There were signs everywhere of tremendous enthusiasm for the candidacy of Grover Cleveland. In Nyack, New York, four hundred cheering citizens marched to Mr. Andrew Jackman’s house to serenade him with a cornet band. What had Jackman done to deserve such a tribute? He had served as a delegate to the convention that had nominated Cleveland. Making his way home from the convention, a forty-year-old Connecticut delegate actually had to be tied into a straitjacket at a stop in Toledo when he tried to leap from the train. The cause of his derangement was said to have been ecstasy over Cleveland’s victory. In Buffalo, thousands of people beaming with pleasure over their favorite son’s accomplishment paraded through the streets with banners and fireworks. Special accolades were paid to Buffalo’s own Wilson Bissell and his virtuoso tactics in securing Cleveland the nomination. Some in the city were calling Grover Cleveland the Man of Destiny. A fitter phrase might have been Creature of Circumstances. A trivial set of conditions had, as if by magic, lifted Cleveland into the stratosphere of national politics. Those who knew the inside story were aware that had Cleveland not been pushed into running for mayor of Buffalo just three years before, he would still be practicing law in Buffalo at the humble firm of Cleveland, Bissell & Sicard.
In Albany, Cleveland was trying hard to stay focused. Daniel Manning, the architect of the Cleveland campaign, was back from the convention organizing the fall election. Manning had been offered the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee but declined, saying he wanted to devote himself exclusively to running the Cleveland canvass in New York.
With all this activity in progress, Cleveland was still governor of New York, with all its obligatory executive duties. On July 19, he took the Hudson River line to Westchester County for a military review of the New York State regiment at Peekskill. He had two of his nieces in tow, the daughters of his missionary sister from Ceylon who were spending the summer with him. The governor carefully stepped off the train, impeccably dressed in a black double-breasted frock known as the Prince Albert suit—standard formal business attire in the Victorian Era. A 21-gun salute greeted him. Following supper, he and his entourage returned to Albany on the 7:00 p.m. train. Cleveland was eager to get back. The winsome Frances Folsom and her mother, Emma, were expected in Albany any day now. Frances was on summer break from Wells College and wanted to personally congratulate Uncle Cleve on his nomination. She and her mother would be his guests at the Executive Mansion.
The Republicans were on the ropes. James Blaine was an able man, but he had a reputation as a two-faced schemer. Like the mythological Roman god Janus, one-half of Blaine was statesmanlike and honest; the other could be corrupt and sinister. As Speaker of the House in 1869, he had been accused of lining his pockets with $130,000 in bribe money to secure land grants for the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad Company. Blaine was never criminally charged, but the scandal had derailed his presidential ambitions in 1876 and again in 1880. Theodore Roosevelt expressed the sentiment of his generation when he announced that while he planned to vote the Republican presidential ticket in 1884, he would refuse to campaign on behalf of Blaine. To prove he meant it, Roosevelt headed off to his ranch in the Dakota Territory, where he intended to remain until November and so avoid this odious election. The New York Times, a reliable Republican organ, shook the party establishment by coming out with an early endorsement of Cleveland. Crystallizing the great issue of the campaign, the Times called Cleveland a courageous man whose “absolute integrity has never been questioned.” It was a bolt from Blaine on an unprecedented scale.
And then the “great bombshell” of the election was ignited.
Before going to press, John Cresswell met with George Ball one final time and asked the minister if he would be willing to put in writing everything he had learned about Grover Cleveland. Ball said yes, provided his name was kept out of the Evening Telegraph’s exposé, although he authorized Cresswell to release his identity “when we deem it needful to do so.”
Titled “A Citizen’s Statement,” Ball’s account was addressed to the editor of the Evening Telegraph:
You ask me for facts about Mr. Grover Cleveland’s moral character. Since his candidacy is being pushed on the assumption of irreproachable morals, and many are being deceived thereby, I yield to your request. . . . I give you a part of the well attested facts and place at your disposal the names of responsible citizens, both democrats and republicans who will confirm every item, if called upon.
An officer long on the police force declares that he has often seen Mr. Cleveland beastly drunk, and has indisputable evidence of his habitual immoralities with women.
Two responsible and influential citizens testify that hearing a great row in a saloon one night they rushed in and found Mr. Cleveland and another lawyer in a terrible fight over a lewd woman. Each seized a belligerent and held him fast till they both agreed to keep the peace. They were both drunk, and they had rent and torn each other till they were both nearly naked and covered with blood.
Since Mr. Cleveland was elected to the present office [as governor] he reached Buffalo one Saturday night; drove to a noted saloon; was met by three other men; laid in a stock of liquors; repaired to apartments in another building; sent out for four lewd women and spent the night and all day Sunday with them in debauchery.
Some years ago a beautiful, virtuous and intelligent young lady entered the employ of Flint & Kent, as you know, most excellent men and leading merchants in our city. She was put at the head of their cloak department and served them for some two or three years to perfect satisfaction. Mr. Cleveland made her acquaintance, won her confidence and finally seduced her. She of course lost her position, was cast out of good society, and driven to despair. Her appeals to him to fulfill his promise of marriage he did not regard. The mother and child were taken to the residence of Mrs. William Baker on Genesee Street to board and visited occasionally by Mr. Cleveland. The boy was named Oscar Folsom Cleveland. The mother was wretched and often desperate and worried Mr. Cleveland by her threats. He resolved to abate the annoyance, employed two detectives and a doctor of bad repute to spirit the woman away and dispose of the child. She refused to surrender the child or go with the detectives. Then they seized her by force and in spite of her screams and violent resistance, took her to a carriage and drove her to the Providence asylum in Main street, where she was committed as insane, for which services Mr. Cleveland paid the two detectives $50. The child was taken to the Buffalo orphan asylum. Our worthy citizen, Dr. William Ring, was the visiting physician at the Providence Asylum and on examining the new patient pronounced her perfectly sane and the authorities allowed her to depart. She had been committed without legal process and departed on her own volition. Her first move then was to employ an attorney and recover her child. Her lawyer advised her to secure it by force if necessary. She succeeded in getting the boy into her arms and at once fled, no one obstructing her flight. Then negotiations were opened with Mr. Cleveland and finally he paid her $500 to give up the child and at length succeeded in getting her to leave the city. The boy was then given to a family on Niagara Street, where he still lives and I believe bears their name. But poor Maria Halpin, for that was her name, went away broken hearted, disgraced, an outcast, while her seducer continued to revel in the realm of lust and pretend before the great American public that he is a model of virtue, pre-eminently worthy of being honored by their votes and being exalted as an example of ambitious youth to imitate. Perhaps personal character originally ought not to be involved in political discussions, but it would be criminal to allow the virtuous to vote for so vile a man as this under a false impression that he is pure and honorable.
These are a part, only a part, of the facts that have been verified in relation to Mr. Cleveland’s character. It is painful to think of his offenses and shameful, infinitely shameful, to have such a man commended to the suffrages of a Christian nation. It is enough to alarm all decent people, and even cause the vulgar and profane to hesitate and demand a halt.<
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Ball signed the statement and dated it July 18.
Cresswell kept the handwritten original and stored it in a safe place at the Evening Telegraph offices. Three days later, on July 21, the Evening Telegraph hit the stands with one of the most famous headlines in the history of American journalism:
A TERRIBLE TALE
A DARK CHAPTER IN A PUBLIC MAN’S HISTORY
A Pitiful Story of Maria Halpin and Governor
Cleveland’s Son
Prominent Citizen States the Result of His
Investigation of Charges
Against the Governor—Interviews Touching the Case
Cresswell personally wrote the story. The lead sentence cut right to it: “Grover Cleveland’s reputation for morality has been bad in this city for some time.” Whispers of a scandal in Cleveland’s personal life had been an open secret in Buffalo—“freely used in private and broadly hinted at in public.”
Inquiries came to Buffalo thick and fast concerning these reports. These were addressed to ministers of the gospel, editors and business men who might be supposed to know and have the courage and candor to tell the truth about the matter.
Vague stories were afloat and people wanted something definite one way or the other. We had not pursued our investigations long before we discovered that others were on the same trail.
What came next was Ball’s anonymous “Citizen’s Statement,” which the Evening Telegraph published in its entirety on the front page. Cresswell described the writer as a leading minister of the city—“one of the most discreet, honored and trusted . . . worthy of all confidence,” and pledged to release his name at the proper time. Cresswell said the minister had recently presented his findings before a private conclave of Buffalo pastors and had expressed to them his belief that “Grover Cleveland’s immoralities are so great that his election should be opposed by all Christian people.
“The Telegraph’s action today is taken after counsel with several of the most influential pastors of Buffalo and with their warm approval.”
It was a shrewd posture. Who could condemn the Evening Telegraph for investigating the city’s favorite son when Buffalo’s own clergymen were giving their blessing?
The Evening Telegraph portrayed Maria as a valiant lady who had been victimized by an “infamous conspiracy.” Powerful forces had thrown her into an insane asylum without due process, but her “mother’s love and zeal” could not keep Maria from reclaiming her son, Oscar. The son born of that relationship “bears the governor’s image if he does not now bear his name.” Maria Halpin—a woman of “culture, proud spirit and hitherto unblemished life”—had been “shamed,” “disgraced,” and “dishonored” by Cleveland, which was code for rape.
The woman so treated was the mother of the son of the present governor of the state of New York, who aspires to be president of the United States. The men of America, as a rule, would die to protect the mothers of their children from such treatment.
This is the terrible story of Maria Halpin and her son.
So it was done.
Now Cresswell and the staff of the Evening Telegraph braced themselves for the repercussions that were sure to follow.
10
DEFAMED
IN BUFFALO, CLEVELAND’S closest advisors were going to pieces. Some of them split the city into sectors and went around to all the major newsstands trying to buy up every available copy of the Evening Telegraph. When the newspaper fired up its steam presses to keep up with the demand, they gave up.
Cleveland’s friend Charles Goodyear urgently telegraphed Cleveland requesting a set of instructions on how to deal with the Evening Telegraph’s revelations. Hunkered down at the Executive Mansion in Albany, Cleveland responded to Goodyear in a telegraphed message that was destined to go down in the annals of American crisis management: “Whatever you do, tell the truth.”
Daniel Manning, the state party chairman, recommended what seemed like a levelheaded course of action: Officially, say nothing. Ignore the allegations, and pray that the scandal dies a natural death. The election was still a long way off—fourteen weeks, a lifetime in politics. People forget. This made sense to Cleveland, and he signed off on the approach. But Cleveland was very much in a state of disgrace and said to be “filled with anguish.”
“I am all ‘out,’” he admitted to Daniel Lockwood, the U.S. congressman from Buffalo who had placed his name in nomination as the party’s presidential candidate.
On the night of July 22, eight hundred independent Republicans known as mugwumps—a word from the Algonquin language that means “person of importance”—gathered at the University Club in Manhattan. High spirits filled the hall as delegates from sixteen states marched in to make official their historic resolution to cross party lines and endorse Grover Cleveland for president. In an era when party loyalty came first, this was not an easy call to make. Predictably, Blaine was denounced as unfit for office, while Grover Cleveland was praised as incorruptible. George Curtis presided over the convention. Curtis had been there from the beginning—he was a founder of the Republican Party. Even he was defecting from the party of Lincoln and backing Cleveland. These were heady days for the cause of reform in America.
“The issue of the present campaign is moral, not political,” Curtis told his fellow delegates. The platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties were virtually indistinguishable on the key concerns of the day. Both parties supported civil service reform and opposed prohibition. The fundamental question in the campaign was not policy but personality: Grover the Good of New York, or Blaine of Maine and his sketchy political history.
The motion before the mugwumps to endorse Cleveland for president passed unanimously.
When the convention adjourned for the night, everyone seemed gratified with the great and important work that had been accomplished. But as they were leaving the University Club, they heard a strange rumbling that quickly grew to a roar. Copies of the Evening Telegraph exposé, hot off the presses from Buffalo, were being distributed to the delegates. As they read it, their elation was quickly replaced by alarm, and even “great revulsion.” Grover Cleveland—a libertine? Could this be true?
Carl Schurz, a former United States senator from Missouri, had invited several of his fellow mugwumps for a private dinner at the University Club after the convention had concluded. Schurz was renowned for the memorable speech he had once made on the floor of the Senate: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” Seated at the head of the table, he was in a deep state of depression, shell-shocked over the Evening Telegraph’s allegations. He had staked his reputation on Cleveland.
At the end of the glum dinner, as everyone was getting ready to leave, the door to the private dining room was flung open, and George Curtis walked in. His face was a “picture of woe.” The Evening Telegraph was in his hand.
“Have you seen this?” he asked. Everyone nodded.
“What are we going to do?” In his prepared address to the delegates, he had said the campaign of 1884 was all about morals, not politics. Now this.
“How can we possibly continue our support of Cleveland?”
Almost everyone at the dinner table had something to say. Somebody pointed out that when Cleveland ran for mayor and governor, none of his opponents had ever alluded to this Maria Halpin. Besides, who knew if the story was true? In this overheated political year, with emotions at fever pitch, nothing about any candidate in any newspaper should be taken at face value.
Curtis was not persuaded. A mugwump from Chicago who was seated next to Schurz had sat there mute, absorbing everything, saying nothing—until this moment.
“Do you want to know how this matter strikes me?” Everyone encouraged him to speak his mind.
“Well, from what I hear, I gather that Mr. Cleveland has shown high character and great capacity in public life, but that in private life his conduct has been open to question, while, on the other hand, Mr. Blaine in pub
lic life has been weak and dishonest, while he seems to have been an admirable husband and father.” Everyone nodded. So far, no one could disagree with his assessment of the two candidates. He was urged to go on.
“The conclusion I draw from these facts is that we should elect Mr. Cleveland to the public office which he is so admirably qualified to fill and remand Mr. Blaine to the private life which he is so eminently fitted to adorn.”
They all chortled; given the quandary they faced, they welcomed the gallows humor. Whom to support for president—Cleveland, with his sexual indiscretions? Or Blaine, who had taken bribes from the railroad?
There was a consensus: The mugwumps were holding fast for Cleveland—at least for the time being.
For the governor, the publication of “A Terrible Tale” could not have come at a more mortifying time: On July 21, the day it came out, Frances Folsom turned twenty. She and her mother were in Albany to celebrate her birthday with Cleveland and the triumph of his presidential nomination. Now, all they could do was try to comfort the man who stood accused by his hometown newspaper of raping a widow, fathering her illegitimate son, and consorting with lewd women.
Surely, Cleveland felt deeply ashamed. For ten years he had lived with the fear that his dark secret could be exposed at any moment. So fearful had he been of the disclosures his presidential candidacy might precipitate that he had had to be pushed into the race—and was crestfallen when he won it. To quote the Evening Telegraph, “The mine that has long slumbered under the feet of Grover Cleveland has at last been exploded.”
Cleveland, waiting for the inevitable fallout, got wind that his friends in Buffalo were brazenly ignoring his instructions to “tell the truth,” and were taking steps to discredit Maria Halpin. He was indignant when he learned that Charley McCune, publisher of the Buffalo Courier, in his effort to support the paper’s candidate, was spreading the venomous story that the father of Maria’s illegitimate son was not Cleveland at all. According to this tall tale, the boy’s biological father was actually Oscar Folsom.
A Secret Life: The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland Page 19
