Sunday, May 30, 2010

Net Worth

Fascinating stuff, courtesy of bruns (thank you thank you):


The Net Worth of The American Presidents: Washington to Obama

Saturday, May 29, 2010

#23: Harrison, Benjamin

Benjamin Harrison
August 20, 1833 (North Bend, Ohio) - March 13, 1901 (Indianapolis)

I drew this absent-mindedly over a failed drawing of Grover Cleveland. Harrison looks a bit like a hartebeest, another featured creature of the "H" volume.


Benjamin Harrison is the only president to be the grandson of another president: William Henry Harrison (#9), hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe. Harrison won the 1888 campaign against Grover Cleveland with the help of a Republican campaign song: "Grandfather's Hat Fits Ben." Like his grandfather, he only served one term, failing to be reelected in 1893.

As president, Ben Harrison presided over some serious federal legislation, including adoption of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. He also launched a program to build a two-ocean navy and expand the merchant marine (by the time of Harrison's presidency the West had essentially been won--North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho and Wyoming all joined the Union during his term). In the first part of his term, both houses of Congress were Republican (like Harrison) allowing him to enact an ambitious legislative program and also spend a lot of money. Democrats were elected in great numbers during the mid-term elections in response to this spending. The new Democratic Speaker of the House, Thomas Reed, allegedly exclaimed: "This is a billion-dollar country!"

In the last days of Harrison's presidency, Queen Liliuokalani lost her throne in Hawaii in a revolution led by American planters. Harrison tried to rush a treaty of annexation to the Senate before leaving office--making Hawaii a U.S. territory--but when Cleveland returned to the presidency he withdrew it before the Senate could act. Cleveland called "the whole affair dishonorable to the United States."

Harrison's wife died two weeks before the national elections in the fall of 1892. Harrison was beat by Cleveland and in 1893 he returned to Indianapolis, where he had practiced law before entering politics. He remarried--his widowed niece (in law, I presume/hope). He died at home in 1901.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

#22 & #24: Cleveland, Grover

Grover Cleveland
March 18, 1837 (Caldwell, NJ) – June 24, 1908 (Princeton, NJ)
Note: Cleveland is the first president to be featured on this blog who lived into the 20th Century! Hoorah! Also, World Book lists two of his five children has still living as of the date of publication (1981)! Which is to say, my life and the life of Grover Cleveland's kids overlapped for a bit. I feel very close to him all of a sudden.


With Mr. Cleveland, we knock out two presidents in our slow trudge towards forty: numbers 22 and 24. President Cleveland has the distinct advantage of being the only president who served two terms non-consecutively (Harrison interrupted but we'll get to that soon enough). Cleveland was the first Democrat elected after the Civil War--things were starting to settle down, but corruption in government was still a big issue.

Word Book describes Cleveland as a "big, good-humored man, called 'Uncle Jumbo' by his relatives."

For a short time, Cleveland served as sheriff in Buffalo. "During his term [as sheriff], the county had to hang two convicted murderers. Most sheriffs had delegated this distasteful task to deputies, but Cleveland sprang the traps himself. He explained that he would not ask anyone else to do what he was unwilling to do."

After serving as sheriff, he was elected mayor of Buffalo, and after that governor of New York. All along he was considered a reformer, vetoing padded bills... he earned a reputation for wisdom, but also the hatred of Tammany Hall Democrats.

Cleveland's presidency, both the first and second term, were marked by labor unrest. During his second term, he tried to break up the Pullman Strike of 1894 first by court injunction, then by sending in federal troops to break up unions in an insane presidential power grab.

Cleveland is the only President to get married in the White House. He married Frances Folsom when she was 21 and he was 49--it was about a year into his first term. She had been his ward since her father died in 1875 (when she was 11). Her father had shared a law practice with Cleveland. This has a whiff of "ew" reminiscent of Celine Dion and René Angélil's bizarre marriage.

Cleveland had cancer of the mouth early in his second administration. He kept it a secret, to the point where he even arranged to have secret surgery on a friend's yacht in New York Harbor to remove part of left upper jaw. He wore a rubber jaw that allegedly made the removal hardly noticeable.

Cleveland died in 1908. According to World Book, his last words were: "I have tried so hard to do right."

Saturday, May 15, 2010

#21: Arthur, Chester

and.... I’m back! Today with a fellow named Chester Arthur, our twenty-first president, and the successor of James Garfield who was assassinated in office in 1881.

Chester A. Arthur
Oct. 5, 1829 (Fairfield, Vermont) - Nov. 18, 1886 (New York, New York)


World Book says: "Arthur enjoyed fashionable surroundings and fine clothes. He also liked to entertain friends. Tall, ruddy, and handsome, Arthur was sometimes called the "Gentleman Boss."

Arthur rose through the ranks of the Republican Party machine, as a protege of New York Senator Rosco Conkling. New York politics were rife with graft and waste, and Arthur was a great beneficiary of the system. However, as President, he faced tremendous popular demand for political reform and for a better system of filling public offices. He thus signed into law the Pendleton Civil Service Act, to the shock and disappointment of his party machine cronies. His administration became known for its honesty and efficiency.

Before becoming President, Arthur held a variety of political posts and before that he was a lawyer at a New York City law firm. He was known as a civil rights crusader, and won a case in 1855 that establish the rights of blacks to ride on any streetcar in the city.

Arthur's wife died a year before he was elected Vice President. As President, he asked his youngest sister to serve as his hostess. According to World Book, "Arthur though the White House looked like 'a badly kept barracks,' and ordered it renovated." As a result, he lived in the Washington home of Senator John P. Jones of Nevada for the first several months of his presidency.

While he was president, Congress sought to pass a bill banning Chinese immigration for twenty years. Arthur vetoed it, because he said it violated a treaty with China. Congress amended the bill to limit the prohibition for ten year and it became law.

A year into his presidency, Arthur learned that he had a fatal kidney disease called glomerulonephritis, or Bright's Disease. He was often in great pain, but kept the illness a secret (just like Jed Bartlet!). Because of his illness, he quietly avoided being nominated to a second term.


Thank you for reading and now, a public service announcement:

If you want to have a son that grows up to look like this (below),
name him Chester.
Test this wisdom at your own peril, my friends.