by Ben Shapiro
Presidential politics is Springfield writ large. The more engaging candidate typically wins. Al Gore campaigned like a tree stump and lost; Bill Clinton campaigned as a good old boy and won. Barry Goldwater campaigned as a rather ill-tempered and self-righteous fellow and lost; Ronald Reagan campaigned as a good-natured father figure and won. This isn’t to say that sticks-in-the-mud don’t become president—the nineteenth century was full of sticks-inthe- mud. But the best candidates—and the best presidents—use humor and a common touch to get things done.
HUMOR DIDN’T MATTER MUCH for the founders. The people were more concerned with statesmanship than friendliness; that was largely a function of the president’s somewhat removed role with regard to the public.Washington displayed occasional wit, but mostly he acted the part of statue on a pedestal. Adams’s wit was too sharp for his contemporaries—as Adams’s secretary of war, James McHenry, put it, “Whether he is spiteful, playful, witty, kind, cold, drunk, sober, angry, easy, stiff, jealous, cautious, confident, close, open, it is always in the wrong place or to the wrong person.”21 One gets the sense that Adams would not have been fun to barhop with—he might have been a mean drunk.
Jefferson’s image was one of farmer-philosopher; James Madison, wrote Bob Dole, “was [reputedly] a brilliant conversationalist, much addicted to punning and epigram. Maybe you had to be there; the written record, at least, provides little evidence to support the picture of a witty Madison.”22 James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Martin Van Buren were all somewhat humorless. Andrew Jackson wasn’t just humorless—he could rightly be described as a mean old bastard. Jackson’s humor ran along bloody lines.When asked on his deathbed if he had any regrets, Jackson quickly spat, “That I didn’t shoot Henry Clay and hang John C. Calhoun.”23
THE FIRST “BEER BUDDY” PRESIDENT was William Henry Harrison. If Harrison ran today, Budweiser would sponsor his campaign. Harrison, the first candidate to openly campaign for the presidency, ran largely on his love for hard cider during the 1840 campaign. The point of the hard cider imagery was that Harrison was a toughened old warrior who could drink with the best of them; incumbent president Martin Van Buren, by contrast, was a dandy who couldn’t hold a shot of sarsaparilla.
Campaign songs focused on the contrast between the “Hard Cider Candidate”24 and the frilly incumbent. One song went like this:
Let Van from his coolers of silver drink wine,
And lounge on his cushioned settee;
Our man on his buckeye bench can recline
Content with hard cider is he!25
Such songs provided the backbone for Harrison’s campaign. Horace Greeley, the Whig editor of the Log Cabin , wrote, “Our songs are doing more good than anything else . . . Really, I think every song is good for five hundred new subscribers.”26 The songs were sung between speeches at Whig rallies, creating an “electric” effect.27
Harrison referred to his proclivity for hard cider during his campaign speeches, and even guzzled some during one speech.28 Whigs downed hard cider at all their events. “To honor their heroes,” wrote 1840 campaign historian Robert Gray Gunderson, “high priests of Whiggery usually downed thirteen formal toasts, plus an indeterminate number of informal ones.”29 At one banquet, these thirteen toasts were announced:
1st. The people.
2nd. George Washington. (Drink standing and in solemn silence.)
3rd. William Henry Harrison. (Nine cheers—music—Yankee Doodle—salute the artillery.)
4th. John Tyler.
5th. Virginia.
6th Maryland.
7th. The District of Columbia—without a vote, she has a voice.
8th. The President of the United States. (“That is to be,” added several voices.)
9th. The opposition party—union is strength.
10th. The best Whig Senators from Virginia—Rives and Allen.
11th. Log cabins and cider.
12th. The opposition in Congress.
13th. Our guests—the servants of the people, and the friends of the people.30
The best part was that there were no automobiles. No designated drivers necessary.
Harrison’s campaign’s utilization of hard cider created a word that still exists in common parlance—booze.Whigs took advantage of the market for log cabins and hard cider by creating pocket brandy and whiskey bottles shaped like log cabins. These were then filled with “Old Cabin Whisky.” The manufacturer of Old Cabin Whisky? The E. C. Booz Distillery.To this day, booze remains slang for “alcohol.”31
The hubbub over hard cider puzzled Democrats. One Democratic-leaning newspaper, the Albany Rough-Hewer, published the following dictionary:
* * *
PATRIOTISM—Guzzling sour cider.
CALUMNY—The truth.
ARGUMENT—Hurrah for Old Tip.
PERSONAL ABUSE—Telling facts.
LOG CABIN—A palace.
AN APPEAL TO THE JUDGEMENT—Hard cider diluted in whisky.32
* * *
Whig supporter George D. Prentice, columnist for the Louisville Journal, aptly summed up the Harrison campaign. “In what respect is hard cider an emblem of General Harrison?” a Democrat asked Prentice.
“All we know is that it runs well,” Prentice retorted.33
It ran well enough. The ultimate beer buddy, William Henry Harrison, ousted Van Buren with ease.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN rightfully occupies perhaps the most honored place in the presidential pantheon. But that status obscures the fact that Lincoln was not merely a tremendous politician and a Lincoln once explained to his cabinet.34
Lincoln’s humor was homespun, folksy, and natural. He demonstrated his lighter side throughout his political career. During his first congressional race, Lincoln ran against Methodist minister Peter Cartwright, who routinely berated Lincoln about his sporadic church attendance. Lincoln decided to attend a religious meeting where Cartwright was speaking. At the end of Cartwright’s speech, Cartwright asked the congregation to stand if they wanted to go to heaven. Most of the congregation stood. Then Cartwright yelled, “All those who do not wish to go to hell will stand!” By now, all the people were on their feet—except Lincoln.
Cartwright looked at Lincoln, then gravely intoned, “I observe that many of you accepted my invitation to give their hearts to God and go to heaven. I further observed that all but one of you indicated an aversion to going to hell. The sole exception is Mr. Lincoln, who failed to respond to either invitation. May I inquire of you, Mr. Lincoln, where you are going?”
“Brother Cartwright,” answered Lincoln, “asks me directly where I am going.Well, I’ll tell you: I am going to Congress.”
Lincoln was elected.35
Lincoln’s wit served him well in touchy situations. Once, during a debate, one of the audience members yelled at Lincoln, “You’re a fool!” Lincoln stopped, turned, and lightly retorted, “Well, that makes two of us.”36
Lincoln wasn’t afraid to pillory his opponents. At one 1858 debate, Douglas referred to Lincoln’s humble beginnings, stating that he had first met Lincoln when Lincoln was the liquor salesperson at a general goods store. “And Mr. Lincoln was a very good bartender, too,” Douglas concluded.
“What Mr.Douglas has said is true enough,” said Lincoln. “I did keep a grocery, and I did sell cotton, candles, and cigars, and sometimes whiskey. I remember in those days that Mr. Douglas was one of my best customers. Many a time have I stood on one side of the counter and sold whiskey to Mr. Douglas on the other side, but the difference between us now is this: I have left my side of the counter, but Mr. Douglas still sticks to his as tenaciously as ever.”37
Lincoln used Reaganesque folk humor to trash Douglas. “When I was a boy,” Lincoln explained at one debate, “I spent considerable time along the Sangamon River. An old steamboat plied on the river, the boiler of which was so small that when they blew the whistle, there wasn’t enough steam to turn the paddle wheel.When the paddle wheel went around, they couldn’t blow the whistle. My f
riend Douglas reminds me of that old steamboat for it is evident that when he talks he can’t think, and when he thinks he can’t talk.”38 Another time Lincoln stated that Douglas had a gift for “specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse.”39
Each joke, Douglas complained, “seems like a whack upon my back.”40 He wasn’t far off. Before one debate, Lincoln handed his cloak to an assistant. “Hold this while I stone Stephen,” he remarked.41
Lincoln used anecdotes to defuse volatile situations. Governor Charles Morehead of Kentucky confronted President Lincoln, insisting that Lincoln make concessions to the South. Lincoln proceeded to tell Morehead one of Aesop’s fables about a lion who wanted to marry a princess. The princess’s parents insisted that the lion file down his teeth and claws. He did so, and the parents bopped the lion on the head. Morehead gruffly replied that “it was an exceedingly interesting anecdote, and very apropos, but not altogether a satisfactory answer.” Lincoln biographer David Herbert Donald wrote, “Lincoln used this technique throughout his presidency, to the bafflement of those who had no sense of humor and the rage of those who failed to get a straight answer from him.”42
Lincoln became famous for his lively sense of humor and endless store of anecdotes. During the 1864 election, Harper’s Weekly ran a cartoon summing up the public view of Lincoln. In it, a gigantic Lincoln holds Democratic nominee George McClellan in the palm of his hand. “This reminds me of a little joke,” Lincoln drawls.43 Lincoln’s political enemies, too, recognized his penchant for joke telling. One Democratic song from 1864 was entitled “Hey! Uncle Abe, are you Joking yet?” It was sung to the tune of “Johnny Cope.” The lyrics read:
Hey! Uncle Abe, are you joking yet,
Or have you taken a serious fit,
And wisely set to pack up your kit,
To be up and off in the morning?
Honest Old Abe was a queer old coon,
Joked with a n- - - - and play’d the buffoon,
But now he shakes from his head to his shoon,
All night unto the morning.44
Lincoln presided over the greatest crisis in national history. He retained power—and enough goodwill to govern—because he represented the people at large. His sense of humor was one of his strongest selling points. And Lincoln never lost his humor, even in the face of disaster. During the Civil War, Lincoln held a White House reception. Seeing Lincoln, a guest shouted, “Mr. President, I’m from up in New York State where we believe that God Almighty and Abraham Lincoln are going to save this country.” Lincoln smiled. “My friend,” he said, “you’re half-right.”45
TEDDY ROOSEVELT WAS ARROGANT. After his stint with the Rough Riders in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, TR wrote a somewhat self-congratulatory memoir entitled The Rough Riders; one wag suggested that it should have been entitled Alone in Cuba.46 Roosevelt, Mark Twain wrote, was “the Tom Sawyer of the political world of the twentieth century; always showing off; always hunting for a chance to show off; in his frenzied imagination the Great Republic is a vast Barnum circus with him for a clown and the whole world for audience.”47
But, like Tom Sawyer, Roosevelt was the kind of guy people would buy drinks for. His toothy grin became an ubiquitous symbol of his popularity, adorning editorial cartoons the country over. His trust-busting platform—and the alacrity with which he pursued it—ensured that the public viewed him as a crusader for honesty. “A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car,” TR proclaimed, “but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.”48 He promised every American a “square deal.”49 TR recognized his broad appeal. “The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice,” TR stated.50
Just as Lincoln had, Roosevelt regaled audiences with folksy anecdotes. After a Russian pogrom in 1903, Roosevelt met with a group of Jewish leaders who wished Roosevelt to petition Tsar Nicholas II. His advisors informed him that it would be inadvisable to alienate the Russians; still, Roosevelt had to placate Jewish leaders. And so he told a story.
When I was myself in the army, one of the best colonels among the regular regiments who did so well on that day, who fought beside me, was a Jew! . . . You may possibly recall—I am certain some of my New York friends will recall—that during the time I was Police Commissioner, a man came from abroad—I am sorry to say, a clergyman—to start an anti-Jewish agitation in New York, and announced his intention of holding meetings to assail the Jews. The matter was brought to my attention. Of course I had no power to prevent these meetings. After a good deal of thought I detailed a Jewish sergeant and forty Jewish policemen to protect the agitator while he held his meetings. So he made his speeches denouncing the Jews, protected exclusively by Jews!
He continued telling such pithy anecdotes for the next hour. When the Jewish leaders left, they had secured no pledge from Roosevelt, but Edmund Morris reported that “the committee trooped out glowing with satisfaction.”51
CONTEMPORARY LIBERAL HISTORIANS find it difficult to understand the allure of President Calvin Coolidge. When Ronald Reagan placed Coolidge’s portrait in the Cabinet Room, the media stirred up a fuss. “Skeptics have abounded from the start,” sneered Time. “Coolidge has never been heroic history. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. keeps reminding readers that Coolidge was noted for sleeping twelve hours a day. Schlesinger, who served John Kennedy, knew of no other President who spent that much time in bed sleeping.”52
Newsweek similarly scoffed, “Fishing was more Coolidge’s style than the horseback riding Reagan favors, and certainly he would have preferred a long afternoon snooze to Reagan’s daily workout with the chain saw, but otherwise he would have approved thoroughly of this lazy, vacation-time Presidency—the rural setting, the phone calls few and far between, the luxury of sleeping through even an aerial encounter with a hostile country. He might have faulted Reagan for being a little too eager to get back to work, though: he himself knocked off for a minimum of two months every summer.”53
Alan Brinkley of the New York Times was most brutal: “It has been a long time since anyone has had anything good to say about Calvin Coolidge, but President Reagan apparently is determined to set history right . . . Affable, charming Ronald Reagan clearly has not identified personally with the dour ‘Silent Cal,’ who had a sour, nasty sense of humor and a raging temper.”54
This is revisionist history, pure and simple. For a more accurate description, turn to Coolidge critic H. L. Mencken: “The general burden of the Coolidge memoirs was that the right hon. Gentleman was a typical American, and some hinted that he was the most typical since Lincoln . . . He was revered simply because he was so plainly just folks—because what little he said was precisely what was heard in every garage and barbershop. He gave the plain people the kind of esthetic pleasure known as recognition, and in horse-doctor’s doses.”55
“Silent Cal,” as he was known, explained, “I always figured the American public wanted a solemn ass for president, so I went along with them.”56 But Coolidge was far from solemn—he was famously hilarious in his taciturnity. He lived by the motto “I have never been hurt by what I have not said.”57 At one dinner, for example, a woman sitting next to Coolidge informed him that she had made a bet with one of her friends that she could get the president to say more than two words. Coolidge’s answer: “You lose.”58
After Coolidge returned from church one day, Mrs. Coolidge asked him what the sermon had been about. “Sin,” Coolidge answered. “Well, what did he say?” she asked. “He was against it,” said Coolidge.59
Another time Coolidge saw one of his political opponents, Senator William Edgar Borah, riding his horse through Rock Creek Park. The president turned to his driver and remarked, “Must bother him to be going the same direction as the horse.”60
Coolidge, so another story goes, stood at a window, watching the rain. One visitor tried to engage the president in small talk. “I wonder
if it will ever stop raining,” the visitor sighed. “Well,” said Coolidge, “it always has.”61 On another rainy occasion, a Secret Service agent bested Coolidge. The Secret Service agent observed that a storm was coming. “Well,” asked Coolidge, “what are you going to do about it?” “Mr. President,” answered the agent, “I’m only a Secret Service man. But you are President of the United States of America.What are you going to do about it?” The Secret Service agent immediately became one of Coolidge’s favorites.62
Still, Coolidge didn’t enjoy being shadowed by his Secret Service men.While fishing in the Black Hills, he and a guide managed to lose the Secret Service agents by canoeing downstream. A few minutes later, Coolidge and the guide heard splashes and cries upstream. After a few moments, a canoe paddle floated by. Then a pillow. Finally, a Secret Service agent’s hat. “Been expecting that,” remarked Coolidge.63
Coolidge was a great speechwriter, but he did not enjoy speaking. An audience member at one of Coolidge’s speeches approached the president and said, “Mr. President, I was so anxious to hear your speech at the opening of Congress, I had to stand the whole forty-five minutes.” “So did I,” replied Coolidge.64
Another of Coolidge’s speeches was much shorter. The chairman at an Amherst graduate dinner in Spain asked Coolidge, an alumnus, to send a message. He informed Coolidge that there would be no charges on the cable, so the cable had no length limits. Coolidge promptly sent a message. After the chairman announced Coolidge’s name at the dinner, to wild applause, he opened up the message and read it to the assemblage. The message: “Greetings.— Calvin Coolidge.”65
