American Presidents Blog

Nelson Rockefeller

2012-05-24T17:19:00.001-07:00

I thought I'd round out of my VP kick this week with a modern one before I moved on to something else! So here's some background on Nelson Rockefeller, Ford's VP:
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller inherited both a vast family fortune and a family image that he had to live down in order to achieve his political ambitions—because even as a little boy he wanted to be president of the United States. "After all," he reasoned, "when you think of what I had, what else was there to aspire to?" The third of five brothers, Nelson was the energetic, outgoing leader within his own family. He and his brothers grew up in the family home on West 54th Street in New York, which was so filled with art that his parents bought the town house next door just to house their collection. Eventually the Rockefellers gave the property to the Museum of Modern Art. Nelson attended the progressive Lincoln School of Teachers College at Columbia University, but dyslexia hindered his schooling and prevented him from attending Princeton. With the help of tutors he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth in 1930. Shortly thereafter, he married Mary Todhunter Clark, known as Tod, whose calm reserve seemed to balance his boundless enthusiasms. After a round-the-world honeymoon, they settled in New York and Nelson went to work for the family business.

Nelson Rockefeller proved so successful in renting out space in the newly constructed Rockefeller Center that his father made him president of the Center. He earned negative publicity after he ordered the removal from Rockefeller Center of murals painted by the noted Mexican artist Diego Rivera, which contained a heroic Lenin and a villainous-looking J.P. Morgan. Otherwise, Rockefeller won high praise for his executive abilities. He became a director of the Creole Petroleum Company, a Rockefeller subsidiary in Venezuela. He learned Spanish and began a lifelong interest in Latin-American affairs. Art was another of his passions, and during the depression he served as treasurer of the Museum of Modern Art. In 1939 he became the museum's president, encountering such intense infighting that he boasted, "I learned my politics at the Museum of Modern Art."
In 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed the thirty-two-year-old Rockefeller to the new post of coordinator of the Office of Inter-American Affairs. It was a shrewd move on Roosevelt's part, designed to mute the Rockefeller family's support of Wendell Willkie for president that year. Although his brothers served in uniform, Nelson held civilian posts throughout World War II, becoming assistant secretary of state for American republics affairs in 1944. He played a key role in hemispheric policy at the United Nations Conference held in San Francisco, developing consensus for regional pacts (such as the Rio Pact and NATO) within the UN's framework. Although President Roosevelt tried to lure Rockefeller into the Democratic party, he remained loyal to his family's Republican ties. When Roosevelt died, his successor showed less appreciation for Rockefeller's talents. In August 1945 the failed haberdasher Harry Truman fired the multimillionaire Rockefeller, in order to settle a dispute within the State Department.
And some information on Vice Presidency:
Gerald Ford told the nation that he wanted his vice president to be "a full partner," especially in domestic policy. "Nelson, I think, has a particular and maybe peculiar capability of balancing the pros and cons in many social programs, and I think he has a reputation and the leadership capability," Ford explained. "I want him to be very active in the Domestic Council, even to the extent of being chairman of the Domestic Council." But during the months while Rockefeller's nomination stalled in Congress, Ford's new White House staff established its control of the executive branch and had no intention of sharing power with the vice president and his staff. One Rockefeller aide lamented that the "first four month shakedown was critical and he wasn't involved. That was when the relationship evolved and we were on Capitol Hill fighting for confirmation."
Rockefeller envisioned taking charge of domestic policies the same way that Henry Kissinger ran foreign policy in the Ford administration. Gerald Ford seemed to acquiesce, but chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld objected to the vice president preempting the president. When Rockefeller tried to implement Ford's promise that domestic policymakers would report to the president via the vice president, Rumsfeld intervened with various objections. Rockefeller shifted gears and had one of his trusted assistants, James Cannon, appointed chief of the Domestic Council. Rumsfeld responded by cutting the Council's budget to the bone. Rockefeller then moved to develop his own policies independent of the Domestic Council. Tapping the scientist Edward Teller, who had worked for Rockefeller's Commission on Critical Choices, he proposed a $100 billion Energy Independence Authority. Although Ford endorsed the energy plan, the president's economic and environmental advisers lined up solidly against it.

Usually, Ford and Rockefeller met once a week. Ford noted that Rockefeller "would sit down, stir his coffee with the stem of his horn-rimmed glasses and fidget in his chair as he leaped from one subject to another." Nothing, Ford observed, was too small or too grandiose for Rockefeller's imagination. Beyond the substantive issues, the two men also spent much time talking over national politics. Yet Ford and his staff shut Rockefeller out of key policy debates. In October 1975, when Ford proposed large cuts in federal taxes and spending, the vice president complained, "This is the most important move the president has made, and I wasn't even consulted." Someone asked what he did as vice president, and Rockefeller replied: "I go to funerals. I go to earthquakes." Rockefeller had disliked the vice-presidential seal, with its drooping wings and single arrow in its claw. He had a new seal designed with the eagle's wings outspread and multiple arrows in its clutch. As one of his aides recalled, "One day after a particularly long series of defeats, I walked into the Governor's office [Rockefeller's staff always referred to him as "Governor"] with yet another piece of bad news. The Governor turned to me and pointed at the new seal and flag, sighing, `See that goddamn seal? That's the most important thing I've done all year.'"

Charles Fairbanks

2012-05-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

I'm on a VP kick. So Charles Fairbanks was VP for Theodore Roosevelt. It seems the Fairbanks' opinion of the VP was about the same as that of TR as this quote begins his bio:
My name must not be considered for Vice President and if it is presented, I wish it withdrawn. Please withdraw it.

Fairbanks actually wanted to be President, but that would not be realized he took the undesirable VP slot, where TR did not live up to his earlier promise of a more active VP!
In an 1896 article for Review of Reviews, Roosevelt, while New York City police commissioner, had argued that the vice president should participate actively in a presidential administration, including attendance at cabinet meetings and consultation on all major decisions. He even posited that the vice president should be given a regular vote in the Senate. Now that he was president, however, Roosevelt displayed no intention of follo wing his own advice. He did not invite Fairbanks to participate in the cabinet and consulted the vice president about nothing of substance. Roosevelt certainly showed no inclination to support granting Fairbanks a vote in the Senate and, given Fairbanks' conservative tendencies, would probably have opposed any attempt to do so. Discussing the office abstractly turned out to be quite different from dealing with a flesh-and-blood occupant.

So did Fairbanks manage to do anything as VP?
The most famous instance of Fairbanks' effectiveness as presiding officer came in May 1908 during debate over the conference report on the Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency Act. This legislation authorized the issuance of emergency currency based on state bonds, municipal bonds, and railroad bonds. The inclusion of bonds from railroad companies enraged many midwestern and southern progressives, who saw it as an example of the railroads' control of Congress. As Senator Robert C. Byrd observed in discussing this incident in a 1989 address to the Senate, "Filibusters are inherently much more difficult to wage successfully on conference reports than on bills, because conference reports are not amendable."28 Nevertheless, Republican Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, leading the small but determined opposition to the legislation, decided to filibuster. By holding the floor, La Follette and Democratic Senators Thomas Gore of Oklahoma and William Stone of Missouri hoped to force the leadership to drop railroad bonds from the measure. La Follette began speaking at 12:20 p.m. on Friday, May 29. Either Gore or Stone was to take the floor when he finished and, by speaking in rotation, they could stifle Senate business indefinitely.

A filibuster in the early twentieth century could be particularly unpleasant. In the summer, an extremely hot Senate chamber customarily drove senators to the cloakrooms for relief. During a filibuster, however, if too many members left the chamber, the speaker, or an ally, could suggest the absence of a quorum without losing control of the floor. This procedure required the vice president to direct that the roll be called, and, if a quorum (forty-seven members at that time) were not present, the Senate would adjourn until a quorum could be obtained, further contributing to the filibuster's objective of delay. In any event, the quorum call allowed the speaker a few moments to seek water or food and some fresh air. When Robert La Follette took the floor on May 29, 1908, he brought a clerk with him to keep track of the number of senators present. Since the day turned out to be especially warm, senators had no desire to linger in the sweltering chamber. Whenever the count of members in the chamber fell below the required number, La Follette would stop his speech to suggest the absence of a quorum, forcing his colleagues to file back into the chamber to answer the roll. This cycle continued for hours. When Vice President Fairbanks ordered La Follette's clerk, who had been keeping count for his boss, to leave the chamber, other members friendly to the Wisconsin senator's cause took up the counting. Finally, at about 11:45 that night, after thirty-two quorum calls, Fairbanks, under the guidance of party leader Aldrich, managed to limit the tactic by making a resourceful parliamentary ruling that some business other than debate must take place between quorum calls. Not until 2:25 a.m. on Saturday, May 30, did La Follette finally establish the absence of a quorum, at which point the Senate adjourned until the sergeant at arms roused enough senators from bed to begin debate once more, at 3:40 a.m., allowing La Follette a short nap. La Follette continued until 7:00 a.m. William Stone followed, holding the floor until 1:30 p.m., and then yielded to Senator Gore. Gore was to speak until 4:30 p.m., when Stone would return. At the appointed time, Gore, who was blind, heard that Stone had returned, but when Gore yielded the floor, Stone, either by mistake or through chicanery, had stepped outside the chamber for a moment. Vice President Fairbanks, alert to his opportunity, immediately recognized Nelson Aldrich, who moved that the vote be taken on his bill. Fairbanks, ignoring other speakers shouting for recognition, directed the clerk to call the yeas and nays, and Aldrich, first on the roll, answered in the affirmative. Under Senate rules, once a vote began, it could not be stopped for further debate. After more than twenty-eight hours, the filibuster was broken.

Richard Johnson Mentor

2012-05-22T12:04:00.002-07:00

If you are going, who the heck is that, you probably aren't alone. He's a Vice President - Martin Van Buren's. I found this historic cartoon on him and thought I'd share with a biography. Plus VP nomination talk is starting up, so it seemed appropriate:
Notified of his election, Johnson responded that his "gratification was heightened from the conviction that the Senate, in the exercise of their constitutional prerogative, concurred with and confirmed the wishes of both the States and the people." He explained that he had never paid "special regard to the minuteness of rules and orders, so necessary to the progress of business, and so important to the observance of the presiding officer" during his three decades in Congress. He was nonetheless confident—in words reminiscent of Jefferson's forty years earlier—that "the intelligence of the Senate will guard the country from any injury that might result from the imperfections of the presiding officer." While he hoped "that there may be always sufficient unanimity" to prevent equal divisions in the Senate, he would perform his duty "without embarrassment" in the event that he was called upon to cast a tie-breaking vote.
President pro tempore King administered the oath of office to Johnson in the Senate chamber at 10:00 a.m. on March 4, 1837. In a brief address to the Senate, the new vice president observed that "there is not, perhaps, a deliberative assembly existing, where the presiding officer has less difficulty in preserving order." He attributed this characteristic to "the intelligence and patriotism of the members who compose the body, and that personal respect and courtesy which have always been extended from one member to another in its deliberations." At the conclusion of his remarks, the ceremony of newly elected senators presenting their credentials to the Senate and taking the oath of office was temporarily interrupted by the arrival of President-elect Van Buren and his party. The senators therefore joined the procession to the east portico of the Capitol for the presidential inauguration.
Contemporary witnesses and scholarly accounts of the day's festivities mention Richard Mentor Johnson only in passing, if at all. The outgoing president, worn and emaciated from two terms in office and a recent debilitating illness but still towering over his immaculately attired successor, was clearly the focus of attention. Thomas Hart Benton, a dedicated Jackson supporter, later recounted the "acclamations and cheers bursting from the heart and filling the air" that erupted from the crowd as Jackson took his leave of the ceremony. From Benton's perspective, "the rising was eclipsed by the setting sun."
Johnson's friendship with Jackson and his stature in the House had assured him access to the president and some measure of influence during Jackson's administrations. The controversy surrounding his nomination, however, together with his disappointing showing in the 1836 election, his longstanding rivalry with Van Buren, and the constitutional limitations of his new office severely curtailed his role in the Van Buren administration. Histories of Van Buren's presidency do not indicate that he ever sought his vice president's counsel. Johnson's duties were confined to the Senate chamber, where he watched from the presiding officer's chair as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Silas Wright of New York introduced Van Buren's economic program.
Johnson was, however, willing to use on behalf of his friends and cronies the limited influence he still commanded. When Lewis Tappan asked the vice president to present an abolition petition to the Senate, Johnson, who owned several slaves, averred that "considerations of a moral and political, as well as of a constitutional nature" prevented him from presenting "petitions of a character evidently hostile to the union, and destructive of the principles on which it is founded." "Constitutional considerations" did not, however, prevent him from lobbying Congress on behalf of Indian subagent Samuel Milroy when Milroy, an Indiana Democrat who performed "special favors" for the vice president, sought the more lucrative position of Indian agent.
Johnson was a competent presiding officer, although not an accomplished parliamentarian. In keeping with Senate practice during the 1830s, he appointed senators to standing and select committees, a duty that President pro tempore William R. King performed when he was absent.
Although he had hoped for "equanimity" in the Senate, Johnson was called upon to cast his tie-breaking vote fourteen times during his single term in office, more frequently than any previous vice president except John Adams and John C. Calhoun. Three of his predecessors—Adams, George Clinton, and Daniel D. Tompkins—had addressed the Senate on occasion to explain their tie-breaking votes, but Johnson declined to do so. In at least one instance, however, he did explain a vote to readers of the Kentucky Gazette. Justifying his support for a bill granting relief to the daughter of a veteran, Johnson reminded his former constituents that he had always "used my humble abilities in favor of those laws which have extended compensation to the officers and soldiers who have bravely fought, and freely bled, in their country's cause, and to widows and orphans of those who perished." In other instances, however, Johnson voted with Democratic senators in support of administration policy.
Notwithstanding his steady, if lackluster, service in the Senate, Johnson from the outset represented a liability to Van Buren. Still heavily in debt when he assumed office, he hoped to recoup his fortunes through the Choctaw Academy, a school he established at Blue Spring Farm during the 1820s that became the focus of the Jackson administration's efforts to "socialize" and "civilize" the Native American population. He received federal funds for each student from tribal annuities and the "Civilization Fund" established by Congress during the Monroe administration, but revenues from the school failed to satisfy his mounting obligations. By the spring of 1839, Amos Kendall reported to Van Buren on the vice president's latest venture: a hotel and tavern at White Sulphur Spring, Kentucky. He enclosed a letter from a friend who had visited "Col. Johnson's Watering establishment" and found the vice president "happy in the inglorious pursuit of tavern keeping—even giving his personal superintendence to the chicken and egg purchasing and water-melon selling department." Kendall wrote with consternation that Johnson's companion, "a young Delilah of about the complexion of Shakespears swarthy Othello," was "said to be his third wife; his second, which he sold for her infidelity, having been the sister of the present lady." Although one of the most fashionable in Kentucky, Johnson's resort also formed a source of considerable embarrassment for the administration.
As debts, disappointments, and the chronic pain he had suffered since 1813 took their toll, Johnson's once-pleasing appearance became dishevelled, and the plain republican manners that had in earlier days so charmed Margaret Bayard Smith now struck observers as vulgar and crude, especially compared to the impeccably clad and consummately tactful Van Buren. Henry Stanton observed Johnson presiding over the Senate in 1838 and pronounced him "shabbily dressed, and to the last degree clumsy," a striking contrast with his "urbane, elegant predecessor." English author Harriett Martineau sat opposite the vice president at a dinner party, and predicted that "if he should become President, he will be as strange-looking a potentate as ever ruled. His countenance is wild, though with much cleverness in it; his hair wanders all abroad, and he wears no cravat. But there is no telling how he might look if he dressed like other people." The trademark scarlet vest that Johnson affected while vice president (after he and stagecoach line operator James Reeside agreed to don vests to match Reeside's red coaches) only accentuated his unkempt appearance and eccentric habits.
Van Buren and Johnson took office just as weakened demand for American products abroad and credit restrictions imposed by British banks and trading houses combined to produce a massive contraction in the economy. Critics focused their wrath on Jackson's fiscal policies, which were in part responsible for the panic of 1837, but Van Buren would not abandon his predecessor's "hard money" stance. He refused mounting demands to rescind the 1836 Specie Circular, Jackson's directive to end speculation and inflation by requiring purchasers of public land to pay in specie. During the September 1837 special session of Congress that Van Buren called to address the crisis, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Silas Wright of New York introduced the new administration's remedy, a proposal to end government reliance on the banking system. Congress finally approved Van Buren's independent treasury plan in the summer of 1840, but not before bitter debate and the worsening economy galvanized the Whig opposition. Adding to Van Buren's considerable difficulties, and contributing to Democratic losses in the 1837 and 1838 local elections, were a border dispute with Canada, armed resistance to removal by the Seminole tribe in Florida, heightened sectional antagonism over slavery in Congress, and flagrant misconduct on the part of several administration appointees.

Diaster Areas?

2012-05-21T20:18:00.002-07:00

Ever wanted help cleaning up your room as a kid? This classic letter to President Reagan recently showed back up! It is a classic for a reason, so I thought I'd share!

Andy Smith, then a 7th grader, wrote this to President Reagan:
Today my mother declared my bedroom a disaster area. I would like to request federal funds to hire a crew to clean up my room.

This was President Reagan's response:
Dear Andy:

I'm sorry to be so late in answering your letter but as you know I've been in China and found your letter here upon my return.

Your application for disaster relief has been duly noted but I must point out one technical problem; the authority declaring the disaster is supposed to make the request. In this case your mother.

However setting that aside I'll have to point out the larger problem of available funds. This has been a year of disasters, 539 hurricanes as of May 4th and several more since, numerous floods, forest fires, drought in Texas and a number of earthquakes. What I'm getting at is that funds are dangerously low.

May I make a suggestion? This administration, believing that government has done many things that could better be done by volunteers at the local level, has sponsored a Private Sector Initiative program, calling upon people to practice voluntarism in the solving of a number of local problems.

Your situation appears to be a natural. I'm sure your mother was fully justified in proclaiming your room a disaster. Therefore you are in an excellent position to launch another volunteer program to go along with the more than 3,000 already underway in our nation—congratulations.

Give my best regards to your mother.

Sincerely, Ronald Reagan

Frank by Annette Dunlap

2012-05-16T11:59:00.000-07:00

This is a biography of Frances Cleveland. It was a quick and fun read and I really learned a lot about Frances Cleveland from it. I can’t say I knew much beyond the “basics” about Frances Cleveland before this and this book really brings to light her contributions and her life.

Unlike Julia Tyler, Frances Cleveland comes off as very mature when she marries Grover Cleveland. You can also see that before they have kids, there are some bumps, in the “out of presidency” years. Frances was very involved in the arts, something Cleveland really had no interest in. Yet, overall, she mirrored his politics, seeming to accept them as her own. It is in her second marriage that we do see more political activity, yet she still maintained against suffrage and overt female political roles. Her second husband, Preston, shared more of her interests and seemed fine with her involvement (versus Cleveland who was against it). You can definitely see a different Frances at each point in her life.

The book also highlights Frances’ problems with the press and her antipathy to it, much like we see with Jackie Kennedy in the 1960s. The public had the same fascination with the Cleveland kids as they would with the Kennedy kids and also with their young mothers. Frances, with no protection, was also subject to constant use in advertising, without her consent, and something Congress refused to act on.

Frances was heavily involved in charity work and we see her work with the establishment of kindergardens and the Needlework Guild as two, but many more were discussed as well.

I have two grips. First, the authors switches – with seemingly no rhyme or reason – between Frank and Frances. Pick one! Or have a reason for it! “Frank” is her personal nickname, so there are reason to use it….not arguing….just don’t like the random switching! Second, the quotes all seem to come from the Gilder manuscript collection (so letters Frances wrote to the Gilders, who were close friends). I’m assuming this is where the best material was, but it seems, given she was big into getting all his letters into the LOC, that we should have a little more variety. But I don’t know what the entire research body is, so this might be justified. I just noticed it as I was reading.

I recommend this book – I really had fun reading and getting to know Frances. I know I personally learned a lot and Frances went from the “public image” to a true person.

His Excellency by Joseph Ellis

2012-05-14T22:08:00.000-07:00

I’ve been working on His Excellency by Joseph Ellis for awhile now and have finally finished it. This isn’t a commentary on the book (which was fabulous), but rather the interruptions in my life! This is the third Ellis book I’ve reviewed here, so you can probably tell I like this writing style and research a lot!
This book focuses on George Washington and does a great job of sifting through the murky myths around him to really give us a good picture of Washington himself. I especially enjoyed the early years and how Washington’s work in the British army later affected his leadership of the Continental Army. You see in Washington a very realistic assessment of things and a very practical approach. Washington was probably the only man who could have done what he did and this book really showcases that. You can see a Washington who knew others were more educated than him, but he understood how to listen, process and then act. You see this again and again as the “great minds” around him do the writing, but he is the one who makes it “sell” as well as changes it often in some way that helps to make it work. The book also delves into the morass of Washington’s slave owning, trying to show how Washington saw it as well as his conflicting opinions around it. He understands the financial problems of slavery and that’s where he starts off as wanting to see it end.

This is mostly political, focusing on his public life with just sojourns into the more private life. For instance, we really barely see Martha here, which I found a little disappointing, but that’s all I can really complain about!

On a side note, something that amused me – Ellis was discussing the drafts of his inaugural address and Washington actually was going to mention that there could be no dynasty because he had no children! Obviously there was great worry about any “monarchial” leanings and this was a “plus” for Washington, in his mind!

Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis

2012-05-11T08:45:00.001-07:00

I actually first read this book back as an undergradudate as it was required for a class. It STILL is on my shelf, which says a lot, in my opinion! Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis is a look at the founding generation and the first years of the new government. Ellis focuses on the group that led these years, including the current present, George Washington, and many future presidents: Jefferson, Adams, and Madison. Ellis uses 6 defining "moments" to wade through this period and highlight how this group worked together. For instance, he uses the Burr/Hamilton duel and then the the "secret dinner" where the capital was settled as well as Washington's Farewell Address. I highly recommend this book for one on the early years of the US.

The Cleveland Kids

2012-05-09T22:12:00.002-07:00

So my trivia was easy - Esther Cleveland. Want to find out more about President Cleveland's kids? The public of the day ceratinly did! The Cleveland kids were hounded by the public and press, was as Frances Cleveland, much like Jackie and her kids would be later!

Probably no prior presidential children were watched, followed, or written about as were Grover Cleveland's. The entire nation followed the Cleveland family, and the antics of the children growing up in the White House. Although common today, Cleveland's family was the first to receive this star treatment. Certainly, the advent of inexpensive newspapers, competition for readership, and the first newspaper chains increased the appetite for news of the children of the First Family.

And here's some information on Esther:

Esther Cleveland, 1893-1980. Esther is also famous, as the answer to a popular trivia question. Esther was the first, and to date the only, child of a president born in the White House. Esther did volunteer work in England during World War I, where she met her husband, Captain William Bosanquet of the British army. Bosanquet was an executive in the iron and steel industry. After her husband died, Esther returned to the United States and settled in Tamworth, New Hampshire.

Trivia Question

2012-05-08T13:28:00.003-07:00

With finals and spring cleaning (yes, I do have a life that doesn't include history....although right now I'm moving books and I own a lot of presidential histories....hmmmm....), I've been behind, so here's a trivia question. Let's see who can get it! Who is the only presidential child born in the White House?

A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier

2012-05-03T19:20:00.002-07:00

In His Excellency by Joseph Ellis, there are quotes from “A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier” by Joseph Martin on Washington. I thought I’d include this one from before Yorktown:
Sighting: October 5, 1781
It is a moonless and rainy night as a squad of American sappers and miners attempt to extend the trench-line to within five hundred yards of the British perimeter. Sergeant joseph Plumb Martin is in charge of the digging, only twenty-one but a six-year veteran of the Continental army, one of those poor New England farm boys who had signed up “for the duration” because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. While digging away in the mud, a stranger appears alongside Martin’s squad in the trench and urges the troops to work quietly because British sentries were nearby, and if discovered and captured to avoid divulging valuable information. Martin thing this is well-intentioned but useless advice, since, as he later puts it, “we knew as well as he did that Sappers and Miners were allowed no quarter,” meaning that they should be shot if discovered. Then a group of officers crawl into the trench and Martin hears them address the stranger as “His Excellency.” This prompts Martin to wonder why the commander in chief is so needlessly and casually exposing himself to danger. Washington apparently never gives the matter any thought. The next night he joins the squad again, this time carrying a pickaxe, so it can be recorded, somewhat inaccurately, that General Washington with his own hands first broke ground at the siege of Yorktown.

Election of 1876

2012-05-02T10:27:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting presentation on the Election of 1876, looking again at the issues going into this election and how Colorado factored into the election:
Let me quickly remind you of the basic facts. By the morning after election day in November 1876, it was clear that Samuel Tilden, the Democratic candidate, had 184 electoral votes, one shy of the necessary majority, while Hayes had 165. Twenty electoral votes were in dispute: 19 from the three southern states Republicans still controlled - Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana - and one from Oregon, which Republicans had clearly carried but where one of their three electors was ineligible because he held a federal job. Tilden and his Democratic allies, indeed, would plead with the Democratic governor of that state to substitute one of the Democratic electors for the disqualified Republican to give Tilden the one vote he needed.

But Tilden needed one more vote only because Colorado, with three electoral votes, had been admitted as the Centennial State in July 1876. Without its admission, Tilden would have won the election with 184 votes. Democrats had a heavy majority in the House of Representatives, so I asked myself how they could have been so stupid as to allow Colorado’s admission prior to the election, especially since Colorado, like most western states, was safely Republican?

Answering that question took some work since no book on Reconstruction or the election of 1876 that I had read provided an answer. This is what I found in congressional records. Residents of Colorado were initially given permission to form a state government in 1863 at the same time Nevada was, but that year and on several subsequent occasions popular referenda in Colorado opposed statehood. In the spring of 1874, when Republicans still controlled both houses of Congress, Republicans in the House pushed through a bill offering Colorado statehood once again. The Senate, however, took no action on the bill during that first session of the 43rd Congress. Then in its second session between December 1874 and March 1875, after Democrats had won crushing victories in the congressional elections of 1874 that guaranteed them a huge majority in the House during the 44th Congress, Senate Republicans rewrote the House bill. The new legislation stipulated that Coloradans could not hold a referendum on statehood until July 1876 but that if statehood passed in that vote before July 4, 1876, then the President could admit Colorado as a state without any further action by Congress. In short, Republicans neutered Democrats in the next Congress by prohibiting them from voting on Colorado statehood. Most Democrats recognized this, and they had the votes in both chambers to defeat this bill in 1875 under a rule requiring a two-thirds majority because in each chamber it came up on the final day of the session. But in both chambers a few Democrats, for reasons unknown, broke ranks and voted with Republicans for statehood. Coloradans voted for statehood on July 1, and on August 1 President Grant proclaimed its admission as a state.

Holt also looks at how the disputed election came to be and what factored effected it, even predicted it:
But I discovered something else when I was looking at the congressional debates during the second session of the 43rd Congress. Fully aware that Democrats would have a massive majority in the House in the next Congress, Republicans in the Senate as early as December 1874 predicted that there would be a dispute over counting the electoral votes after the 1876 election. These predictions stemmed partly from the vagueness of the Constitution about who could count the electoral votes, an imprecision that caused much of the uproar in early 1877. The Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution simply said that each state was to send its electoral votes, specifying how many popular votes each candidate for president and vice president received, under seal to the president of the Senate. Then, “the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall be counted.” But counted by whom? In 1877 some Republicans would claim the Republican president pro tem of the Senate, Thomas Ferry of Michigan, alone had authority to count the votes. Democrats, in turn, said the language meant the entire body of Representatives and Senators, where Democrats would have a large majority, should decide. Only the creation of the famous 15-man Electoral Commission that would award Hayes all twenty disputed electoral votes by an 8 to 7 vote resolved that dispute in 1877.

In late 1874 and early 1875, however, Republicans were much more worried by a 22nd joint-rule that Congress had adopted in February 1865 to deal with disputed electoral votes, a rule that was still on the books. This rule held that if anyone disputed an electoral vote during the counting before the joint-session, the Senate and the House would retire to their separate chambers and decide by majority vote whether or not to accept that state’s electoral vote. The hooker was that if either chamber refused to accept a state’s electoral votes, then those votes were declared null and void and no longer counted for either candidate. At the same time, however, they still would count toward the total number of electoral votes from which the winning candidate required a majority. What Senate Republicans feared and what they repeatedly warned during the winter of 1874-75, therefore, was that House Democrats would challenge and throw out so many electoral votes after the 1876 elections that no one could get the necessary majority. In that case, according to the Constitution, the decision would go to the House where the Democratic majority could name the winner even though each state had only one vote.

One product of these fears was a flood of constitutional amendments proposed by Republicans, both in the second session of the 43rd Congress and in December 1875 at the start of the 45th Congress, to change the way electoral votes were counted. The details of these amendments varied, but the majority contended that Congress should be eliminated entirely from the counting of electoral votes and that the Supreme Court should decide who won presidential elections. Though none of these amendments passed, in December 1875 Senate Republicans, over Democratic objections, did unilaterally rescind the 22nd joint-rule, meaning that no method was in place to decide disputed electoral votes after November 1876.

What I’ve learned about the disputed electoral vote is fascinating, but it is not even what most interested me about the 1876 election. Rather two other aspects of it did. First, like many other political historians I think it stabilized and for the very first time assured the longevity of the system of two-party competition between Republicans and Democrats. You might find it surprising, but from the birth of the Republican party in 1854 until 1876 there were repeated attempts to displace it with a differently configured anti-Democratic party, forcing Republican politicians repeatedly to justify the existence of their party. These calls for a new party, often from leading Republican politicians and editors, became especially numerous after the Civil War. In 1869, for example, the Republican New York Times announced “that the work of the Republican party ends with the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment,” and that it was time for a major political reshuffling in which the Republican party would and should be displaced. As late as 1876 itself, indeed, Republicans felt it necessary to justify their continued existence by announcing in their national platform that “the work of the Republican party is unfinished.”

Party politics and popular voting behavior were most volatile between 1870 and 1875 when a host of new parties sprang up to challenge both Republicans and Democrats for voters’ allegiance. \In the West and Midwest these were usually clean-government or economically-oriented reform parties with a host of names such as Independent, Anti-Monopoly, Granger, Greenback, Greenback-Labor, and the like. The most famous, however, was the Liberal Republican movement which emerged in the Border States in 1869 and then spread to the North in 1872. Grant, of course, walloped the Liberal Republican/Democratic candidate Horace Greeley in 1872 by over 700,000 popular votes, but one of the things I’ve found most surprising in the Hayes and Tilden manuscript collections and newspapers is that the Liberal Republican movement did not fade away after that rout. Liberal Republicans ran in and carried several congressional districts in 1874, and as late as May 1876 Liberal Republicans held a meeting in New York City to decide if they should run their own candidate again that year. The Hayes and Tilden manuscript collections, indeed, make it crystal clear that both Republicans and Democrats considered Liberal Republicans as the key swing group in 1876 whose allegiance would determine the outcome of the election. Both parties, therefore, engaged in a bidding war for Liberals, a bidding war that largely shaped the campaign strategy of both. Arguably, indeed, the main reason Hayes won the Republican nomination in 1876 was that once the favorite of the Liberals, Benjamin Bristow, was stopped at the Republican convention, Hayes seemed the most likely alternative to attract Liberals’ support because of his honesty and commitment to specie resumption.

The President’s Flight

2012-05-01T22:51:00.000-07:00

My husband and I were wandering around downtown Cleveland and found an antique-type store and were looking through old magazines and I found this old edition of Flying Magazine, which my husband actually subscribes to today. This one was from 1943 and I found an article about a flight of Franklin Roosevelt’s in it! So this is from the April 1943 edition of Flying and the article is the “The President’s Flight” by John Murdoch. I thought I’d transcribe some of it for you!

Most of the time the President was too engrossed in official business to pay attention to exact location of the Clipper, but Capt. John McCrea, White House Naval aide who one of the official party aboard the President’s plane, spent considerable time on the flight deck. The captain’s keen interest in the intricate and mathematical procedure of flying one of the big Boeings extend to nocturnal visits to the flying bridge at odd hours, and once Captain Cone was surprised on looking up to see Captain McCrea entering the flight deck door clad in pajamas.

The precautions taken to guard both the nature of the flight and the person of the President were evidence at Trinidad. Naval guards were everywhere. While the big ships rested easily at their moorings mechanics swarmed over them, checking all mechanical equipment so that the planes would be in top notch shape for the take-off in the early dawn. For security reasons, the entire flight was planned leg by le g and it was not until reaching Trinidad that it became known that the next hop would be the 1,200 mile jump across the green jungles of the South American coast to Belem at the mouth of the Amazon.

An hour out of Belem the Dixie Clipper made the first of what were to be four crossing of the equator with the President aboard.

The next hop, it then was disclosed, would be the 2,400 mile transatlantic flight to Bathurst, on the coast of West Africa. So, after a three-hour check, the two planes roared off eastward at dusk to land 18 hours later across the ocean.

Coolidge’s Grave

2012-04-30T20:29:00.000-07:00

This is my brother and his future bride in Vermont in last week. Remember when I posted on Plymouth Notch? Well, I still haven’t been, but they have now. As a note, it IS closed in the winter as they found out! My brother said all that was open was the cemetery! He was moaning about nothing ever being open for him – he has pretty bad luck on that issue!

Here are some directions from the second site I linked on finding the grave:
President Coolidge grave is kind of hard to find. There are no signs pointing the way to the cemetery. The road to the cemetery is less then a quarter of a mile from the Coolidge home. You will see a brown house (house color in October 2005). When you see the house, you will turn and go up the road about a half a mile or mile if that. Right across the road from the graves is a gravel parking lot that you can park in. The graves are very simple just like President Coolidge was. Where the graves are at, it is a very narrow area which made it hard for pictures (see Grace Coolidge to see narrow area).

This reminds me of my troubling finding the Polks and Tafts graves – got totally lost on both of them! Someone from the Parks' service actually took pity on my grandmother and I and finally DROVE us to Taft's grave in Arlington!

Greatest Enemy?

2012-04-26T16:52:00.000-07:00

So who is Britain’s greatest enemy commander? George Washington! I think the irony here is that when the Revolution started, no thought they had a chance, but perseverance and Washington triumphed! I honestly am not sure that I would have thought this!

American revolutionary leader George Washington has been voted the greatest enemy commander to face Britain, lauded for his spirit of endurance against the odds and the enormous impact of his victory.

In a contest organised by the National Army Museum, Washington triumphed over Irish independence hero Michael Collins, France's Napoleon Bonaparte, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.

Making the case for Washington, historian Stephen Brumwell said the American War of Independence (1775-83) was "the worst defeat for the British Empire ever."

"His personal leadership was crucial," he said.

Washington was a courageous and inspirational battlefield commander who led from the front but also had the skills to deal with his political counterparts in Congress and with his French allies, Brumwell said. Above all, he never gave up even when the war was going against him.

"His army was always under strength, hungry, badly supplied. He shared the dangers of his men. Anyone other than Washington would have given up the fight. He came to personify the cause, and the scale of his victory was immense."

Newburgh Conspiracy

2012-04-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

In his response to the Newburgh Conspiracy, Washington proves yet again that he is immune to the pull of dictatorial power:

The year was 1783. Though the War had virtually ended in October of 1781 with Cornwallis' defeat at Yorktown, negotiations for a formal peace treaty had begun in Paris. On March 10 of 1783 a litany of mounting grievances by Continental army officers reached a crescendo. Complaints were many: arrears in pay, failure to settle food and clothing accounts and Congress' lack of action in making provisions for the life pension of half pay.

Washington was aware of the discontent among his officers but suspected nothing untoward until March 10 when he was given a written call for a meeting of general and field officers the next day. Accompanying the call for the meeting was an anonymous letter circulated among the officers in the camp at Newburgh, New York, a fiery appeal later known as the first Newburgh address. The unsigned document urged the officers that unless their demands were met, they should refuse to disband when the war ended, and that if the war continued they would "retire to some unsettled country" and leave Congress without an army.

The next day, March 11, Washington issued General Orders denouncing the "irregular invitation" and the "disorderly proceedings." At the same time he called for a meeting on March 15 of representatives of all the regiments to decide how "to attain the just and important object in view." Shocked and deeply worried, Washington reported the developments in a letter to Congress.

The next day, March 12, a second unsigned letter was circulated expressing the view that the language of Washington's General Order made him party to the complaints.

With these developments Washington realized that unless he took control of the meeting on the 15th, he faced the prospect of a military coup. Appearing before a tense group of officers on March 15, Washington read a statement he had prepared. In his address he denounced the proposed alternatives and criticized the anonymous letters for implying that the civil authorities were guilty of "premeditated injustice."

Washington's Reply!
After urging his officers not to take any action that would "lessen the dignity and sully the glory you have hitherto maintained," the commander in chief took a letter from his pocket describing the financial problems confronting Congress before it could meet the officers' claims. As Washington stumbled over the closely-written letter, he paused momentarily to put on his glasses, remarking, in effect, "Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown gray in your service and now find my self growing blind."

When Washington left the meeting, a few of his most trusted officers took charge. Without dissent the officers in attendance expressed their confidence in Congress, and repudiated the "infamous propositions in a late anonymous address." At that point the conspiracy was dead.

Eventually, it was learned that Colonel Walter Stewart was the original organizer of the movement. Stewart had turned to General Horatio Gates for support, and received a sympathetic ear. The unsigned letters were written by Gen. Gates' Aide de Camp Major John Armstrong, Jr.

In handling this potentially damaging incident, Washington once again displayed powerful evidence of his personal leadership, a quality he would invoke on the new nation's behalf in the years that followed.

Mrs. Obama’s Prom Dress

2012-04-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

So have you seen Mrs. Obama’s prom dress?

I love how she says she doesn’t think she’d let her daughters wear something cut so high!

"That split was a little high," Obama said when a photo showing her in a metallic gold gown was displayed. "I don't know if I'd let my kids go out in a split that high, so let’s not show this to Malia and Sasha.”

Entertaining with the Kennedys

2012-04-19T17:50:00.005-07:00

There is a great write up on the Kennedy White House entertaining at the Kennedy Library. This is what they have to say about Mrs. Kennedy’s first State Dinner:

The Kennedys gave their first state dinner on May 3, 1961, in honor of Tunisian President and Mrs. Bourguiba. Mrs. Kennedy had never before attended a state dinner at the White House but she had grown up in surroundings of formal entertaining and was not unfamiliar with the procedure. She made elaborate preparations for this one and went back into the records and read reports on state dinners that had been given by preceding Presidents and First Ladies. These reports provided a pattern and framework around which she applied her own originality. She spent hours in consultation with her capable social secretary, Letitia Baldrige, who had been a classmate at Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut. She received help and advice from the State Department Protocol Office. She conferred with the President, who took an active interest in the state dinners, and sometimes stopped by on the way from his office to the family quarters to sample the wines that were to be served at the dinner.

For the Tunisian visitors, Mrs. Kennedy selected a menu that would reflect the spring season and also be in keeping with the dietary customs of the honor guests. It consisted of:
Medallions of Cold Salmon
Roast Lamb with Vegetables
Salad and Brie Cheese
Molded Strawberry and Vanilla Ice Cream
Petits Fours

The guest list had been whittled down to ninety persons after much checking and rechecking of a master list originally compiled. Nineteen of the guests were members of the Tunisian President's cabinet or entourage and there was a similar representation from President Kennedy's cabinet and administration, plus a select group of outstanding citizens from various walks of life.

In making plans for the entertainment, Mrs. Kennedy had checked the weather forecast and was promised a clear night, but a little chilly. President and Mrs. Bourguiba arrived at the White House a few minutes before eight o'clock and had a brief visit with the Kennedys in the First Family's private quarters on the second floor of the mansion before the foursome descended the steps to the Marine Band's "Hail to the Chief."

Mrs. Kennedy wore a Grecian-style gown of pale yellow silk organza touched with brilliants. Mrs. Bourguiba, a handsome, older woman, wore a gown of blue-gray satin.
Following dinner, guests were directed outside to the South Lawn for the big surprise of the evening. It was a patriotic American military panorama staged on the South Lawn. Klieg-lights formed a stage for the parade of units from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps in a setting that was dazzling.

The setting was a natural one, with the illuminated Washington Monument rising above the trees like a bright white sentinel to the left, and the South Lawn fountain playing in the center background. The shrubbery on the grounds served as curtains to shield each unit until its turn "on stage," so that the 480 performers seemed to appear from nowhere as they marched into the light. Overhead and in the distance could be seen the twinkling lights of planes coming in for a landing at National Airport, and visible on the lawn were the mul-ticolored tulips blooming around the fountain.

President and Mrs. Kennedy and a dozen top-ranking guests watched from the second floor balcony outside the Blue Room. Mrs. Kennedy wore a mink coat over her sheer dress to ward off the 52 degree chill, and Mrs. Bourguiba wore a brocade coat collared in fur. On the terrace below sat the remaining eighty guests in chairs arranged theater-style.

Mrs. William Fulbright tried to share her mink stole with her husband, the Arkansas Senator, until military aides appeared with white blankets borrowed from the White House closets to wrap the shivering guests as they watched the brilliant performance.
The program which began just after ten o'clock ended on the dot of ten-thirty when both Presidents rose to take the final salute. President and Mrs. Kennedy, looking pleased at the apparent success of their first state dinner, escorted the state visitors back through the White House and bade them good-night at the door. The Kennedys remained at the door and shook hands with the other departing guests.

Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery by Karen Hess

2012-04-18T19:35:00.000-07:00

I saw this book and was interested because I like cooking and I like Martha Washington. The issue here is that this really has nothing to do with Martha. This is an excellent book for looking at early American cooking, but really has nothing to offer on Martha herself. All this is a copy of a book Martha owned, but as the introduction stated, this book was probably “dated” to Martha and more of a family heirloom than a working cook book by Martha’s time. If you are interested in early American culinary studies, this is an excellent book, but if you were hoping for a meeting of that the Martha, not so much.

Ike and Harry

2012-04-17T11:21:00.000-07:00

The Truman and Eisenhower Libraries have a joint project going on these two former presidents and tying into a “get out to vote” sort of campaign for 2012. They are also on Twitter. The site focuses on the relationship between these two men as well as their more well know divisions. It also contains a lot of voting information and lesson plans so a great resources for teachers.
Some quotes on voting from these two men:
My purpose in this campaign has been to help make sure that when you go to the polls you have the facts about what is at stake for you, and your families and your children.
-Harry Truman, 1952

If we don’t vote, then we are forfeiting one of the greatest privileges we have, of participating in the decisions of this country. I am not speaking now of how you vote. I am talking about the act itself. To be a free person to exercise that right so that you will be using your best judgment for the benefit of yourselves, your children, your country – the entire future – for the whole world, that is the thing that we must do.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1956

I also wanted to repost this article from Mamie Eisenhower from the 1952 Good Housekeeping:
“Vote for my husband or for Governor Stevenson, but please vote”
by Mamie Eisenhower

When Good Housekeeping asked me to write this piece, my initial reaction was to say an immediate an emphatic “No, thanks.”

I am not a writer.

And then I changed my mind – about this article, anyway. I said “Yes” because of a letter I received from a young girl whom I do not know, have never seen. Here is what she wrote:

Dear Mrs. Eisenhower:
I live with my parents and I am a high-school senior. Although my fellow students and I like to have as much fun as anybody our age, we still have a serious side. Most of our boy friends are now about 18 – old enough to fight, but oddly enough not considered old enough to vote! As a matter of fact, my own boy friend has just been drafted.

Because your son, John, is now in Korea, I thought you of all important Americans would understand what I am going to say. I feel so useless at home, not being about to do anything. Besides, I read that during the last presidential election (when I was still in grammar school) only half of the eligible voting public ever got to the polls! I don’t think this should happen again, so I’ve dreamed up a way to help. On Election Day I am offering my services for free (baby sitting, dishwashing, cleaning house) to any neighborhood mother or wife so she can get out and cast her vote. I talked the scheme over with my girl friends, and they agreed to join me in this teen-age crusade.

But I’d like to reach more people. That is why I am writing this letter. Through you – perhaps – my idea could spread to other towns and other teen-agers.

Respectfully,
Jeannie C-

I am proud to publicize Jeanie’s letter. I hope other teenagers will follow her example. Our sober-thinking young people put to shame the kind of woman who claims she has no time to vote, or who argues “What does one vote matter?” With the right to vote goes a public trust that must be exercised just as surely as any official must exercise his.

During the past year when my husband’s title was Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, I recall walking in Paris and seeing what looked to be window boxes smack against the cement subway wall. I thought, How clever the French are with their flowers. Then I went closer. Though the flowers were still beautiful, I saw they had a purpose. I didn’t have to know much French to understand: Above the buds were seven plagues in memory of six boys and a girl, their ages ranging from eighteen to twenty-two, each shot to death on that spot, August, 1944. Their markers face the Place de la Concorde, where Marie Antoinette lost her royal head, but somehow Marie Antoinette did not concern me; it was those young others dying in my time and even in Jeanie’s time in grammar school. I stood still, as every woman stands when she sees those markers, and I closed my eyes and prayed to God,” Please don’t let this happen again!”

I believe one way to keep it from happening is to use your vote. Whether your ballot goes for an Eisenhower or a Stevenson, cast it. Cast it while you thank your stars you live in a land where you have the privilege of declaring your choice.

James Blaine

2012-04-16T17:25:00.002-07:00

I thought I’d focus on an “also ran” today, James Blaine (the Continental Liar from the State of Maine). There is actually a picture of Blaine hanging in the Saxton House and I see it every time I give a tour (it is our stumper!) so I thought I’d share on him today: James G. Blaine was born at Indian Hill Farm, near West Brownville, in Washington county, Pennsylvania. His father was one of the state's largest landowners. Blaine was educated for several years in Lancaster, Ohio, then entered Washington and Jefferson College (Washington, Pennsylvania) in 1843, graduating in 1847, at the age of seventeen, near the top of his class. After graduation, he was a schoolteacher at Western Military Institute (Kentucky) before moving to Philadelphia where he taught at the Pennsylvania Institute for the Blind and studied law in his spare time. In June 1850 he exchanged wedding vows in secret with Harriet Stanwood. They remarried in March 1851 because of the questionable legality of the first marriage ceremony.

In 1854, Blaine moved to Augusta, Maine, his wife's hometown. He edited the Kennebec Journal and Portland Advertiser, and was one of the founders of the Republican party in his adopted state. He was elected to the lower house of the state legislature, serving from 1859-1862, the latter two years as speaker of the house. By that time, Blaine was solidly positioned as a major player in Republican state politics. He was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives in 1863 and served until 1876. He became an expert parliamentarian and was elected to three terms as Speaker (1869-1875).

During his tenure in Congress, Blaine backed most of the Radical Reconstruction agenda and favored the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. On economic issues like tariff and monetary policies he took centrist positions. He became the leader of the moderate wing of the Republican party, called the "Half-Breeds," standing in opposition to both the conservative, pro-Grant "Stalwarts," led by his bitter rival, Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, and the liberal faction, represented by Senator Carl Schurz and Harper's editor George William Curtis.

In 1876, Blaine was the leading presidential candidate going into the Republican National Convention, but his chances were undermined by revelations in the "Mulligan Letters" which allegedly implicated him in graft involving railroad companies. Still, he led on the first six ballots, and it was only on the seventh that a stop-Blaine movement came together to nominate a compromise candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes. It was at this convention, though, that the nickname "Plumed Knight" was bestowed on Blaine in a rousing nominating speech by Robert Ingersoll. The term was a compliment to Blaine's legislative skill and patriotism, as "a man who has preserved in Congress what our soldiers won upon the field." In the 1884 election, however, cartoonist Thomas Nast would use the epithet to mercilessly taunt Blaine.

Shortly after the convention, on July 10, 1876, Blaine resigned his congressional seat to become Maine's junior U.S. senator upon the retirement of Lot Morrill. Blaine was then elected in his own right and served until 1881. In the Senate, he chaired the Committee on Rules and the Committee on Civil Service and Retrenchment (much to the dismay of civil service reformers).
In 1880, a third-term boom made former president Ulysses S. Grant the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, while opponents of Grant backed Blaine or Senator John Sherman. The convention deadlocked for thirty-three ballots as none of the three candidates could win the requisite number of votes. On the thirty-four ballot, momentum started for a compromise candidate, Representative James Garfield, and culminated in his nomination. As a loyal party-man, Blaine endorsed and worked hard to elect Garfield. The new president rewarded him with the cabinet post of secretary of state.

So on March 5, 1881, Blaine resigned the U.S. Senate to assume his new position. After Garfield's assassination, though, Blaine stayed on only briefly in the Arthur administration, resigning in December 1881. In his brief tenure as secretary of state, he called for a Pan-American conference and advocated U.S. control of an anticipated inter-oceanic canal crossing Central America. Upon his retirement, he began writing memoirs of his public life, published in two volumes (1884 and 1886) as Twenty Years in Congress.

In 1884 Blaine was the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination. Former Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman was a popular alternative, but he refused to have his name placed in nomination. Blaine was nominated on the fourth ballot over incumbent President Chester Arthur, who had alienated conservatives without gaining the support of reformers. Because of Blaine's alleged corruption, opposition to civil service reform, and reckless foreign policy views, an influential group of independent Republicans (called "Mugwumps") broke off from their party and supported Democratic nominee Grover Cleveland. The tumultuous campaign ended in Cleveland narrowly defeating Blaine. After the election, Blaine returned to finish the second volume of his memoirs, and in 1887 toured Europe, where he was received by several heads of state.

In 1888 Blaine was again considered the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. This time he declined to enter the race, believing that another acrimonious convention would damage whomever the Republicans nominated. He still received a few scattered votes. He had worked behind the scenes to nominate Benjamin Harrison, and when Harrison became president in 1889, he appointed Blaine to his previous position as secretary of state. In 1889-1890, Blaine chaired the first Pan-American Conference and advocated reciprocal tariff agreements between Latin American and the United States. In 1892 he resigned his cabinet post to seek the Republican presidential nominee against Harrison. The president, however, was renominated on the first ballot, with Blaine and William McKinley in a near-tie for a distant second place.

James G. Blaine died in Washington, D. C., on January 27, 1893, and was interred at Oak Hill Cemetery. In 1920 his remains were transferred to Blaine Memorial Park in Augusta, Maine.

You can check out political cartoons here for some more fun!

Are Scandals worse?

2012-04-13T12:52:00.001-07:00

Presidential elections can be full of nasty innuendo and scandals. Was it any better in the past? Honestly, I don’t think so. When people comment on me on nasty elections, I just tell them look at Andrew Jackson! This piece from Digital History answers much the same question: Today, there is a widespread sense among the American public that politics has grown more venomous in recent years and that no facet of a politician's private life is off-limits to public scrutiny. Public concern with "the politics of personal destruction" burst into the political spotlight during the 1980s after President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork for the U.S. Supreme Court, and his opponents investigated the videotapes that the nominee had rented.

Thus it comes as a surprise to learn that in the rough-and-tumble world of early American politics, every subject was fair game, including the purported sex lives of politicians. During the presidential campaign of 1800, President John Adams was accused of sending a friend to Europe to procure mistresses. Adams responded by joking that if the reports were true, General Pickering had kept them for himself. Thomas Jefferson was subsequently accused of fathering numerous mulatto children by his slave Sally Hemings. In 1828, John Quincy Adams's opponents charged that that when the President had served as Minister to Russia, he had offered his children's nanny as a royal mistress. In that same election, President Adams' supporters accused Andrew Jackson of committing adultery because he married his wife while she was still legally married to her first husband (a story that was technically true, even though neither Jackson nor his wife Rachel knew that her first husband was still alive). Martin Van Buren's Vice President, Richard Johnson, was accused of keeping a black concubine.

Perhaps the most striking example of sexual scandal in early American politics involved Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. In 1792, a convicted swindler named James Reynolds accused Hamilton of giving him money from the U.S. Treasury to speculate with in the stock market. When three members of Congress quietly investigated the charges, Hamilton admitted giving money to Reynolds, but said the funds were his own, and that he paid them to cover up an adulterous affair with Reynolds's wife, Maria. The members of Congress concluded that Hamilton's misconduct was wholly a private matter and kept it secret.

We do see a period of reticence on private lives in the twentieth century:
In the twentieth century, in sharp contrast to the nineteenth, a conspiracy of silence generally protected the presidents' private lives from public scrutiny. Prior to his second marriage, Woodrow Wilson had a relationship with a woman named Mary Allen Hulbert. Franklin Roosevelt had an affair with Lucy Page Mercer, whom Eleanor Roosevelt had hired as her social secretary. Mercer was with President Roosevelt when he died in 1945 in Warm Springs, Georgia. During World War II, General Dwight Eisenhower had an extra-marital relationship with Kate Summersby, his personal secretary and military aide. After the war, the two never saw each other again. Beginning in the 1970s, over a decade after his assassination, reports linked John F. Kennedy with a Mafia moll, Judith Exner, and the actress Marilyn Monroe.

Between Woodrow Wilson and Bill Clinton, the one major exception to this rule was Warren Harding, yet even in this case, reports of presidential adultery followed his death. For fifteen years, Harding had an affair with Carrie Phillips, the wife of a close friend. After World War I broken out in Europe, she threatened to reveal their affair unless Harding voted against a U.S. declaration of war. After Harding received the Republican presidential nomination in 1920, the Republican National Committee sent her family on an all-expense paid trip to Japan and paid her $20,000 to keep quiet. Later, a woman named Nan Britten claimed that she had an illicit affair with Harding, including trysts in a White House cloak closet, and that the he had gotten her pregnant. Recent historical scholarship has cast doubt on aspects of this story.

American reactions to sexual scandals involving prominent politicians appear to be influenced by two traditions rooted in the country's colonial past, one stressing personal rectitude; the other emphasizing contrition, public confession, and forgiveness. A key issue raised during the controversy over President Bill Clinton's relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky is whether political leaders' public and private lives can be separated and whether their moral authority demands that they be held to higher standards than ordinary citizens.

Cleveland’s Tumor

2012-04-12T12:25:00.001-07:00

Remember President Cleveland’s secret jaw surgery? Want to see that tumor? You can if you visit the College of Physicians of Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum! This museum also is home to Einstein’s brain!

Kennedy's Back Problems

2012-04-11T20:09:00.003-07:00

On the same issue of EHT's posts from yesterday are Kennedy's constant health issues, which were also hidden from the public. This is an interview with Dr. Jeffrey Kelman on Kennedy's health issues:
John Kennedy was sick from age 13 on. In 1930, when he was 13, he developed abdominal pain. By 1934 he was sent to the Mayo Clinic where they diagnosed colitis or it was called colitis. By 1940 his back started hurting him, by 1944 he had his first back operation, by 1947 he was officially diagnosed as having Addison's Disease.

And he was basically sick from then on through the rest of his life. He had two back operations, in '54 and '55, which failed. And he needed chronic pain medication from '55 through his White House years, until he died in Dallas. He was never healthy. I mean, the image you get of vigor and progressive health wasn't true. He was playing through pain most of the presidency.

By the time he was president, he was on ten, 12 medications a day. He was on antispasmodics for his bowel, paregoric, lamodal transatine [ph], he was on muscle relaxants, Phenobarbital, Librium, Meprobomate, he was on pain medications, Codeine, Demerol, Methadone, he was on oral cortisone; he was on injected cortisone, he was on testosterone, he was on Nembutal for sleep. And on top of that he was getting injected sometimes six times a day, six places on his back, by the White House physician, with Novocain, Procaine, just to enable him to face the day.

This ends with the interviewer (Ray Suarez) asking Dr. Kelman about why the record were released:
One of the reasons it's said that the records were released to you and Bob Dallek was that there was some feeling that this would demonstrate what a heroic thing this was, not that he had deceived the public by giving a false impression of health, but that it was just pretty hard to be John F. Kennedy day after day. After looking at everything that you looked at, which impression did you come away with?

Dr. Kelman responded:
That was my impression. It's funny, I mean, the lesson that I got out of it was that this guy had a real disability, I mean, he was living with a disability which probably would get him federal disability or retirement if he was around today, and it was known. He was on enough pain medications to disable him. And he survived through it. He came out of it, and he performed at the highest level.

A Topic for Discussion...Handicaps and Politics

2012-04-10T11:33:00.001-07:00

When you stop for a moment and consider Franklin Delano Roosevelt you have to be amazed and filled with awe that a man who had suffered through such a tremendous physical tragedy as he did during the summer of 1921 was able to rise to the highest office in the land given prevailing opinions concerning the disabled at that time.

FDR contracted polio…or what was thought to be polio while on vacation and even though various cures never worked to restore his legs he also never accepted the fact his paralysis was permanent and constantly felt he was getting better. Many state today his paralysis might have been from the effects of Guillain-Barre Syndrome and not Polio, but no matter the cause FDR was what our society deems as handicapped.

Yet, at the time of his death in 1945 and for years afterward very few Americans knew the full extent of FDR’s physical limitations.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt...one of the three public images of FDR's wheel chair

Once he entered the political fray again he was very careful not to allow the general public to see him in his wheel chair. The picture I’ve shared here is only one of three that exist showing his chair. He worked very hard at manufacturing a type of walk to appear as normal as possible. Using iron braces on his legs he twisted his torso back and forth while using a cane for support. FDR’s sons generally accompanied their farther on public appearances and walked by his side to support him. His arrivals and departures from public events were orchestrated so that FDR was never seen getting in or out of his vehicle.

By 1929, FDR was governor of New York….by 1932 he was running for President of the United States.

So, how was this done? In a September, 1978 article in Reviews in American History dealing with general opinions regarding the handicapped in years gone by P.K. Longmore advises handicapped people were kept at home, out of sight, and in back bedrooms by families who felt a mixture of embarrassment and shame in their presence. It’s hard to fathom today, but it was true, and FDR knew this. He didn’t want to appear weak or as H.G. Gallagher states in FDR’s Splendid Deception, “Those with disabilities were viewed as flawed in moral character as well as body.”

Knowing this FDR and his family as well as close supporters opted to hide his disability as much as possible, and the media allowed this. It was a different time. There was line drawn between someone’s personal life and their political one. In fact, political cartoons actually showed FDR running, jumping, and even leaping, and many thought he actually could.

So, would it have been possible during the early half of the Twentieth Century for someone in a wheel chair to be elected to public office? Obviously FDR thought it would be an issue for him. It was a personal decision to obscure the fact as much as possible.

But….paralyzed men were elected to public office during the 1920s including seats in our Congress.

Meet William D. Upshaw or “Earnest Willie” as folks in the Fifth Congressional District in Georgia knew him.

William D. "Earnest Willie" Upshaw

Yes, Congressman Upshaw is in a wheelchair. At the age of 18 he fell on the crosspiece of a farm wagon and was paralyzed from the waist down until very late in his life. I discovered Upshaw’s story while researching and writing about local history where I live. You can read more about Upshaw’s entry into political life at my local history blog titled Every Now and Then here.

As I learned more about the Upshaw story I had to think about how interesting it would be to discuss with students how President Roosevelt endured his handicap….how he decided to obscure his condition from the public while contrasting Congressman Upshaw who didn’t hide inability to walk at all….from anyone. One of the most interesting facets to the story concerns both men as they both……yes, BOTH of them……ran for president in 1932. Upshaw was a staunch Prohibitionist and was the candidate for the Prohibition Party.

The dynamic begs for examination, doesn’t it? Two handicapped men running for president during an era when the disabled were shunned and kept out sight and many felt their morality was in question. Upshaw chose to be out in the open…..while FDR didn’t.

It should make for some interesting discussion in the classroom, don’t you think?

Boston Police Strike of 1919

2012-04-09T19:05:00.003-07:00

The defining moment of Calvin Coolidge’s time as governor of Massachusetts was the Boston Police Strike:
There is no doubt that the Boston police force had legitimate grievances, which they had expressed as early as 1917. Starting pay for new officers had not risen in 60 years, since 1857, when new recruits received two dollars per day. Their wages were even lower than the earnings of most unskilled factory workers. Officers worked seven days per week, with a day off every other week, during which they could not leave town without special permission. Depending on duty assignments, officers worked between 72 and 98 hours per week, and were required to sleep in the station houses, in case they were needed. Officers were not paid for court appearances and they also complained about the deplorable conditions in police stations, which included the lack of sanitation, baths, beds, and toilets.

Since 1885, the Boston police had been under the command of a commissioner appointed by the state Governor. Though Boston’s Mayor controlled their budget, their operation and how they used the budget was controlled by this commissioner appointed by the Governor. This placed the Mayor, Andrew Peters, in a difficult position. His city was protected by a police force not under his control. When the police would succeed, the state would take the credit; but when there were problems, Peters, who was closest to them, could readily be made the scapegoat.

There was also an ethnic overlay. Protestant Yankees sought to control the Irish-Catholic rank and file of the Boston Police Department. This made the dispute about more than wages or work conditions; it quickly developed along lines of ethnicity.

By June of 1919, the grievances made by the police officers had not been addressed, so they turned to the American Federation of Labor (AFL) to consider unionization. Although police officers already had their own association called the Boston Social Club, founded by the police department in 1906 and operating under its sponsorship, Police Commissioner Edwin Curtis was outspoken in his condemnation of the movement to unionize. After all, the labor union movement had long been viewed with suspicion by many Americans, and those suspicions were heightened by the so-called workers’ revolution in Russia and by efforts to spread communism throughout the Western world.

In August the police were granted a union charter, which Commissioner Curtis opposed on the grounds that a policeman was not “an employee, but a state officer.” Mayor Peters was unreachable, being on an extended vacation in Maine, but Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge and Attorney General Albert Pillsbury put forward legislation to make unionization illegal for public employees. Pillsbury would note that the “organized work man has taken us by the throat and has us at his mercy.” The lines of “us” versus “them” were quickly drawn.

From this point on, state officials focused on the legitimacy of public employees unionizing rather than the validity of the officers’ complaints. On August 20 Commissioner Curtis suspended eight of the leading police union organizers, followed soon thereafter by another 11 suspensions. The rank and file were ordered to turn in their nightsticks, and Curtis began to organize volunteer police substitutes.

Coolidge’s strong action and response helped make his place in politics:
AFL chief Samuel Gompers, who had just returned from Europe, quickly assessed the situation and the strength of public sentiment and urged the strikers to return to work. The police accepted his recommendation immediately. On September 12, Gompers telegraphed Mayor Peters and Governor Coolidge, asking for the strikers to be reinstated and that all parties agree to wait for arbitration “to honorably adjust a mutually unsatisfactory situation.” Coolidge replied with a statement of support for Commissioner Curtis’ hard line. Gompers telegraphed Coolidge again, this time blaming Curtis for the crisis. Coolidge dismissed the commissioner’s behavior as irrelevant, because no provocation could justify the police walkout. His terse summation elevated his reputation on the national scene: “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.” In the end, the show of force rapidly caused the strike to collapse and earned for Coolidge the image of a strict enforcer of law and order, as he declared that he would continue to “defend the sovereignty of Massachusetts.”

Labor was plentiful, so by mid-December Commissioner Curtis was able to hire an entirely new police force. The State Guard was able to return to their homes, but striking officers were not allowed to return to their jobs with the Boston Police Department, which went overwhelmingly to unemployed servicemen. The new recruits were granted higher pay, better working conditions, and additional holidays, and gained the additional benefit of free uniforms.

Governor Coolidge’s strong action was soothing to a fearful public, and he was easily reelected on November 4, 1919 with a 62-percent majority. A year later he would become the Vice President of the United States and, following the death of President Warren Harding, he became our 30th President on August 2, 1923. Mayor Peters would be defeated in his next election by his political rival James Curley, who had preceded him as Mayor.