#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."