In an age when political figures routinely shake hands and slap backs, it is somewhat startling to contemplate Washington's public appearances as president. Of course, he never campaigned for the presidency; indeed, he was probably the only American president who honestly didn't want the job. But he was a man of great personal dignity, and he attempted to invest his office with that dignity.
At presidential receptions, Washington greeted his guests standing on a round podium that stood two feet from the floor. He was six foot one in an age when the average man was five foot eight, so the podium allowed him to tower even more dramatically over the room. He was always dressed richly in elegant 18th century fashion, with a ceremonial sword in a scabbard belted and buckled around his waist. When a guest was presented to him—yes, presented to him—he waited for the guest to bow, and he then responded with a slight nod.
Jefferson's lack of humor does not detract from his other formidable qualities. In addition to his political activities, he was an author, scholar, linguist, architect, inventor, geographer, botanist, horticulturalist, zoologist, meteorologist, educator, and philosopher. In a famous comment, John F. Kennedy, when hosting a White House dinner for all living American Nobel laureates, began his after-dinner remarks by saying, "I think this is the most remarkable collection of talent and knowledge that has ever been gathered at the White House—except on those occasions when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."
As for Jefferson's opinion of himself and his legacy, all we need refer to is the epitaph on his tomb at Monticello, an epitaph he composed himself. Jefferson, it must be remembered, had been a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Continental Congress, Governor of Virginia, ambassador to France, our first secretary of state, our second vice-president, and president for two terms, during which time he doubled the size of the country. But his epitaph reads as follows:
Here was buried Thomas Jefferson
Author of the Declaration of Independence
Of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom
And Father of the University of Virginia
The politics of the late 18th and early 19th centuries had made Jefferson and Adams adversaries and rivals, but they were finally reconciled in their old age. They carried on a lively and interesting correspondence towards the ends of their lives, ends which came within hours of each other on the same day, and that day was the Fourth of July. In Virginia, by what seems to have been a sheer act of will, the dying Jefferson held on until his last words, "Is it the fourth?" received an affirmative response. On his own deathbed in Massachusetts, Adams' last words reportedly were, "Thomas Jefferson still survives." Then he died, not knowing that Jefferson himself had died a few hours earlier. The date was July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
The practice of slinging dirt and ruining reputations in campaigns for public office is nothing new in American politics. In the campaign of 1828 the Democrats, led by Andrew Jackson, feared that incumbent president John Quincy Adams might carry the state of Pennsylvania and thus win reelection. Though Jackson seemed popular among many people in the rural areas of the state, the Democrats were taking no chances. They knew that two major groups whose votes might be swayed by rumor and innuendo were the Pennsylvania Dutch and the Quakers, so they started a salacious rumor. When Adams was U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, they claimed, he brought two mistresses, one French and one German, home to the embassy to live in open sin with him and his wife. The deeply devout Quakers, horrified by this immorality, abandoned Adams and voted en masse for Jackson. And when the rumor went on to say that Adams brought the French girl home with him to America but abandoned the German girl, he lost the votes of the Pennsylvania Dutch.
Andrew Jackson was our first national hero since Washington and the object of much public adulation. When a little boy in rural Maryland learned that the General was passing through a nearby town he asked his parents to take him there. When they refused, he ran away from home. The little boy returned a few days later, beaming with joy and grinning from ear to ear. He parents were furious, but the infectiousness of his enthusiasm soon won them over and his father asked, "Did you see General Jackson?"
Practically bursting with pride, the little boy said, "General Jackson spoke to me!"
His parents were in awe. "What did he say to you?"
The boy took a deep breath and then replied, "He told me to get the hell out of the way!"
Jackson was the type of man who was either a fast friend or an implacable enemy. If his honor or the honor of his wife were impugned, he responded with a challenge to a duel. In 1806 a man named Charles Dickinson not only insulted Rachel Jackson; he also owed Jackson a debt from a horse race, which he refused to pay. Jackson, of course, challenged Dickinson to a duel.
The two men and their seconds met and the duel proceeded. The combatants stood back to back, walked apart forty paces, and turned. Jackson allowed Dickinson to take his shot first. Jackson was seen to flinch, but did not fall. He then took careful aim and shot Dickinson to death. Jackson then collapsed.
His second rushed over to him and tore open his coat to find that Jackson had been shot in the chest. "Sir!" his friend exclaimed, "How could you stand and aim and fire with a bullet so near your heart?"
Jackson replied, "I would have lived long enough to kill him if he had put a bullet in my brain."
The practice of kissing babies during campaigns is something of a cliché, but it has an historical point of origin. During the 1828 campaign General Jackson and his good friend John Eaton were greeted by a crowd of well-wishers, one of whom was a young woman with a baby in her arms. Jackson took the child, lifted it up, and cried out, "This is a sterling example of American youth." He passed the baby to his friend, said, "Kiss it, Eaton," and walked on.
Abraham Lincoln's face and form have become so iconic that we often lose sight of the fact that he was, well, rather ugly. Once, when riding on horseback along a town road, he chanced to pass a young woman in a buggy. She stopped to look at him and he tipped his hat politely. "Sir," she said, "I do believe that you are the ugliest man I have ever seen."
Startled, Lincoln stammered, "Well, I... I don't know what I can do about that."
"You could have stayed home," she observed.
But he had a sense of humor about himself. When during a debate his opponent accused him of being two-faced, Lincoln asked, "Oh, come now. If I had two faces, would I be using this one?"
Lincoln was the kind of man who would occasionally answer a serious question with an anecdote or a quip. When the Civil War began a newspaper editor dispatched a reporter to Washington with instructions to interview as many members of the new administration as possible to pose the following question: was this Civil War inevitable? He received many thoughtful and complex answers; from Lincoln he received the following joke.
"Well," Lincoln said, "that question reminds me of a story I heard tell about a country boy name of Jim Bob. Jim Bob had a powerful hankering to work for the Illinois Central Railroad. So he went down to the depot to talk to the depot master, who told him, 'Okay, Jim Bob, I'm agonna ask you some questions, and your answers'll tell me if you got the makings of a railroad man.' So he asked Jim Bob some questions and he liked Jim Bob's answers, and then he said, 'Well now, Jim Bob, you're doing good so far. I just got one more question, and I want you to think long and hard before you answer it. Let's suppose that you, Jim Bob, you are the depot master. The word comes down the line"( i.e. on the telegraph ) "that a train is heading due north at 30 miles an hour, and another train is heading due south at 30 miles an hour on the same track. You run out to pull the rail switch so they won't collide, but the switch is broke. What are you agonna do, Jim Bob?' Jim Bob sat back and studied on it a spell. Then he said, 'I reckon I'd run home and fetch my brother Billy.' This confused the depot master. 'Tarnation, Jim Bob, why would you fetch your brother Billy?' 'Well sir,' said Jim Bob, ‘my brother Billy ain't never seen a train wreck.'"
In other words, the Civil War was inevitable.
One of Abraham Lincoln's better known quips was in a cabinet meeting, when he announced his support of Ulysses Simpson Grant. When one cabinet member objected to Grant because he was a heavy drinker, Lincoln mused that perhaps he should find out what kind of whiskey Grant drank and send a cask to every other Union general.
James Abram Garfield was elected president in 1880 and was assassinated in 1881, making his presidency the second shortest in our history. There is very little of interest to be said about the poor fellow, but his assassin is another matter all together. The assassin, Charles Guiteau, was an emotionally disturbed misanthrope, a failure at everything he had ever tried, and suffering from delusions of grandeur. He gave a speech on Garfield's behalf in 1880 at a public meeting in New York City, and expected for this reason to be appointed U.S. ambassador to France. When Garfield (who didn't even know who he was) failed to appoint him, Guiteau murdered him.
Two interesting things subsequently transpired.
One: Guiteau was one of the first murder defendants in American history whose attorney used the insanity defense in an attempt to have his client escape the noose. A few decades earlier, Rep. Daniel Sickles murdered U.S. District Attorney Philip Key, who was having an affair with Sickles’s wife. The defense strategy, pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, was successful. Guiteau was not so lucky. The attempt failed, even though Guiteau was quite obviously a mental case. He was duly convicted and was promptly hanged.
Two: while Guiteau was in prison awaiting trial, a prison guard took a shot at him, and missed. The guard was subsequently tried for attempted murder. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
I told Bill McKinley not to nominate that lunatic! Now look! That goddamned cowboy is president of the United States!
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most unusual and impressive men ever to occupy the White House. Naturalist, author, rancher, explorer, soldier, hunter, statesman—only Jeffersonwas so varied in his interests, and no president even comes close to TR’s adventures and literary output.
On February 14, 1884, young Roosevelt's wife Alice died, two days after giving birth; his mother died on the same day in the same house. Overcome with grief, Roosevelt left his infant daughter in the care of his sister and went out to the Dakota Territory to become a cattle rancher.
Stories about TR out in the Wild West are legion. Knocking a hostile drunk unconscious with a single blow in a saloon fight ... facing down three hostile Sioux, armed only with a rifle ... being involved in a showdown and staring down his opponent until the man chickened out ... as a deputy sheriff, tracking down and capturing three thieves who had stolen from him, guarding his captives single-handedly for the forty-hour overland journey back to town, keeping himself awake at night by reading Tolstoy ... not to mention the cow-punching life of the cowboy on a cattle drive ... Teddy did it all.
He also lost everything he owned in the Dakotas in the great blizzard of 1886/87, and then returned east to pursue a public life that led him from success to success. State assemblyman ... civil service commissioner ... New York City police commissioner ... assistant secretary of the Navy ... Rough Rider in the Spanish-American War ... crusading, reformist governor of New York ...
He was a popular hero. It was largely for this reason that William McKinley chose him as his running mate in the election of 1900; and, of course, when McKinley was assassinated in 1901, Roosevelt became at forty-two the youngest president in American history. Republican Party leader Mark Hannah had strongly opposed Roosevelt's candidacy, exclaiming, "Don't they realize that only one human life separates that madman from the presidency?" And when McKinley was murdered, Hannah exploded, "I told Bill McKinley not to pick that lunatic! Now look! That goddamned cowboy is president of the United States!"
One final comment: as of this writing, Theodore Roosevelt is the only American president to have leapt from horseback and, armed only with a hunting knife, wrestled a mountain lion to the ground and stabbed it to death.
Theodore Roosevelt's eldest daughter Alice was something of a wild girl by the standards of 1904, the year her father was elected to the office he had inherited from McKinley .She smoked cigarettes, drank cocktails, and went riding in cars with boys. She once summarized her philosophy of life by saying, "If it's full, empty it. If it's empty, fill it. And if it itches, scratch it." The president was once taken to task for not keeping her under control, and he replied, "I can govern the United States of America or I can control Alice. I cannot do both."
Alice married a congressman named Nicholas Longworth in a White House ceremony in 1906. Lest anyone forget whose daughter she was, the bride cut the wedding cake with a samurai sword.
Woodrow Wilson had many sterling qualities, but a winning personality was not one of them. He was in fact, an obnoxious, arrogant, supercilious man, convinced of both his own superior moral probity and superior intellect. He believed that the treaties ending World War One would, if based upon his Fourteen Points, recreate the world as a world without war; and anyone who disagreed with him was obviously misguided. This smug attitude led him into frequent confrontations with his supposed allies at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, David Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France, and Vittorio Orlando of Italy. At one point Clemenceau was heard to mutter, “Fourteen points! Fourteen points! Sacre bleu! God himself had only ten!”
But in the rough and tumble of cut-throat European diplomacy, Wilson was outmatched. He found himself abandoning point after point and accepting destructive compromise after destructive compromise, all in order to secure the creation of the League of Nations (which, once created, the U.S. did not join.) A British diplomat present at the time described Wilson in Paris as being like "a virgin in a whorehouse, crying out piteously for a glass of lemonade."
The approaching election of 1920 portended ill for the Democrats, saddled as they were with an unpopular president and very unpopular wartime regimentation. Their campaign, as a matter of desperation, attempted to besmirch the Republican candidate, Warren G. Harding, by spreading the rumor that Harding had more than a drop of black African blood. In 1920, this rumor, if believed, would have been the kiss of death politically.
A joke current at the time (... Warning! Racism alert!...) had two black men, Jim and Sam, talking about the election. "D'yall heah?" asks Jim. "De Erpubicans done nomernated Mistah Harding."
"Sho'nuff?" Sam replies. "Who did de white folk nomernate?"
The Republicans countered with genealogical records, baptismal certificates, birth certificates, etc. etc. etc., to prove that Harding was of Anglo-Saxon, Scots-Irish, and Dutch ancestry, and this put the issue to rest. Harding was elected in a landslide, and his party kept control of the Senate and took control of the House.
But one final comment from Harding himself is interesting. When asked about the accusation that one of his ancestors was a black woman from the West Indies, he smiled and said, "Who knows? One of my ancestors may have jumped the fence."
Harding's successor, Calvin Coolidge, was popularly known as "Silent Cal," because of a well deserved reputation for a disinclination to say anything. "I was never hurt by anything I didn't say," he once remarked. Three examples:
One: At a social gathering, an acquaintance approached him and said, "Mr. President, I bet someone ten dollars that I could get you to say three words in a row." Coolidge replied, "You lose."
Two: When a congressman arrived at the White House for a scheduled meeting with the president he was dismayed to see a particularly loquacious senator preceding him. He sat down sadly, expecting to have at least an hour's wait; but the talkative senator walked out after fifteen minutes. When the Representative entered Coolidge's office, he said, "Mr. President, whenever I have to meet with that fellow, I can't get rid of him for an hour at least, but you got rid of him real quick! How did you do it? What am I doing wrong?" Coolidge replied, "You talk back to him."
Three: V
ice-president Coolidge had succeeded to the presidency upon the death of President Harding, had been elected in his own right in 1924, and was eligible for reelection in 1928. He had not indicated whether he would indeed run again when the press was summoned to his country home in Vermont to hear an announcement. Pens and pencils at the ready, the reporters awaited the presence of the president with eager anticipation. Eventually Coolidge arrived, took a piece of paper from his pocket, and read the words, "I do not choose to run for reelection." He then folded up the paper and left. He never said another word about it.
When in 1924 Coolidge's death was announced, writer Dorothy Parker inquired, "How can they tell?"
Effective presidential leadership is often as much a matter of style as of substance. No better contrast can be found than the one between two sequential chief executives, Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt. Whatever one's opinions may be of their policies, it cannot be denied that their personalities could not have been more different. A good example of this can be seen in their respective responses to the Bonus Army.
In 1924 veterans of the First World War and the families of casualties had been issued Service Certificates which were very similar to savings bonds. They had a cash value redeemable twenty years after the date of issue, i.e., in 1944. But when the Great Depression began in 1929, a movement began among veterans for an early payment of what they called their "bonus."
In the spring of 1932, 43,000 protesters, calling themselves the "Bonus Expeditionary Force" converged on Washington. The press nicknamed them the Bonus Army. President Hoover was concerned that this large mass of angry people constituted a threat to public safety, and feared that a riot might break out at any moment. To forestall this, Hoover ordered Colonel Douglas MacArthur to "clear them out," which he proceeded to do with elements of infantry and cavalry. Precise casualty numbers are unknown, but there were numerous deaths.
Warm and Witty Side of Attila the Hun Page 4
