Sunday, October 30, 2016

U.S. President Cleveland's Essays - Part 1

Grover Cleveland Essays
  • Life in Brief
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  • Life Before the Presidency
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  • Campaigns and Elections
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  • Domestic Affairs
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  • Foreign Affairs
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  • Life After the Presidency
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  • Family Life
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  • The American Franchise
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  • Impact and Legacy
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  • [ PRINT ALL ESSAYS ]
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      Grover Cleveland: Life in Brief

      [CITE THIS]
      Stephen Grover Cleveland fell into politics without really trying. In 1881, local businessmen asked Cleveland, then a young lawyer, to run for mayor of Buffalo, New York. He agreed and won the Democratic nomination and the election. As mayor, Cleveland exposed city corruption and earned such a reputation for honesty and hard work that he won the New York gubernatorial race in 1882. Governor Cleveland used his power to take on the Tammany Hall, the political machine based in New York City, even though it had supported him in the election. Within a year, the Democrats were looking to Cleveland as an important new face and pragmatic reformer who might win the presidency in 1884.

      Three Campaigns for President

      In the election of 1884, Cleveland appealed to middle-class voters of both parties as someone who would fight political corruption and big-money interests. Many people saw Cleveland's Republican opponent, James G. Blaine, as a puppet of Wall Street and the powerful railroads. The morally upright Mugwumps, a Republican group of reform-minded businessmen and professionals, hated Blaine and embraced Cleveland's efforts at battling corruption. Cleveland also had the popularity to carry New York, a state crucial to victory.
      But Cleveland had a sex-scandal to live down: he was accused of fathering a son out of wedlock—a charge that he admitted might be true—owing to his affair with Maria Halpin in 1874. By honestly confronting the charges, Cleveland retained the loyalty of his supporters, winning the election by the narrowest of margins.
      When he ran for reelection in 1888, the Republicans raised lots of money from the nation's manufacturers and spent it lavishly, helping to ensure victory for their candidate, Benjamin Harrison. The election thus marked the beginning of a new era in campaign financing. Though Cleveland actually won a larger share of the popular vote, Harrison defeated Cleveland in the Electoral College.
      In 1892, however, after four years of Republican leadership, Cleveland quashed the reelection hopes of Harrison, who had alienated many in his own party. He thus became the only President to serve nonconsecutive terms, winning the office once again after losing as the incumbent.

      Watchdog in the White House

      Cleveland did not see himself as an activist President with his own agenda to pursue, but as a guardian or watchdog of Congress. While several important pieces of legislation became law during his terms—most notably bills controlling the railroads and distributing land to Native Americans—he did not initiate any of it.
      During his second term, Cleveland also had to deal with the most severe depression the nation had ever suffered. By 1894, the U.S. economy was reeling from an 18 percent unemployment rate. When 150,000 railroad workers walked off the job in sympathy with the Pullman Car workers' strike in Illinois, Cleveland sent federal troops to crush the revolt and arrest its leaders. In this instance, he tilted toward the business community in the ongoing struggle between management and labor. This decision sparked a great deal of criticism at the time as well as later from historians.
      Cleveland blamed the country's economic problems on the Sherman Silver Purchasing Act passed during the Harrison administration. His attempt to repeal the act split the Democrats, and his failure to deal with the depression ensured Republican victory in the congressional elections of 1894. He left office in 1897 feeling betrayed by his own party.

      Social Issues and Foreign Affairs

      Cleveland's opposition to temperence won the support of the Irish, German, and East European voters who migrated to the United States by the tens of thousands in the 1880s. He was inconsistent in his attitude toward racial issues, however. Although he spoke out against injustices being visited on the Chinese in the West, he sympathized with Southern reluctance to treat African Americans as social or political equals. Native Americans, he thought, should assimilate into white society as quickly as possible through federal aid for education and private land grants. Finally, though he was careful not to alienate women by speaking out against female suffrage, he never supported a woman's right to vote.
      In foreign policy, Cleveland opposed territorial expansion and entangling alliances. His behavior was inconsistent, however, and he took a bellicose position when a dispute arose with Germany over Samoa. He adopted a similar stance with respect to Hawaii, where he believed that U.S. sugar planters had conspired in the Hawaiian revolution. His most controversial action was his interference in a boundary dispute between Venezuela and Britain. Claiming that the British were violating the Monroe Doctrine, Cleveland actually threatened London with war. While historians continue to debate the wisdom of Cleveland's action, the affair brought the Monroe Doctrine back to life as the basis of U.S. foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere.

      End of Bachelorhood

      After two years in office as a bachelor President, Cleveland announced his marriage to his twenty-one-year-old ward, Frances Folsom, the daughter of his former law partner. The press had a field day satirizing the relationship between the old bachelor and the recent college graduate, who quickly became the most popular first lady since Dolley Madison. Frances adhered to the prevailing ideal that separated the private lives of women from the public lives of men. Respecting the wishes of her husband, she never used her popularity to advance the political causes of the day.

      Cleveland's Legacy

      Cleveland will be remembered for protecting the power and autonomy of the executive branch. His record-breaking use of the presidential veto earned him the deserved moniker of the "guardian President" and helped balance the power of executive and legislative branches. But he did not think that the President should propose legislation and he disliked using legislative solutions to address America's growing social and economic difficulties.
      Hard-working, honest, and independent, Cleveland nevertheless had no real vision for the future. At most, historians tend to see his presidency as strengthening the power of the executive branch in relation to Congress and leading to the emergence of the modern presidency that began with Theodore Roosevelt.
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      Grover Cleveland: Life Before the Presidency

      In his youth, no one would have thought it likely that Stephen Grover Cleveland would become President of the United States. He was born in Caldwell, New Jersey, on March 18, 1837, the fifth of nine children. His father, the Reverend Richard Cleveland, was a nearly impoverished, Yale-educated Presbyterian minister. Grover spent his boyhood in the central New York towns of Fayetteville and Clinton, where his father ministered until he died. Age sixteen at the time of his father's death, Cleveland had to forego his dreams of college and employment to help support his family. He worked with his older brother in New York City and then as a clerk and part-time law student in Buffalo. Although he never attended college, he was admitted to the bar in 1858 at age twenty-two.
      During the Civil War, Cleveland served as assistant district attorney for Erie County. He had avoided military service in the war by hiring a substitute for $300. In later years, his enemies would castigate him as a "slacker" for having evaded the draft. Nevertheless, Cleveland soon earned the reputation as a hard-working lawyer, presenting his arguments from memory before judge and jury. As President, he would deliver his inaugural addresses without notes—something no President had ever done before.
      In 1870, Cleveland was elected sheriff of Erie County, a position he held until 1873, when he returned to practicing law. By 1881, he had amassed a modest savings account of $75,000. He had also amassed a sizeable body girth. Because of his weight—over 250 lbs.—he was known to his friends as "Big Steve," a sobriquent from his earlier days. In the years before he entered politics, Cleveland was acknowledged as a frequenter of restaurant-saloons, a popular gent who loved to hunt and fish with his male companions, and good man to have as a friend. Thoroughly provincial, he never traveled, seldom read fiction or poetry, infrequently listened to music, and exhibited little interest in high culture of any sort. He enjoyed poker parties, Democratic organizational work, drinking with his buddies, and other simple pleasures.

      Crafting a Political Image

      Though he had served as sheriff of Erie County, Cleveland had avoided partisan politics. Thus, he was surprised when the Buffalo City Democratic Committee tapped him to run for mayor in 1881. As a new man among old faces, Cleveland pulled off an upset victory. In one year, Mayor Cleveland exposed graft and corruption in the city's municipal services (street cleaning, sewage, and transportation), vetoed dozens of pork-barrel appropriations, and set a pace for hard work and efficiency that impressed state leaders in the Democratic Party. Seeing the advantages of running a upright urban reformer, the Democratic Party nominated Cleveland for governor of New York.
      The image appealed to voters and Cleveland (now referred to affectionately by some friends and relatives as "Uncle Jumbo") carried his 280 pounds into the governor's mansion. As New York's chief executive from 1882 to 1884, Cleveland used the same tactics that had worked in Buffalo. He vetoed what he perceived as extravagant and special-privilege legislation, such as bills that would have held down transit fares and regulated the hours of transit workers. He also challenged the substantially corrupt Tammany Hall, a political machine based in New York City that had supported him in the election. He worked harder and longer hours than anyone else in state government. Within a year, Democrats around the nation were touting him as a fresh face, a political outsider, and a pragmatic reformer who might win the presidency in 1884.



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