THE SEVENTH SON OF NOVEMBER FOURTH

By Edwin Cooney

On the eve of President Bush’s inauguration eight years ago (which was four years before I began writing these columns), I composed the first part of the essay which follows. It emphasized the possible significance of Election Day, November 7th, 2000. Keep in mind that November 7th, 2000 was a VERY controversial election.

For the seventh time in its history, America prepares to inaugurate a President elected on November 7th. As George Walker Bush, humble in manner of speech, seemingly bold and determined in purpose and action, prepares to take the oath, the date of his election might cause him to pause and absorb a powerful dose of humility. Only one of his six predecessor’s elected on that date has survived his term with both his health and reputation in tact.

For Richard M. Nixon, November 7, 1972 must have been a glorious day. His victory over Democrat George McGovern was massive in its popular and electoral proportions. Although his popular vote margin was nearly 18 million and his electoral vote total was 520 to 17, in less than two years he would be forced to resign his office in disgrace due to the Watergate scandal.

On November 7, 1944, the people elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt to an unprecedented fourth term. Just five months and five days later, the physical and emotional ravages of economic Depression and world war appeared to have caused the death of the most irreplaceable leader of any time.

In 1916, Woodrow Wilson’s narrow November 7th victory over Charles Evans Hughes was ultimately disastrous, both politically and physically, for the President. In October 1919, he suffered a debilitating stroke. It was brought on by exhaustion in the wake of his efforts to override Senate Republican objections to his League of Nations proposal. One month later, his dream was over when the League and the Versailles Treaty were rejected by the United States Senate.

On November 7, 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes not only lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden by 250,807 votes, but he was also nineteen electoral votes short of the needed 185 majority to become President. Tilden, with 184 electoral votes, was only one electoral vote shy of election. Utilizing their political and legal power in three southern states (South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana), Republican leaders were able to maneuver the largely innocent Ohio governor into the White House. A suspect emergency Presidential Election Commission and a secret early swearing in ceremony at the White House in the wee hours of Saturday, March 3, 1877 made Hayes the new president, but his good name was forever tarnished by the denigration of his name as “Rutherfraud B. Hayes”.

Zachary Taylor became the nation’s twelfth president on November 7, 1848 thereby transforming a lifelong soldier into a politician. Sixteen months and five days later, he was pronounced dead. He had swallowed too much contaminated cherry ice milk during a long and hot 1850 Independence Day celebration.

Only to James Monroe does November 7 seem to have been kind! Healthy and popular at the close of his term, his name would forever live as a cornerstone of American foreign policy. The Monroe Doctrine signifies America’s determination to protect its own (and the Western hemisphere’s) sovereignty and liberty.

No matter who we are or how we voted, we must surely hope that the fate of this 54-year-old Texan will surpass those of Presidents Nixon, Roosevelt, Wilson, Hayes and Taylor. “We the People” will best be served if President Bush, the Seventh Son of November 7th, fares as well as the tall, aristocratic, sturdy, and good-natured Virginian James Monroe.

And now it is January 2009 and we can look back and ask: was November 7th kind to George Walker Bush? Has he avoided the fate of five of the other seven men elected on that date? Does he, like James Monroe, now leave office with his health and reputation intact? What say you?

Like George Walker Bush, incoming president Barack Obama is the seventh son of the date of his election: November 4th. Unlike President Bush and his election date, it appears that the six previous men elected on this date do not have much in common, although here is what stands out:

Six of the men elected President on November 4th did so representing a state other than their native state. They were:
Andrew Jackson (elected November 4th, 1828) who was born in North Carolina and elected from Tennessee;
Grover Cleveland (November 4th, 1884), born in New Jersey and elected from New York;
Calvin Coolidge (November 4th, 1924), born in Vermont and elected from Massachusetts;
Dwight David Eisenhower (November 4th, 1952), born in Texas and elected from New York;
Ronald Wilson Reagan (November 4th, 1980), born in Illinois and elected from California; and
Barack Hussein Obama (November 4th, 2008), born in Hawaii and elected from Illinois.
Only James Buchanan (November 4th, 1856), who was born in Pennsylvania, represented his native state as a presidential candidate.

Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan and Grover Cleveland entered the presidency as single men. Rachel Jackson died of a heart attack on December 28th, 1828 while her husband was President-Elect. Buchanan was a bachelor and remained so. Grover Cleveland married twenty-one year-old Frances Folsom in the White House on Wednesday, June 2nd, 1886.

As for events which took place during November 4th presidencies, there is some irony here. Andrew Jackson drove native Americans westward along the “Trail of Tears” while, during Grover Cleveland’s November 7th term, the Bureau of Indian Affairs was created. During James Buchanan’s Administration, blacks were declared “property” by the U.S. Supreme Court. However, during Eisenhower’s November 4th Administration, the Supreme Court, led by Earl Warren, the man Ike appointed Chief Justice, declared that “separate was unequal”. During the Coolidge Administration, Charles A. Lindbergh successfully flew the Atlantic, while during Mr. Reagan’s November 4th Administration we lost the Challenger.

“What ironies await President Obama?” you wonder. I wonder, too!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY