By Edwin Cooney
You guessed it: I’m a sucker for American Presidential lore! With all of the conscientious and often cynical
but sincerely patriotic assessments of the office and its occupants, I insist
on its past, present and future value to the American people. Thus, on this the 43rd anniversary
of Richard Nixon’s proclamation of President’s Day, I propose a pleasant stroll
down Presidential Lane in remembrance of each “First Magistrate” or “Chief
Executive” -- take your pick.
George Washington, 1789-1797 -- Soldiers and statesmen are
historically noted for profound statements on the occasion of great
events. According to historian Kenneth C.
Davis’s 1988 book “Don’t Know Much About History,” what George Washington had
to say on that Christmas night of 1776 as he crossed the frigid Delaware River
to attack those Hessian mercenaries the British had in that nearby fortress was
more practical than profound.
Addressing his bulky artillery officer Henry Knox (who was
later his Secretary of War), Washington’s first words as he began that historic
journey were: “Shift that fat ass Harry or you’ll swamp the damned boat!”
John Adams, 1797-1801 -- Adams, perhaps the most austere
president that we ever had, turned out to have had a real sense of humor. He must have had one; otherwise he would
never have used the pseudonym “Humphrey Ploughjogger” for an article on agriculture
that he wrote for publication in two Boston newspapers on July 18th,
1763.
Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1809, is the only president to have
had twin siblings, his sister Anna and brother Randolph Jefferson.
James Madison, 1809-1817 -- Last words can be agonizing,
sad, or even profound, but few are even close to humorous. However, on the morning of Tuesday, June 26th,
1836 shortly after 6 a.m., Madison, who’d been confined to his room for months,
seemed to be having trouble swallowing his breakfast. When asked by one of his nieces what the
problem was, he replied, “Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear!” Suddenly
his head dropped and he was gone.
James Monroe, 1817-1825 -- President Monroe’s daughter Maria
Hester was the first presidential daughter to be married in the White House
when she married her first cousin Samuel L. Gouverneur on Thursday, March 9th,
1820. Only 42 people including family
and close friends were invited. The
Monroes’ decision to keep the wedding a private affair met with considerable
criticism in Washington.
John Quincy Adams, 1825-1829 -- John Quincy Adams had two
sons, George Washington Adams and John Adams II. Young John Adams II is the
only presidential son, so far, to have been married in the White House.
Andrew Jackson, 1829-1833 -- General Jackson’s only
expressed regret as he died on Sunday, June 8th, 1845 at his home in
Tennessee was that he hadn’t hung his first vice president (John C. Calhoun of
South Carolina) for treason in 1832.
That was the year that Calhoun passionately supported his home state’s
legislature when it voted to nullify, within its borders, a federal tariff act
and threatened to secede from the Union.
Martin Van Buren, 1837-1841 – Van Buren was the first
president born in independent America. English was his second language; Dutch
was the language spoken in the Van Buren home.
William Henry Harrison, March - April 1841 -- Harrison hoped
to study medicine but was forced to drop out of college upon the death of his
father, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He served in the military and became a general,
a territorial governor, a senator, a diplomat and, finally, served as our ninth
president for exactly 30 days.
John Tyler, 1841-1845 -- Legend has it that Vice President
John Tyler was playing marbles with his children when, on the morning of
Monday, April 5th, 1841, Fletcher Webster, the son of Secretary of
State Daniel Webster, arrived at Tyler’s home to tell him of the death of
President William Henry Harrison.
James Knox Polk, 1845-1849, to this date is the only former
Speaker of the House of Representatives to become president.
Zachary Taylor, 1849-1850 -- Taylor was the first president
not to have voted in any presidential election including his own in 1848. He is also the first successful presidential
candidate not to carry his native state, Virginia, in a presidential election.
Millard Fillmore, 1850-1853 -- His name was originally
spelled “phillmore.” Although self-educated,
his intellect, principles and personality were sufficient enough to gain the
admiration and friendship of Harvard-educated John Quincy Adams as they served together
in the House of Representatives between 1833 and 1843.
Franklin Pierce, 1853-1857 -- “Handsome Frank” was a Bowdoin
College classmate of two American literary giants: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Against his
publisher’s wishes, Hawthorne dedicated his 1863 book “Our Old Home” to his
good friend Franklin Pierce.
James Buchanan, Jr., 1857-1861, was such a cutup at Dickinson
College that he was nearly expelled. Prior
to his senior year, college officials wrote James Buchanan, Sr. urging him to
keep his eldest son at home the following Fall.
Buchanan mended his ways enough to graduate in 1809, but it was close.
Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865 -- On Thursday, February 12th,
1976, Lincoln’s 167th birthday, the contents of his pockets on the
night of his assassination were revealed.
They included: two pairs of spectacles, a chamois lens cleaner, an ivory
and silver pocketknife, a large white Irish linen handkerchief (slightly used
and embroidered “A. Lincoln” in red), a gold quartz watch fob without a watch,
and a new silk-lined leather wallet containing a pencil, a new Confederate five
dollar bill, news clippings about unrest in the Confederate army, emancipation
in Missouri, the Union Party platform of 1864, and an article on the presidency
by John Bright.
Andrew Johnson, 1865-1869 -- Vice President Johnson was
probably the easiest mark for the group led by John Wilkes Booth that conspired
to murder Lincoln, Secretary of State Seward and Johnson. George Atzerodt, who was assigned the job of
shooting Johnson, got a room at the Kirkwood House just above Johnson’s room,
but lost his nerve the night of Good Friday, April 14th, 1865. (Note: In case you wondered, Atzerodt spared
Johnson’s life but did not escape the noose nor did Mary Atzerodt, George’s
mother, who knew of the plot but took no part in it.)
Ulysses S. Grant, 1869-1877 -- Grant sheparded a civil
rights law through Congress in 1875 that LBJ would have been glad to sign. The law granted blacks “full and equal
enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of
inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters and other places of public
amusement.” The law was declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1883.
Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 1877-1881 -- Hayes’s accession to
the presidency was so controversial that outgoing President Ulysses S. Grant
decided that Hayes should be privately sworn into office. Grant’s term ran out at noon on Sunday, March
4th, 1877, but he had his successor sworn in the previous evening in
a secret White House ceremony. Since
Sunday was the Sabbath, Hayes wasn’t publicly sworn in until noon on Monday,
March 5th.
James Abram Garfield, March-September 1881 -- Garfield, at
age 48 years, 3 months, and 14 days, was the third youngest president to take office
up to his time. (Only Grant and Pierce
were younger than Garfield at the time of their inaugurals.) He was the first
president whose mother, Eliza Ballou Garfield, witnessed his inauguration. Sadly, she would survive her son by nearly
seven years!
Chester Alan Arthur, 1881-1885 -- Arthur, probably the least
known of all our presidents, could be called the Father of the modern American
Navy. Under President Arthur’s direction,
three steel battle cruisers and one dispatch ship, the Atlanta, Boston, Chicago
and the Dolphin, were commissioned. (The Dolphin was the dispatch ship.) At
that time, the navies of a number of Latin American countries were rated more
powerful than ours.
Stephen Grover Cleveland, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897 -- Cleveland
was designated by the State Department as our 22nd and our 24th
President. Cleveland was a highly
principled man with a steel will, solid integrity, but little imagination. Having served as Sheriff of Erie County, New
York (1871-1873), he was the only county sheriff ever elected president.
Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893 -- Harrison, the grandson of
President William Henry Harrison, was a magnificent orator and a brilliant
lawyer, but cold as ice as a human being.
So capable was he as an attorney that, during his post presidency, the
British government hired him to make their case in an international dispute
before an arbitration panel. He lost the
case, but kept their respect.
William McKinley, 1897-1901 -- McKinley was fatally wounded
on Friday, September 6th, 1901 while attending the Pan American
Exhibition in Buffalo, New York. Earlier
on the day he was shot, he became the first sitting president to leave the
country while in office when he strolled across the center of the “Peace
Bridge” that links Niagara Falls, New York and Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. McKinley thought it would be inappropriate to
cross the entire bridge, but reportedly he did step across briefly into
Canadian territory.
Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909 -- TR hated the nickname
“Teddy.” On another personal matter, he
was once asked by reporters if he had any control over his somewhat rebellious
daughter Alice. His response was, “I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both.”
William Howard Taft, 1909-1913 -- Taft was the first man, except
for those with a military background, to become president in his first run for public
office.
Thomas Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921 -- Wilson, the son of a
Presbyterian minister, openly asserted that God had ordained his election. He told William F. McCombs, Democratic
National Chairman, when he came to discuss worthy Democrats who might receive
cabinet appointments and other favors that “as long as you understand that I
wouldn’t be in this position if God hadn’t ordained it, we can get on with our
business.”
Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1921-1923 -- Harding, who really
does get less respect than he deserves, is generally credited with creating a phrase
used by every “red-blooded American” in reference to our 1776 forefathers. The phrase
he coined is: “our Founding Fathers.”
John Calvin Coolidge, Jr., 1923-1929 -- As for Washington “crossing
the Delaware,” according to a book entitled “Meet Calvin Coolidge,” the last
thing Coolidge did prior to his fatal heart attack around noon on Thursday,
January 5th, 1933, was to work on a jigsaw puzzle of Washington
crossing the Delaware.
Herbert Clark Hoover, 1929-1933 -- Hoover was the second man
without a military background to become president on his first try to win elective
office.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933-1945 -- FDR, although he
manipulated his nomination for a third term in 1940, nearly didn’t go through
with it. Angered when delegates at the Chicago
convention balked at his nomination of Henry A. Wallace to be his running mate,
FDR made two moves to get his way. He
sent Eleanor to the convention to talk of “no ordinary time” and he made it
known through channels that it must be Wallace or he would refuse the
nomination.
Harry S. Truman, 1945-1953 -- Truman, when nominated for
Vice President at the 1944 Democratic National Convention in San Diego, gave
the shortest acceptance speech since such speeches had been given. His lasted only about 30 seconds.
Dwight David Eisenhower, 1953-1961 -- The name on our 34th
President’s birth certificate is David Dwight Eisenhower. However, his mother, Ida Elizabeth Stover
Eisenhower, who detested nicknames, called him Dwight to distinguish between
him and his father David Jacob Eisenhower.
The nickname that stuck to him, Ike, was at one time or another given to
all six Eisenhower boys: Arthur, Edgar, Dwight, Roy, Earl and Milton.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1961-1963 -- During Nixon’s run for
the Senate seat from California in 1950, JFK gave Richard Nixon a check for one
thousand dollars from his father, Joseph P. Kennedy,
Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-1969 -- LBJ remained nameless
for the first three months of his life.
He was simply called “baby.”
Finally, Rebecca Baines Johnson decided to name him after a family friend
and lawyer by the name of W. C. Linden. However, she changed the spelling from
L I N D E N to L Y N D O N.
Richard Milhous Nixon, 1969-1974 -- Many considered Vice
President Nixon’s crowning achievement during his 1959 visit to the Soviet
Union to be his public “kitchen debate” with Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
However, according to Peter Carlson’s 2009 book about Khrushchev entitled “K
Blows Top,” Nixon’s greatest achievement may have occurred earlier that day at
the close of their first private meeting in the Kremlin. Angered over the recently passed “Captive
Nations Week Resolution,” Khrushchev asserted that the resolution bore the
stink of the worst possible barnyard smell: horse manure. Nixon immediately one-upped Khrushchev when
he asserted that pig dung was far worse than horse manure. Reportedly,
Khrushchev laughingly agreed with Nixon.
Gerald Rudolph Ford, 1974-1977 -- Jerry Ford was the only
president to have been an Eagle Scout.
James Earl Carter, 1977-1981 – Jimmy Carter’s nickname
growing up was “hot” which was short for “hotshot.” The nickname was given him by his father Earl
Carter.
Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1981-1989 -- Ronald Reagan almost
didn’t become president due to a strange irony.
While on a campaign plane in 1976, Reagan nearly choked to death on a
peanut or peanuts. Only quick action by
Michael Deaver, who applied the Heimlich Maneuver, saved the candidate's life. Everyone immediately wondered, “might it have
been one of Jimmy Carter’s peanuts?”
George Herbert Walker Bush, 1989-1993 -- George and Barbara
Bush hold the distinction of being the longest married presidential
couple. They were married on Saturday,
January 6th, 1945 in Rye, New York.
Thus they just celebrated their 69th wedding
anniversary. The Carters are the second
longest married presidential couple.
William Jefferson Clinton, 1993-2001 – Bill Clinton cut his
political teeth on George McGovern’s presidential campaign in Texas which he
worked on in 1972. His employer was Gary
Hart who would briefly be his rival for the 1992 Democratic Presidential
nomination.
George Walker Bush, 2001-2009 -- Bush, as president of the
Texas Rangers American League baseball franchise, demonstrated definite
executive nerve when he traded young outfielder Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White
Sox for a veteran outfielder named Harold Baines in 1989. Sosa would go on to hit 66 home runs in 1998,
63 in 1999, 50 in 2000 and 64 in 2001 for the Chicago Cubs thus becoming the
only slugger in baseball history to have three 60 plus home run seasons.
Barack Hussein Obama, 2009 to the present -- Obama’s
brother-in-law is Craig Robinson, the head basketball coach at Oregon State. His assessment of the president is that of a
coach or a leader of men. He says the
president is confident but unselfish, a “team player,” who does what needs to
be done for the team regardless of how it affects his own persona.
Yes, indeed, presidents are quite interesting people, just
like you and me!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
No comments:
Post a Comment