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Grover Cleveland

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: USA Presidents

   Stephen Grover Cleveland
   Grover Cleveland
     __________________________________________________________________

   22nd President of the United States
   24th President of the United States
   In office
   March 4, 1885 –  March 4, 1889
   March 4, 1893 – March 4, 1897
   Vice President(s)   Thomas A. Hendricks (1885, died in office),
   None (1885-1889),
   Adlai E. Stevenson (1893-1897)
   Preceded by Chester A. Arthur (1885)
   Benjamin Harrison (1893)
   Succeeded by Benjamin Harrison (1889)
   William McKinley (1897)
     __________________________________________________________________

   Born March 18, 1837
   Caldwell, New Jersey
   Died June 24, 1908
   Princeton, New Jersey
   Political party Democratic
   Spouse Frances Folsom Cleveland
   Religion Presbyterian
   Signature

   Stephen Grover Cleveland ( March 18, 1837 – June 24, 1908) was the 22nd
   (1885–1889) and 24th (1893–1897) President of the United States, and
   the only President to serve two non-consecutive terms. He was the only
   Democrat elected to the Presidency in the era of Republican political
   domination between 1860 and 1912, and was the first Democrat to be
   elected after the Civil War. His admirers praise him for his bedrock
   honesty, independence, integrity and commitment to the principles of
   classical liberalism. As a leader of the Bourbon Democrats he opposed
   imperialism, taxes, corruption, patronage, subsidies and inflationary
   policies. His intervention in the Pullman Strike of 1894 in order to
   keep the railroads moving angered labor unions. His support for the
   gold standard and opposition to free silver angered the agrarian wing
   of the party.

   Critics complained that he had little imagination and seemed
   overwhelmed by the nation's economic disasters--depressions and
   strikes--in his second term. He lost control of his party to the
   agrarians and silverites in 1896.

Youth and early political career

   Cleveland was born in Caldwell, New Jersey, to the Reverend Richard
   Cleveland and Anne Neal. He was one of five sons and four daughters.
   From 1841 to 1850, he lived in Fayetteville, New York . His father was
   a Presbyterian clergyman, and as the church frequently transferred its
   ministers, the family moved many times, mainly around central and
   southern New York State.

   He became involved in Democratic politics at the age of 28 when he
   worked for the presidential campaign of James Buchanan. Following
   Buchanan's single term, the next Democrat elected president would be
   Cleveland himself, almost thirty years later.

   As a lawyer in Buffalo, New York, he became notable for his
   single-minded concentration upon whatever task faced him. He was
   elected sheriff of Erie County, New York in 1870 and, while in that
   post, carried out at least two hangings of condemned criminals,
   refusing to delegate the unpleasant task to others. Political opponents
   would later hold this against him, calling him the "Buffalo Hangman."
   Cleveland stated that he wished to take the responsibility for the
   executions himself and not pass it along to subordinates.

   At age 44, he emerged into a political prominence that carried him to
   the White House in three years. Running as a reformer, he was elected
   mayor of Buffalo in 1881, with the slogan "Public Office is a Public
   Trust" as his trademark of office. One newspaper, in endorsing him,
   said it did so for three reasons: "1. He is honest. 2. He is honest. 3.
   He is honest." In 1882, he was elected Governor of New York, working
   closely with reform-minded Republican state legislator Theodore
   Roosevelt.

First term as President (1885-1889)

1884 campaign

   Cleveland won the Presidency in the 1884 election. He won with combined
   support of Democrats and reform-minded Republicans called " Mugwumps,"
   who denounced his opponent, former Senator James G. Blaine of Maine as
   corrupt.

   The campaign was relatively negative. To counter Cleveland's image of
   purity, his opponents reported that Cleveland had fathered an
   illegitimate child while he was a lawyer in Buffalo. Republican crowds
   chanted, "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?"

   Although Cleveland never publicly admitted or denied the rumor, he did
   admit to paying child support in 1874 to Maria Crofts Halpin, the woman
   who claimed he fathered her child named Oscar Folsom Cleveland. Halpin
   was involved with several men at the time, including Cleveland's law
   partner and mentor, Oscar Folsom, for whom the child was named.
   (Cleveland is believed to have assumed responsibility because he was
   the only bachelor among them.) After Cleveland's election as President,
   Democratic newspapers added a line to chant used against Cleveland and
   made it: "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa? Gone to the White House! Ha Ha Ha!"

Personal life

   Grover Cleveland was the second President married in office, and the
   only President married in the White House itself
   Enlarge
   Grover Cleveland was the second President married in office, and the
   only President married in the White House itself

   In June 1886, Cleveland married Frances Folsom, the daughter of his
   former law partner, in the Blue Room in the White House. He was the
   second President to be married while in office, and the only President
   to have a wedding in the White House itself. This marriage was
   controversial because Cleveland was the executor of the Folsom estate
   and supervised Frances' upbringing. Folsom, at 21 years old, was also
   the youngest First Lady in the history of the United States.

Politics

   Cleveland's administration might be characterized by his saying: "I
   have only one thing to do, and that is to do right". Cleveland himself
   insisted that, as President, his greatest accomplishment was blocking
   others' bad ideas. He vigorously pursued a policy barring special
   favors to any economic group. Vetoing a bill to appropriate $10,000 to
   distribute seed grain among drought-stricken farmers in Texas, he
   wrote: "Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of
   paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness
   of our national character...." He also vetoed hundreds of private
   pension bills to American Civil War veterans whose claims were
   fraudulent. When Congress, pressured by the Grand Army of the Republic,
   passed a bill granting pensions for disabilities not caused by military
   service, Cleveland vetoed that, too. Cleveland used the veto far more
   often than any President up to that time. Cleveland had an essentially
   negative view of Presidential power, telling a friend that his
   principal duty and greatest service to the country was in preventing
   Congress from enacting bad bills.

   Cleveland started a well received campaign against the Southwestern
   Apache tribe in 1885. They, headed by Chief Geronimo, were defending
   their homeland against the white settlers in that region until, in
   1886, Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles captured them and the campaign
   was over.

   President Cleveland angered the railroads by ordering an investigation
   of western lands they held by government grant, forcing them to return
   81,000,000 acres (328,000 km²). He also signed the Interstate Commerce
   Act, the first law attempting Federal regulation of the railroads.

Foreign policy

   Cleveland was a committed isolationist who had campaigned in opposition
   to expansion and imperialism. He reversed policy and withdrew the
   treaty for the annexation of Hawaii negotiated by Benjamin Harrison
   from the consideration of the Senate. Cleveland often quoted the advice
   of George Washington's Farewell Address in decrying alliances, and he
   slowed the pace of expansion that President Chester Arthur had begun.
   Cleveland refused to promote Arthur's Nicaragua canal treaty, calling
   it an "entangling alliance". Free trade deals (reciprocity treaties)
   with Mexico and several South American countries died because there was
   no Senate approval. Cleveland withdrew from Senate consideration the
   Berlin Conference treaty which guaranteed an open door for U.S.
   interests in Congo.

   But as journalist Fareed Zakaria argued, "But while Cleveland retarded
   the speed and aggressiveness of U.S. foreign policy, the overall
   direction did not change." Historian Charles S. Campbell argues that
   the audiences who listened to Cleveland and Secretary of State Thomas
   E. Bayard's moralistic lectures "readily detected through the high
   moral tone a sharp eye for the national interest." Cleveland supported
   Hawaiian free trade (reciprocity) and accepted an amendment that gave
   the United States a coaling and naval station in Pearl Harbour. Naval
   orders were placed with Republican industrialists rather than
   Democratic ones, but the military build up actually quickened.

   In his second term Cleveland stated that by 1893, the U.S. Navy had
   been used to promote American interests in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa
   Rica, Honduras, Argentina, Brazil, and Hawaii. Under Cleveland, the
   U.S. adopted a broad interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine that did not
   just simply forbid new European colonies but declared an American
   interest in any matter within the hemisphere.

Crusade against protective tariff

   In December 1887, Cleveland called on Congress to reduce high
   protective tariffs:

     The theory of our institutions guarantees to every citizen the full
     enjoyment of all the fruits of his industry and enterprise, with
     only such deduction as may be his share toward the careful and
     economical maintenance of the Government which protects him... the
     exaction of more than this is indefensible extortion and a culpable
     betrayal of American fairness and justice. This wrong inflicted upon
     those who bear the burden of national taxation, like other wrongs,
     multiplies a brood of evil consequences. The public Treasury...
     becomes a hoarding place for money needlessly withdrawn from trade
     and the people's use, thus crippling our national energies,
     suspending our country's development, preventing investment in
     productive enterprise, threatening financial disturbance, and
     inviting schemes of public plunder.

   He failed to secure passage of the Lower Mills Tariff and made it the
   central issue of his losing 1888 campaign, as Republicans claimed a
   high tariff was needed to produce high wages, high profits, and fast
   economic expansion.

Administration (1885-1889)

Significant events

     * American Federation of Labor was created (1886)
     * Haymarket Riot (1886)
     * Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Company v. Illinois (1886)
     * Interstate Commerce Act (1887)
     * Dawes Act (1887)

Administration and Cabinet

   Statue of Grover Cleveland outside City Hall in Buffalo, New York
   Enlarge
   Statue of Grover Cleveland outside City Hall in Buffalo, New York
   OFFICE                    NAME                 TERM
   President                 Grover Cleveland     1885–1889
   Vice President            Thomas A. Hendricks  1885
                             None                 1885–1889
   Secretary of State        Thomas F. Bayard     1885–1889
   Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Manning       1885–1887
                             Charles S. Fairchild 1887–1889
   Secretary of War          William C. Endicott  1885–1889
   Attorney General          Augustus H. Garland  1885–1889
   Postmaster General        William F. Vilas     1885–1888
                             Don M. Dickinson     1888–1889
   Secretary of the Navy     William C. Whitney   1885–1889
   Secretary of the Interior Lucius Q. C. Lamar   1885–1888
                             William F. Vilas     1888–1889
   Secretary of Agriculture  Norman Jay Colman    1889

Supreme Court appointments

   Cleveland appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the
   United States during his first term.
     * Lucius Q. C. Lamar – 1888
     * Melville Weston Fuller ( Chief Justice) – 1888

1888 campaign for reelection

   Cleveland was defeated in the 1888 presidential election. He actually
   led in the popular vote over Benjamin Harrison (48.6% to 47.8%), but
   Harrison won the Electoral College by a 233-168 margin, largely by
   squeaking out a barely-over-1% win in Cleveland's home state of New
   York; in fact, had Cleveland won his home state, he would have won the
   electoral vote by a count of 204-197 (201 votes then needed for
   victory). Note, though, that Cleveland earned 24 of his electoral votes
   in states that he won by less than 1% (Connecticut, Virginia, and West
   Virginia).

   Cleveland thus became one of only four men to clearly win the popular
   vote but lose the presidency; there would not be another such election
   until Al Gore's narrow loss to George W. Bush in 2000. As she and the
   ex-president left the White House, Frances Cleveland assured the staff
   that they would return in four years.

Administration (1893-1897)

Campaign

   The primary issues for Cleveland for the 1892 campaign were reducing
   the tariff and stopping free minting of silver which had depleted the
   gold reserves of the U.S. Treasury. Cleveland was elected again in
   1892, thus becoming the only President in U.S. history to be elected to
   a second term which did not run in succession with the first.

Politics

   Shortly after Cleveland was inaugurated, the Panic of 1893 struck the
   stock market, and he soon faced an acute economic depression. He dealt
   directly with the Treasury crisis rather than with business failures,
   farm mortgage foreclosures, and unemployment. He obtained repeal of the
   mildly inflationary Sherman Silver Purchase Act. With the aid of J. P.
   Morgan and Wall Street, he maintained the Treasury's gold reserve.
   Cleveland's humiliation by Gorman and the sugar trust; cartoon by W. A.
   Rogers
   Enlarge
   Cleveland's humiliation by Gorman and the sugar trust; cartoon by W. A.
   Rogers

   He fought to lower the tariff in 1893-94. The Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act
   introduced by West Virginian Representative William L. Wilson and
   passed by the House would have made significant reforms. However, by
   the time the bill passed the Senate, guided by Democrat Arthur Pue
   Gorman of Maryland, it had more than 600 amendments attached that
   nullified most of the reforms. The "Sugar Trust" in particular made
   changes that favored it at the expense of the consumer. It imposed an
   income tax of two percent to make up for revenue that would be lost by
   tariff reductions. Cleveland was devastated that his program had been
   ruined. He denounced the revised measure as a disgraceful product of
   "party perfidy and party dishonor," but still allowed it to become law
   without his signature, believing that it was better than nothing and
   was at the least an improvement over the McKinley tariff.

   Cleveland refused to allow Eugene Debs to use the Pullman Strike to
   shut down most of the nation's passenger, freight and mail traffic in
   June 1894. He obtained an injunction in federal court, and when the
   strikers refused to obey it, he sent in federal troops to Chicago,
   Illinois and 20 other rail centers. "If it takes the entire army and
   navy of the United States to deliver a postcard in Chicago," he
   thundered, "that card will be delivered." Most governors supported
   Cleveland except Democrat John P. Altgeld of Illinois, who became his
   bitter foe in 1896.

   Cleveland's agrarian and silverite enemies seized control of the
   Democratic party in 1896, repudiated his administration and the gold
   standard, and nominated William Jennings Bryan on a Silver Platform.
   Cleveland silently supported the National Democratic Party (United
   States) (or "Gold Democratic") third party ticket that promised to
   defend the gold standard, limited government, and oppose protectionism.
   The party won only 100,000 votes in the general election (just over 1
   percent). Agrarians again nominated Bryan in 1900, but in 1904 the
   conservatives, with Cleveland's support, regained control of the
   Democratic Party and nominated Alton B. Parker.
   Typewriters were new in 1893, and this cartoon shows Cleveland as
   unable to work the Democratic Party machine without jamming the keys
   (the key politicians in his party)
   Enlarge
   Typewriters were new in 1893, and this cartoon shows Cleveland as
   unable to work the Democratic Party machine without jamming the keys
   (the key politicians in his party)

Foreign affairs

   Invoking the Monroe Doctrine in 1895, Cleveland forced the United
   Kingdom to accept arbitration of a disputed boundary in Venezuela. His
   administration is credited with the modernization of the United States
   Navy that allowed the U.S. to decisively win the Spanish-American War
   in 1898, one year after he left office.

   In 1893, Cleveland sent former Congressman James Henderson Blount to
   Hawaii to investigate the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani and the
   establishment of a provisional government. He supported Blount's
   scathing report which blamed the U.S. for the overthrow; called for the
   restoration of Liliuokalani; and withdrew from the Senate the treaty of
   annexation of Hawaii. When the deposed Queen refused to grant amnesty
   as a condition of her reinstatement, and said she would execute the
   current government in Honolulu, Cleveland referred the matter to
   Congress. The Senate then produced the Morgan Report, which completely
   contradicted Blount's findings and found the overthrow was a completely
   internal affair. Following the Turpie Resolution of May 31, 1894, which
   vowed a policy of non-interference in Hawaiian affairs, Cleveland
   dropped all support for reinstating the Queen, and further went on to
   officially recognize and maintain diplomatic relations with the
   Republic of Hawaii declared on July 4, 1894.

Women's Rights

   Cleveland was a stout opponent of the women's suffrage (voting)
   movement. In a 1905 article in The Ladies Home Journal, Cleveland
   wrote, "Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The
   relative positions to be assumed by men and women in the working out of
   our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence." *

Significant events

     * Panic of 1893
     * Cleveland withdraws a treaty for the Annexation of Hawaii, and
       attempts to reinstate Queen Liliuokalani (1893)
     * Cleveland withdraws his support for the Queen's reinstatement after
       further investigation by Congress in the Morgan Report (1894)
     * Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act (1894)
     * Pullman Strike (1894)
     * Coxey's Army (1894)
     * United States v. E. C. Knight Co. (1895)

Administration and Cabinet

   Official White House portrait of Grover Cleveland
   Enlarge
   Official White House portrait of Grover Cleveland
   OFFICE                    NAME                   TERM
   President                 Grover Cleveland       1893–1897
   Vice President            Adlai E. Stevenson     1893–1897
   Secretary of State        Walter Q. Gresham      1893–1895
                             Richard Olney          1895–1897
   Secretary of the Treasury John G. Carlisle       1893–1897
   Secretary of War          Daniel S. Lamont       1893–1897
   Attorney General          Richard Olney          1893–1895
                             Judson Harmon          1895–1897
   Postmaster General        Wilson S. Bissell      1893–1895
                             William L. Wilson      1895–1897
   Secretary of the Navy     Hilary A. Herbert      1893–1897
   Secretary of the Interior Hoke Smith             1893–1896
                             David R. Francis       1896–1897
   Secretary of Agriculture  Julius Sterling Morton 1893–1897

Supreme Court appointments

   Cleveland appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court during
   his second term.
     * Edward Douglass White – 1894
     * Rufus Wheeler Peckham – 1896

   Two of Cleveland's nominees were rejected by the Senate.
     * William Hornblower, on January 15, 1894, by a vote of 24-30.
     * Wheeler Hazard Peckham, (the older brother of Rufus Wheeler) on
       February 16, 1894, by a vote of 32-41.

States admitted to the Union

     * Utah – January 4, 1896

Cancer

   Just after Cleveland began his second term in 1893, Doctor R.M.
   O'Reilly found an ulcerated sore a little less than one inch (24 mm) in
   diameter on the left lingual surface of Cleveland's hard palate.
   Initial biopsies were inconclusive; later the samples were proven to be
   a malignant cancer. Because of the financial depression of the country,
   Cleveland decided to have surgery performed on the tumor in secrecy to
   avoid further market panic. The surgery occurred on July 1, to give
   Cleveland time to make a full recovery in time for an August 7 address
   to Congress, which had recessed at the end of June.

   Under the guise of a vacation cruise, Cleveland, accompanied by lead
   surgeon Dr. Joseph Bryant, left for New York. Bryant, joined by his
   assistant Dr. John F. Erdmann, Dr. W.W. Keen Jr., Dr. Ferdinand
   Hasbrouck (dentist and anesthesiologist), and Dr. Edward Janeway,
   operated aboard the yacht Oneida as it sailed off Long Island. The
   surgery was conducted through the President's mouth, to avoid any scars
   or other signs of surgery. The team, sedating Cleveland with nitrous
   oxide (laughing gas), removed his upper left jaw and portions of his
   hard palate. The size of the tumor and the extent of the operation left
   Cleveland's mouth severely disfigured. During another surgery, an
   orthodontist fitted Cleveland with a hard rubber prosthesis that
   corrected his speech and covered up the surgery.

   A cover story about the removal of two bad teeth kept the suspicious
   press somewhat placated. Even when a newspaper story appeared giving
   details of the actual operation, the participating surgeons discounted
   the severity of what transpired during Cleveland's vacation. In 1917,
   one of the surgeons present on the Oneida (Dr. W.W. Keen, Jr.) wrote an
   article detailing the operation. The lump was preserved and is on
   display at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The final
   diagnosis was verrucous carcinoma and the president was rendered cured
   by the surgical excision.

Later life and death

   Oil painting of Grover Cleveland, painted in 1899 by Anders Zorn.
   Enlarge
   Oil painting of Grover Cleveland, painted in 1899 by Anders Zorn.

   After leaving the White House, Cleveland lived in retirement in
   Princeton, New Jersey. For a time he was a trustee of Princeton
   University, bringing him into opposition to the school's president,
   Woodrow Wilson. Conservative Democrats hoped to nominate him for
   another presidential term in 1904, but his age and health forced them
   to turn to other candidates. Cleveland consulted occasionally with
   President Theodore Roosevelt, with whom he had constructively worked
   while Governor of New York decades before.

   The former president had been scheduled to be the Chairman and Master
   of Ceremonies for Robert Fulton Day on September 24, 1907 at the
   Jamestown Exposition at Sewell's Point on Hampton Roads, Virginia.
   However, ill-health forced him to cancel, and his role was filled by
   humorist Mark Twain.

   Cleveland died in 1908 from a heart attack, with his wife at his side.
   He was buried in the Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian
   Church.

Honours and memorials

   Cleveland's portrait was on the U.S. $1000 bill from 1928 to 1946. He
   also appeared on a $1000 bill of 1907 and the first few issues of the
   $20 Federal Reserve notes from 1914.

   Since he was both the 22nd and 24th President, he will be featured on
   two separate dollar coins to be released in 2012 as part of the
   Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005.

   Many public schools across the country are named in his honour.

Trivia

     * Cleveland is an honorary Sigma Chi, and the only brother in the
       history of the fraternity to hold the office of President.

     * George Cleveland, the president's grandson, is now an impersonator
       and historical reenactor of his famous grandfather. .

     * The president's granddaughter Philippa Foot is a philosopher at
       Oxford University.

     * The baseball player Grover Cleveland Alexander was named after him.

     * Cleveland got along better with the members of the U.S. House of
       Representatives than with the United States Senate. A joke of the
       day had the First Lady waking in the middle of the night and
       whispering to Cleveland, "Wake up, Grover. I think there's a
       burglar in the house." Cleveland sleepily mumbled, "No, no. Perhaps
       in the Senate, my dear, but not in the House."

     * Cleveland had a somewhat phlegmatic personality, and critics
       accused him of insensitivity to the suffering of the poor during
       the Panic of 1893. One joke told of the President noticing a
       starving man eating grass on the White House lawn. Cleveland stuck
       his head out the window and suggested he go to the back yard, since
       the grass was longer there.

     * Because Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms, the protocol
       was unclear as to whether he was officially the 22nd or 24th
       President of the United States. A special Act of Congress resolved
       the issue by decreeing that he was both the 22nd and the 24th
       President.

     * The street on which Cleveland's summer home was located (Bourne,
       Massachusetts) is now called President's Road. In the location
       where his "Summer White House" stood is now a scale replica (the
       building burned in 1973).

     * Cleveland was the only president between Abraham Lincoln and
       William McKinley who did not serve in the Civil War (he hired a
       substitute, as the conscription law of the time permitted).

     * Cleveland was the first of only two police officers to become
       President; the second, Theodore Roosevelt, was a deputy sheriff in
       the Dakota Territory and a New York City Police Commissioner.

     * Grover Cleveland 1892 campaign speech —
          + Audio clip of the first minute of Cleveland's 1892 campaign
            speech.
     * Problems playing the files? See media help.

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