had a instinctive aversion to them!

In 1905, the public learned that three big life insurance companies were defrauding their policy holders. As a man the public fully trusted, Cleveland was chosen to head the group reorganizing Equitable Life.

Although despised when he left the presidency, by 1907 he was so popular his seventieth birthday was an informal day of national celebration. He received hundreds of congratulatory letters and telegrams.

His faithful black servant William Sinclair, who served as his steward while he was governor and president, came out of retirement to help nurse him in his final year.

When asked his opinion on the political affairs of the nation, he said, “I feel like the farmer who started at the bottom of a hill with a wagon load of corn and discovered at the hilltop that every grain of his load had slid out under the tail-board. Though of a profane temperament, he stood mutely surveying his disaster until to a passing neighbor, who asked him why he didn’t swear, he replied: ‘Because, by God, I cannot do the subject justice.'”

By 1908, he was nearing his end, suffering from heart and kidney disease as well as chronic gastroenteritis. His last words were, “I have tried so hard to do right.”

His widow Frances lived for another 39 years, serving as trustee for various charities and women’s organizations. She remarried a successful New York businessman. She died at the age of 83 in 1947. At a White House luncheon shortly before her death, Dwight Eisenhower, who didn’t know who she was, asked where she had lived in Washington. She smiled and said, “In the White House.”

---

So how does Grover Cleveland compare to other presidents in terms of body count? He resisted pressure from Congress to send troops to Cuba which would have triggered the Spanish-American War early. He avoided war with England over the Venezuela boundary dispute, settling it through arbitration instead. He sent a flotilla of warships to protect Samoa’s sovereignty from Germany, however a hurricane destroyed both flotillas so we don’t know if this would have resulted in war or Germany backing down. He rescinded the order which gave away half a million acres of Native American land to white settlers which could have saved lived by preventing conflict.

On the other hand, he signed the Dawes Act which allowed Native American land to be bought up by white settlers. He also engaged in conflict with Native Americans such as during the Geronimo War. He refused to send in the military to enforce black men’s right to vote which very well could have led to black people being murdered for trying to vote. 12 deaths occurred when Cleveland sent in the military to suppress the peaceful Chicago Pullman Strike of 1894. Something I learned from Wikipedia is he vetoed the Texas Seed Bill which would have provided relief to farmers whose crops were ruined by drought. He didn’t consider disaster relief to be the government’s job, but rather called upon charities to step in instead. His veto could have lead to many people starving to death.

In the end, I think he probably saved more lives than he lost because the Spanish-American War caused over 60,000 deaths. However he didn’t keep it from happening entirely, he only delayed it a little while. I think Grover Cleveland is rightfully considered an average president.