A Secret Life: The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland

by Charles Lachman

  Moot asked the jury to return with a verdict for Ball in the amount of $25,000 in damages.

  Court was recessed for lunch. At two in the afternoon, the trial resumed. Moot called his first witness. It was Edwin Godkin.

  The Irish-born Godkin had come to America in 1856 as a correspondent for the London Daily News, and in 1865, he founded The Nation, then as now a weekly magazine with a small but influential readership. In 1881, he sold The Nation to the New York Post and became the Post’s editor-in-chief and an eloquent force in the mugwump political movement. Such was his renown, the reporters who worked for Godkin regarded him as a kind of “remote deity.” On the occasion when he found himself riding in the elevator with a member of his staff at the New York Post building, which then stood at Broadway and Fulton, Godkin never spoke a word. Although he stood on “friendly footing” with his managing editors and the city editor, he could not recognize most of his reporters. His temper was as mighty as his pen. Once, when the great muckraker Lincoln Steffens was a young journalist starting off at the Post, Godkin thought the front-page story Steffens was assigned to write, on the death of a music teacher, “smacked of sensationalism.” Godkin fired him, and later grudgingly capitulated, but only after several editors had gone to bat for the talented young Steffens.

  Moot asked Godkin about the circulation of the Post. Godkin said it reached about twenty thousand people daily. The Nation, which had reprinted several of the Post’s articles about Ball, had a weekly circulation of nine thousand. Godkin acknowledged that he had personally written or edited all the articles regarding Ball. He said this without equivocation or discomfit. In point of fact, his authorship gave him pleasure. Surprisingly, after just a few minutes, Godkin was off the stand and back in his seat at the defendant’s table.

  That was all. Moot rose and announced that the defense rested. It had taken only one afternoon to present the evidence. Moot had not even called Ball to the stand. His strategy had been daringly straightforward: The articles published in the Post and The Nation spoke for themselves. No further evidence of libel was necessary.

  John Milbank’s partner, Franklin Locke, gave the opening statement for the defense. Locke was a forty-seven-year-old graduate of Hamilton College. Such was his knowledge of the law that it was said he could dictate an entire corporate charter without a reference book. Locke was also a voracious reader. Gibbon’s six-volume History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was his favorite work.

  Locke stood before the jury, with his noble forehead crowned with a thicket of white hair, looking like an Old Testament prophet. Addressing the panel, he recalled the time of the presidential election of 1884, six years before. Until that political campaign, Locke said, “Not one word had been spoken against [Cleveland’s] character.” The man was a “saint upon this earth.” Then came the day when George Ball stepped onto the political stage—“this crank,” as Locke contemptuously called him.

  Locke produced the letter Ball had written to the Boston Journal about the Beaver Island Club and the circumstances surrounding the death of Oscar Folsom in 1875. In it, Ball had claimed that on the night Folsom had been killed, he and Cleveland had been “beastly drunk” on their return from the Beaver Island Club—which Ball called a “place of drunkenness and lust.”

  Locke looked at the jurors. “The Beaver Island Clubhouse was just as pure and reputable a place as Dr. Ball’s church!”

  Locke closed by asking the jurors to find in favor of the Post and against Ball. A message had to be sent. Ball should stick to the business of education and religion. “Tell him to keep out of politics, for which he is evidently unfitted.”

  With that, Locke was finished. It was now John Milburn’s turn to take over the defense. Milburn called his first witness. It was George Ball.

  Ball took the witness chair and faced the well of the courtroom. He looked vexed and weary. His rimless glasses were planted on the bridge of a long sharp nose, and his face was framed in a heavy beard of iron grey. His upper lip was clean-shaven, and the top of his head was entirely bald.

  Milburn got right to it. He showed Ball the Boston Journal letter. Ball owned up to the fact that he had been in error; Cleveland had not been with Folsom the night of the buggy collision. Milburn demanded to know where he had heard the story that Cleveland had been drunk.

  Just then the clock struck five. Court was adjourned for the day. Ball would be back on the stand the next day.

  On the second day of George Ball’s testimony, the courtroom was filled with the city’s leading clergymen, there in force to show their support for their beleaguered colleague. Ball braced himself. He was going up against Buffalo’s leading lawyer, a master at courtroom tactics and the technique of cross-examination.

  People were surprised when John Milburn spoke because he had a cultivated British accent. He was born in England and had come to America when he was eighteen, settling in Batavia, not far from Buffalo. Like Grover Cleveland, he learned the law by clerking and developed a reputation as a cautious and able litigator. During the 1884 campaign, he was one of Cleveland’s key aides, who had advised the candidate to hang tough when the Maria Halpin scandal erupted.

  Milburn picked up with Ball’s damaging admission that he had been in error when he accused Grover Cleveland of having been present when Oscar Folsom broke his neck.

  “I want to ask how you came to learn that the Beaver Island Clubhouse was a place of drunkenness and lust?”

  “I do not know. I did not understand that there was a club. That is, I did not know the nature of the organization.”

  Milburn kept at it. He was intense and very persistent. He wanted to know how Ball had come to characterize the Beaver Island Club as a disreputable place when “respectable citizens were in the habit of taking their wives and children there.”

  Ball finally admitted that he got the information about the goings-on at Beaver Island from Dr. Alexander T. Bull, a physician who served as house doctor at the Iroquois Hotel. Dr. George W. Lewis had also been present during the conversation, which was held in Alexander Bull’s medical office at the Iroquois.

  What about the publication of “A Terrible Tale” in the Evening Telegraph?

  Ball admitted that he had turned over the findings of his investigation regarding Grover Cleveland to the Evening Telegraph.

  “Did you give facts for it?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “To whom?”

  “To Mr. Cresswell.”

  “Did you visit him?”

  “No, sir, he came to see me. I gave him the points, and he wrote the article. He made notes of what I said. But I did not write it.”

  “Did you not recommend people to read it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Was it not a fact, Milburn asked Ball, that he had gone to Vine Alley “hunting up” the janitress who used to work for Cleveland? The question caused a stir in the courtroom. Everyone knew that Vine Alley was a notorious neighborhood where vice and wickedness were more or less condoned by authorities. The question was intended to establish that Ball was not just a source for the Evening Telegraph but had also played an active role in the newspaper’s investigation.

  Ball said yes, he had gone to Vine Alley in search of Mrs. McLean, Cleveland’s “colored” maid, to question her about Cleveland’s drinking habits and the company he kept. Reverend E. S. Hubbard had accompanied him. It was an awkward moment for Hubbard, who at that moment was sitting in the courtroom.

  “Did you visit with this negress?”

  “I did.”

  “And you visited her for the express purpose of finding out about Mr. Cleveland’s habits?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You were in the habit of running down people to learn all about Mr. Cleveland, were you not?”

  That was not the case at all, Ball said. He accused Milburn of trying to give the impression that he was a snooping detective. “These visits were made at the solicitation of our ministers.” />
  Milburn turned to another subject.

  “You lived in Owensville, Indiana?”

  “At one time, yes.”

  “And you had trouble with a lady of your congregation?”

  “I had some difficulty there.”

  The unpleasant incident had taken place on May 15, 1881. Ball had been invited to give a guest sermon at the General Baptist Church in Owensville. He was delivering the sermon when an esteemed lady, Mrs. James Montgomery, caught up in the Holy Spirit, praised God in a manner that Ball found offensive. But he let it go. A moment later, she did it again—it was described as an “ejaculation.” This time Ball turned to Mrs. Montgomery and told her, “Hush up!” She just sat there, indignant at this public rebuke. The rest of the congregation became incensed at what they construed to be the humiliation of one of the town’s leading citizens. The next day, with righteous anger mounting, Mrs. Montgomery’s son went to see Ball and “compelled him to make an immediate apology to his mother.” Ball was threatened with a whipping if he refused. Ball went to Mrs. Montgomery’s home, got down on his knees, and prayed for forgiveness. Afterward, his standing in Owensville was in shambles. He cut short his stay and returned to Buffalo. The petty episode involving Mrs. Montgomery had been forgotten until the Indianapolis Sentinel took Ball on in 1884. In the hands of the rabble-rousing Sentinel, Ball had to “depart hastily” from Owensville, “owing to an insult to a Christian lady.”

  Milburn read the Sentinel’s account into the record. Then he turned to Ball. “Now, did you make an apology to any lady or person in Owensville?”

  Ball stammered, “I . . . I . . . ”

  “This question calls for a direct answer—yes or no.”

  “Well, yes, I did.”

  Milburn was done. Ball looked drained. One reporter who was in the courtroom said of Ball’s experience on the stand, “It was torture.” He wrote that Ball looked exhausted in “flesh (and) spirit” by the assault on his integrity.

  Now it was Adelbert Moot’s turn. It was going to be a challenge to recoup some of the damage caused by Milburn’s skillful interrogation. Under Moot’s guidance, Ball gave the jurors a sense of his distinguished career. He said he’d earned his doctorate of divinity from Bates College in Maine. He explained the theological diversity in the Baptist church. He came from the church’s Free Will denomination, which placed autonomy in the hands of the local house of worship. It was important for Ball to clarify what it meant to be a Free Will Baptist, lest anyone on the jury think this somehow was a lesser branch of the church.

  Moot brought the witness around to the mayoral campaign of 1881. Ball said he ran a local independent political club.

  “That body supported Mr. Cleveland?”

  “It did.”

  “Was any question raised as to his moral character then?”

  “There was not,” Ball answered. “One member did object to him, but I made no investigations.”

  Ball acknowledged that he had received fifty dollars from Cleveland, but he denied the donation was in exchange for a political endorsement. He said he spent the money on a church construction project. Moreover, he noted, the check had been sent to him after the mayoral election.

  “Did you ever ask or receive a dollar for political services of anyone?”

  “No, sir. Every dollar I received for the church was used to build it.”

  “Was the independent club a little political machine of your own?”

  “No, it was not.” He downplayed his influence in Buffalo, saying that if he ran a political machine, then it was a “party of one.” He said he would never endorse anyone for fifty dollars or for any amount of money.

  “Coming down to the time when Mr. Cleveland ran for governor, did your club have anything to do with that campaign?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you learn anything about the history of Grover Cleveland’s life at that time?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “When did you get your first information against Mr. Cleveland ?”

  “Just before the political convention, which nominated Mr. Cleveland for president.”

  “Who told you these facts first?”

  “Dr. George W. Lewis.”

  Lewis came from one of Buffalo’s most esteemed pioneer families. His brother, Dr. Diocletian Lewis, was a famous physical fitness advocate. Another brother, Loren Lewis, was a judge.

  “Did you learn them from others?”

  “Yes, a Mrs. Baker of Huron Street.”

  Moot showed a letter that Ball had written to Dr. Lyman Abbott, the editor of a Christian newspaper in New York City. The Abbott Letter—one of three that Ball had sent to religious publications in July 1884—laid out the allegations that Cleveland had had an illegitimate son with Maria Halpin. Moot read the letter out loud, and as he did, murmurs rippled through the courtroom. The facts of the Halpin case were familiar to everyone, but the Abbott Letter contained a sensational new accusation: Cleveland had been courting a “respectable young lady” when he arrived at her home with a bottle of champagne and invited her to have a drink. She immediately grabbed the bottle and threw it out the window. That was the last time Cleveland was permitted in her home.

  “Did you believe the statements contained in this letter?”

  Ball said he did. He went on to detail his investigation of Cleveland, including his interviews with Maria Halpin’s lawyer, Milo Whitney, and with her former employers at the Flint & Kent department store. Ball said a committee of thirty Buffalo clergyman had authorized him to look into Cleveland’s life. He said he never desired publicity or notoriety.

  Moot came around to the Vine Alley excursion in search of Mrs. McLean. “Did you go anywhere else [on Vine Alley] except to see Mrs. McLean?”

  “I am not certain whether we did or not.”

  Ball apologized for dishonoring the late Oscar Folsom and the Beaver Island Club. In Ball’s words, he was “off about the whole affair generally.” But he also pointed out that a correction under his name had been published in the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser back in 1884, just three days after he realized he had committed a grave blunder.

  Moot then asked Ball to give the jurors his version of that unpleasant business in Owensville.

  “I was preaching to a crowded congregation in the evening and there was someone who screeched during the service.” He said at first he thought the woman was having a “fit.”

  “Then I went on and heard the screech again and I thought someone was interrupting the service. I said in substance that I hoped no one would disturb the meeting and closed the service.” Right after, Ball said, he was informed by the other worshippers that what he had assumed to be screeching had actually been an “outburst of religious fervor.”

  “I had never heard of such manifestations of religious fervor before,” he said, and it was his idea to go to Mrs. Montgomery’s house to ask for forgiveness. He did get down on his knees to pray, but he denied that he had ever been threatened with a whipping. “The meeting was very pleasant. We joined in religious services and that was all.”

  Moot was done. Now John Milburn rose to commence his re-direct. He tore into Ball for failing to get Cleveland’s side of the story before going public with the allegations regarding his relationship with Maria Halpin and the birth of his illegitimate son.

  “You have sworn that you went to Flint & Kent. Did you go to Wilson S. Bissell or George Sicord, longtime friends of Mr. Cleveland, for confirmation?”

  “I did not go to them.”

  “Who brought up these matters in reference to Mr. Cleveland’s character at the minister’s meeting?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Were you not the prime mover?”

  “No.” Ball’s baritone voice shook. Was it defiance—or equivocation? “I don’t know as I was.”

  With that, his testimony was over.

  Milburn called Dr. Alexander Bull to the stand. The sixty-three-year-old physician wore rimless glasse
s. He had long sideburns connected to a bushy white mustache that left his chin clean-shaven. Bull was one of Buffalo’s finest healers. Once he had treated the son of a tribal chief for a life-threatening abscess, and when, in a matter of days, it had disappeared, the grateful chief adopted Bull into the tribe.

  Dr. Bull said he knew George Ball only slightly. He knew Grover Cleveland much better—they had been friends for more than twenty years. He recalled the day in 1884 when Reverend Ball came into his office accompanied by Dr. George Lewis. Milburn asked for his recollection of the conversation the three men had regarding the death of Oscar Folsom.

  “I don’t know much about it, and I don’t think I gave Dr. Ball any information on the subject.”

  Moot shot up from his chair for re-direct. He could not shake the physician’s story. Bull said he could not recall the subject of Oscar Folsom’s death ever coming up. And he said that whatever he may have told Ball about Folsom or Maria Halpin was a “street story,” meaning just gossip, not to be taken as factual.

  Dr. Lewis was the next witness.

  “Did you have a conversation with Dr. Ball in 1884 in regard to the private character of Grover Cleveland?” asked Milburn.

  “I really have no recollection of it,” Lewis said. He took the jury back to the day when Mrs. Baker brought her neighbor Maria Halpin into his office. This occurred just a few days after Maria Halpin’s illegitimate son had been forcibly taken from her arms. “I don’t think the name of Grover Cleveland was mentioned.”

  Sitting at the defense table, Ball was confounded. He could not believe that Bull and Lewis were not backing his story.

  Milbank recalled Edwin Godkin to the stand. The Post editor swore under oath that before writing the articles about Ball, he had dispatched a reporter to Buffalo to look into the preacher’s background. Godkin said the research had established that Ball had been a political operator in Buffalo and had a record of making “inquisitive” investigations into the affairs of other people, which could be interpreted as prying. He called Ball a “fussy, credulous person who dabbled in politics.” As for the Maria Halpin story, Godkin said he believed it had been “substantially true” but that all the rest of the allegations regarding Grover Cleveland and his licentious behavior had been a “pack of lies.” Godkin said the Post articles had been written and published “entirely without malice.”