Net Worth

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


The Net Worth of The American Presidents: Washington to Obama

#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.

#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."

#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.

#20: Garfield, James Abram

James Abram Garfield
20th President of the United States - HALFWAY, woop woop!
Nov. 19, 1831 (Orange Township, Ohio) Sept. 19, 1881 (Elberon, New Jersey)

• The World Book entry on James Garfield begins: “GARFIELD, JAMES ABRAM (1831-1881), was the last President to be born in a log cabin. Nobody knows what kind of President he would have been, because he was assassinated only a few months after taking office.” Such drama and such brevity! I aspire to write as well. Also, what is it with log cabins that holds the American imagination so captive? I have my own thoughts, but I'll let you ponder upon it.
  


• According to World Book, “Garfield was a big, athletic, handsome man with blond hair and beard.” To wit (minus the beard):

• He was super smart too. “He occasionally entertained his friends by writing Greek with one hand and at the same time writing Latin with the other.” Boy, would I have liked to party with him.


• Garfield was nominated for the presidency in part because the fractured post-war Republican party (two factions in particular: the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds) couldn’t agree on a nominee. Garfield was the “dark horse.” Also, he had quite the leadership pedigree. He'd been a college professor, college president, lawyer, major general in the U.S. Army, and Congressman.


• Four months into his first term, Garfield was shot by a disappointed job seeker, Charles J. Guiteau. The shooting occurred while Garfield was waiting for a train on his way to attend the 25th reunion of his class at Williams College (which I visited many moons ago on a college campus tour of New England with my mom, and which has a James A. Garfield Collection, should you be interested in researching the man further). As President, Garfield had begun filling hundreds of government jobs with his supporters--the Spoils System, which Rutherford B. Hayes supposedly put an end to, rearing its ugly head. Guiteau had wanted Garfield to appoint him as U.S. consul to Paris, which Garfield didn't do. So he shot him. After the shooting, Garfield “lay near death for 80 days.” A single bullet had lodged in his back and surgeons could not find it. “Alexander Graham Bell tried unsuccessfully to locate the bullet with an electrical device.” World Book says that Garfield remained "calm and cheerful." Garfield ultimately died from infection of the wound. Ew. And sad.
  

Feedback from Ohio's Native Daughter

A dear friend who happens to hail from Ohio wrote me this a propos Rutherford B. Hayes:

Hayes is the name of the high school in Delaware, Ohio, where you note that Hayes was born. Delaware is a charming small town and until the suburbs started to sprawl like crazy after I left for college, it was really the only town for the next 1.5 hours after my parents' house. They enjoy going there for antiquing, eating a leisurely lunch, going to "mass with the nice priest" (as opposed to their parish), etc.

Interestingly, Hayes' mascot is the Pacers or something similarly horsey, named after a nearby race track? Not very presidential. But in Marion, Ohio, home of Warren G. Harding, their high school mascot is the Presidents. I remember their swim caps having an especially ugly presidential seal of some sort. There's also a Harding high school in Warren, Ohio but their mascot is the Raiders.

We heart our presidents in Ohio. :)

I will venture this hypothesis: in this great nation, there is a school named after every single president, even the miserable ones (see, e.g., here and here). That's presidential love!

Presidential Miscellania

I saw this play over the weekend and recommend it if you are in New York. Good fun and Martin Van Buren is a riot.

Also, exciting news in currency, if there is such a thing. (via)

#19: Hayes, Rutherford Birchard

Rutherford B. Hayes
19th President of the United States (served 1877-1881)
Oct. 4, 1822 (Delaware, Ohio) - Jan. 17, 1893 (Fremont, Ohio)

From a good beard to better!

• Hayes was the first president to be elected by a margin of only one vote. The election had to be decided by a special congressional commission. During his presidency, he ended Reconstruction (pulled federal troops out of the South) and ended the Spoils System (based his appointments on merit). Otherwise, his was a remarkably unremarkable reign.
• “Hayes was a champion speller in elementary school. He later boasted that ‘not one in a thousand could spell me down!’”
• During the Civil War, Hayes was quickly promoted. He “distinguished himself in several battles . . . . He was wounded four times and had four horses shot from under him.”
• Hayes had a hand in expanding the Library of Congress and he helped found the college that would later become Ohio State University.
• Hayes’s wife was the first First Lady to have gone to college. She and her husband introduced the custom of Easter egg rolling by children on the White House lawn.

SIDENOTE: I recently started watching the West Wing. I’m almost through the first season and it amazes me how every episode feels topical and relevant almost ten years after the show first aired. For example, one episode addressed the politics of the census when I filled out my census questionnaire. Another episode addressed the national parks and Yellowstone when I was writing about Ulysses Grant. The latest episode addressed the Easter egg roll while I was writing this entry! Not to mention all the issues (gays in the military, nuclear disarmament, state dinners for visiting dignitaries gone awry) that speak directly to issues faced by the current administration. Insane! Or perhaps merely a sad commentary on how little politics change! But either way, I highly recommend it!!!

BONUS BITS from the “H” volume! (We've already visited the "H" volume--hello there again, Mr. Harrison--but nevertheless I stumbled upon these gems and had to share)

• There is an entry devoted to “Hats.” In what context would this be useful? No idea, but it’s delightful to peruse. It includes a feature on “How a Felt Hat Is Made,” as well as an explanation of “Why People Wear Hats.” According to World Book, “people wear hats for three main reasons: (1) protection, (2) communication, and (3) decoration.”
• I learned that manufacturers can use the air bladder of a squirrel hake to make glue. Wha????
• And I found separate entries for "Hand," "Head" and "Human Body." According to World Book, "HAND is the end of a forelimb, or arm. Hands are specially constructed for taking hold of objects. True hands have opposable thumbs . . . " True hands! Priceless.
  

#18: Grant, Ulysses

Ulysses S. Grant

April 27, 1822, Pt. Pleasant, Ohio - July 23, 1885, McGregor, New York

What a beard!

• What's in a name? According to World Book, Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant. Hiram! That is totally going on my short list of names for my as-yet unborn sons. (Kidding, kidding... I don't have such a list, but if I did, Hiram would be way up top.) When he was seventeen, Grant's father found out that a neighbor's son had been dismissed from the U.S. Military Academy. He wrote his congressman to appoint Ulysses as a replacement (little 'Lyss had been going to school at an academy in Ripley, Ohio in the meantime). The congressman agreed, but when he made out the appointment he wrote it for "Ulysses S. Grant," mistakenly thinking the boy's middle name was his mother's maiden name, Simpson. 'Lyss never bothered to change it; "He thought his classmates might tease him about his real initials, 'H.U.G.'" Later, as a military commander, Grant earned the nickname "Unconditional Surrender Grant" after, on his own initiative, he took Fort Donelson in 1862 and refused to give the fort commander any concessions upon surrender. He was later called a "butcher" because he lost so many men in battle.
• Grant was the first West Point graduate to serve as president. After graduating in 1843, he fought in the Mexican War (including participating in the capture of Mexico City). He was later stationed in Detroit (hey-yo) and also Sackets Harbor, New York, before being sent to the West to serve at Fort Vancouver in the Oregon Territory and Fort Humboldt in California. Grant eventually resigned, preferring to return to be closer to his wife and four children. After a series of business failures, he returned to the Army in 1861 to fight for the Union (he freed his only slave in 1859). Grant quickly moved up the ranks from drill captain to colonel to brigadier general to lieutenant commander. He was ultimately named supreme commander of all Union armies by Lincoln in 1864. He led the North to victory and emerged from the Civil War a national hero. In the North, people admired him for his fierce tenacity and in the South people respected him for having given General Robert E. Lee generous terms of surrender.
• World Book refers to Grant as "trustworthy" and "shy and retiring." He was a talented horseman. His career outside the army as a young man was marked by business failures. He tried his hand as a farmer, a real estate agent, a landlord, and a store clerk. He was terrible at all of them. His unluckiness followed him after his presidency--in retirement he invested all of his savings (about $100,000) in a banking firm, for which his son, Ulysses, Jr., was a partner. The bank turned out to be run by a dishonest man and the company ultimately failed, leaving Grant almost penniless. In his old age, Grant turned to writing his memoirs for income. Mark Twain became his publisher. The memoirs earned his family $500,000!
  
• Grant's presidency (1869 - 1877) was marked by widespread political corruption--he vowed not to be ruled by professional politicians in his inaugural address and instead appointed personal friends and army officers to government offices. The spoils system quickly thrived and over the course of his two terms in office, government fraud ballooned. During his presidency, Grant presided over two financial panics: Black Friday (spurred by a gold speculation scandal) and the Panic of 1873 (spurred by the failure of several Eastern banks). All the while, Grant continued to accept personal gifts and his cabinet members accepted bribes left and right.
• Despite all the scandals, Grant succeeded in reducing the national debt. While he was president, the First Transcontinental Railroad System was completed, which I learned about from a Lucky Luke comic book, "Des Rails sur la Prairie." (Come to think of it, almost everything I know about the American West I learned from either Lucky Luke or the Magnificent Seven.) Grant also presided over the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872. Hooray for national parks! Hip hip...
  

Bonus drawing!
(that is a tree trunk Grant is leaning against, for your information)

#17: Johnson, Andrew

Andrew Johnson
(Dec. 29, 1808, Raleigh, NC - July 31, 1875, Carter Station, Tennessee)

• Mr. Johnson was the first president to be impeached; he was the first and only president who had never gone to school (he was a tailor by training); he was the first president to grant a reporter a formal interview; and he was the first and only former president to serve as a Senator (he ran and won in 1874, six years after his term as president ended).
  
• Even though Johnson was a completely self-taught man (well almost completely--his wife taught him arithmetic and how to write), he diligently worked his way up the political ladder: from town alderman in Greenville, Tennessee, to the Tennessee House of Representatives, to Governor of Tennessee, to U.S. Senator, to Military Governor of Tennessee during the Civil War and finally to Vice President in Lincoln's second term (though notably Johnson owned 8 slaves, often advocated a "middle ground" on the slavery issue--sort of like being "kind of pregnant" or "very unique"--, and he was a Democrat on the Republican ticket). The World Book account of Johnson's inauguration bears quoting directly:
  

He had recently recovered from an attack of typhoid fever, and was still weak. On his way to the ceremony in the Senate, Johnson stopped to rest. He drank some whisky, thinking it would strengthen him. In the heat of the Senate chamber, and because of his weakened condition, Johnson became tipsy. His jumbled speech embarrassed even his friends. For many years, Johnson's opponents accused him of drunkenness, but the accusation was unjustified. Lincoln remarked: 'I have known Andy for many years; he made a bad slip the other day, but you need not be scared. Andy ain't a drunkard.'

• The morning after Lincoln's assassination, Johnson took the oath of office in his hotel room. In the four-year term that followed, he fought Radical Republicans intent on punishing the South. This resistance led to his tremendous unpopularity and eventual impeachment (though the Senate acquitted him in the impeachment trial). One of his lawyers at his impeachment trial wrote: "He is a man of few ideas, but they are right and true, and he could suffer death sooner than yield up or violate one of them." How's that for a backhanded compliment! During the trial, Radical Republican voters threatened Senators who did not vote in favor of impeachment. One voter, for example, warned, "Any Republican Senator who votes against impeachment need never expect to get home alive." My, my. Politics can get quite ugly.
  
• During Johnson's presidency, the U.S. acquired Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867. The deal was negotiated by Secretary of State William Seward--many American called Alaska "Seward's folly" for years thereafter. Recently, Discovery confirmed that it had finalized a deal with Sarah Palin to do an eight-part travelogue show about her home state. Although the series is not yet in production, the cost is estimated at about $1 million per episode. So that would be about $8 million. I can do math.
  
  

And that, my friends, is all I have to say about Andrew Johnson.