Presidents.

The 17th President

ANDREW JOHNSON

(1865-1869)

Back in 1824, if you were to ask anyone in Raleigh, North Carolina, if

anything good would ever become of sixteen-year-old Andrew Johnson,

you'd probably have received a worried smile and a sad shake of the head

for an answer. In those days, no one in town would have given a dime for

the lad's chances. In fact, the local tailor, James Selby, ran an

advertisement in the local paper offering a ten-dollar reward for

information leading to the capture of a whole gang of teenagers, and

ended by saying: " ... or I will give the above reward for Andrew

Johnson alone." Andy's crime, as folks around Raleigh understood it, was

that he had thrown rocks at the Widow Wells's windows. He and his pals

said that all they were doing was trying to get the attention of her

daughters, who they considered "right smart," and, besides, no windows

were broken. But Mrs. Wells let them know she was going to "persecute"

them to the full extent of the law anyway. By that time, Andy had his

belly-full of persecution, and decided to run away from home. He had

lost his father at the age of three, and as soon as he was old enough

his mother had apprenticed him to the tailor Selby. And when Andy left

town, he was careful to take his tailoring tools with him, which angered

his master even more than the loss of a hired hand. Young Johnson hadn'

t been a model worker anyway. He was a trouble-maker who lured the other

apprentices into doing all kinds of time-wasting things like swimming

whenever they felt like it. He even had the effrontery to ask Selby to

teach him to read during working hours. When Andy left Raleigh, he

planned to stop at Carthage, about sixty miles away. But when he got

there, he thought he feIt Mrs. Wells's breath on his neck, and he kept

on going, supporting himself as an itinerant tailor as he went.He

decided to stop at Columbia, Tennessee, where he got a job in a tailor

shop and spent his days listening to stories about Andrew Jackson, who

lived a few miles down the road and was thought-of in those parts as

part-man, part-god. Young Andy drank it all in, and based his political

outlook on Jacksonian lines. He would eventually outdo Old Hickory as a

populist. Word eventually reached him in Columbia thathis mother was

destitute, so he went home again. His former employer was out of

business by then, but all was not forgiven, so Andy loaded his mother,

his stepfather and all their belongings into a cart and headed back

across the mountains toward Tennessee. They stopped their trek at

Greeneville, which happened to need a tailor at the time . Andrew

Johnson announced that they had found the best in the business, and

opened his own shop. Two months later, he married Eliza McArdle, a local

girl he had met when he passed through town the previous year. He was

eighteen years old, she was seventeen. Of all the things Eliza was to

give Andy during their life together, one of the most important could

almost be considered her dowry. She knew how to read and write, and her

new husband was an eagerstudent. He never quite mastered spelling,

though. When he was President, he misspelled his own name, and when it

was called to his attention, he thundered, "It is a man with a small

imagination who can't spell his name more than one way." Even though he

could read and write, the idea of going on to college was out of the

question, but Johnson did the nextbest thing. He joined the debating

society at a local college and used it tocultivatehis principles, his

speaking voice and his skill as a debater. Meanwhile, his tailor shop

had become the central gathering place for Greeneville's working people

to exchange news and gossip and to grumble about the patrician Whigs who

controlled the local political life. Almost every hour of every working

day there was a lively conversation going on in the shop, and to make

sure they all got their facts straight, the proprietor hired a man to

read books and newspapers aloud for fifty cents a day. And when there

was no one around to talk to, the tailor propped a book in front of him

to read as he worked.Finally, the boys decided to do more than just talk

about politics. The town was govemed by rich planters and merchants who

never allowed any opposition in local elections, but in 1829 the gang

from the tailor shop picked their own candidates and distributed ballots

at the polls on election day. Their entire slate was elected to the town

council, and Andrew Johnson was among them. They repeated their success

in the next three elections, and then made Andy Johnson Mayor of

Greenville. Needless to say, the Whigs were upset. But, for all their

huffing and puffing, the tailor won the next two elections. He might

have done it again in 1835, but he had another job by then. The people

had elected him to the Tennessee Legislature. He was like a fish out of

water in state politics and lost his chance for a second term. But

Andrew Johnson had a passion for learning, and two years later he had

learned his lessons well enough to win a chance to redeem himself in the

legislature. Through it all, his business flourished and he was able to

send his four children to private schools. He got more than his money's

worth because he spent part of each evening studying their lessons as

part of his own self-education.He was well- known as a stump speaker by

then, and the Democratic party leaders relied on him to get their

message to the farmers and working class people of East Tennessee. On

the other hand, when he told them that he wanted to represent those

people in' Congress, they were horrified. But he didn't give the

Democrats a choice. He ran as an independent andI won.Johnson didn't

follow the party line as a Congressman, but though his record was

respectable, he didn't take Washington by storm, either. Nor didt he jump

into the social scene, which is the way most officials play the game of

Washington politics. His idea of fun was spending time in the Library of

Congress, even though it was never a popular gathering place for his

colleagues, past, present or future. When his term ended, he ran for a

second and won in spite of lukewarm support from the Democrats. And in

his second term he was more independent than ever. Even his fellow-

Tennessean, President James Polk, couldn't count on his support. But the

people back home understood independence better than almost anything

else, and in spite of a bitter mud-slinging campaign, Johnson was

reelected to Congress for a third term. But only by a three-hundred vote

majority.Squeaking into Congress chastened him, and Johnson didn't oppose

the President or his party when he went back to Washington. But even

after the fence-mending, he decided not to run for a fourth term because

the Whigs had gerrymandered his district to include counties solidly in

their camp. He had another job in mind by then, anyway. In 1852 he became

Governor of Tennessee. His business had prospered during his ten years in

Congress, and Eliza had taken good care of his money. They had bought

property in Greenville and were said to be worth about $50,000, a tidy

fortune at the time. But none of his neighbors was surprised that the

tailor was rich. Andy Johnson squeezed all the value out of every

nickel, and he was just as tight with the public purse. When he left

Congress he was given a check for $768 in back pay, but returned $216

representing days he hadn't actually worked. In spite of his wealth, he

still considered himself a friend of the working man, and they loved him

for it. When he ran for a second term as Governor, he won by a landslide

- in spite of a stand defending Catholics and immigrants, of whom there

were very few in Tennessee - against the Know-Nothings who were sweeping

elections in other states. He also took a stand against prohibiting the

sale of liquor, which gave rise to rumors that he was a drunk. He

wasn't.Johnson's impeachment trial became one of the most memorable

events of his Administration, even if the charges themselves were

questionable. He didn't run for a third term, but in 1857, when he became

a United States Senator, he said: "The people have never deserted me;

and, God willing, I will never desert them."As a Senator, his loyalty to

the party that elected him was the same as it had been when he was a

Representative, almost non-existent. Andy Johnson was his own man. But he

kept the faith with the people. He was single-minded about a bill to give

every householder his own homestead from public lands, and his battle to

get it passed gave him national recognition. When the bill finally passed

Congress, it was a tribute toJohnson's doggedness. He had worked against

stiff opposition for fourteen years, first in the House and then in the

Senate, for such a victory. But his jubilation was short-lived.

President Buchanan vetoed the Homestead Bill, and Congress sustained it.

But there were better days ahead for Senator Johnson.After Abraham

Lincoln was elected in 1860 and Southern States began holding conventions

to consider secession, Congress was sharply divided along regional lines.

But, true to his independent spirit, Andrew Johnson, nominally a Southern

Senator, damned both sides, charging that both the secessionists and the

abolitionists were trampling the Constitution, and went on to charge the

South with nothing less than treason. It hardly constituted oil on

troubled waters in the halls of Congress, but Johnson's stock with the

people in every part of the country went up dramatically.As the debate

wore on, Johnson dug in his heels,and even his bitterest enemies had to

admit that h speeches delayed the disunion that seemed inevitab] to

everyone except Andrew Johnson. When his own state began leaning toward

secession, he went hom to do what he did best, to make stump speeches.

The were parts of the state he couldn't cover because passions were

running too high against him. He wc threatened with lynching more than

once, and carrie a pistol to defend himself against tough-minde

secessionists. All of his audiences were filled wit them. In the end,

Tennessee seceded and Andrew Johnson was himself branded a traitor. He

narrowly escaped with his life and went backSenate, even though the state

he represented didn consider him one of its officials any longer. He als

called for an end to party politics in the interest ( savingtheGovemment.

ItwasgoodnewsforPresider Lincoln, who needed bipartisan support more tha

ever. Within a few months, the President gaveJohnso a new post. He was

sent home to become Militar Govemor of Tennessee. It was risky business.

TheI was still a price on his head back home. But the wc there was going

badly for the Confederates, and in matter of weeks the Union Army was in

control. was a frustrating job, butAndrewJohnson was exact! the right man

for it. During his tenure as Militar Govemor, more than seven hundred

battles wer fought in the state, and Johnson's sense of fairness t both

sides was the only bright spot.His efforts didn't go unnoticed. They

brightene his political star in other parts of the country, too, an when

the Republicans met to nominate Lincoln for a second term, the President

quietly suggested that would make a good running mate. It was ,e man who

had given up the safety of ton to support the war effort went back to ton

in 1864 as the Vice President of the United States.weeks later, Abraham

Lincoln was dead and Andrew Johnson had become President. No President,

even Abraham Lincoln, ever faced such difficulties. The wounds of war

were deep, and s heart was still with his people. And though resident of

all the people, his sense of loyalty less made it more difficult for him

to take the bold steps necessary to make reconstruction work. s was more

divided than ever, but most of its s agreed that Andrew Johnson was their

enemy. The Democrats among them felt that he had sold them out, and the

Republicans thought he was Democrat at heart. Nearly all of them had with

him in Congress and thought they ood him perfectly. They certainly didn't

consider him a man to be respected, and they set out establish their own

power without any fear of ion from Andrew Johnson, President or not.

problems came to a head in 1869 when he fired ry of War Edwin Stanton.

Congress had passedalaw,overJohnson'sveto,forbidding oval of Cabinet

members without the consent nate. It was high crime in the eyes of

Congress, peachment proceedings were begun. In the ren Republican

Senators broke ranks and voted e Democrats against impeachment. The

matter was dropped, but Johnson wasn't renominated the .following year.

His presidency had come to an end.. He went back to his tailor shop a

greater hero , his neighbors than ever. Andy Johnson had spunk, they

said, and they loved him for it. They proved it by electing him to

represent them again in late. The country was stunned, but few weren't

,sed. A newspaper that had opposed him as Preeident couldn't contain its
admiration at the new turn of.events,which it said was, "the most

magnificent personal triumph which the history of American .politics can

show." Men who had voted to impeach him where his colleagues again. But

if Andy Johnson any held any animosity toward them, he didn't

,acknowledge it. "I have no wrongs to redress but my county's," he said,

and launched into an attack on the corruption of the Grant

Administration, characteristically laced with facts and figures that

proved what he had to say. Congress was in no mood to listen, but the

galleries were packed with people were, the people Andrew Johnson wanted

to anyway. It was the last time he'd reach out to the people. At the end

of the three-month session, Johnson went home to his family. But on his

first day back he suffered a series of strokes and died. His was buried

on a hillside overlooking Greeneville. A few years monument was built

over the grave, its simple inscription summing up the career of the

seventeenth President: "His Faith in The People Never Wavered."

The 18th President

ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT

(1869-1877)

After General Robert E. Lee handed his asword to Ulysses S. Grant on

April 9, 1865, the commander of the Union Army was on the receiving end

of gifts nearly everywhere he went. His former nighbors in Galena,

Illinois, took up a collection and gave him a sixteen-thousand dollar

house, furnished in the latest fashion. The citizens of Philadelphia gave

him a house worth a good deal more, New York City gave him one hundred

thousand dollars in cash, and Boston came up with five thousand dollars

worth of books for his library. And he was pleased to accept nearly

twenty prize horses, to his mind possibly the greatest gift of all, from

individual admirers. Four years later, the citizens of the United States

gave him the presidency. But less than ten years before he moved into the

White House, Ulysses Simpson Grant seemed to be doing all he could to

live up to his boyhood nickname of "Useless." He had drifted to Galena

with borrowed railway fare to take a job with his younger brothers as a

clerk in their leather goods store. His brothers regarded him as an

incompetent fool and the job as an act of charity. He had been cashiered

from the army for drunkenness, he had tried selling real estate and

failed in a booming market, and he had made a mess of trying to support

his family by farming land that had been given to him. If anyone could be

called a failure at forty, Ulysses S. Grant was that man. It wasn't that

he was a stranger to hard work. Grant was born in 1822 in backwoods Ohio,

where survival depended on it. He began working when he was seven, and as

soon as he was old enough to handle a plow he was put in charge of the

family farm. His father had a tanning business to run and needed the help

his oldest son could give. Young Ulysses was just as happy not to have to

work in his father's shop because he detested the killing of animals, and

couldn't stomach the idea of working with the skins of dead creatures.

His love of animals, which was almost an obsession, made him one of the

best horse-handlers for miles around, even as a small boy. But except for

that, he didn't show much talent for anything else, least of all getting

alonx with people.His father was able to give him an education, and had

bright hopes for his future. But when the boy was sixteen, he rejected an

offer to follow in his father's footsteps and the elder Grant, who wasn't

without influence, suggested that he might want to go the U.S. Military

Academy at West Point instead. He didn't, but it was the lesser of two

evils. Besides, it would get him out of Ohio, and give him a chance to

see both Philadelphia and New York, something he had always wanted to do.

But as for the trip up the Hudson to the Academy, Grant said later, "I

would have been glad for a steamboat or a railroad collision by which I

might have received a temporary injury sufficient to make me

ineligible."The authorities may have secretly wished the same. Cadet

Grant was a misfit if ever there was one. His slouching posture may have

been the worst ever seen at West Point, his marching style was better

suited to a ploughman than a soldier, and in four years of trying, no one

was ever able get across the idea that spit and polish was the hallmark

of an officer and a gentleman. He seemed to find it offensive to brush

his clothes, to button his jacket, to clean his gun or to get out of bed

at the sound of a bugle call. He was marked immediately as "unsoldierly"

and put into the special "awkward squad," where he stayed until it became

awkward for his officers to leave him there.He wasn't too interested in

studying the arts of war, either, and spent as much time reading novels

as accounts of the Napoleonic campaigns. But he wasn't a complete

failure. At the end of his second year, he was promoted to sergeant,

though it was whispered itwasbecausehecouldn'tmarchinstepandsergeants

marched behind, not with, their men. But his career as a non-com ended in

his last year and he became a private again. Still, he made it through

the full four years. His class had been reduced from seventy-six to

thirty nine, but Grant was still hanging on at graduation time. He

ranked twenty-first in his class. He went into the army as a second

lieutenant after that, and was sent to a quiet post a few miles south

of St. Louis. Not much happened there, except that he met Julia Dent,

the sister of one of his former West Point classmates. He asked her to

marry him, but before they could he was shipped off to Louisiana and

didn't come back for four years. It was fine with him, he was too shy

for courtship anyway. It was apparently fine with Julia, too, because

when he finally did come back for her, she married him even though her

father didnABt approve.

But in the meantime, Lieutenant Grant got his first taste of a shooting

war when he served as a quarter master under Zachary Taylor, and later

under Winfield Scott in the Mexican War. He was with the army when it

reached Mexico City and served there for eight months in the army of

occupation. It was Luring that time that he began drinking. When he

married Julia, and they were transferred o the shores of Lake Ontario,

he took a temperance pledge, but it didn't stick. After he was made a

captain and moved to the wilds of northern California, he went off the

wagon with a thud, and his commanding officer finally asked for his

resignation. On July 31, 1854, Captain Ulysses S. Grant became a private

citizen without a job, without money and fifteen hundred miles from home.

He managed to get back to Ohio on borrowed money, and eventually reached

Missouri, where his father-in-law gave him an eight-acre farm. When that

failed, he tried to support his wife and four children in the real estate

business and, failing at that, went to Illinois to accept the charity of

his brothers. Meanwhile, the country was heading pell mell into a civil

war, and it seemed obvious that there would be a place in it for a West

Point-trained army officer. After the attack on Fort Sumter, he joined

Galena's volunteer militia company and turned the men into a presentable

unit. But when they marched off to Springfield to join the state

militia, he was the least presentable of all, and followed the company

in his threadbare clothes several paces behind them. He had hopes of

becoming a militia officer, but the Governor couldn't seem to find

anything for him to do. He put Grant in charge of creating forms for the

adjutant-general and then turned his attention to handing out commissions

to men with better political connections. Grant later said that he'd

have been just as happy to sit out the war there, but he felt that

since the government had given him an education, he had an obligation

to use it in government service. But his letter to the War Department

was never answered. Eventually, he was made a drill master at a nearby

militia camp. But though he did a good job of turning farm boys into

soldiers, he still looked like a farmer himself. He couldn't afford a

uniform. And when the volunteers moved out to fight the war, Grant went

home. There was nothing more for him to do. If the authorities didn't

see any value in having Grant around, the men he had trained had

acquired a grudgingrespectforhim.Andwhenitbecameobvious that the

captain in charge of the Twenty-First Illinois I was an incompetent,

Captain Grant was recalled. They were an unruly lot and a lack of

discipline had turned them into something more like a mob than a

fighting unit. But within a month, Grant transformed them into a proud

regiment. They even saluted the officers. But Grant, who had been made a

colonel, still didn't look the part. He let junior officers lead his men

| in dress parades because he stilldidn't have a uniform or a horse. A

local businessman came to his rescue, and when his regiment moved into

Missouri to chase down renegade rebels, he wasn't forced to walk and

his clothes weren't threadbare.

Missouri wasn't the place for an officer to make a name for himself, but

an odd bit of political maneuvering brought Grant' s name up in

Washington one day. Brigadier generals were created at the time by the

President on the advice of political leaders, rather than on their

military records. The Congressman from Galena was put out that no

commissions had gone to any of his constituents, and he insisted on

having at least one to his credit. He got what he wanted, and the

ranking of ficer in his district read in a newspaper a few weeks later

that he was now Brigadier General Grant.

The rest, as they say, is history. A few days after receiving his

commission, he led an assault on Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River,

and in an afternoon took not only the fort, but fifteen thousand troops.

The people of the North, hungry for a victory, were ecstatic. Grant was

promoted to major general and put in command of all the Union forces in

Western Tennessee.

His record from there on made him even more of a public hero, and though

there were disasters along the way, he earned a place in the hearts of

the folks back home with an impressive victory at Vicksburg and at

Chattanooga, cutting the Confederacy away from the Mississippi River and

the West. But he got an even better reward than public acclaim.

President Lincoln made him a member of the regular army rather than a

general of the militia as he had been until then, and put him in command

. Exactly thirteen months later, the Confederacy crumbled and General

Grant was a national hero the like of which the country hadn't seen since

George Washington himself. And America's enthusiasm never wavered, even

through eight years of a disastrous presidency.

In a way, it was the adulation that brought disaster to the Grant

Administration. He thought the presidency was a reward and not a

responsibility, and he didn't have any feel for politics. That was just

fine with the politicians. There was money to be made. A company had been

formed to build a transcontinental raikoad, and the Government was

committed to help by donating public land and lending the builders $27

million or more to finance the project. It was like giving some

Congressmen a key to the treasury.

They became stockholders in Credit Mobilier, the company that held

mortgages on the unbuilt railroad, and sat back to watch the money pour

in. After their scheming was revealed, the books were closed, and the

Congressional investigation that followed didn't turn up any hard

figures, nor any indictments. No one knows who made what, though the

profits to the stockholders were estimated at $23 million, and most of

them hadn't invested any of their own cash. It was conceded that Grant

himself wasn't involved. He never seemed directly involved in any of the

financial scandals of his eight years in office, in fact. But as much as

the people loved President Grant, he admired men who knew how to make

money and was very good at looking the other way when they did. He was

indirectly involved in what was nearly a successful scheme by Jim Fisk

and Jay Gould to corner the gold market by raiding the Federal supply.

He smiled when Congress doubled his salary, and then said nothing when

they raised their own and made the increase retroactive for the previous

two years. He didn't raise an eyebrow when the Treasury Department hired

an enthusiastic collector of back taxes and gave him half of all he

found. And when his WarSecretaryresignedafterbeingaccusedofpeddling

influence for profit, the President accepted it with "deep regret."

By the end of his eight years in the White House, Grant was weary with it

all, and took his wife on a trip to Europe. They had no special plan, and

said they'd come home when they ran out of money. They were gone more

than two years and traveled around the world. When he came home, Grant's

supporters were clamoring to send him back to the White House. He may not

have liked the idea, but didn't discourage it. He needed the job. When he

lost the nomination at the 1880 Republican Convention, he went to New

York to find work. He went into the investment business with a young man

named Ferdinand Ward, who turned out to be swindler, and took Grant and

his son for everything they had. By the time Ward went to jail to atone

for his financial sins, the former President was left with less than two

hundred dollars to his name. He had a small income from investments, but

to all intents and purposes, the most popular man in America was broke.

No less a person that Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, came to

the rescue with a contract for Grant to write magazine articles about the

Civil War, and an advance of $25,000 on his memoirs. It would be enough

to support him for the rest of his life, which it was now painfully

apparent wouldn't be long. The former president had throat cancer. He

worked as fast as he could on the book because he desperately wanted to

provide for Julia after he was gone. And less than a month after the

manuscript was finished, the great man died. The book realized $450,000

for his widow, more money than he had ever been able to give her in

life.

His funeral was described by the London Times as the greatest assembly of

distinguished Americans ever brought together. But it also represented an

outpouring of affection by ordinary Americans . Grant was something more

than just a war hero, he was one of them. A few years later, some ninety

thousand ordinary people raised funds to build a marble tomb for the

former president and his wife overlooking the Hudson River in New York.

It became a more popular attraction than the Statue of Liberty for more

than three decades. More than a quarter of a million people visited

Grant's Tomb each year to remember the man who was possibly the most

popular president who ever lived.
The 19th President

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES

(1877 - 1881)

The advertisingslogan, " I Got My Job Through The New York Times"

could easly have been created for Rutherford Birchard Hayes, who may

never have been President excepet for a bit of skulduggery that been in

The TimeABs editorial office on election nigth, 1876.

The paperABs first edition that night had said that first returns

were inconclusive, but pointed out that the election seemed to be going

to Hayes's Democratic opponent, Samuel J. Tilden of New York. It

presented a dilemma to the editors. Tilden was a local boy, but the Times

was a strong voice for the Republican party in those days. As they met

to decided what to say in their second edition, they recived a message

from the state's chief Democrat asking for their figures wich, then as

now, were considered unusually reliable. They also had an inquiry from

the Democratic National Committee asking for their figures on the races

in Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina.

Like good newspapermen, they read between the lines. If the Democrats

werenABt sure their man had carried those four states, why pint the news

that Tilden had won, as the rival Tribuna had done? They proceeded to

assume that Hayes had carried all the questionable states except Florida,

and pointed out that if Hayes was a winner in the Sunshine State, he'd be

president by one electoral vote.

It was heady stuff. What if he could? One of the editors wnt to the

Republican National Headquartes and galvanized them into action. They

sent wires to the party chairmen in all the doubtful states, telling them

not to concede. Then a party official boarded a train for Florida to help

nudge it out of he doubtful column. Meanwhile, each the other states

involved claimed a Hyes victory, and the post-election final edition of

The Times reported thet the Republican candidate had won. But it wasn't

over yet.

The Democrats didnABt take it lying down. They raised technical questions

about the legality of elections in a half-dozen states, and confusion

reigned for more than a month. The law required that all returns should

be validated by December 6, the day the electoral college was schedule to

meet, and Louisiana, the last state to report, waited until less than a

hour before the deadline. By declarying for Hayes, it gave him yhe

presidency by the one vote The Times had claimed back in November. And

thatABs when the crisis really began.

The Democrats issued a challenge, and each state was requierd to resubmit

its vote. In Oregon, one of the Republican electors turned out to be a

Federal Governor appointed one of his own fellow party members to replace

him. It gave one of the stateABs three votes to Tilden, and changed the

balance in the Democrat's favor.

At the same time, it was revealed that an Oregon

Republican elector had been "bought" by the other side for $10,000,and

then it was reportedthatsimilarly "outrageously villainous"

manipulations had taken place in other states as well. The Democrats

countered with what they said was proof that the other side had paid even

more and said that both sides had been offered Louisiana's votes for a

million dollars. Neither side admitted to having paid anything, but one

of the players pointed out that "the spirit of politics is different in

Louisiana than it is with us."

As the charges and countercharges raged and boards of inquiry were

established, inauguration day was coming fast, and no one knew for sure

whose hand would be placed on the Bible come March 4. It was up to

Congress to decide. But Congress has never been known for making speedy

decisions, especially when politics are involved. Hayes proposed that

the President of the Senate should make the decision, based on the

certification of each state's election board, and his finding taken to

the Supreme Court for final judgement. Tilden said that both houses of

Congress should investigate which state canvasses were valid and leave

the final decision up to the House of Representatives. It was only

natural. The Democrats had a majority in the House. The President of the

Senate, who had replaced the deceased Vice President, was possibly the

most loyal Republican in the country.

While the country was waiting for a decision, passions ran high. There

were threats of an armed uprising. Democratic war veterans banded

together to pledge a hundred thousand soldiers to march on Oregon to

claim its vote. Republicans promised half again as many armed men to

take Oregon and California, too. Tilden supporters pointed out that, as

Govemor of New York, he had the power to call up the National Guard in

his state, and the influence to produce the militias of several

neighboring states.

Tilden himself was more conciliatory, though far from willing to give

up. He called for arbitration, which the politicians interpreted as an

invitation to make deals. The Southern bloc was interested in ending

occupation by Federal troops. They were also interested in a

transcontinental railroad across the South, and called for the

excommunication of carpetbaggers from the political process there. They

found a willing partner in Mr. Hayes, who had been thinking along those

lines anyway.

On the other hand, neither of the presidential hopefuls was sure of the

complete loyalty of his party brethren. Both men had run campaigns

dedicated to driving the rascals out, and as they were discovering,

rascals don't go without a fight. There were politicians on both sides

who would have been pleased to see their own candidate on the outside

looking in. When Hayes seemed willing to make a deal with Southern

Democrats, the Northern Republican bosses began to grumble, and cracks

began appearing.

It was finally agreed that a special commission composed of members of

both houses and the Supreme Court would iron out the mess, and that

their decision would be binding unless it was rejected by both the

Senate and the House. Both candidates were against the scheme, but both

finally agreed to it.

The commission worked on a state by state basis, and in the end ruled

that all of the Southern states in question, as well as Oregon, were

committed to Hayes. But there was still plenty of counting and probing

to do, and the Democrats in the House decided to stall the effort by

talking it to death. A filibuster could keep the commission's decisions

from coming to the floor for a vote and render them moot.

The talkathon finally came to an end, and voting began, after a marathon

eighteen-hour session two days before inauguration day. At four in the

morning, the President of the Senate announced that Rutherford B. Hayes

had received 185 electoral votes and Samuel J. Tilden 184. "Wherefore, I

do declare," he said, "that Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio, having received

a majority of the whole number of votes is duly elected President of the

United States." It was over. But some newspapers couldn't resist

referring to the Presidentelect as Rutherfraud B. Hayes.

Neither Hayes nor Tilden were the kind of men to involve themselves in a

gutter-fighting political circus, although both were thoroughly

experienced politicians. Hayes had engineered his own inauguration, but

had emerged as an independent man, as William Cullen Bryant wrote,

"whose very name is conclusive evidence of the most uncompromising

determination of the American people to make this a pure government

once more." Tilden had been involved in the downfall of the infamous

Tweed Ring in New York City and was perceived as a dedicated enemy of

corruption. The country had been rocked by scandals during the at

Administration, but the President himself was immensely popular. Both

candidates in the 1876 election were selected on the basis of their high

ideals their admiration of Grant as a man. But, as was customary in

those days, neither of them actually compaigned for the office. That was

the job of the party leaders. And that was the problem. They were, by

and large, the same men who had got Grant into trouble, and in spite

of high-sounding rhetoric, they ated to keep the good times rolling.

Like Andrew Jackson, Rutherford B. Hayes was born a few months after the

death of his father. The elder Hayes, a descendant of a family that

emigrated m Scotland to Connecticut in the 1680s, had made _spectable

living in New England before moving to Delaware, Ohio, where he built

the town's first ck house and furnished it more elegantly than any use

for miles around.

Ironically, one of the sources of his income was a tillery. As President,

Hayes imposed a strict ban on ohol at the White House, much to the

chagrin of ashington partygoers, one of whom commented :er a state

dinner that "the water flowed like ampagne." Hayes took all the credit

for the ban along with a prohibition on smoking and cussing side the

White House gates. But most people put the ame at the door of Mrs.

Hayes, the former Lucy Dare Webb, daughter of a prominent family from

irginia and Kentucky whom most Washingtonians Llled "Lemonade Lucy."

As a young man, Hayes hadn't suffered any of the ,ual hardships

associated with fatherless boys in the 3th century. He was looked after

by his mother's rother, Sardis Burchard, one of the richest men in

Ohio. Burchard owned the biggest retail store in :leveland and he had

bought so much land in that art of Ohio th87t the Seneca Indians

referred to him as the man who owns all the land."

With money comes influence, and there was almost o one in Ohio who didn't

owe at least one small favor o Sardis Burchard. He saw to it that his

nephew had e best possible education, first at expensive private

ademies, then at Kenyon College. Hayes went on to udy law at Harvard,

and then opened a law practice Lower Sandusky, moving quickly on to

Cincinnati, where business was better.

>From that point on, he didn't need Uncle Sardis's money any longer,

though it was always available to him if he did. His law practice was a

huge success and asideline of land speculation more profitable still. By

tne time he married Lucy, he was able to buy the most elegant house in

Cincinnati for her, and was starting to think in terms of a career in

politics for himself.

His first elective office was as city solicitor, a job he gave up just

before the outbreak of the Civil War when he joined the army as a

captain. In the space of a few months, he became an adjutant general,

and before much longer he had gone through the ranks, so to speak, to

major general. It was a title he treasured for the rest of his life,

and he swelled with pride at being called "General Hayes."

He became something of a war hero back in Ohio when he sustained a major

wound in combat, and the local politicians took advantage of it by

nominating the General as a candidate for Congress. Hayes was pleased to

accept the honor, but pointed out that there was still a war to fight and

that he'd neither campaign for the of fice nor serve until his country

didn't need him any longer in the field of battle. They kept him on the

ballot anyway, and he was elected. But true to his word, he didn't go to

Washington until almost a year after the war had ended.

It is the kind of stuff American voters have always treasured, and they

reelected Hayes to Congress in 1866. After that, they gave him two terms

as Governor of Ohio. He turned down a bid for the U.S. Senate in 1872,

but he was reelected Governor again four years later, and a year after

that he became the Republican candidate for President.

The long road didn't end on inauguration day. There were death threats

and Hayes was urged to go to Washington in secret, but he insisted on

riding to the Capitol in an open carriage. Six special government

agents were assigned to protect him, the first time the "Secret

Service" took on the responsibility for a President's life. But their

services weren't required. Hayes had taken the advice of his advisers

and had secretly taken the oath of of fice two days earlier, but the

public ceremony went off as scheduled without the threatened

disruption. And then he proceeded to make a statement that changed the

way America looks at itself.

Like so many of the men who preceded him, the major thrust of his

inaugural address was a search for solutions to the Southem problem. He

said it was time for them to get back to self-govemment, and that the

Federal occupation of the Southem states should end. He also said that

the Govemment had an obligation to establish rights for the people it

had emancipated. Then he told his audience that it was time for the

United States to stop thinking of itself as a union of states, but as a

nation. It was almost a year into the country's second century, but it

was a new idea. And it was food for thought.

He began to put the idea to work by withdrawing Federal troops from the

South and ending the era of Reconstruction. And then he took on the

politicians who had grown fat over the years through the dispensing of

Federal jobs with an executive order making it a rule that Federal

employees could not be required or permitted to take part in political

organizations. It didn't do much for his personal popularity, but it

required that anyone on the Govemment payroll who also held a party

post had to resign one or the other. He had made good on his promise to

reform the civil service and, for a change, the rascals were beginning

to be driven out. His own fellow Republicans were affected as well as

Democrats, and neither side had much use for Rutherford B. Hayes.

In the middle of his Administration, Hayes's old adversary, Tilden,

reopened thewounds of theelection by calling for a Congressional

investigation of new irregularities he said he had uncovered. But after

more than six months of hearings, the committee concluded that Tilden's

men were more guilty than Hayes's and the matter was quietly dropped.

Hayes was exonerated and Tilden's political career ended. Hayes had said

that he didn't want a second term, and the party leaders, who weren't

too enamored by the way he had hit their pocketbooks, took him at his

word. But they ran on his record and won. He retired to the Ohio mansion

his uncle had bequeathed to him and spent the rest of his life making it

more magnificent than he had found it, just as he had done with the

office of the presidency.

The 20th President

JAMES A. GARFIELD

(1881)

In 1872, a strange man who in his checkered career had been a street

corner evangelist, a bill collector, a blackmailer and a storefront

lawyer, decided to try his hand at politics. An ambassadorship would be

nice way to begin, he thought, and eventually the road would surely

lead to the presidency itself. Charles Julius Guiteau took the first

step by writing a speech supporting the candidacy of Horace Greeley in

the '72 election and delivered it at every opportunity he could find.

Greeley lost anyway, and Guiteau went back to preaching on street

corners. But he believed God had singled him out for greater things,

and when it seemed that former President Grant would be the Republican

nominee in the 1880 campaign, he changed a few words in his Greeley

speech and got ready to take to the hustings for Grant.

As it turned out, James A. Garfield was the Party's choice but that was

no problem for Guiteau. All it took was a new paragraph and a new title,

and after sending it off to the printer, the writer sat back and waited

for invitations to deliver it from every available stump. None came, but

when Garfield won the election, Guiteau was convinced it was his speech

that did the trick. He had spent several months sitting in the lobby of

New York's Fifth Avenue Hotel, the Republican Party headquarters, and

developed a nodding acquaintance with all the important leaders who

rushed past him each day. All of them had been hand ed copies of his

speech, even though it is unlikely any of them read it, and they

generally regarded him as an eccentric. Guiteau, on the other hand,

regarded them as intimates, and after the Garfield inauguration he

expected red carpet treatment at the White House. To his credit, the new

President didn't even smirk when the scruffy little man told him he

expected an appointment as Minister to Austria. When the officeseeker

was told the post had already been filled, he allowed that he'd settle

for Paris instead. Garfield politely agreed to turn the request over to

his new Secretary of State, James G. Blaine. Guiteau, who had often

tipped his hat to Blaine back at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, was sure his old

friend would take good care of him.

But Blaine was unimpressed, and Guiteau began haunting both the State

Department and the White House, leaving behind notes signed only with hi

initials. As he was wearing out his welcome, his singlc suit was wearing

out even faster. His shirt was frayed his socks long since discarded,

and it was obvious hc was long overdue for a square meal. But Charles

Guiteau was a determined man. After more than twc months of daily

visits, though, his confidence bega to waver. A White House usher

threatened to have him arrested if he ever showed his face there again

and on the same day, the Secretary of State told hin never ever to

mention the name Paris in his presence again. It was the day Charles

Julius Guiteau decided that "if the President was out of the way,

everything would go better." He had a little bit of money left and

invested ten dollars in a fancy pistol. He could have gotten a cheaper

model, but his sense of destiny told him that his gun would eventually

become a museum piece.

He began haunting the city jail with the same doggedness he had shown at

the White House. If h~ was going to kill the President, he needed to be

sure of being taken to a place that would be safe from lynch mobs. Once

he was satisfied that the jail was safe anc comfortable, he started

stalking Garfield. He couldn' shoot him in the White House because he

had worn out his welcome there, and he couldn't get him in crowd because

he didn't know how to handle a gur But he knew his time would come.

His best opportunity came a full month after h began, and after he had

made at least three attempl and lost his nerve each time before pulling

the trigge: As Garfield was crossing the waiting room c Washington's

Baltimore & Potomac railroad statio on his way for a vacation, the

assassin fired two sho into his back and rushed off in the direction of

the nearest policeman who hustled him off to the safety the jail.

The doctors who saw Garfield in the next fe hours gave up all hope that

he'd survive his wound But he lived through the night, and even seemed c

the way to recovery the following day. He live through eighty more days,

in fact, with his person popularity rising with each daily medical

bulletin. By the time he died in mid-September, there wasn't a person

in America who wasnABt overtaken with genuine grief, except possibly

Charles Julius Guiteau who was convinced all the way to the end of a

hungmanABs rope that his act had been an act of God.

James Abram Gardfield had considered himself a man of God all his life.

He greww up on the Northern Ohio frontier, where religion pound people

together. He had been saved by the disciples of Christ a nineteen, and a

year later enrolled in the sectABs own school to continue his education in

mathematics and science and in the ways of the world throughthe eyes of

evangelical Christians. He took to eat like a duck to water and his zeal

made him the schoolABs best debater. It also put him in great demand as a

preacher and it was a rare Sunday the young Garfield didnABy apper in the

pulpits of at least two churches.

He said that he felt that the hand of the Lord was guiding him to some

higher purpose, and in 1854 he ventured out of the wilderness to become a

student at Williams College in Massachusetts. The hand that guide him

there belonged to Mark Hopkins, the school President who became his

mentor. GarfieldABs view of the world broadened under HopkinsABs,wing, bu

t

the stuck his faith and spent weekend touring obvious that he had made a

career choise, but at the end of his two years at Williams, he decided

that it would be better to become a teacher because, "it is disagreeable

to talk of money with the connection with the Gospel, and yet it must."

He needed meney because he wamnted to marrye Lucretia Rudolph, daughter

on an influential member of the Disciples of Christ, and a trustee of

GarfieldABs former school, the Electric Institute, back in Ohio. Garfield

had earned the money to go to Williams by teaching at the Electric and

his old job was still open. He decided to take it, make Lucretia his wife

and live happily ever after in the Ohio Western Reserve. But he had seen

the outside world by then and things werenABt quite the same back home he

remembered them. Even when they made him President of the school and and

he was eable to liberalize its outlook, he felt he should operating on a

bogger stage.

GarfieldABs big chance came when a state senator died, and he was

chosen to succeed His well developed skill as a speker made him a star in

Columbus, and the national election of 1860 his speeches for the

Lincoln-Hamilin ticket were credited with delivering the Ohio vote to the

Republicans. Whe war broke out, he was one of the first ro join up, but

the Governor, who had the final say in such matters, rejected his request

on the grounds that he was to valuable in the Legislature. Eventually,

though, he was appointed Colonel of the 42nd Regiment, a sorry bunch of

farmas boys with nothing to recommend them but enthusiasm, and very

little of that. Garfield had some experience in dealing with such lads

back at the Electric Institute, and he turned them into soldiers in a few

weeks, drilling and disciplining them by day and educating himself in the

arts of war by night.

They gave a good account of themselves in Kentucky and Garfield

became a hero back home. He has soon put in command of a brigade and his

fame spread even wider. It didnABt go unnoticed by the Republican

ledarship in Ohio, who were desperate for a congressional candidate. When

they asked him, Garfield refused to volunteer. He had long since

developed a personal policy of never taking an assignment that didnABt

come looking for him. He won the election by a three-to- one margin.

But in the meantime, he was still in the army, and in the period

between the election and the covering of Congress he was made and general

and sent to Tennessee as Chief of staf of the Army of the Cumberland. And

when Congress got down to bussiness at the end of 1863, the thirty to

years old freshman Representative from Ohio took his seat in a brass-

buttoned generalABs uniform. He would soon get rid of the uniform, but he

kept the set for the next seventeen years during which time he would

serve as Chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee.

Almost from his first day in Congress, he was something of a

curiosity because of his voice. He himself said that in all his years in

the House,, almost none of his collegues could be heard in every part of

the room as well as he could. And as an ex-preacher who had developed a

florid, classical style of oratory, all of his colleagues listened to

what he had to say. He became known a s a radical, who not only viewed

all Democrats as agents of Satan, but didnABt think all Republicans were

saints, either. Among the Reublicans he despised was Abraham Lincoln, who

he described as a "second- rate Illinois lawyer." But in interest of

party harmony, he did agree to support President for a second term.

He didn' t get along very well with Andrew Johnson, either, saying

that Lincoln's successor was nothing more than a back-sliding Democrat

and, as he delighted in pointing out duringJohnson's campaign

reelection, so was Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Both. But if he had

made enemies of some Republican presidents, his loyalty to the Party

itself verged on aticism, and he became one of its acknowledged leaders.

Typically, though, he found it hard to respect other leaders, and he

joined with others to form a ng of their own. But just as typically,

when they proposed that he should run for the Senate, he refused less

the nomination first came to him. It didn't, and stayed in the House of

Representatives.

Some of the mud hurled at members of Congress ho bought railroad

stock during the Grant lministration stuck to Garfield, who had been

aproached by the stock peddlers and had invested in e scheme. But he had

also seen the error of his ways and got out long before the scandal

broke.Yet it didn't help his political career, and for the first time he

had work for reelection. It shook his faith in politics, but not enough

to be counted out.

He was the senior Republican in the House by en, and in line to

become Speaker, which he often id was the highest of fice he ever really

wanted. He as made a member of the bipartisan committee formed to make

a final decision on the contested election of Rutherford B. Hayes, and

he found himself in a position to change the fortunes of his beloved

Party. And in the midst of it all, his own fortunes hanged when the

Ohio leadership made him a United States Senator.

It was then that serious rumors around Washington lad it that

Garfield was on the verge of becoming 'resident. Garfield himself,

characteristically, put lown the rumors and accepted an offer from

Presidential hopeful John Sherman to represent him as a delegate to the

1880 Republican National Convention. It was one of the stormiest

conventions of all time, with former President Grant trying to make a

comeback and a half-dozen others, including Garfield's kiend, Sherman,

trying to stop him. After twenty-eight ballots, almost none of the

delegates had changed their votes, and none of the contenders had enough

to win t he nomination. The activity in the smoke-filled back rooms

went on around the clock, and when it was reported to Garfield that he

was being considered to break the deadlock, he said "I won't permit it."

They surprised him with the announcement that he had received

sixteen Wisconsin votes on the thirtyfourth ballot. When he rose to his

feet to protest, the chairman ruled him out of order and the bandwagon

started rolling.

It meant that each of the state delegations had the right to alter

their own votes before balloting could be considered closed. Before the
poll was over, Garfield had been nominated by acclamation. It meant

that he'd have to give up the Senate seat he had just won without ever

filling it, but in spite of his protestations the candidate was a happy

man. He retired to the kont porch of his home in Mentor, Ohio, to keep

an eye on the campaign and wait for the voters to have their say. It

was a close election as it turned out, the closest in American history

in fact, with the margin of victory at less than one-tenth of one

percent. When the votes were counted the Democrats talked of contesting

it, but backed down when they remembered the trauma of the Hayes- Tilden

election. The outcome gave Garfield something more than a lease on the

White House. It breathed new life into a tottering Republican Party and

now he had a chance to rebuild it in his own image.

In the early days of his Administration, Garfield was able to calm

the troubled political waters, and showed signs of becoming one of the

great presidents. He was even, in his short term, able to reduce the

national debt, saved the taxpayers some $10 million a year and produced

enough confidence in the Govemment that it was able to sell its own

bonds without consorting to middlemen. The people, who had been hungry

for presidential leadership, felt they had found their man, and many

were saying that he was the greatest President since Andrew Jackson. In

terms of popularity, they may have been right. But no President before

him, Jackson included, had as much political savvy as James A.

Garfield. And by the beginning of his first summer in office, when he

was finally able to put his knowledge to work, the future looked very

bright, both for the President and the country. It was then he decided

he could could take an extended vacation on the New Jersey shore. But a

man with a gun changed everything.

The 21st President

CHESTER A. ARTHUR

(1881-1885)

Chet Arthur President of The United States? Good God!"

It doesn't rank as one of the great political slogans of American

history. But during the weeks President James A. Garfield was fighting

for his life after having been struck down by an assassin, it was the

most commonly-heard comment about his possible successor, Chester A.

Arthur. As The New York Times said of the Vice President, "no holder of

that office has ever made it so plainly subordinate to his self-interest

as a politician and his narrowness as a partisan." But no one was nearly

as nervous about the succession as Mr. Arthur himself. When word reached

him that the President had died, he wept openly, not for the dead

President, but for the new one, and said, "I hope ... my God, I do hope,

it's a mistake."

During the Grant Administration, a wing of the Republican Party known as

the Stalwarts had amasse a huge amount of power following their

philosophy that every job in government had a price tag, an every of

ficial owed time and loyalty as well as money to the party boss. Chief

among the bosses was Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, and Chet Arthur

was. his chief henchman. It was only natural that when the job of

Collector of the Port of New York became open President Grant gave the

nod to Arthur in return fo his hard work and unswerving loyalty to

Republican in general and Stalwarts in particular.

Of all the jobs in the Federal Government, the Collector at the New York

Custom House was easih at the top of the heap in those days. The $50,0N

annual salary, the same amount the President earned made it a plum all by

itself. Members of Congress and

Supreme CourtJustices earned only $7,500. But mon important, the Custom

House payroll was close to $2 million, which was worth employee kickbacks

to th Party of nearly $40,000 a year. And the Collector wa the man who

decided who got jobs and who kep them.Chester Arthur was easily the right

man for the job.

He earned his stripes as the head of the New York Quartermaster office

with the rank of Brigadie General during the Civil War. Responsible for

all thl army's food and equipment purchases in New York State, he became

a very important man to the loca business community. He eamed their

respect throug] what they saw as a sense of fairness, and he earned their

friendship with his personal style and flair fo the good life. By the

time he got .the Collector's job, he, had established himself among the

importan businessmen in New York by joining all the righ clubs, and was

more like one of them than the politica hacks who had been Collector in

years before. Eve] though they knew he was Conkling's boy, they also knew

they could trust him and he became their conduit to the White House. He

didn't let them down. He also won the confidence of his employees by

using hi influence to save some from proposed job cuts, and to save all

from projected salary cuts. And the Republican politicians loved him from

the beginning. Everyone who knew him knew they could count on him for

favors big and small; to find jobs, to rush shipments through customs.

Whatever needed to be done, he ,gave them service with a smile.

They all agreed Chet Arthur was the hardestNorking Collector any of them

could remember. But hat could have been just a matter of who they ompared

him to. He did improve efficiency to a emarkable degree, but he almost

never showed up for work himself until early afternoon. Chester Arthur

was a bon vivant during an age still remembered or its lavish life

style. He enjoyed nights out with the boys, and almost never arrived home

before the small hours of the morning. But his nights on the town, nuch

as he enjoyed them, were another facet of the ob. They cemented

friendships and extended his nfluence, which helped make Roscoe Conkling

and he Stalwarts all the more powerful.

After years of agitation to reform the civil service, lll hope was

abandoned during Grant's second term, md men like Chester Arthur were

free to dispense avors on a grand scale. And because he did it well, he

became the first man in a generation to keep the job of Collector for the

full four-year term. When Grant nominated him for an unprecedented second

term, :he Senate confirmed it without debate and without a lissenting

vote.

But when Rutherford Hayes became President, the issue of civil service

reform came back with a rengeance, and a special commission was

established o investigate the operation of a half-dozen custom ouses,

beginning with the one in New York. For six long weeks, the spotlight was

on Chester A. Arthur, nd he apparently had reason to squirm. The

Commission concluded that his New York operation was overstaffed,

inefficient and corrupt. Few mployees earned less than $500 a year in

bribes, and nany admitted to collected twice as much. As for Arthur

himself, he said that as far as he was concerned there was no way to

improve the efficiency of the New York Custom House, and that he had

never hired nyone who wasn't qualified to do the work.

The Commission was unimpressed. It asked for a wenty percent staff cut

and longer hours for the people who kept their jobs. President Hayes

responded by saying that the best way to change things and restore

confidence was to start at the top, and Arthur was asked to resign. The

Collector was given the option of accepting an ambassadorship, which

would have allowed him to leave New York with his head high and his

personal reputation intact. But Arthur was still a loyal Conkling man and

rejected the offer as the Senator got ready to do battle with the

President over his fiefdom at the edge of New York harbor. Hayes

nominated businessman Theodore Roosevelt, Father of the future President,

to replace Arthur, but tle needed the approval of the Senate. And as

Chester Arthur sat tight, Conkling began manipulating his .olleagues in

Washington. After more than a month Df debate, Hayes's nomination was

rejected.

But Hayes didn't give up. Four months later, a Government investigator

reported that an employee of the New York Custom House had pocketed more

than $40,000 of Uncle Sam's money and then had been promoted. It led to

two separate investigations, and in mid-summer, when Congress wasn't in

session, Hayes suspended Arthur and, because Roosevelt had died, gave the

job to Edwin Merritt. He knew he'd have a problem with confirmation when

the Senate convened again, but he was sure Merritt could bring about

enough change in the meantime to make it hard for them to object. Arthur,

meanwhile, refused to resign and in December he went to Washington to

save his job. But after two months of stormy testimony, the

Administration won and Chester A. Arthur was out of a job.

He wasn'twithout resources, though. AfterMerritt began sharing his

office, he went back to his old law practice. he didn't lack

opportunities for clients, thanks to the contacts he had developed at the

Custom House. And he used his time to strengthen the Stalwarts' political

fences. As far as he was concerned, things would get better when the do-

gooders were voted out along with Hayes in the next election, and he was

willing to wait.

Arthur and his fellow Stalwarts went to Chicago for the 1880 Republican

Convention firmly committed to renominating former President Grant and

making the country safe for the New York machine again. But for all their

manipulative skill, the Stalwarts couldn't muster enough votes for their

man. And when the deadlocked convention settled on James A. Garfield, the

boys in the smoke-filled rooms decided that the ticket headed by an

Ohioan needed to be balanced with a running mate from New York, which

delivered the most electoral votes.

Roscoe Conkling was shocked when he heard that the likely candidate would

be Chester A. Arthur, and advised his lieutenant not to accept. But

Arthur, in a rare show of independence, decided to go for it. He was able
to deliver the New York delegation, even though Conkling boycotted the

caucus, and took the nomination on the first ballot. Conkling sat out

most of the election and there seemed to be a rift between him and his

friend the candidate. But after the inauguration all was forgiven ,and

C0he two men were a team again.

When Garfield passed over New York hopefuls in his Cabinet appointments,

Conkling began a war against the Administration, and his most loyal

supporter was one of its key members, the Vice President himself. But

Garfield was tough and responded to Conkling's threats by withdrawing his

nominations of New York Stalwarts to lesser Govemment jobs, leaving the

Senator swinging in the wind without any patronage at all. And to add

insult to the injury, he nominated William Robertson, a Conkling enemy,

to take over the New York Custom House. Conkling responded by resigning

from the Senate and taking his fellow Senator, Thomas Pla with him. Their

letters of resignation, ironicall accused the President of wrongfully

rewardir political cronies with lucrative jobs. It went again their

principles, they said.

When they went back to New York, the Vice President followed them, making

it dramatically clear that, though he was a member of the President's

tear his loyalty was still with the former Senator. In fa they were in

Albany together, manipulating New York's divided Republicans on July 2

when President Garfield was shot. And to make matters worse, the

assassin, Charles Guiteau, announced to the poli officer who arrested

him, "I am a Stalwart, and nol Arthur will be President." The most commo

interpretation of that remark among Washingto gossips was that Conkling

and Arthur had engineere the assassination.

With all that as background, it isn't surprising th. most Americans were

in a state of panic that this mal Chester Alan Arthur, was suddenly so

close t becoming President of The United States.

But Mr. Arthurwasn'twhathe seemed tobe. Itw; true that his political

career had centered on Ne~ York and was further narrowed by his loyalty

to political machine. He had developed a genius for politics in his years

at the public trough, but he ha never developed any illusions about how

much h could accomplish, as politicians often do. During th months

Garfield lay dying, Arthur's activities weIl held up to close scrutiny,

and he came up a winne] The New York Sun, which had never said many goo,

things about him, told its readers, "He is a gentlema in his manners ...

his bearing is manly and such as t prepossess his favor on all whom he

meets. Truth i speech and fidelity to his friends and his engagement form

a part of his_character. he has tact and commo sense." By the time he

took the oath of offlce, th people were ready to give him the benefit of

th doubt.

Roscoe Conkling had no doubts that he'd be named Secretary of State, and

was no doubt surprised when. the new President passed him by. General

Gran made other suggestions for Cabinet posts, and hi choices were passed

over, too. Then Arthu confounded everyone by ignoring New Yorkers a

completely as Garfield had when he was dispensin patronage, and he

confounded Conkling further by refusing to replace William Robertson as

Collector o the Port of New York. Eventually, the President offere~

Conkling a seat on the Supreme Court, but the Bos gruffly turned him

down. It was a great honor, to be sure. But the salary was only $7,500 a

year.

No one called him Chet any more, but thoug. Arthur's political outlook

had changed, his outlook ion life stayed the same. He refused to move

into the White House until it was redecorated, and he sent the New York

for Louis Comfort Tiffany to do the job When the work was done, the

widower Presiden installed his sister as "Mistress of the House," an~

began entertaining on a scale that no president before him had ever

dreamed of. It was to be expected. None of his predecessors was as urbane

as Chester A. Arthur.

His work habits were about the same as they had been back in New York,

too. He showed up for work late and left his of fice early. As one

president-watcher reported, "Great questions of public policy bore him.

No President was ever so much given to procrastination as he is." But he

picked good men to help him do the job and fought hard for civil service

reform. He had a calming effect on the country that had been traumatized

by scandals on every level of the Federal Government, and the second

presidential assassination in less than twenty years. And for all his

perceived weaknesses, he surprised nearly everyone by bringing a new

dignity to the presidency. He may have been a party hack in another life,

but President Arthur was clearly a changed man. The Republicans were

among the first to notice, and by the time they met to pick their

candidate in 1884, a poll of his former cronies back in New York

indicated that more than half of them wouldn't support him for dog

catcher. It may have been the ultimate compliment.

If the politicians deserted him, the people gave him high marks, and as

his Administration came to an end, they were nodding in agreement with

The New York Times 's assessment that Arthur's presidency "has

unquestionably been more satisfactory than was expected." Mark Twain

added, "I am but one of 55 million; still, in the opinion of this one-

fifty-fivemillionth of the country's population, it would be hard indeed

to better President Arthur's Administration."

No one knew that Arthur was fatally ill and had no intention of running

for a second term. He went through the motions to stop rumors about his

health, but he had known from the beginning that after 1885 he'd "go into

the country and raise big pumpkins." He had been born in rural Vermont,

but Chester Arthur wasn't a country boy. When he retired, he went back to

New York to pick up the pieces of his law practice. He died less than a

year later. At his funeral, the man who had become a master of machine

politics early in his career was eulogized not as the man he had been,

but the man he became. "Good causes found in him a friend and bad

measures met in him an unyielding opponent," said one. And even men who

had opposed him said among themselves, "Chet Arthur President of The

United States? Good man!"

The 22nd and 24th President

GROVER CLEVELAND

(1 885-1 889 & 1 893-1 897)

Grover Cleveland was the first Democrat to become President in 24 years,

and there couldn't have been a more unlikely candidate for the job. When

he took the oath of office in Washington, it was the second time in his

life he had everbeen to the capital. The audience he addressed that day

was the largest he had ever seen, and almost no one in the crowd had ever

seen him before. The only elective offices he had ever held were as Mayor

of Buffalo, New York, and Governor of the State of New York, and he

hadn't served a full term in either job.

Yet here he was, all 280 pounds of him, double chins hanging below a

walrus moustache, looking for all the world like "the hangman of

Buffalo," which was what the Republicans had called him in the recent

campaign. The slur stemmed from the fact that once, while Cleveland was a

county sheriff, he stepped in to hang a man when the of ficial

executioner lost his nerve.

There had been seven different candidates for the presidency in 1884,

including one championing women's rights and another advocating

temperance. The Republican candidate, James G. Blaine, was much better-

known than Cleveland, and a much more experienced politician. But he also

had a record of his own to defend, and it was less than honorable. After

it had been revealed that he had used his influence as Speaker of the

House of Representatives to help a railroad in return for the right to

sell its bonds at an inflated commission rate, The New York Times

switched its support to Cleveland. It must have broken The Times's

editorial board's heart to support a Democrat, but it announced it could

no longer recommend a man like Blaine who had revealed himself as "a

prostitutor of the public trusts, a scheming jobber and a reckless

falsifier."

All in all it was a nasty campaign. None of the candidates spent as much

time attacking the issues as they did attacking each other. There wasn't

much in Cleveland's public record to attract negative attention, so the

Republicans began looking into his private life.

Ten years before, a local widow, Maria Halpin, had "bestowed her favors"

on several Buffalo men, including Mr. Cleveland. She became pregnant and

claimed that the father of her son was the rising young lawyer. Cleveland

accepted the responsibility and arranged for the boy's adoption. Maria,

meanwhile, turned to alcohol and eventually suffered a mental breakdown.

Cleveland arranged to have her institutionalized and forgot about the

whole thing until one day, in the midst of the presidential campaign,

demonstrators appeared at his door shouting, "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa? Gone

to the White House. Ha ha ha."

If there was anyone in America who hadn't heard of Grover Cleveland by

then, they couldn't read or they didn't go to church. It was exactly the

kind of issue that could sell newspapers and could help preachers hold

the attention of their parishioners. Before long, lurid stories were

circulating that Cleveland had kept a harem in his bachelor apartment and

had spent much of his time prowling the streets of Buffalo looking for

innocent women who could satisfy his lust for a few hours before being

spirited away to some dark insane asylum. It was a terrific issue for the

women's rights candidate, who worried in her speeches about what effect

Cieveland's debauches would have on otherwise pure, but impressionable,

young men; not to mention the impact a Cleveland presidency would have on
the mother, daughters and sisters of every American man.

It was all very titillating until the real father was tracked down. His

name was shrouded in secrecy because he was a prominent married man. But

in exchange for anonymity, he told the press that Cleveland, who was

single at the time, took the responsibility both for him and for the poor

fallen woman. Short of marrying her, he had "done the right thing," he

said. The tide turned dramatically in Cleveland's favor and, fortunately,

the election was still four months away, more than enough time for the

voters to forget the scandal. Cleveland, on the other hand, didn't

forget, and even though newspaper reports ultimately cleared his name, he

never forgave the press for bringing it up in the first place, and he

steadfastly refused to grant interviews for the rest of his life. It was

a policy that eventually made his life as a public man more difficult

than it should have been. He may have had good reason to be angry,

though,because the affair may have contributed to an unusually close

election. When it was over, Cleveland carried his home state by slightly

more than a thousand votes and the national election by less than 24,000.

The Republicans said that Grover Cleveland had been elected by accident,

but if that was the case, it may have been the happiest accident that

ever happened to America.

After all those years of one-party rule, the republicans were living off

the fat of the land. And after winning the 1884 election, the Democrats

got the idea that they could begin doing the same thing. But Grover

Cleveland wasn't the man to help them do it. In his first term, he vetoed

more bills than all twentyone of his predecessors combined. He also set a

new record for replacing of fice holders, and not one of the firings was

based on anything more or less than a careful look at the man's record.

Who did the looking? No less a person than the President himself. He was

a demon for work. During his first few months in of fice, he didn't even

have a secretary. It never occurred to him that he needed one. He wrote

his own letters in longhand, and since there was only one telephone in

the White House, he was perfectly capable of answering it himself.

Words like "industrious," "honest," "fair," usually come to mind in

connection with Grover Cleveland. A newspaper that supported him in the

campaign ran a short editorial under the headline, "Four Good Reasons For

Electing Cleveland." It said, "1. He is honest. 2. He is honest. 3. He is

honest. 4. He is honest."

He seems to have come by it honestly. He was born Stephen Grover

Cleveland, the fifth of nine children of a Presbyterian minister and his

wife, in Caldwell, New Jersey. He was fifteen when his father died and he

took on the responsibility of supporting the family. He was never out of

a job after that. When he was eighteen, he set off for the greener

pastures of Cleveland, Ohio, an on the way stopped offin Buffalo to visit

his uncle, Lewis Allen, a successful local farmer. It happened that Uncle

Lewis was writing a book on the pedigrees of American short-horn cattle,

and persuaded his nephew to stay and help him with it. Before the project

was over, he convinced the boy to stay and used his influence to get him

a job in a local law office where he could learn enough to become a

lawyer himself.

Once he passed the bar, he became well-known for his thoroughness. No one

ever accused Grover Cleveland of brilliance, even during his presidency,

but he seemed to love hard work and spent long hours in the library

before ever appearing in court, then memorized all the facts so he

wouldn't let his client down. His attention to detail confounded the

competition, who almost never did their homework as thoroughly. At one

point early in his career, he turned down a chance to become a highly-

paid corporation lawyer because he said he didn't need the money, and he

was having too much fun with what he was doing.

He felt the same about politics. All he knew about partisanship was that

he was against the gang currently in power, but he didn't care enough to

do anything about it. But in 1863, as a favor to a sick friend, he

accepted an appointment as Assistant District Attorney of Erie County,

and unwittingly entered the world of politics as a Democrat. Six years

later they put him on the ballot for the of fice of Sheriff. He told them

he didn' t want the job, and they told him not to worry. He was nominated

to strengthen the candidacy of their congressional hopeful, and they said

there was no way a Democrat could be elected to a local office. They were

wrong.

He was possibly the most unlikely man ever to run for any of fice. He

weighed about 280 pounds. He had thinning hair and watery eyes hidden

under heavy lids. His moustache drooped like a limp dishrag, his double

chin looked somewhat like the underbelly of a frog. His voice was

slightly high-pitched but flat at the same time. And his complexion was

almost dead white. But in those pre-television days, looks couldn't kill

a candidate, and l9th-century voters liked men they could trust, probably

because they were such a novelty.

"Big Steve" Cleveland was what they used to call "a man's man." When he

wasn't burning the midnight oil in his law library, he could usually be

found in a hunting or a fishing camp sipping whiskey, playing poker and

swapping off-color stories with the boys. Except for work, it was all he

really wanted to Women interested him, but he wasn't intereste being

married to one.

Culture didn't interest him much, either. The books he enjoyed were law

books, and an occas; sing-along satisfied any need he may have hac

listening to music. He did love good food, the more the better, but he

was a classic meat-and-potal man and proud of it.

But if he loved the good life, he had enough of his Puritan ancestors'

blood in his veins to temper it with unbelievably high moral standards.

And when he for Mayor of Buffalo in 1881, he won by a lands even though

he was a Democrat in solid Republi territory.

But if he was the candidate of the Democrats Cleveland was about as non-

partisan in his outloo any politician America has ever produced. His

wrath against extravagance and inefficiency was legend and it didn't

matter to hirn what party label extravagant and inefficient wore. In his

mayoral campaign, he told the voters that he believed pu officials were

nothing more or less than "the trustees of the people." A newspaper

rewrote the phrase and it came out: "A public office is a public trust,"

and it became Cleveland's job description for the rest of his life.

He had been Mayor for less than a year when his successes in cleaning up

Buffalo propelled him to the candidacy for Governor of New York. He said

he didn't want the job, but accepted it as inevitable, and began to root

out corruption in Albany as he had done on the shores of Lake Erie. It

was a big job, but he took on the Tammany machine, nominally connected

with his own Party, and his generally successful effort attracted the

notice of important Democrats outside the state. When they met to pick

their presidential candidate in 1884, the boys in the back room were

excited about this man with the Mr. Clean image. But he didn't have much

more to recommend him. He had told them that he had "not the slightest

particle of ambition" to be President. His combined service as Buffalo's

Mayor and New York's Governor added up to slightly more than two years.

On the other hand, he had done more in that short space of time to prove

that the words "honest" and "politician" weren't a contradiction in terms

than any other man at the convention.

He was at work at his desk in Albany when word reached him that he had

been nominated but, characteristically, he barely skipped a beat and went

right on working.

Cleveland had been President for two years when, at the age of 49, he

decided it was time to get married. It made him the first Chief Executive

to be married in the White House, and his twenty-two-year-old bride was

the perfect choice to brighten the place up. The former Frances Folson,

who had just graduated from college, more than made up for what her

husband lacked in personal charm. She charmed him, too. He once told a

reporter that life in the White House was "one grand sweet song," a

remarkable departure from the attitude of most of his predecessors, most

of whom agreed with President Lincoln that, rather than glory, the office

brought nothing but "ashes and - blood."

Cleveland easily took the nomination for a second term, and won the

election by nearly 96,000 votes. But the votes were in the wrong places.

He lost the presidency by 70 electoral votes. Among the states - that

went for his opponent, Benjamin Harrison, was - New York, Cleveland's own

political base, where the machine politicians had worked against him on

principle or, rather, their lack of principles.

Because of his showing in '88, the Democrats renominated him again in

1892, and his victory made him the 24th as well as the 22nd President.

He won the popular vote for the third consecutive time, whichonly

Andrew Jackson had done before, and the democrats had found a new

lease on life. But their candidate wasn't a loyal party man, and before

the second Cleveland Administration was over the Partyt was divided and

thinking of Grover Cleveland as more of a liability than an asset.

His second term wasn't the same "grand sweet song." It was marked from

the beginning by a depression, which led to mass unemployment, labor

union troubles and distress in the West, where they had never

particularly liked Cleveland anyway. He handled the problems the same way

he always had, one at a time. But the country was changing. He managed to

keep it from changing for the worse, which a lesser man might not have

done, but when he retired to his classic Georgian house in Princeton, New

Jersey, he was a broken man. When he died there eleven years later, his

last words were, "I tried hard to do right."

He had left Washington one of the most unpopular of all the Presidents.

He had refused to let party loyalty come ahead of what he perceived as

best for the people. In return, congressional leaders on both sides of

the aisle regarded him as their enemy. He distrusted the press and didn't

care who knew it. But time heals all wounds, and eventually his efforts

to do right vindicated him. In the world of politics, it's a rare man who

can earn his place in history by placing pure honesty above everything

else. But Cleveland always had been a political maverick. His honesty was

his downfall as President, but in the end, the truth didn't hurt Grover

Cleveland.

The 23rd President

BENJAMIN HARRISON

(1 889-1 893)

A sure winner in any game of presidential trivia would be to name the man

who was the son of a President as well as the father of one. His name was

John Scott Harrison, son of William Henry Harrison, the ninth President,

and father of Benjamin Harrison, the twenty-third.

He missed his place in history because of his father rather than in spite

of him. He began his career as a partner in one of the most prestigious

law firms in the State of Ohio, and was well on his way to political fame

and financial security when he was forced to give it all up to run his

father's estate. William Henry Harrison had inherited an impressive

estate, and had built an even grander one of his own. But financial

setbacks made keeping it all together a full-time job, and the job fell

on his son's shoulders. John Scott did, however, manage to find time to

serve as justice of the peace for two decades, to serve in the Congress

of the United States, and to father twelve children.

Benjamin Harrison was born at the home his grandfather had built at North

Bend, Ohio. Like his brothers and sisters, he was educated on the 600-

acre family farm, and when he was fourteen he was sent to a private

school to help him get ready for college. His father had hoped to be able

to send him to one of the prestigious New England collages, but financial

pressures made it necessary for him to enrol at the nearby Miami

University of Ohio instead. He studied law in Cincinnati and was admitted

to the bar at the age of twenty-one.

By the time his law career began, Ben Harrison was already married to the

former Carrie Scott, and when their first child was born they moved to

Indianapolis, Indiana, where he was able to establish himself as one of

the city's leading attorneys. When the Civil War began, he sued his

influence to recruit more than a thousand young men to form the 70th

Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and led them off to war as a lieutenant. They

gave a good account of themselves in Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama and

when General Sherman led his march to the sea across Georgia, the 70th

was in the van, and Lieutenant Ben Harrison received a battlefield

promotion to Brigadier General.

When he went back to Indianapolis to pick up the pieces after the war, he

was welcomed home as a hero, and was certain he could keep the promise

had made to Carrie that their lives from then on wou filled with "quiet

usefulness." Like all retu veterans, he was faced with a debt that had

accumulating while he was away. But, unlike most of them, he had a

thriving business to go home to even before he hung up his uniform he had

given a profitable sideline as Supreme Court Rep In return for collecting

and organizing all the deci of the state's high court, he was able to sel

resulting books to lawyers and keep the profit, added a new wrinkle by

offering to pay express for out-of-town customers, and sold out the

edition of the 1864 report in a few weeks. His 1 was $1,500, far above

anything his predecessors had ever dreamed of earning.

It was only natural that such success would eyebrows around town, and

eventually Harri activities caught the eye of the local collector fo

Bureau of Internal revenue. He said that Har] was a book publisher and

that made him subject taxes on his income. Harrison replied that he w;

official of the State of Indiana 87nd as such ex from Federal taxation.

The tax man wouldn't down and the case went to court. The judge agreed

with the tax collector. A circuit court reverse decision on appeal, and

Harrison got his money 1 All wasn't forgiven, though. Even in his White H

years he regarded tax collectors as a necessary but an evil nonetheless.

As editor of the court reports, Harrison becar authority on legal

precedents, which made him a more effective lawyer. And his reputation

extended beyond the legal profession and into the wor] politics. he had

also become a spokesman fo] veterans he led offto war. His speeches let

them k he understood their problems, and let the politi know that he

could be a vote-getter. His status, grandson of a President was the icing

on the cak~ he proved his value to the Republican Party campaigning for

General Grant in 1868.

Between Grant's election and his inauguration Ben Harrison represented

the State in a sensal murder trial and won not only his case, but a

reputation in every part of Indiana. It was time, many Republicans

agreed, to make him their candidate for ernor. They tried and failed in

1872, but charges t "plunderersn had engineered the convention to ~p a

good man man down pushed his political star !n higher. Meanwhile, he

himself seemed inclined ,ive up politics in favor of his law practice,

which 1 by then become the most successful and best)wn in the State of

Indiana.

When party leaders approached him to run for governor again in 1875, he

politely refused, saying he was much too busy even to think about it. But

before the convention was over, news papers in both his native OHIO and

his adapted Indiana began saying that General Harrison was a front-runner

for the 18876 presidential nomination. He wasn[t, of course, but the

talk, combined with serious splits within the party resulted in his

nomination for governor as ~the most popular man in Indiana.. It was all

done without the candidate]s knowledge and over his objections. At first

he refused to accept the honor, but after two suspensful days he finally

accepted. The men who nominated him considered themselves indepentents,

but Ben Harrison was the most independent of them all.

Until four days before the election, it looked like rrison would win in a

landslide. The veterans were usquare behind him, and he looked for all

the world like Indiana's most popular man, as his supporters had claimed.

But then a third party Ididate suddenly withdrew from the race. The

mocrats charged that the Republicans had bought n off. Harrison brushed

off the charges and kept on npaigning. But when the votes were counted on

day, the thirteenth of October, the former General lost the election to

democrat "Blue Jeans" lliams. It was a "triumph of blue jeans over blue

blood," said a local newspaper. And the message that Benjamin Harrison

was one of the local elite wasn't lost on the national Republican

leadership.

The presidential election was still a few weeks ay, and Harrison took to

the hustings for James A. Garfield. His speeches in a half-dozen states

gave him ever wider national attention, and when he went me to

Indianapolis, he was not only the Party's der in an important state, but

the recognized ~kesman for young Republicans everywhere in the country.

There was pressure on the new President to represent Indiana in his

Cabinet and the natural choice seemed to be his old friend, B8Enjamin

Harrison.He had delivered his state's electoral votes to Garfield, and

had answered the call to take to the stump in other states as well. In

fact, Garfield had let it be own that Harrison was the only Hoosier he'd

consider for his Cabinet. But Ben Harrison had other ideas.

During the campaign he had quietly planted the thought that he'd like to

represent Indiana in the U.S. nate, and when the republicans took control

of the ,islature, his wish came true. As a freshman Senator, was

foursquare on the side of the republican lministration, but soon an

assassin's bullet changed everything. Benjamin Harrison didn't have the

new President's ear, and without it his influence for patronage to

dispense among the Party faithful back home evaporated. But it forced him

to rely on his own instincts and political talents, and he soon had the

respect and close friendship of most of the important congressional

leaders.

By 1884, talk was revived that Benjamin Harrison was the perfect choice

as the Republican presidential candidate. But this time the talk was

coming from dozens of state delegations to the upcoming convention.

Harrison busied himcself with Senate matters and refused to confirm that

he'd like the candidacy, and when the Republicans met in Chicago that

summer, Senator Harrison was back home in Indiana. He worked hard for the

Republican ticket that fall, but candidate James G. Blaine lost the

election and Indiana's electoral votes. And when Benjamin Harrison went

back to the Senate, it was about to be presided over by a Democrat.

He decided to turn the loss of power to his advantage, and became a

leader in the inevitable battle between President Cleveland and the

opposition. Hardly a day went by that he didn't take to the floor to

speak out against Cleveland, and all the while he was carefully

collecting the grievances of former of fice-holders in both parties which

he used in a heart-wrenching speech claiming that the president had

wronged widows and orphans in his patronage fight. By the time he was

finished, there was hardly a dry eye in the place, and Benjamin Harrison

had established himself as a champion of the little people hurt by the

juggernaut of politics.

He lost his Senate seat in a bitter fight in 1887, but he had predicted

it and said, "I shall shed no tears, for life here is not to me

enjoyable." And, free of the Washington scene, he was able to work on

reforming the national Republican Party, a job he took on with

enthusiasm. When the Party met to pick a candidate in 1888, he was a

serious contender, and finally the competition faded, leaving Harrison

the convention's choice on the eighth ballot. A few months later he was

President by sixty-five electoral votes, but he wasn't exactly the

people's choice. Benjamin Harrison's total of the popular vote was some

90,000 less than Grover Cleveland's.

Even before his inauguration, Harrison sent a message, in the form of his

Cabinet selections, to the Republican bosses that he intended to be his

own boss. He gave James G. Blaine his old job as Secretary of State, but

not until after Blaine had been forced to beg for it, and then he

proceeded to name men he trusted to the other seven posts, without once

consulting the bosses. And for the next several months he filled other

jobs the same way. He claimed to be beholden to no one, but patronage was

a way of life in nineteenth-century politics, and when Benjamin Harrison

broke the rules, he also broke important ties to the Party and, oddly

enough, to the people.

But not all of the people. During his entire political career, the former

general was outspoken in his support of Civil War veterans, and had had

introduced legislation in the Senate on two different occasions to

provide them with liberal pensions. As President, he was able to get a

pension program passed. It provided help not only for G .A.R. veterans,

but for their children, parents and widows as well. By the end of the

Harrison Administration, the yearly cost of the help came to more than

$135 million. And its passage pushed the Federal budget over the billion

dollar mark for the first time in the history of the Republic.

There were reminders that it had been a long history. Benjamin Harrison

was known as the Centennial President because his inauguration fell near

the hundredth anniversary of George Washington's. As a descendant of a

signer of the Declaration of Independence, he had been the star of

centennial celebrations since '76 when he wen Philadelphia to sound the

keynote for the count hundredth birthday. But none of the ceremonials was

as impressive as Harrison's visit to New York in l889; Before he left, he

began a campaign to give grei importance to the American flag by issuing

an or to have the Stars and Strips flown over every schoolhouse in the

country, not to mention the Cap and the White House in Washington. In a

hund years, no other president had ever thought of such thing.

His Administration is often relegated to the back pages of history. But

during Benjamin Harrison's four years in the White House, he led an

expansion of b with Latin America, he welcomed six new states; the Union,

he signed the Sherman Anti-Trust Actint a law that still stands and he

succeeded in establishing a protective tariff, an issue that had plagued

country for generations. But politics came back haunt him in 1890 when

the Democrats took con of Congress. It forced Harrison to look outward to

concentrate his attention on foreign affairs because his Secretary of

States, he took on the himself.

He took on all comers, from Great Britain to Chile and let the world know

that the United States had come of age and wouldn't stand still for any

of th, But in the end, if the great powers of the world v impressed, the

folks back home apparently were not and in the 1892 election Grover

Cleveland retook presidency by more than 375,000 votes, the big majoritysince Lincoln was elected for the second time.

Every time Benjamin Harrison appeared in put over the next two years, he

was met with specula that he might be a presidential candidate again. he

was determined not to be. "The repugnance further public service," he

said, "deepens with every day." He was active in the nomination election

of William McKinley in 1897, and the started a whole new career.

He had reestablished himself as a lawyer, when Venezuela became involved

in a border disp with British Guyana, Harrison was hired as its c]

counsel. When the hearings opened in Paris,British Attorney General spoke

for fifty-two hol and Harrison's rebuttal lasted twenty-five. In the e

the tribunal favored the English, but neither s could claim a real

victory. And Benjamin Harrisl status as a lawyer suddenly became more

import than his position as a former president. But he cleienjoyed both

roles, and before he died suddenly pneumonia in 1901, he was arguing

cases in Supreme Courtby day and dispensing political advice by night on

an increasingly frequent basis. In eulogies that followed, it was

generally agreed Benjamin Harrison had died at the moment of greatest

usefulness. History has taken a differ view. During his four White House

years, Centennial President had set the stage for the United States to

accept the challenges of the next century

WILLIAM MCKINLEY

(1897-1901)

We all accept as an article of faith that George Washington was first

in the hearts of his countrymen, but no president, not even Washington,

touched the hearts of people who knew him quite as warmly as did William

McKinley. We tend to become cynical about nice guys a century later, but

even in the glare of history he remains beloved. No other word suits him

quite as well.

Even as a kid growing up in Niles, Ohio, people called him "sunny." He

was unusually close to his mother, whose fondest dream for her son was

that he would become a Methodist preacher. Both his parents were

determined that their children should have the benefits of a good

education, and when William was nine they moved to Poland, Ohio, which

had a high school. The boy was an eager student, and when he graduated

from Poland Academy he went off to college in Pennsylvania, but was

forced to drop out when his father's business failed. He went to work as

a teacher to help support the family and was saving to go back to school

when fate stepped in in the form of the Civil War.

He was among the first to join up and was sent to help fight the war in

Virginia with the Twenty-Third Ohio, a regiment commanded by future

president Rutherford B. Hayes. Like everyone else, Hayes liked the young

soldier, and when the outfit became part of the Army of the Potomac and

marched off to the Maryland campaign, he promoted him to sergeant and put

him in charge of supplies. It wasn't exactly a job that required heroics,

but McKinley took it seriously, and during the Battle of Antietam he

calmly delivered hot food to the front line troops. In return, Hayes

promoted him again, making him a lieutenant on his own staff, and later

said that he was "one of the bravest and finest officers in the army."

That was before the day McKinley received a battlefield promotion to

major for riding under fire to warn a regiment they were about to be

surrounded.

By the time he went back to Ohio he had developed a deep hatred of war,

and though he later became a frequent speaker at veteran's encampments,

he made it a point never to mention the fighting that had brought them

together. He had also decided during the war years that he didn't want to

be a preacher after all, and decided instead to get into politics. His

mentor, General Hayes, had gone to Congress by then, and when he heard

that McKinley had enroled in the law school at Albany, New York, he was

horrified. His former aide was too good for politics, he said, and dashed

off a letter advising him to get into railroading instead. "A man with

half your wit ought to be independent at forty," he said . But William

McKinley' s mind was made up. Major McKinley was already independent.

After he passed the bar he moved to Canton, Ohio, where he joined every

organization in sight, from the Masons to the Knights of Pythias. He

became superintendent of the Methodist Sunday school, and he joined the

Republican Party. He made a name for himself as an attorney by defending

striking coal miners who had been thrown in jail for starting a riot, and

he earned their loyalty be refusing to accept any payment for securing

their acquittal. He cut his political teeth campaigning for Hayes in his

1867 bid to become Ohio's Governor, and surprised everyone in a

traditionally Democratic corner of the state by being elected himself to

the office of prosecuting attorney.

He also found love in Canton the day he met Ida Saxton, the daughter of a

local banker. She gave him a new dimension. She had been raised and

educated for a cultured life, and had taken the traditional grand tour of

Europe before she met her future husband. She gave him a taste for good

wine and fine clothes, and generally knocked away the rough edges of his

frontier upbringing. Their love never diminished, but she also brought

him a difficult life. Their second child died in infancy, and not long

afterward Ida began developing convulsions, which left her an invalid for

the rest of her life. Then, at the age of three, a daughter they both

adored died, just as her father was campaigning for a seat in Congress.

He won the election and he and Ida went to Washington the same year

Rutherford Hayes went to the White House. Mrs. McKinley wasn't able to

attend state functions and the Congressman chose to stay home to attend

to her. But their close friendship with the President gave them a social

life of sorts that helped them forget their troubles.

McKinley was also a close friend of James Garfield, and he and Ida were

frequent guests at the White House during the short Garfield presidency,

but neither of them was invited there very often after Garfield's

assassination, and they became relative recluses during the rest of

McKinley's congressional years. He spent all his free time with his wife,

often sitting through entire evenings in the dark because the light

bothered her eyes.

But if William was completely attentive to Ida's needs, he never

neglected his career, which was important to both of them. During the

day, when was taking care of business, she busied herself with

handicrafts. It was said that she crocheted more t five thousand pairs of

bedroom slippers, more tl enough for all of Washington's officialdom. And

also enjoyed making satin neckties, which becarr. kind of presidential

trademark. But she was never happy as when her beloved William was at her

side As she was fond of saying, "He is a dear good m and I love him."

When he was away, he never let a d go by without writing a letter to his

wife. And wh any well-meaning associates inquired about 1 health, he

usually just smiled and said that she.was "improving."

McKinley was away from home a good deal dur his years in Congress. He was

nearly as devoted to Republican Party as he was to Ida, and he was alwc

available to spread its gospel. Like so many of predecessors, he had

developed a talent for debab during his growing-up years. But he had the

add advantage of a clear and easy voice. He had a cultivated a simple

style. And though his speecl often ran on for an hour or more, he never

seemed waste words. He became a kind of matinee idol, a his appearance at

a political rally was a sure guaran of a large and interested audience.

Beyond that, he was very much in demand sim~ for his company, even among

his political opponenl His Methodist upbringing meant drink was anathen

to him, and he was offended by off-color stories. B he had developed a

taste for cigars, and in the compa of his cronies was rarely without one.

And, in deferen to Ida, who couldn't deal with cigar smoke, he al chewed

tobacco, usually a cigar half, and his accura in hitting a spitoon was

legendary.

The most notable accomplishment of 1 congressional career was the 1890

tariff that bore name. It gave newly emerging American indust and the

country's farmers the protection they h~ been demanding. But it also

contained a series compromises that made it more political than practic

and the Democrats not only attacked it, but aveng themselves on the

bill's author by redistricting t: State of Ohio, and when McKinley ran

for reelection he was overwhelmed by a Democratic landslide. E lostby 300

votes in a new district that had an oppositi, majority ten times that

big, but a near miss is a miss the same, and after fourteen years in

Washington t McKinleys moved back to Ohio.

He was an important Republican in a key state, a] talk of a run for the

presidency had akeady begl; But first there was another job to tackle.

Willia McKinley became Governor of Ohio. He used 1 tenure to solidify the

labor vote, and he even ga women the right to vote in school elections.

It w obvious from the beginning that he like the sound the presidential

rumors and was working hard make them come true. But he had always made i

point to reveal as little as possible about himself, a: as the 1892

election approached, he kept quiet as whether he'd accept the nomination

if it were offered.

President Harrison, who wanted a second term, saw to it that McKinley was

made chairman of the convention, a job that would take too much of his

time to leave any left over for politicking. The ploy worked, but it put

McKinley in the spotlight, and when he adjourned the convention, he was

carried out of the hall on the shoulders of admiring delegates, who

seemed intent on ignoring the man they had made their standard-bearer.

During the campaign that followed, the Ohio Govemor was asked to speak in

every state in the Union, and when it was all over, even though the

Republicans had lost, William McKinley was stronger than ever. Before he

had a chance to get on with his life, a close friend he had helped with

business loans over many years went bankrupt, leaving McKinley

responsible for his debts, amounting to close to $100,000. After

considering leaving politics to pay the debt, he finally turned his

affairs over to a group of trustees. But the publicity was potentially

bad for the image of a man who hoped to managed the country's financial

affairs. On the other hand, the man was William McKinley. Ordinary peoplebegan sending him nickels and dimes and a fund was begun. He disclaimed

it, but the money kept coming. Then old debts were repaid, and people of

means began donating larger amounts. Once he made it clear that no

promises would be made or kept in return for the contributions, his

Scottish pride was soothed, and eventually he was out of debt. Before it

was over, the entire debt was paid through contributions from more than

5,000 individuals, and he was reelected Governor of Ohio by the largest

margin in the state's history.

He retired from local politics at the end of his second term, but though

he and Ida settled down to a life of relative ease, and celebrated their

twenty-fifth wedding anniversary "like newly-married people," William

McKinley was a busy man. He felt he had been pre-ordained to be

president, but he also knew that destiny needed a little boost here and

there, and dedicated himself to strengthening alliances and building an

organization. Before it was done, his routine included sending more than

three-hundred letters a day, making use of the new long-distance

telephone lines and making speeches to enthusiastic crowds in every part

of the country.

By 1893, as the country was emerging from a depression, the press began

to call him the "Advance Agent of Prosperity," claiming that the

protection of his formerly-discredited tariff was the answer to

everyone's prayer. He had cultivated labor support all his life, and

businessmen joined the workers in their enthusiasm. McKinley looked

unstoppable, but the next presidential election was still three years

away. And there were some people in America who didn't care for the idea

of a McKinley presidency. They tried to find skeletons in his closet, but

except for his financial troubles, which had long-since been forgiven,

there were none. In desperation, one group began a whispering campaign

that McKinley was an agent of the Pope because he had appointed Roman

Catholics to some state jobs.

But when the Republicans met to pick their candidate in 1896, McKinley

was the odds-on favorite. The big state bosses tried hard to stop him,

but their opposition only served to make him seem more honest. And from

the convention's opening gavel, his nomination was never seriously in

doubt. In November he won a comfortable victory over Democrat William

Jennings Bryan.

In its early days the McKinley Administration seemed like a dream come

true. Members of Congress from both parties agreed there had never been a

president like him. One, who had opposed his candidacy, said it was

"because of his great wisdom and tact and his delightful individual

quality," and no one denied it. But all is never sweetness and light in

Washington, and McKinley had his share of problems. And the biggest of

them had a name: Cuba. He had developed a passionate hatred of war, and

was determined not to intervene in Cuba's cry for liberation from Spain,

which had already resulted in fighting as far back as 1868. McKinley

preferred diplomacy, but over the years a strong attachment to the Cuban

cause in Congress, in the press, and even among the people, made

neutrality a nearly impossible course. He was quietly successful in a

year of negotiation, but on February 15, 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine

was blown up in Havana Harbor, and two months later the President,

convinced that further diplomacy was useless, asked Congress for a

declaration of war against Spain.

It was often called "a splendid little war." It was over relatively

quickly with minimum cost in men and material. And in the end, as one

observer pointed out, it pushed America "forward in the estimation of the

world than we would have done in fifty years of peace." It also united

the country as a nation for the first time in its history. When it was

over, North and South were closer than they had ever been, and Americans

began thinking of themselves as "number oneU in the world for the first

time.

It gave the President new responsibilities as the administrator of a

world power, but the country was prosperous and Mr. McKinley more highly

thoughtof than ever. He was nominated for a second term with no

opposition. And by popular demand, a hero of the late war, New York's

Governor Theodore Roosevelt, took the second spot on the ticket. It

fateful choice.

On September 6,1901, during a visit to the American Exposition at

Buffalo, New York, thou turned out for a glimpse at the President and po~

a chance to experience his famous handshake. A] them was a man named Leon

Czolgosz. His mi was to kill the President, not because he had any

against McKinley, but because he hated all goverrl and by inference hated

the man at the top. He have been the only man in America who hated Wi

McKinley, in fact. But he had a gun. As they ca the President off to a

makeshift hospital with bullets in his body, he wondered aloud about had

done this to him. "Must be some misgu fellow," he said.

The 26th President

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

(1901-1 909)

Any youngster who has never had a teddy bear could probably be

considered underprivileged in modern America. And it's hard to imagine

how the country itself could have grown up without the privilege of

having experienced the bear of a man who became its twenty-sixth

president.

The stuffed bears were named for him, according to the legend, because he

once adopted a bear cub whose mother had died. If it's true, it's also

highly likely that Theodore Roosevelt shot her. He was not a simple man

to understand. He knew more about birds than most professional

ornithologists and more about animals than men who make zoology their

life's work. And though he loved them, he took delight in killing the

best specimens. He was a historian, whose major works on the Naval War of

1812 and his four-volume Winning of The West are still considered the

most authoritative books on those subjects. And among his other twenty

three published books, he is also revealed as an authority on natural

history and science as well as political philosophy. Even at the height

of his presidency, he never read less than one book a day, and most often

two or three. And he never read a book, whether it was a current novel or

the biography of an obscure Roman, from which he couldn't quote long

passages, from memory, even years later.

The man who Mark Twain said was "clearly insane ... and insanest upon war

and its supreme glories," managed to keep his country out of war in an

era when the whole world seemed intent on destroying itself, and moved

the United States to the status of a world power with his own incredible

diplomatic powers. And if he gloried in war, Theodore Roosevelt was the

first American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

The same man who climbed trees on the White House lawn, swam naked in the

Potomac in the dead of winter, and loved to shock passing strangers with

outrageous facial contortions was also one our most dignified chief

executives. His manners were courtly and correct, and he didn't save themfor diplomatic functions. Whenever a woman entered a room, for instance,

the President was instantly on his feet, no matter what he was doing,

often to the surprise of others in the room, including the honored woman.

Theodore Roosevelt was the man who led us into the 20th century, but for

all his boisterous informality, he was a l9th century patrician with all

the graces intact.

Possibly because of all those teddy bears, and surely because of the

image of him that has come down through the years, it's only natural to

refer to him as "Teddy." It was what people called him in his own time.

But he considered the name vulgar, and called it an "outrageous

impertinence" if anyone used it in conversation with him. When he was

growing up, he was known as Teedie, often shortened to just plain Tee.

But as an adult, he was Theodore to his family and friends and that was

the way he wanted it. It had been the name of the only man he ever really

sincerely admired - his father.

The elder Theodore Roosevelt was the son of Cornelius Van Schaack

Roosevelt, one of the richest men in America, and a sixth-generation New

Yorker. He was a junior partner in the importing firm of Roosevelt & Son.

He was also a pillar of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, a member

of all of New York's most important clubs and a tireless fundraiser for

dozens of charities.

The youngest of his four children was what they called "sickly" back

then. From the age of three Teedie was subject to severe asthma attacks

compounded by stomach trouble and pounding headaches. His attacks were

frightening, and the family never knew when they would spend the night

pacing the floor with the boy in a desperate attempt to restore his

breathing, or when a family outing would be ruined because of his

problem. Butitwas a close-knitfamily, and the troubles seemed to bring

them closer together.

When he was ten, his father took Teedie aside, put his arm on the frail

boy's shoulder and told him, "You have the mind, but you have not the

body, and without the help of the body, the mind cannot go as far as it

should .... You must make your body." He didn't waste a day. At first he

went to a local gymnasium and began lifting weights, hoisting himself on

parallel bars and pounding a punching bag. It was a painfully slow

process that continued for the rest of his life. His father soon

installed a gym in their Manhattan townhouse, and after that no Roosevelt

home was ever without the equipment required to keep the master of the

house in shape.

When he was fourteen, he was given a gun and a pair of glasses. He had

already developed a love of small animals andbirds, stuffed. Butuntil

that moment he had never realized that his eyes were as weak as his body.

The glasses helped him stalk bigger and better specimens, the gun helped

him acquire them for his collection, and every house he lived in was

filled with stuffed birds and animals, trophies of T.R.'s hunting

instinct, many of which were expertly mounted by the amateur taxidermist

who would eventually become President of the United States. By then he

would be well- known as a conservationist, and the avowed enemy of

"swinish game butchers," but still a man who took pleasure in killing the

best specimens he could find.

When he was a teenager the family moved from the house near Madison

Square, where Teedie was bom, into the less congested part of Manhattan

close to the string of Fifth Avenue mansions built for the Vanderbilt

family. But they didn't move to acquire better neighbors. They wanted to

be closer to Central Park, where they felt the air might be better for

the still-frail young man.

After his graduation from Harvard University and a year at the Columbia

University Law School, he married Alice Lee and took her home to the

house near Central Park. Four years later, on Valentine's Day, eleven

hours after the death of his mother, Alice died. Young Roosevelt, who had

akeady served two terms in the New York State Legislature, gave up New

York, as well as any political dreams he may have had, and went west to

become a ranche experience a "vigorous open-air existence" i Dakota

Territory.

He had already become a partner in an outfit c the Maltese Cross Ranch,

and in 1884 he got out pearl-handled six-shooter, his tailor-made buck~

jacket, his alligator boots and his belt with the si plated buckle, and

went out to the open rangc longer a silent partner. He lived on the ranch

rather luxurious log cabin surrounded by b~ comfortable furniture, fine

clothes and other trap~ that gave a whole new meaning to the word "du He

had built his body into a magnificent machin then, and a professional

boxer who had taken hil, found that he was "a strong, tough man; hard to

and harder to stop." But he surely didn't lo~ Especially in those tailor-

made clothes. Naturali~ became fair game for the cowpokes, but one nigi a

Montana bar he let them know he wasn't average dude.

A drifter wandered into a crowded bar where Roosevelt was drinking and

began making un remarks about lily-livered Easterners, especially four-

eyed kind. When he'd had enough, T.R. calmly took off his glasses and

flattened him with a si punch. His image changed on the spot, and the c

of what they called "the saloon incident," spreac a prairie fire. Nobody

ever mentioned Roosevelt glasses again, and nobody even thought of him

misplaced Easterner. Modesty was never one of Roosevelt's qualities, but

in this case he made exception. Whenever the subject came up, he brus it

off as a lucky punch. "He was standing too close me," he said, "and his

feet were too close togethe may the only time in the history of the West

anyone ever offered a scientific analysis of a bar-room brawl. Meanwhile

word had gone out that Roosevelt didn't have patience with bullies. It

true. He much preferred using the word as an adjec

After two years of making himself at home on range, he went back to New

York to run for Mayo] lost the election, but a month later becan

bridegroom again when he married the former E Carow, who eventually bore

him four sons a] daughter. His firstborn, Alice, the only child o first

marriage, was three years old when her bro Theodore, was born. And by

then the family ensconced in a new house on Long Island, which named

Sagamore Hill.

The house became his political base, and well-known as the White House

itself durin the Roosevelt presidency. But when they settled and began to

raise a family, T.R. had decided ag politics as a career. The Democrats

were firm control both in Washington and New York State he didn't have

the patience to wait for the vote drive them out. He was twenty-nine

years old very much a man in a hurry.

Men of influence in the Republican Party thc he was wrong, and a group of

them asked Pres Harrison to appoint him to some kind of job. Har

responded by making Roosevelt Civil Service Commissioner. After years of

wrangling over reform, it was easily the most thankless job in all of

Washington and it had a salary to match. But Roosevelt took it on and

handled it with an enthusiasm the commission had never seen before. He

made sure that the press knew his every move, which didn't sit well with

politicians who would rather have kept some of their moves hidden. But as

he himself said, "all we are doing is enforcing the law." And building a

reputation for Commissioner Roosevelt.

He held the job for six years and became a kind of fixture on the

Washington scene, something roughly comparable to a windmill. He said he

enjoyed dealing with "big interests and big men," but when New York City

reformed its police department, he asked for and got an appointment to

become one its four commissioners. Though there were three other men

sharing the responsibility and their jobs didn't have real power, he took

charge in his usual fashion, allowing his colleagues highsounding

responsibilities and putting himself in charge of press relations. Before

long the national press was taking notice, too, and to this day many

Americans think that T.R. was the one and only Police Commissioner in New

York, and a powerful, crusading one at that.

Even crusaders get weary, though, and when William McKinley became

President, T.R. put on his meekest look and suggested "I should like to

be Assistant Secretary of the Navy." It seemed like a modest request, and

though McKinley didn't want him in his Administration, he finally made

the appointment and Roosevelt went back to Washington.

He landed running, of course, and began an intensive campaign to expand

the country's defenses in general and its navy in particular. He managed

to talk the Secretary into a summer-long vacation, and by the time the

weather began to turn cool, he had visited a dozen important navy bases,

cruised on its big ships and, most important, gained the ear of the

President. By the end of the year, he was one of the most influential men

in the~ederal Government, not to mention the most entertaining, as the

press so often mentioned.

Then, at the beginning of 1898, the battleship Maine was blown up in

Havana Harbor, and the war with Spain Roosevelt had been predicting gave

him a new place on the national stage. He had done all he could to get

the navy into fighting shape, and decided he could do more in the army.

Sending off a wire to Brooks Brothers in New York for a lieutenant

colonel's cavalry uniform, he resigned his job and left for Texas to

round up a troop of "harum-scarum rough-riders." He also went to New York

to recruit some "gentleman rankers" to help keep them in line, and after

a few months of training they were on their way to Cuba, and the charge

up San Juan Hill that made heroes of them all.

When they arrived back home, Colonel Roosevelt was the best-known hero of

the war and a shoo-in when he ran for Governor of New York. It was a

foregone conclusion by then that he'd eventually be president. But there

was plenty of time for that. He supported McKinley's renomination at the

1900 Republican Convention, and modestly accepted the second place on the

ticket. He didn't relish the job, but he expected it would keep his name

in the papers until the 1904 election. He felt that the Vice President

had nothing to do, and in the case of his own vice presidency, he was

right. Four days after his inauguration, Congress adjourned and his

duties as president of the Senate were over for nine months. T.R. decided

to take a vacation. Six months later, William McKinley was gunned down

and Theodore R~osevelt was President of the United States.

He was renominated again in 1904, and elected by the biggest majority any

president had ever received. And through his second term the people, who

admired and adored him, expected he'd run for a third and planned to vote

for him when he did. But he said that the strong executive should not be

the perper executive," and stepped aside in favor of William Howard Taft.

But once he gave up the presidency, clearly missed it. Four years later,

disappointed in t Taft presidency, he formed the Bull Moose Party frc the

Republican's progressive wing and ran again. He expected to be beaten and

he was, but his spirits never flagged for an instant. He spent the rest

of his 1 working for progressive Republicans, and keep his own opinions

on America's place in the world America's consciousness. The Republicans

tried ha to convince him to run for New York State Goverrl again, and

then offered him another president nomination, but he refused. Being

president had be a great adventure for Theodore Roosevelt, but 1 itself

was a great adventure for him, too.

In his years of retirement at Sagamore Hil welcomed a steady stream of

visitors with the sa~ word that had become his trademark at the Wh House.

"Dee-lighted!" he would say. And no one ev got the idea he didn't mean

every rolling syllable of

The 27th Presid ent

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT

(1909-1913)

When he was thirty-two years old, William Howard Taft offered himself in

contention for an appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States.

A number of his fellow judges in Cincinnati, Ohio, engaged, as he put it,

in "the innocent fun of pushing me." The Governor of Ohio pushed for the

appointment, too, and when the President visited Cincinnati Taft worked

hard at pushing himself. But he allowed that it was "very good fun and

that is all. My chances of going to the moon and donning a silk gown at

the hands of President Harrison are about equal." Harrison was not

unimpressed, though, and gave the young man a sort of consolation prize

by appointing him solicitor general.

It is a post any lawyer would envy. In practical terms the solicitor

general is the attorney general's attorney. He would be asked to write

legal opinions for the President himself, and though he would not appear

at the Supreme Court in a silk robe, Will Taft would be the man who wouldrepresent the Govemment in cases that came before the Court. More

important still, to any man with political ambitions it meant an

opportunity to rub elbows with all the important movers and shakers in

Washington. But young Mr. Taft didn' t have any political ambitions at

all. He took the job as a stepping stone toward an eventual appointment

to the nation's highest court.

After all, he had been rubbing elbows with movers and shakers most of his

life. His father, Alfonso Taft, had served as both secretary of war and

attorney general in President Grant's Cabinet and President Arthur had

made him minister to Austria and then to Russia. He was a leading

attorney in the important city of Cincinnati and had served as a Superior

Court Judge. Will himself had been a judge of the Superior Court, and

when he was tapped to fill a new post as United States circuit judge, he

resigned as solicitor general and went home to Cincinnati to become a big

fish in a smaller pond.

He also found time to become dean of the Cincinnati Law School where he

had been a student, and devoted several hours a week lecturing to future

lawyers. And all the while, he kept a close eye on the Supreme Court. A

very lustful eye.

But during his eight years as a circuit-riding judge Taft was also quite

content with his- life. His wife, Nellie, and their three children made

him supremely happy and he sincerely loved his job. He was a devoted

Republican, but doggedly followed a policy of staying out of politics,

even though he often said privately that the Grand Old Party was in

desperate need of reforming. He was especially vexed when his fellow Ohio

an, William McKinley, was nominated for the presidency, and he was sure

his judgement had been sound when President McKinley passed him over for

an appointment to the Supreme Court But then one day in January, 1900,

McKinley approached Taft with an entirely different idea that would

change his life, even his consuming ambition. The President wanted him to

go to the Philippines as president of a new commission to bring order to

the island group the U.S. had recently purchased. It looked like a

thankless job. There was strong opposition in the islands to American

control. Taft pointed out that he was personally opposed to American

expansion and, besides, he didn't even speak Spanish. The President

"might as well have told me that he wanted me to take a flying machine,"

said Taft. It took him more than a month to make up his mind, but in the

middle of May, Taft was on a boat headed for Manila Fortunately for his

peace of mind, the Wright Brothers wouldn't prove that flying machines

were practica] for another three years.

Even if there had been an airplane service across the Pacific in those

days, they'd probably have tried tc talk him out of it if William Howard

Taft had tried tc buy a ticket. He weighed about 325 pounds at the time.

During a stopover in Japan, he was given a ricksha tour of Nagasaki. "I

had one 'pusher' ir addition to the jinrikisha man when I began, he

wrote, "another joined when we were halfway up a steep hill, and it

seemed to me that when we struck the last hill the whole village was

engaged in the push." He added that wherever he went, the naturally smaL

Japanese "gathered in crowds around me, smiling and enjoying the prospect

of so much flesh and size.'' They may have been sizing him up to become a

sumc wrestler, but he had other things to grapple with.He had no doubt

that the Filipinos should.eventually have their own self-government, but

he knew that a lot of things had to be done before they could. Among

those things was clipping the wings of a rather authoritarian military

government that was currently running things. It should have been easy,

it was an American military government. But it was headed by General

Arthur MacArthur, who had strong opinions about everything, especially

the idea of being replaced by a former judge who smiled a lot and didn't

seem to have what he considered proper respect for the military.

Taft kept on smiling, even though MacArthur refused to move from the

presidential palace and relegated him to a rundown house in the suburbs.

Eventually Taft wore the General down, and when he was replaced the

civilian commission went to work in earnest, and Taft's powers were

expanded when he was made Governor of the Islands. It was a job he took

very seriously. No less a person than Vice President Theodore Roosevelt

said in a magazine article that the only man he knew who combined the

qualities that would make a first-class President of the United States

and a first-class Chief Justice of the United States was Judge William H.

Taft of Ohio.

Less than two months later, Mr. Roosevelt was President himself. He and

Taft were very close friends and it seemed likely that, if there were a

vacancy in the Supreme Court, the friendship and open admiration of the

new President would make Taft's dreams come true. But he had acquired a

new sense of mission in the Philippines, and when an appointment was

finally offered, Governor Taft turned it down.

Chief among his problems at Manila was the Catholic priests who had

acquired vast estates under Spanish rule. They had lost their lands in

the revolution that drove the Spanish out, but now, with the Americans in

control, they were asking to have their estates restored. The Filipinos

themselves wer~ opposed to the idea because the tyranny of those sam~

priests had been what their revolution was all abou in the first place.

But there were larger politica questions at stake, not least of which was

the attitud~ of Catholic voters in the United States. It was one c those

problems that politicians go to great lengths t avoid. But Taft was a

judge, not a politician. Hi solution was to buy the land the priests

claimed a' theirs and then have them replaced by new clerics preferably

Americans.

It was easier said than done. The scheme needec Vatican cooperation, but

the United States hac traditionally avoided diplomatic contacts with the

Pope. Governor Taft was the President's choice t open the door, but it

needed to be done tactfully s that anti-Catholic voters wouldn't turn on

th~ Administration. Rome, on the other hand, was interested in exploiting

the mission as a foot in the door for later, more formal, contacts. It

was a delicated assignment, but Taft was equal to ffie task, eventually

lowering the Vatican's asking price of $10.7 million ir gold for the

nearly 400,000 acres to less than $7.million. His horse trading impressed

the folks bacl home as well as his constituents in the Pacific, anc

William Howard Taft's political star was in the ascendency.

After having turned down the Supreme Court pos on the grounds that he was

needed in the Philippines President Roosevelt ordered him home anyway. Hc

wanted Taft in his Cabinet, and made him secretary of war. It was a job

that required some attitudt adjustment. Mr. Taft was a dedicated

pacifist. It alsc altered his attitude toward the world of politics. Hi~

successes in Rome and in the Philippines had madc him a highly-regarded

figure among influential Republicans who were talking seriously of making

him their candidate for l'resident. Taft himself began taking the idea

seriously, and when he was offerec another appointment to the Supreme

Court, he turnec it down again.

But, in the meantime, there was the incumben President to think about,

and Theodore Roosevell didn't have a more loyal man in his Cabinet thar

William Howard Taft. About the only thing he didn'l do was run the War

Department. Taft had become Roosevelt's trouble-shooter. On one occasion

when the President decided to take a vacation, he announced that he

wasn't too worried about what might happen while he was away because, as

he put it, "I've left Tafl sitting on the lid."

When he announced that he wouldn't run foI reelection in 1908, Roosevelt

let the party leaders know that the man he preferred to succeed him was

the man who had been so good at keeping the lid on the opposition. And

when his choice was confirmed, he let the voters know that a vote for

Taft was a vote of confidence in his own Administration. But between the

convention and the election, Roosevelt's enthusiasm began to cool. The

two men still strongly admired each other, but Taft's campaign style

wasn't nearly pugnacious enough for the old Rough Rider who began to

realize that it wasn't his fight after all. But their friendship survived

the campaign, and so did candidate Taft. As President, though, Taft

represented something quite different from his predecessor and friend.

The rift between them opened wide even before Taft's inauguration when he

replaced most of the men who had served in the Roosevelt Cabinet. By the

endoffouryears,PresidentTaftandformerPresidentRoosevelthadbecomebitterene

mies. The Republican Party itself was divided, and as it girded its loins

for the 1912 campaign, Roosevelt's name was heard as often as Taft's when

the talk turn to the people's choice. In the end Taft prevailed, even

though it was apparent that the people themselves preferred Roosevelt.

T.R. responded by bolting from the party and running as an independent,

and both he and Taft were assured the permanent status of private

citizen.

Much of Roosevelt's pique at his successor came from the discomfort of

being sidelined. Ex-President Taft, on the other hand, was delighted to

go back to his real love, the law. But before he could arrange the move

home to Cincinnati, he was offered a professorship at Yale University,

his Alma Mater, and he accepted the job without any of his characteristic

soul-searching. His Administration had been a disappointment, and he

admitted that he was overjoyed at the prospect of leaving Washington, no

matter what the destination. "Being a dead politician, I have become a

statesman . . . with a sense of freedom that I have never had before," he

said.

He spent the next eight years at New Haven, dividing his time between

giving the young men at the Yale Law School "the proper sense of

proportion as to the actualities of life," and fulfilling the role of

statesman through a heavy schedule of lecturing and writing. Though he

had said he was a dead politician, he was still an ardent Republican, and

energetically opposed the policies of his successor, Woodrow Wilson. But

it was loyal opposition. When war began in Europe in 1914, he sided with

the President, and against former President Roosevelt, in a policy of

neutrality. But when America finally became involved in the war, Taft

drifted away from his support of Wilson, so far away, in fact, that he

joined forces with the despised Roosevelt to elect Republicans to

Congress in 1918. Two months after they had won their joint fight, T.R.

was dead, and Taft was quick to say that, "Had he died in a hostile state

of mind toward me, I would have mourned the fact all my life. I loved him

always and cherish his memory." They were sincere words from a man who

never learned the meaning of the word "hate."

When the war ended, Taft devoted himself to the battle to establish a

League of Nations. He had been involved since 1915 in a movement to

create what he called the League to Enforce Peace, and though Wilson's

idea for international peace-keeping was slightly different, Taft toured

the country drumming up bipartisan support for the Democratic President's

ideas. When they were defeated in the Senate, Taft was furious and turned

his wrath on Wilson, who he said had deliberately sabotaged his own plan.

As a Republican, he was happy to work for the election of Warren G.

Harding in 1920. As an avowed enemy of Woodrow Wilson, he was overjoyed.

But thegreatest joyofallwasstillahead.Inl921,President Harding appointed

him Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. When the power to

make such appointments was in his hands, Taft had made a rule that he

wouldn't appoint any man over the age of sixty to any court, and now he

himself was sixtythree.

But there was no really serious objection, and after he put on that long-

coveted silk robe, Chief Justice Taft said that "In my present life I

don't remember that I ever was President. " Now that the chief ambition

of his life had been realized, he acquired a new one, to serve ten years

on the bench, then retire and enjoy the fruits of his success. He almost

reached his goal, but poor health caught up with him, and he was forced

to retire in February,1930. A month later he was dead. But if his

presidency had been less than successful his years as Chief Justice were

a triumph. He streamlined the Federal court system, using some of the

political tricks he had picked up in the executive department to reform

the judicial. He enhanced its prestige, too. Before Taft's appointment,

the Court had always deliberated in the Capitol Building. But Taft

lobbied for a separate Supreme Court Building, and convinced Congress to

appropriate the money for it. His name doesn't appear on the pediment,

but his spirit is there, and it is his monument. Of all the institutions

of Government, William Howard Taft loved the Supreme Court more than any

other. When he retired, his colleagues told him, "We will call you Chief

Justice still, for we cannot give up the title ... which you have made

dear to us." For Mr. Taft, it was an honor much finer than being

addressed as "Mr. President."
The 28th President

WOODROW WILSON

(1913-1921)

In September, 1910, a huge crowd gathered in Jersey City, N.J., to hear

the retiring President of Princeton University make his first speech in a

political campaign. He had been expressing his views for some time, and

most people had a good idea where Woodrow Wilson stood on the philosophy

of government. It was well known that he would probably be the candidate

for President in two more years. But now he was their candidate for

Governor, and most New Jerseyites wondered if an academic was equal to

the job of stooping to deal with ordinary politicians. He had been

speaking from an ivory tower all those years, but now the professor had

thrown his silk hat into the ring, and people couldn't help wondering if

he himself hadn't been thrown to the wolves.

He surprised everyone. At the end of his speech he surprised the wolves

most of all. After having frankly told the voters that it made him

uncomfortable to make a speech asking for something, he said, "I feel I

am before a great jury. I don't want the judge to butt in. I am content

to leave the decision in your hands.a In subsequent speeches he kept on

surprising the voters of New Jersey. Not only did this PhD speak in a

language everyone could understand, hewas sincere and honest as well, a

very unusual quality in a political candidate.

Even before his inauguration, he fought and won a battle with the

established party bosses over a senate seat one of them had thought he

had earned, and by the time he took the oath of office it was quite clear

that Governor Wilson did not intend to be bossed. A local newspaper

reported that "this long-haired bookworm of a professor who had just laid

his spectacles on his dictionary came down to the Trenton State House and

licked the gang to a frazzle."

Strangely, the gang came to like the Governor's style. It was a new

experience for them to vote with their conscience and not for special

interests. Woodrow Wilson the bookworm had been transformed into a master

politician in what seemed like the twinkling of an eye. But he had been

preparing himself for public service all his life. It was in his genes.

When James Wilson arrived in Philadelphia from Northern Ireland in 1807,

it seemed predictable that he carried with him the seed of a future Presi

the United States. His first act was to take o Philadelphia Aurora, one

of the most infl newspapers in the country, where he had takl as a

printer. His second was to join the mover the West. He migrated to Ohio

where he builc fortune speculating in real estate, became executive and

got himself elected to the legislature. He published a newspaper in

Steube~ built the first bridge across the Ohio River, anc though he

didn't have a law degree he served judge of the Court of Common Please

When suggested that he should run for Governor of party leaders rejected

the idea because they said James Wilson was too outspoken.

Woodrow Wilson's other grandfather, T] Woodrow, was outspoken, too, but

he's more characterized as scholarly. All of his family b~ Scotland had

been writers or clergyme: generations, and he himself came to Americ~

missionary, bringing the Gospel and the morals Highlands to the heathen

in the wilds of Ohio.

The combination of James Wilson's brash ways and Thomas Woodrow's

conservative Sc conscience created one of the most unlikely fi ever to

emerge on the American political scene the most high-minded of all the

American Presidents.

James Wilson had seven sons, all of whom were driven to succeed as their

father had been youngest was given a different challenge fro others. It

was decided that Joseph Wilson s] follow an academic life, and he was as

succesc that calling as his brothers became in theirs. H valedictorian of

his class at Jefferson College established an enviable record in post-

graduate at Princeton University. He became a college pro after that, and

in 1855 answered the call to become pastor of the First Presbyterian

Church in Staunton Virginia. The following year his wife presente~ with

his first son, their third child, three days Christmas. They named the

child Thomas Woo Wilson.

During his tenure at Staunton, Dr. Wilson expc the parish by some 30

members and earI reputation for miles around as the best preacher

Virginia had ever seen. But his talent was lost to Viginia in 1858 when

he was asked to take over and larger and more prosperous church in

Augusta, Georgia. Young Tommy spent his boyhood years there, and was

influenced by his father's work as a chaplain in the Confederate Army and

his mother's dedication to the wounded troops that were housed their

church after it was converted to a hospital. The.experience of those

years molded the boy into a classic Southern gentleman, a quality he

never lost.In 1870, the family moved again, this time to Columbia, South

Carolina, when Reverend Wilson came a professor at Columbia Theological

Seminary, d three years later young Tommy, who by then was beginning to

prefer being called Woodrow, went to avidson, North Carolina, to begin

college in reparation for a career as a Presbyterian minister. He left

within a year because of poor health, but by 1875 was ready for school

again and enroled at Princeton, here he expanded his interests and

changed his goal. Instead of becoming a minister, he now wanted be a

lawyer. And everyone who knew him agreed was a wise choice. He was one of

the University's best debaters, and had developed a remarkable skil], ; a

writer.

He went from there to law school at the University of Virginia, and

though he didn't graduate he was lmitted to the bar in Georgia and

practiced law for time in Atlanta. It was there he met Ellen Louise

Axson, also the offspring of a Presbyterian minister, hom he married two

years later. In the meantime, he ad decided against law as a career and

went to Johns [opkins University in Baltimore, where as astudentpublished

his first book, Congressional Government.Soon after, armed with a Doctor

of Philosophy degree,became professor of history at Bryn Mawr College.

In 1890, he went back to Princeton again as professor of jurisprudence

and political economy. Twelve years after he was made president of the

University and had ublished a five-volume History of the American People.

y that point, six different universities had offered im their presidency,

including the University of irginia, which had made the offer three

times.

His eight-year tenure at Princeton was marked ;pecially by the

liberalization of time-honored, but restrictive, traditions and earned

him national recognition, which didn't go unnoticed by the bosses who

controled the Democratic Party in New Jersey. he seemed like the perfect

man to clean up their poputation, and they were sure that, once elected,

they would hide behind him and conduct business as usual. But Woodrow

Wilson had a different vision. He saw imse'if as a reformer. Among his

first acts was to change the state election laws and clip the wings of e

bosses.

Two years later, the Democrats nominated him to run for President. He won

easily because the epublicans in the person of President Taft and the

ul'i Moose Party in the person of former President heodore Roosevelt were

busier fighting each other than the real opposition. When the counting

was over nd Taft discovered he had gathered only eight Electoral Votes

compared to Wilson's 435, he said that more people had voted for him to

become an exPresident than for any man in the history of the United

States.

Wilson's own sense of history was colored a great deal by his Southern

roots and his Presbyterian background with its strong belief in

predestination. Even before his election, he reminded the leadership of

his party that he wasn't at aLl interested in repaying political favors.

They were stunned when he told then that "God ordained that I shou],d be

President of the United States," and that they would be fools to go

against His wishes. He let members of Congress know that if he needed

their help he'd ask for it, but that they shou'idn't bother keeping their

phone lines open.

After his inauguration he was single-min,ded about what he perceived as

God's mandate that the United States, through him, should work to achieve

peace in the world once and for all. The world seems to have had other

ideas. Within a year, war broke out in Europe, and he was inclined to

stay out of it and to take on the role of peacemaker. But opinion began

to run against him with the sinking of the British ship Lusitania in 1915

with the loss of 128 American .iives. Still, he managed to delay what

many thought was inevitable, and successfuLly ran for a second term in

1916 with the slogan "He kept us out of the war."

Meanwhile, his beloved wife, Ellen, died, leaving him grief-stricken. And

his grief was increased when he was finally forced to ask Congress for a

declaration of war against Germany. His speech resu],ted in a standing

ovation to which he responded: "My message today was a message of death

for your young men.How strange it is to applaud that." He also made it a

point never to refer to men in uniform as anything but "boys," a term we

still use, because he remembered the young people who had been his

students for so many years.

But life goes on, and within eighteen months of his wife's death he

remarried. The new Mrs. Wilson, the former Edith Bolling Gault, became

the most controversial First Lady in the history of the presidency when

President Wilson suffered a crippling illness in 1919. The disaster

struck in the midst of a debate with the Senate over the treaty that

would end World War I. The President was fighting for the formation of a

League of Nations, but the opposition, led by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge,

was formidable. Wilson took his case to the people on a cross-country

speaking trip, but before it ended, his left side became paralyzed by

what was later diagnosed as thrombosis. The First Lady decided to shield

him from the public eye in hopes of keeping Senator Lodge's forces at

bay. In the process, she kept the whole country in the dark. But it was

never revealed why the President couldn't be seen or visited even by

members of his Cabinet.

The Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, tried to convene Cabinet

meetings, and suggested that the President should follow the letter of

the Constitution and turn the Government over to the Vice President. But

the letter of the Constitution says that such a thing depended on the

President's inability to discharge his duties. It seemed obvious to

everyone that Wilson wasn't able to do all that was required of him, but

in the end it was really just a matter of opinion, and the President's

doctor refused to certify that the man was incapacitated. Vice President

Thomas Marshall was just as happy about that. He didn't want the job,

didn't feel qualified for it and, quite simply, didn't want to be

bothered. Earlier in his term, when Wilson was in Europe negotiating the

peace treaty that was so important to him, Marshall had refused to accept

any presidential responsibility. When asked to attend Cabinet meetings,

he had said, "If I can't have the President's $75,000 salary, I'm not

going to do any of the President's work."

In the midst of the secrecy, rumors spread like wildfire across

Washington. At best, they said the President had gone mad; at worst, they

said he was dead. And everyone agreed that the First Lady had taken over

the reins of the Government. More than likely she hadn't. The business of

the Executive Branch went undone for several months. On rare occasions a

bill would be signed, but no one except handwriting experts believed the

signature was the President's. Diplomats weren't able to present their

credentials in person at the White House. Officials weren't able to

resign because their formal letters were unopened. Appointees weren't

able to assume their duties because the President had neglected to

formalize their appointments.

Little by little his health returned but by the time he was able to

appear in public again, very few people recognized the frail, partially

paralyzed man who had fought so hard for his peace plan and lost. He

began holding Cabinet meetings again, he received visitors in his

wheelchair, and even began talking of running for a third term in the

1920 election. But though the nominating convention included an

outpouring of affection for the fallen President, the Democrats opted for

a ticket that included Ohio's Governor James Cox for President and New

York's Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt as his running mate. They were

defeated in November, and when the new President, Warren G. Harding,

presented himself in Washington for the inauguration, former President

Wilson was too frail to climb the steps to be at his side as he took the

oath of office.

Wilson retired to a mansion on 5 Street in Washington, an almost

forgotten man. But only the politicians had forgotten him. He became a

symbol to the people who remembered what he had done, what he had tried

to do. In the midst of the roaring Twenties, he became a link with a

gentler past and the people loved him for it. When he was invited to

appear at the burial of the World War's Unknown Soldier in 1921, many

Americans got their first glimpse of him, and suddenly all the rumors

that were still circulating were swept away. He was the hero of the day,

hailed by the crowd as the greatest soldier of them all. The experience

revived him, and revived his hope that one day his dream of a League of

Nations would come true. He received visitors after that day, took long

drives in the country and occasionally appeared in public, confident that

he would get well and could continue his fight for world peace. But his

health never returned, and he would never fight again. Woodrow Wilson

died on February 3, 1924, more than five years after he had become an

invalid and hidden from public view. A few days earlier, he had quoted

another President when he was asked how he felt. 'fohn Quincy Adams is

all right, but the house he lives in is dilapidated, and it looks as if

he will soon have to move out."

The 29th President

WARREN G . HARDING

(1921-1923)

When he was beginning his rise in politics

V V in the State of Ohio, one of the party

A5 A5 leaders said to Warren Gamaliel Harding, "You know, you'd make a

dandy-looking president. " The young newspaper editor from Marion smiled

his best "Aw, shucks!" smile and went back to the poker game.

It wasn't an idle statement. Beyond his dandy looks, Warren G. Harding

was a Republican, a native Ohioan and a self-made man. It was a

formidable combination. Since the Civil War, half the Presidents had been

Ohioans, and among the Republicans who became President between 1869 and

1920, the only two who weren't from Ohio were Theodore Roosevelt and

Chester A. Arthur, both of whom moved up from the Vice Presidency. And at

the turn of the century, the mood of the whole country was very much

Republican.

But at the time the observation was made, Harding didn't seem to want

much more out of life than he already had. He was one of those people who

"gets things done." His newspaper, the Marion Star, was the most

influential in the Ohio heartland, and even if he had won it in a game of

cards, he built it from a nonentity to double the circulation of its two

competitors combined. He was a booster of small town values, too,

unabashed in his enthusiasm for giving the rich every opportunity to get

richer and his belief that the poor could get rich, too, if they weren't

lazy and shiftless. He was tireless in his support of the Marion Chamber

of Commerce, which kept him in close touch with potential advertisers for

his newspaper. But even without a business to build, Warren Harding

probably would have been a booster anyway. He was a 33-degree Mason, an

Elk and a Rotarian among other things. If there was a hand to be shaken

or a back to be slapped, Warren G. Harding was usually first in line. He

was a man who liked people, and those who mattered, as well as those who

didn't, liked him even more.

He was one of them, after all. He was born the son of a doctor in nearby

Blooming Grove. As a young man he was known all over the county as a man

who knew how to have a good time. Fathers were usually pleased to see him

in the company of their sons. Mothers were pleased to see him on the

front porch with their daughters, even though they couldn't help worrying

just a little.

He had been to college, had worked as a grade school teacher, was a great

cornet player and was manager of the town's baseball team, for which he

played a respectable first base. He had read some law and earned a few

dollars as a country lawyer, and he kept himself in better-than-average

style by selling life insurance.

One of the very few people in Marion who had no use for young Harding

also happened to be the richest man in town. But Harding married his

daughter anyway. He was 25 years old at the time. Florence was 30. Many

say it was the turning point in his life, in spite of the fact that Amos

Kling, his new father-in-law, swore that his life would end very soon if

he had anything to say about it. Among other things, Warren put an end,

or at least a curb, to his former wicked ways; and his bride, whom he

began calling "the Duchess," rolled up her sleeves and went to work to

mold his talent into something resembling success.

97

By many standards, Warren G. Harding already was a success. He had made

some good investments and even though he was only 25 years old, he had

the means to build a stylish two-story frame house, complete with stained

glass windows and solid oak trim, for his bride and her young son by a

previous marriage.

But Florence wanted more and she was willing to work to get it. She

talked him into changing the Star from a weekly to a daily paper, and

then appointed herself circulation manager and advertising salesman.

Harding embellished the idea by making the daily politically independent,

but publishing a weekly edition supporting the Republican cause.

Eventually, with Florence's help, he was able to buy out his competition

and had the only game, or rather games, in a fast-growing town.

Meanwhile, Florence was helping him in other ways. He was a natural

social animal but she showed him how to get more than just pleasure from

his talent.

He became a public speaker, and a very good one at that. His voice was

probably his best asset; its pitch made him easy to hear even in large

spaces without ever becoming strained or grating. He had the appearance

to go with it, too. He was just over six feet tall with impeccable

posture. He knew how to wear clothes, and looked perfect for every

occasion. His teeth were even and pearly white, his hair neat and richly

black. His skin had a dark, healthy glow and he had a smile that inspired

confidence in men and madewomen weak at the knees. Before very long,

audiences for his speeches were bigger than those his newspaper, in spite

of Florence's impressive efforts to build the latter. It was all very

strange, because Warren Gamaliel Harding had almost nothing to s He

thought he had a way with words, but the was he didn't. He did invent a

few words during career, the most fascinating of which described own

speaking style. He called it "bloviating," which is taken to mean the

ability to speak for any length time on any subject without actually

saying anything He loved to use alliteration, and in one speech pushed

the idea to its limits by saying, "Progress is not proclamation nor

palaver. It is not pretense play on prejudice. It is not personal

pronouns, perennial pronouncement. It is not the perturbat of a people,

passion-wrought, nor a promise proposed." What, then, is progression?

Don't ask Apart from the purple parade of P's, the statement contained a

clue to the Harding style. He was look for support from the Progressive

wing of the pa] but he didn't to alienate the other side. Those

chose to, heard "progressive" when he began bloviating about progression,

but that wasn't what he said at all, and he could prove it to anyone who

the patience to read the speech.

H.L. Mencken, who had a way with words himself said that the Harding

speechmaking style was "rum and bumble, flap and doodle, balder and

dash.' leading Democrat said that it was "the big bow-wow style of

oratoryAC, and added, ACHis speaches leave the impresion of an army of

pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an ideaAC. And a

candidate who had the misfortune of running against him complained that

he felt ACnot unlike a duelist whose opponent has chosen to settle the

dispute by a quuiet game of solitaireAC.

Yet, as the man said, Harding had all the qualities of a dandy-loking

president. And his speeches werenABt very illuminating, very few could

resist giving rapt attention to the tall, well-dressed man and his

incredible sincerity. He offered the voters a kind of old fashioned

grandeur with a common touch that made people think he had placed 'a

comforting arm on their shoulder and let them know he understood the

inner turmoil they were feeling in a fast-changing world. He said it

best himself when he ran for the presidency on a promise to return the

country to ACnormalcyAC.

It was inevitable that he should get into politics When he was only 22 he

served as a delegate to the Republican state convention. At 26, he was

president of the local Young Republican Club and a few years later was

sent to the Ohio State Senate, at which time he added an elegant front

porch to his home in Marion. After all, William McKinley had started on

the road to the White House by making speeches from his front porch over

in Canton. And though he denied it to the very end, young Harding had

made up his mind that he was going to be President. His journey there

began in 1903 when he was elected lieutenant governor, and he took a

serious turn in the right direction in 1914 when he became the first

United States Senator elected directly by the people of Ohio.

It was in the Senate that he attracted the attention of the powers

that be in the national Republican Party, and he was hand picked to serve

as chairman of their 1916 convention with the specific assignment of

keeping Theodore Roosevelt and his Progressives from taking over. He won

the battle for them in June, but they lost the war in November. Four

years later the Republicans met again very much divided, but eager to get

back into power. It was then that the famous "smoke-filled room" entered

the annals of American politics. Fourmonths before the convention, one of

the party's leading lights said, " ... At about eleven minutes after two

o'clock on Friday morning at the convention when fifteen or twenty men

somewhat weary, are sitting around a table, one of them will say 'Who

will we nominate?' At that decisive time, friends of senator Harding will

suggest him. In fact, I think I might suggest him myself."

Harding got the nomination on the tenth ballot on Saturday morning.

The Democrats nominated an Ohioan, too. James Cox was a

millionaire newspaper publisher who had become Governor of Ohio, but the

voters, even in the Buckeye State, couldn't think of a good reason to

cast their ballot for him, or for Harding, for that matter. As one

observer pointed out, "The people, indeed, do not know what ideas Harding

or Cox represents; neither do Harding or Cox. Great is democracy." In the

end they decided to vote against one or the other rather than for either

one, and more than half the voters didn't bother to show up at the polls.

But those who did elected Harding in a landslide.

He wasn't in the White House very long when the country was plunged into

a severe economic depression. He attacked the problem by working to

reduce government influence over business, a policy J. P. Morgan hailed

as "extremely courageous." When it was pointed out that a million-and-a-

half were out of work, he said "this parasitic percentage is always with

us." And when labor leaders appeared at the White House, he dismissed

them with the accusation that "labor men are not advising workmen to

accept necessary reductions in wages and give an opportunity for a

revival of industry." When farmers complained that they were on the verge

of starvation without Govemment help, he said that such paternalism would

"stifle ambition, impair efficiency, lessen production and make us a

nation of dependent incompetents."

But through it all, the President's popularity with the people

never wavered. He had a genius for public relations and, as a former

newspaperman, enviable relations with the press. His relations with the

Senate were quite another matter. As the gulf between the President and

Congress widened over a multitude of issues, the politicians on the Hill

began attacking not the popular President himself, but the men he

associated with, the ones they called "The Ohio Gang. " The war started

with revelations that Harding's cronies exerted influence over him

througlate-night poker games where hard liquor was served, even though a

Constitution Amendment specifically prohibited drinking. But it came to

an ugly head with a scandal that carried the cute name of "Teapot Dome."

Three huge reserves of oil on Government land had been set aside for the

use of the Navy, but in 1922 Harding's Secretary of the Interior, Albert

Fall, had leased one of them at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, to oil man Harry

Sinclair. When the Senate began investigating, they found that the other

two oil fields had also become the private preserve of Sinclair and

another oil man, Edward Doheny, who had paid $100,000 to Fall for the

privilege. Sinclair had won the right to drill on public lands by

offering Fall a piece of the action in the form of stock in his company.

Even after the scheme was exposed, Harding stood by his Interior

Secretary, calling the private leases "rational, natural and becoming

development.n He was so solidly committed to Fall's policy, in fact, thatwhen another developer moved in to drill oil on public land, he called

out the Marines to drive him off, saying that he was protecting the

people's interests because the oil reserves had been leased to Sinclair

and Doheny "at the best possible advantage to the Government." In the end

Fall was forced to resign, but Sinclair gave him a new job, just before

he and Doheny went off to jail.

President Harding didn't live to see it happen. In 1923, he set off on a

speaking tour that took him all the way to Alaska. But at every stop

along the way he seemed older than at the stop before it. On the way

back, he suddenly became violently ill and died quickly. Just as quickly,

rumors began circulating that he had been poisoned, some said by the Ohio

Gang who were afraid of what might happen to them in the 1924 campaign.

Others saw a conspiracy between Mrs. Harding and the presidential doctor.

Florence refused an autopsy and ordered an immediate burial. The

conspiracy theory grew a year later when the doctor died suddenly on a

visit to Mrs. Harding. And it came to a head when Florence herself died

within another six months. In death, Warren G. Harding became even more

fascinating than he had been in life. He was branded a philanderer, and a

woman who claimed to have been his mistress sued his estate for support

of her daughter. His cronies charged that he had manipulated them and

they had been been nothing more than pawns in the scandals of his

Administration. Members of the White House household staff rushed to

print with books suggesting that Mrs. Harding was the real villain, the

evil influence that turned an honest man of the people into a reluctant

crook.

But by then, neither President nor Mrs. Harding were alive to defend

themselves. Eventually the talk of conspiracies turned from titillation

to boredom and historians began to take a kinder view of this man whose

greatest weakness was a desire to please all the people all the time and

to make them see the Great Light of conservative Republicanism. They

began to agree with an observation made by The New York Times that Warren

Gamaliel Harding was "a very natural human being with the frailties mixed

with the virtues of humanity."

The 30th Presid ent

CALVIN COOLIDGE

(1 923-1 929)

Once, during a White House dinner party, a Washington matron

confided to Calvin Coolidge that she had made a bet with some friends

that she could get him to say more than two words. "You lose," said the

President.

He once told a frustrated reporter that he thought it was best not to say

much. "If you don't say anything, no one can call on you to repeat it,"

he explained. But by keeping his thoughts to himself and never bothering

to call attention to his accomplishments, Silent Cal proved one of the

great axioms of human relations. No one knows how good you are unless you

yourself tell them.

On August 23,1923, when he was told that President Harding had

died and that he was about to become the chief executive, he said, "I

think I need a drink." The drink he chose was a popular soft drink of the

day known as Moxie. Though the name is also a slang word for courage, Mr.

Coolidge was not making an editorial comment. He avoided that like the

plague.

But even though he never bothered to tell anyone, Calvin Coolidge

was a man of unusual courage and perseverance. When he moved into the

White House, he found himself surrounded by party hacks and hangers-on in

the midst of one of the greatest scandals ever to involve the presidency.

He didn't call any press conferences nor clear air time to reassure the

people that he was going to begin a heroic housecleaning. He simply

rolled up his sleeves, cleaned up the mess and let the courts take care

of the rascals. Without comment.

It wasn't as though Coolidge kept the press in the dark about what

he was up to. He established a policy of regular press conferences, and

at the end of his first one he was given a standing ovation. In an era

when politicians routinely blame "the media" for the country's problems,

it's difficult to picture a president who actually seemed to like the

press. Especially when that president is remembered as a man of few

words. What made Coolidge different was, as he himself explained it, "

... I have tried to refrain from abusing other people." He also said that

"The words of the President have enormous weight and ought not to be used

indiscriminately." But his relationship with the Washington press corps

wasn't a love feast. Plenty of newspapers opposed him, but he was

philosophical about it. "There is no cause for feeling disturbed about

being misrepresented in the press," he said. "It would be only when they

begin to say things detrimental to me which were true that I should feel

alarm."

He pointed out that the highest tribute to his Administration was

that the opposition based so little of their criticism on things he said.

But he said so little it was frustrating to his friends as well as his

enemies. Hehadn'tbeenPresidentlongbeforewordgotaround that he wouldn't

amount to much. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Where his

predecessor had promised a return to "normalcy," Coolidge in his quiet

way reminded the country that it needed old-fashioned honesty. If he had

been a man of words, stability would be one he'd have used often.

He was a hard man to understand in the context of the America of the

Roaring '20s. But those who knew their history knew him well as a

representative of the kind of stock that had made the country work in the

first place. He was a Vermonter through and through. He was hard-working,

thrifty, unmoveable, practical, very much in the mold of the people he

grew up among. He said their lives were "hard but wholesome," and that

they "suffered many privations and enjoyed many advantages, without any

clear realization of the existence of either one of them." He was proud

to be descended from people who had what he called exemplary habits.

"Their speech was clean and their lives were above reproach," he said.

They had no mortgages on their farms. If any debts were contracted they

were promptly paid. Credit was good and there was money in the savings

bank. The break of day saw them stirring and their industry continued

until twilight .... They cherished the teachings of the Bible and sought

to live in accordance with its precepts." Calvin Coolidge did all he

could to be just like them.

He had a bit of the maverick in him, but that was normal, too. The first

Coolidge to arrive in America was a Massachusetts Puritan who came *om

England in 1630. Some of his descendants found the Bay Colony less than

free and liberated themselves by migrating to the mountains of Vermont.

It was this branch that produced the future President, who was born on

the Fourth of July in 1872 in the living quarters behind his father's

general store at Plymouth Notch.

The elder Coolidge was a pillar of the community. He was elected to the

State Legislature three times, and served all his adult life as the town

Constable. He was also a Justice of the Peace and the only Notary Public

for miles around. He was the only man in Plymouth Notch who wore a suit

with a white shirt and tie every day of the week and not just on Sundays

. It gave young Calvin a lot to live up to, and he took the

responsibility very seriously.

After graduating from Amherst, he went to Northampton,

Massachusetts, to work in a law of fice whose partners were active in

local politics. One served as District Attorney and the other Mayor of

the city. Through them, he received a well-grounded education in both

criminal law and local government and when he was admitted to the bar

less than tw97 years later, he landed running. He became a member of the

Northampton Common Council and soon after was appointed City Solicitor.

Eventually he was elected to the State House of Representatives, a job he

left to become Mayor of Northampton. His basic interest was in his law

career, not politics, and when he saw an opportunity to go the

Massachusetts Senate, he gave up the Mayor's job in hopes that serving

there would be helpful to his practice. He had planned to retire after

two terms as a Senator, but he couldn't pass up an opportunity to become

President of the Senate, and stayed on, growing more influential in

Massachusetts politics with each passing year. In 1915,he became

Lieutenant Governor,andthreeyears later he was elected Governor.

He became a national figure during a dispute over whether the

Boston police had a right to make their local union a part of the

American Federation of Labor. When they went out on strike over the

issue, union leaders were tried and convicted and forced out of their

jobs. Governor Coolidge was asked to intervene and reinstate them, but he

refused, saying, "There is no right to strike against the public safety

by anybody, any time, anywhere." Many considered his stand political

suicide, but the voters overwhelmingly reelected him, and Calvin Coolidge

came to the attention of the national party leaders as a man of

unflinching integrity.

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was among the first on the bandwagon, and

proposed placing Coolidge's name in contention for the presidency in

1920. By the time of the convention his enthusiasm had cooled, but

Coolidge entered the lists as a Massachusetts favorite son. In the end,

Warren G. Harding took the nomination, but the delegates, sensing that

their choice had been dictated by powerful Senators, took matters into

their own hands and made Coolidge his running mate.

When the Coolidges arrived in Washington, the new Vice President

didn't turn talkative, but in his own way he became something of a social

butterfly. He willing accepted any and all dinner invitations because the

idea appealed to the frugal side of his nature and, as he pointed out to

his wife, Grace: "Got to eat somewhere." After they moved into the White

House, Grace became one of the most popular First Ladies in the history

of the presidency. She entertained heads of state and other important

people as though they were guests in her home back in Northampton, and

the only change she made in her life was that she began wearing more

expensive clothes. She wore clothes well and dressed tastefully, but back

home she was more likely to wear dresses she had made herself. As First

Lady, she continued to sew, but her husband's greatest pleasure in life

seemed to be to help her select formal gowns, and even though he was a

notorious penny-pincher, he never stinted on clothes for Grace. In fact,

if she seemed to be planning to wear the same gown twice, he refused to

allow her to do it.

It was something he had done all their married life. The

presidency changed very little about the habits and lifestyle of Grace

and Calvin Coolidge. On August 2, 1923, when President Harding died, the

Vice President was back home in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, and when word

reached him that his life was about to change dramatically at nine-thirtythat night, Mr. Coolidge was fast asleep. He was tired because he had

spent the afternoon helping a neighbor with his haying, but even if he

had frittered away the afternoon on the front porch with one his favorite

Havana cigars, he'd have been asleep by that late hour anyway. He was

awakened by a telegraph messenger carrying the sad news, because there

was no telephone in the house. There weren't any in all of Plymouth

Notch, for that matter.

The elder Coolidge, as Justice of the Peace administered the oath

of office that made his son th8E 30th President of the United States. The

oath was taken on an old family Bible by the light of a kerosene

lamp. Electric lights hadn't come to Plymouth Notch, either. President

Coolidge was pleased to be the only President sworn in by his father, and

when he was reelected in 1924, he became the only one sworn in by a

former President, when William Howard Taft, the Chief Justice of the

Supreme Court, administered the oath.

Coolidge would probably have been just as happy if he had followed his

original plan of becoming a successful country lawyer rather than a

politician. His heart never seemed to be in it when the time came to

stage a photo opportunity, as Presidents had begun doing almost as soon

as cameras were invented. The Summer White House in 1927 was the State

Game Lodge in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Coolidge would have

preferred to be in the granite hills of Vermont, but he did all he could

to look like one of the boys in a role that would have been better suited

to President Theodore Roosevelt. He dressed like a cowboy, proving once

again that it takes more than clothes to make an image. He had learned to

fish as a boy and claimed he enjoyed the sport, but to the chagrin of

photographers, he insisted on wearing white kid gloves while he was doing

it. He never developed a stomach for baiting hooks, either, and that job

became one of the duties of the Secret Service. The National Parks

Service got into the act, too, by stocking streams to make sure there

would be an occasional fish at the end of the line where the worm had

been.

It was after one of his fishing expeditions in South Dakota that

he surprised everyone, including his wife, by issuing one of the

strangest statements ever delivered by a President.

He didn't say anything, actually, but had it written on little

slips of paper that might have come from fortune cookies. Each reporter

following him was handed one, and each carried exactly the same message:

"I do not choose to run in 1928." It was the fourth anniversary of his

presidency, but still a full ten months before the Republicans would meet

to pick a candidate. Coolidge had won by a landslide in 1924 and could

easily have repeated the triumph for another term. But what was odd about

the statement was that it didn't say he wouldn't be a candidate. Other

hopefuls needed to tread softly, lest the popular incumbent should decide

to let someone else make his choice for him. State delegations stayed

under the President's control, and Coolidge kept them there until the

following June with his twelve-word statement.

When it was all over, he said he was surprised that anyone had

considered his message cryptic. He never intended to run again, he

claimed, because "it is difficult for men in high of fice to avoid the

malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshippers. They

are constantly, and for the most part sincerely, assured of their

greatness." He said that he felt a statement that he would refuse the

nomination was not within his concept of the requirements of the office,

but in the end, in his quiet way he told the party leaders that "We draw

our Presidents from the People. It is a wholesome thing for them to

return to the people. I came from them. I wish to be one of them again."

He was happy to go home again to the rented house in Northampton that had

been their home since he made Grace Goodhue his wife.Without a budget for

entertaining, they did very little, and the former President drifted back

to his old habit of staying in bed every morning until nine. Those who

did visit them never seemed to notice that the silverware and linen

carried the monogram of a local hotel that had gone out of business and

liquidated the furnishings at bargain prices. Calvin Coolidge was a man

who loved a bargain more than appearances. This was the same man who,

when asked by a local bank to become a depositor to enhance its prestige,

suggested that he could be made an "honorary" depositor.

The house in Plymouth Notch where he had grown up and taken the

oath of office still didn't have a telephone or electric lights . A phone

had been installed when he used it as a summer retreat in 1924, but he

had it removed when he went back to Washington. The former President

spent vacations there in his retirement, and enjoyed sitting in a rocker

on the front porch enveloped in cigar smoke. A friend who once shared the

pleasure with him mentioned that he must be proud to see so many cars

passing by just to have a look at the presidential birthplace. "It's not

as good as yesterday," said Cal, "there were 60 of 'em then." The place

attracts more than 50,000 people every year these days. It would make

Calvin Coolidge proud.

The 31st President

HERBERT HOOVER

(1929-1933)

When he became Food Administrator in the Wilson Administration,

Herbert Clark Hoover made a decision that seemed unimportant, if not a

bit odd, but changed the way history would record his own Administration

and provided a graphic clue to the secret of his success as well as one

of his consuming passions. He dropped his middle initial.

He reasoned that as a public figure he would be required to sign his name

hundreds of times a day, and that by eliminating the capital C, he' d

save perhaps as much as half an hour a week for more important things. In

everything he did, Herbert Hoover was a model of efficiency.

America at large got its first taste of the Hoover style in the early

days of World War I. He was in London when the shooting started, and was

overwhelmed with reports from the managers of companies he owned in

Russia, in Australia, Burma and South Africa that banks were closing and

payrolls couldn't be met. In Russia, his workers were being mobilized as

soldiers, and the mining empire he had built seemed to be crashing around

him. But he wa the only one with problems.

The American Consul, an old friend, called Hoo with an even bigger one.

About a thousand American citizens had descended on the Consulate when th

found that their dollars were being refused at local, banks and hotels.

It left them without a place to sle or cash to arrange transportation

home, and the Consul had no funds to bail them out. Hoover went righ

work. He took all the gold and currency from 1 office and set up shop to

exchange dollars for poun to allow his fellow countrymen to check back

nto their hotels, and possibly find passage home. But next day, the

problem grew worse when thousand more began arriving from the Continent.

Hoover galvanized the local American community a established an office to

help the refugees. Then mobilized Americans in other parts of Europe

funnel even moFe stranded tourists through London In less than two

months, they had helped more th 120,000 Americans escape the war and had

lOaI. them more than $1.5 million to help them get hon Every loan was

repaid.

As Hoover and his wife were getting ready board a ship headed for home

themselves, another friend presented him with a new challenge. Twen five

hundred tons of food destined for the starving population of Brussels

were bottled up behinc British blockade. Hoover intervened, and

permission to let the shipment go through, but the British were afraid

that the Germans would interept the food, and ruled that no other

shipments would allowed. In the meantime, reports from other Belgi cities

indicated that the whole country was on the brink of starvation and that

the French were suffering too. Herbert Hoover cancelled his trip and be~

working on the problem of where he'd find enough food to supply ten

million people, and then, having found it, how he'd get it to them.

He set up a committee of American executives a went to work. They used

their connections to ra private funds from all parts of the world and

recruil young people to help with the work. The first supplies arrived in

Belgium less than a week after the commitee was formed, and within

another week Hoover had secured a signed agreement from the Germans that

the effort wouldn't be stopped. He had also convinced the British to let

his relief ships through their blockade.

Hoover personally directed the effort until the U.S. entered the war, and

then he went to Washington to organize the food supply for America and

her allies. When the war was over he went back to Europe to organize the

recovery, never once accepting any fees or reimbursement of expenses. By

the fall of 1919, when he got home again, he had decided against public

service as a career. But he had been transformed into a public hero, and

he had developed some strong ideas on how he could help America. When

President Harding asked him to take on the job of Secretary of Commerce,

he made a decision to join the Government. It wasn't as though he didn't

have an option. An international mining company had offered him a

partnership with a minimum guarantee of a half million dollars a year.

Offers like that weren't unusual in Herbert Hoover's life, but if

you were to have met him as a boy, you probably wouldn't have taken any

bets on it. He had been born to a pioneer Ouaker family in West Branch,

Iowa. His father died when he was six and his mother two years later.

Herbie's seven-year-old sister went to live with their grandmother; and

his twelve-year-old brother and he joined the families of two different

uncles. Eventually he went to Oregon to live with yet another uncle, John

Minthorn, whom he had never met, but who had promised to see to his

education.

When Bert was fifteen his uncle went into the lumber business and

offered the boy a job in the of fice. It meant he had to leave school,

but the pay was fifteen dollars a month, and that added up to a kind of

independence. It also gave him a chance to learn bookkeeping and typing,

not to mention how to run a business. He went to night school to learn

mathematics and in the process developed a love for reading as well. And

in the midst of it all, through the influence of an engineer in his

uncle's office, he decided that he would become a mining engineer.

His dream came closer to reality when Stanford University was

established and he was accepted in its engineering program with the

promise that he could earn his way to a degree. He was part of Stanford'sfirst graduation class in 1895, and he was fired with ambition, not just

because it came naturally to him, but because he had met a blue-eyed girl

with a charming grin. Her name was Lou Henry. He knew that as soon as he

could afford it he would marry her. But when he left Palo Alto in search

of a job, his net worth was forty dollars.

When the money was gone, he settled for a job as a laborer in a

silver mine. The other men at the bottom of the shaft weren't too pleased

to have a college graduate among them, but when they found him eager to

learn from them, they were just as eager to show him tricks of the trade

that ordinary engineers could never know. But the pay was terrible, and

after drifting from one outfit to another, Bert finally went to the West

Coast's leading engineer and offered himself for any job at all just for

the chance to work with him. He was made a clerk, but he made a name for

himself in the of fice when a survey was needed of a shaft he had become

familiar with as a laborer. It got him a promotion, but it also landed

him in the New Mexican desert where there was more work to be done.

His big break came when his boss offered him a consulting job in

the Australian gold fields at the astounding salary of $600 a month. He

hadn't been there long when he discovered a rich lode, and recommended

that his employers invest in it. They were so impressed that they raised

his salary to $10,000 a year and gave him stock in the operation. The

entire industry was impressed, in fact. Not only had Hoover sniffed out a

rich strike, but in running it he had accomplished the seemingly

impossibleby completely eliminating the labor troubles that had become

traditional in the gold fields by picking good men, paying them what they

were worth, and cutting costs with new, American-made machinery. Less

than a year later he had an offer to go to China at double the salary. He

agreed immediately he had cabled Lou Henry and she had agreed to marry

him and go along.

His job in China was to modernize the coal and cement industries,

and he encouraged his hosts to develop their iron, zinc and copper

deposits, but the Dowager Empress was single minded about finding new

gold deposits, and young Hoover was sent all over the country in

elaborate caravans on the fruitless search. He found the experience

frustrating, but in his travels, he became unusually well informed about

the Chinese people. The Hoovers were in Tientsin during the Boxer

Rebellion, and survived it largely because of Bert's efforts to organize

food supplies for the Western community during the siege. When it was all

over, they moved on to London, where he became a partner in one of the

world's oldest and best-respected mining firms. But no sooner had he

begun his new job when itwas revealed that one of his new partners had

embezzled a million dollars from the firm. Lawyers reassured them that

the other partners weren't liable for the loss, but Hoover insisted that

they should repay the money, which he argued really belonged to their

clients. He ultimately convinced all of them, and himself, of course, to

make up the loss from their own pockets. It took every cent he had

managed to save in Australia and China.

It made Hoover a legend in the London business community, but he didn' t

spend much time in England basking in the glory. His travels took him

around the world five times. When he went to South Africa to look over

some coal mines, he discovered gold under one of them. He seemed to have

a nose for knowing where to look for such things. On another trip to

Australia, he developed a new process for removing zinc from the waste

gathered in silver mines, and bought five millions tons of the seemingly

worthless stuff to prove his theory. The silver mine became the world's

richest source of lead and zinc, and the waste became more valuable than

the silver. In less than seven years he built the company to three times

the size it had reached in the previous hundred and fifty years, and he

was the best known, and most envied, mining engineer in the world. He was

thirty-eight years old and a multi-millionaire and in 1908, Herbert

Hoover decided to retire.

He moved his family to a house on the campus of Stanford University and

became a consultant. Before long, he had offices in a half-dozen cities

around the world and all of them were busy. He had an interest in a lead

mine in Burma, and it was busy, too. Five years after he had turned it

into a profitable operation, a new shaft became the biggest producer of

lead, zinc and silver in the world. By the beginning of World War I, when

he suddenly became a public figure, Herbert Hoover was one of the most

successful businessmen in the world.

When he and Lou moved into the White House in 1929, business was booming

and the Twenties were roaring at full tilt. Prosperity was the watchword,

and if anybody in the United States wasn't happy, the future was almost

certain to get better. Best of all, the new President was a man who

understood high finance.

Then, on October 30, the whole thing came apart. The stock market

collapsed and the country was dropped into the biggest depression it had

ever seen. Hoover couldn't have prevented it, and seemed helpless to find

a way out of it. Even Calvin Coolidge, who never had a lot to say, noted

"The country is not in good condition." A story about Hoover that was

repeated time and again was that he was walking down the street with a

banker friend and asked to borrow a nickel to call a friend. "Here's a

dime," said the banker, "call both of them."

But Herbert Hoover wasn't friendless at all, of course. And he had

a very good instinct for survival. During their years in Washington,

which began during the Wilson Administration, the Hoovers were among the

city's most important entertainers. Lou Hoover had plenty of experience.

During their 44 years together, they had lived in 17 different homes in

all parts of the world. During the siege at Tientsin, no less than five

artillery shells landed in their yard. They had survived London bombing

raids, often taking shelter in the basement of their house. And they

managed to escape with their lives from a three-alarm fire in the White

House on Christmas Eve in 1929.

His friends in the Republican Party had enough confidence in him

to give him their nomination again in 1932, butunfortunately he couldn't

muster enough friends to get reelected.

After his defeat, he and Lou went back to California, but

eventually moved to New York, where they rented a $32,000-a-year suite in

the Waldorf Towers, which would be home for the next thirty years. In

1946, two years after Lou died, Hoover joined the Truman Administration

as a special consultant to help find ways to avert a postwar famine. The

following year, and again in 1953, he headed commissions to study ways to

reorganize the Government's Executive Branch.

After formally retiring in 1955, Herbert Hoover became an elder

statesman in his 31st-floor tower suite. He had four desks there, one for

each book he was simultaneously writing, and five secretaries who

transcribed his penciled manuscripts. When he was eighty-five years old,

he traveled 14,000 miles and made an average of two speeches a month. He

worked hard for the Boys Clubs of America and for the Hoover Institution

at Stanford University. He personally answered an average of 20,000

letters a year, saying that anyone thoughtful enough to write to him

deserved an answer.

He had always led an active life, and never understood anyone who

didn't. But he did have one daily activity that his neighbor, Cole

Porter, must have applauded. Every afternoon at five, he indulged himself

with exactly one and a half (no more, no less) Gibson cocktails, a drink

he had invented some years earlier when he decided he didn't really like

olives in martinis. He called it "the pause between the errors and trials

of the day and the hopes of the night." But he knew that very few people

would ever really understand the pace he chose. When someone once asked

him how former presidents spend their days, he answered, "We spend all

our time taking pills and dedicating libraries."

On a more serious note, on his ninetieth birthday, not long before

he died, a reporter asked him how he had survived the long years of

ostracism after his defeat for the presidency in 1932. Hoover's answer

was simple. "I outlived the bastards," he said.

The 32nd President

FRANKLIN DELANO

ROOSEVELT (1933-1 945)

Once, when he was a young man, and before he became a politician,

Franklin D. Roosevelt described himself as a "Hudson River Gentleman,

yachtsman, philatelist and naval historian." Modesty was never, ever,

anything anyone accused F.D.R. of, but he was much more than that, even

then.

The problem was that he had never bothered to earn a living, and never

did anything that didn't interest him. The term "Hudson River Gentleman"

summed it all up.

The Roosevelt family had been squires in the Hudson Valley for

generations. Isaac Roosevelt, the future President's great-great

grandfather, started it all with a successful sugar refining business.

His son, as future Roosevelt generations would do, married well and went

into the banking business. It was he who established the family estate on

the banks of the HudsoninNewYork'sDuchessCounty,acomfortable distance

from New York City. His son, James, studied medicine, but never so much

as mended a broken leg. He used his talents to improve the livestock and

the landscaping of the Hyde Park estate. His son, F.D.R's father, did the

same thing, but he also devoted a lot of attention to investing, an

activity he had an exceptional talent for.

The future President was born at Springwood, as the estate was called, on

January 30,1882, the son of Sarah Delano Roosevelt, one of the wealthiest

young women of her day, with a family background and social connections

that may well have been among the most impressive in American history.

The Delanos, like the Roosevelts, traced their American ancestry back to

the earliest Colonial times. Though the first American among them didn' t

arrive on the Mayflower, he arrived in the Plymouth colony on the very

next ship. His descendants were all shipowners, some operating as whaling

captains, others as privateers, and Sarah's father made an impressive

fortune on his own in the China trade when he was still in his twenties.

After he lost it all in a financial panic, he went to Hong Kong and

recovered his losses, and then some, in the opium trade. Young Sarah

spent her early years in China, but went home at the age of ten to begin

her education, and over the next decade spent about half her time in

Paris. When she married James Roosevelt, a widower whose son was the same

age she was, it represented the combining of two great patrician

families, and the new Mrs. Roosevelt never let anyone forget it. Her

stepson was already married, to the daughter of the Mrs. Astor, no less,

and when she moved into Springwood, the big house seemed empty. She

remedied that two years later when she brought young Franklin into the

world.

Sarah's son was the apple of her eye and was given every advantage

imaginable: trips abroad every year, a private tutor so he wouldn't have

to associate with children his mother considered beneath him, and a

summer home on Campobello Island in Canada, where he could enjoy the good

life among his peers. He was her only child, after all.

He was educated at the exclusive Groton School and then at Harvard

University. He went on to the Columbia University Law School after that,

but dropped out when he was offered a job with a Wall Street law firm

that was willing to to take a chance on him even though he didn't have a

law degree. At about the same time, he married his cousin, Anna Eleanor

Roosevelt, a niece of former President Theodore Roosevelt, who gave the

bride away at the wedding. T.R. was the head of what was known as the

Oyster Bay branch of the family, separated from the Hyde Park branch by

an accident of politics as well as distance. Teddy was a Republican,

James a Democrat.

Franklin had no problem getting time off from his new job for their

extended wedding trip to Europe. He never bothered to ask for a few days

to move his bride into the townhouse that his mother had built for them

on Manhattan's East 65th Street, connected to an identical house of her

own next door. The fact was, Franklin Roosevelt's employers didn't care

if he ,howed up for work at all. His social connections were what they

were paying for, and in that regard he earned his salary hundreds of

times over.

A lot of men with his background would have Jecome insufferable

playboys, but Franklin D. Roosevelt wasn't like a lot of men. He enjoyed

a good time, to be sure, but his greatest joy, as he would prove years

later in the White House, was dealing with people. It was inevitable that

he would go into politics and, once having decided to do it, that the

political establishment would welcome him with open arms. He planned his

political career carefully, following the example of Theodore Roosevelt.

Before anyone knew that he would even think of running for of fice, he

had decided to begin with a term in the New York State Legislature, move

on to Washington as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and then go back to

Albany as Governor of New York, after which, with any luck, he would run

for President of the United States. It was exactly the route T.R. had

taken, and his cousin eventually did all of that. But even without such

an illustrious role model, F.D.R. would probably have found his way to

the White House on his own.

He took his first step with election to the New York Senate in

1910, and even before he went to Albany he became the most-watched

politician in the state. The press was eager to find out more about this

new Roosevelt in their midst; Tammany Hall politicians were just as eager

to see if they could manipulate him. He hadn't been there long when he

satisfied the former by positioning himself as a leader in a fight

against the latter. The party bosses tried to dismiss him as just another

"college kid," but they underestimated him. As he warmed up to the fight,

he said "I have never had as much fun in my life as I'm having right

now." He had grabbed the Tammany Tiger by the tail and the sounds of

battle were heard all over the country. Unlike most state legislators

who, even with the aid of graft, never lived in grand style in Albany,

Senator Roosevelt had bought a town house there. It became a social

center, especially for reporters who were pleased to respond to his

hospitality and never failed to pick up good copy on every visit.

The battle was over the naming of a United States Senator, which

was one of the prerogatives of the State Senate. Roosevelt succeeded in

blocking the Tammany choice, but in the end their second choice, the man

the bosses had really preferred all along, went to Washington. Senator

Roosevelt learned his first important lesson in politics. But he had only

entered the game six months before, and he already had a reputation as

the man who stood up to Tammany Hall. Among the people who sat up and

took notice was Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, who had taken on

the party bosses in his own state and was being groomed to become the

Democratic Presidential candidate in 1912.

Roosevelt jumped on the Wilson bandwagon right away. His own plan called

for an appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, but the timing was

accelerated when he realized that Tammany would move heaven and earth to

nip his career in the bud. Apart from the fact that he admired Wilson, he

knew that he had to make a name for himself in Washington if there was

any chance of political survival. When Wilson was elected, he got what he

wanted.

Never in the history of the United States has there been a more

enthusiastic Assistant Secretary of the Navy than young Franklin D.

Roosevelt. He personally inspected nearly all the ships in the fleet, and

when the Navy went to war in 1917 he took it on himself to make sure it

was properly mobilized. He was only the Assistant Secretary, but

Roosevelt managed to outrun his boss on every front. When the war was

over, he distanced himself from his boss when the Navy Department became

involved in a Congressional investigation, and became involved in a

personal crusade to make the Federal Government more efficient. In 1920,

the Democrats made him their vice presidential candidate.

After losing the election, he became a vice president of a a surety

bonding company, in charge of its New York office. It was largely a

ceremonial job, and he had plenty of time left over for his private law

practice, and for keeping his name alive by lending it to charitable and

political causes. But then, in July 1921, it began to look as though his

career had come to an end. He contracted polio and lost the use of both

legs. He was bedridden and near death until the following March, when he

was finally able to stand up with the help of steel braces. He never did

recover the use of his legs, but eventually his spirit came back. He

didn't believe he could run for office again. How could a man who

couldn't walk even think of running? But he thought he could still be

involved behind the scenes and got aboard the bandwagon leading Al Smith

toward the presidential nomination. His wife, Eleanor, took to the

campaign trail and helped him in his election as Governor of New York

while Franklin sat smiling in the background. The election put F.D.R.

back in the limelight, and by 1924 he was ready to place Smith's name in

nomination for the presidency. It was his first political speech since

contracting polio, and many said it was the most important one he had

ever made. Al Smith lost his bid, but the Democratic Party knew that

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the one to watch. It was a valuable lesson for

F.D.R., who began to understand that the ability to walk had absolutely

nothing to do with running for of fice. In fact, after he died, a close

associate said that his suffering made him all the more effective. "The

patience necessary to the democratic process was built into his own

condition," he said. "It is the same kind of patience he demonstrated in

such small daily tasks as getting from place to place."

Smith took the presidential nomination in 1928, and Roosevelt was still

in his corner. As a kind of reward for his services, he was given the

nomination to succeed Smith as Govemor of New York. On election day, Al

Smith lost miserably, but Roosevelt managed to win by a small margin. He

was one of the few Democrats to win anything in 1928, and as a result

became a symbol of the Party's hopes for the future.

As Governor, he was able to keep the Legislature in a cooperative

mood and the opposition on the defensive through his mastery at reaching

the people through the radio. When the Great Depression began, he used

the new medium to deride the Hoover Administration, and that kept his

star shining among Democrats who could deliver the presidential

nomination in 1932. He gave them an added incentive by winning the 1930

gubernatorial election by 750,001 votes. "I cast that one vote," said the

Governor.
Even before then he was hard at work lining up support for the '32

nomination. And after the victory his supporters began working on

securing it on the first ballot. Among the predictions from leaders in

other states, the Chairman of the Nevada Committee wired Roosevelt

headquarters that "There are five million people in the West who don't

know T.R. is dead and will vote for your Governor." In the end it took

four ballots to nominate Roosevelt, and he was elected in November by

more than seven million votes. It was a new lease on life for the

Democrats, whose leaders predicted they'd keep control of the White House

for twenty-five years. It turned out to be thirty-six years, twelve of

them with Mr. Roosevelt himself.

The new President's physical handicap was never mentioned, and there were

many Americans who were never aware of it. The only time F.D.R. ever

referred to his struggle was in an interview when a reporter asked him

how he coped with the difflculties of his presidency. "If you had spent

two years in bed trying to move your toes," he said, "you'd understand

how easy the rest has been."

Roosevelt's White House years were far from easy. He went to Washington

in the midst of the Great Depression and immediately began breaking every

rule in the book to get it behind him. The country had never seen

anything like his New Deal before, and getting his ideas translated to

the law of the land, made him as many enemies as friends. In the process,

he gave the country its first experience of such things as unemployment

insurance, retirement programs, wage and hour laws, housing for the poor,

jobs for the needy - all as the responsibility of the Federal Government.

He completely transformed the country and the way the Government

functions. Even though the term "big Government" has become fighting talk

in some circles, he made the Government big enough to ensure that it

could never again be controlled either by big business or by a powerful

labor movement. He made the Government a servant of the people, and if he

made enemies in the process enough people loved him for it to make him

the first President in history to run for a third term, and he made

history again in 1944 by running for, and winning, a fourth.

His performance as an administrator and moralebuilder was even more

impressive after the United States entered World War II in 1941, and his

personal style with other world leaders established the pattern for the

peace that followed it. But he didn't live to see the peace he helped

design. In April 1945, less than a month before the German surrender and

five months before the end of the war with Japan, Franklin D. Roosevelt

died at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia.

Of all the epitaphs, the one that F.D.R himself would probably

have liked best came from a Southern taxi driver who told an

Administration of ficial on his way back to Washington that in the years

before the Roosevelt presidency he had been a factory worker. "They

didn't even treat us like humans," he remembered. "We were paid sixteen

cents an hour, and if you asked to get off on Sunday, the foreman would

say 'All right, you stay away Sunday and when you come back on Monday,

someone else will haveyour job.'-No sir,I'll never forget what President

Roosevelt done for us."

The 33rd President

HARRY S. TRUMAN

(1945-1953)

Of all the American Presidents, none knew more about his predecessors

than Harry Truman. He had a wonderful sense of history, but little

understanding of his own place in it. When he retired in 1953, he told an

interviewer: "I wasnit one of the great presidents, but I had a hell of a

time trying to be one." Oh, if he could hear them now! Even the

Republicans can't think of enough good things to say about Harry S.

Truman.

He never really wanted the job in the first place. When Franklin

Roosevelt suggested his name as vice presidential candidate on the 1944

ticket, he told F.D.R. to go to hell. It took a great deal of arm

twisting and reminders of party loyalty to get him to change his mind.

Eighty-two days after Roosevelt's fourth term began, Harry S. Truman

became the 33rd President of the United States.

His vice presidency had been a compromise in the first place, and

when the Trumans moved into the White House, the Democrats weren't too

sure they had made such a smart move. They spent the next three years

plotting to dump Harry before the 1948 election, and they were chagrined

when he said in a speech: "There's going to be a Democrat in the White

House in 1949 - and you're lookin' at him." Almost none of the party

leadership agreed. They had their eye on General Dwight D. Eisenhower,

who had all the earmarks of a winner. The General had never voted and

nobody knew if he was a Republican or a Democrat, but they were willing

to give him the benefit of the doubt. As convention time approached with

no word from Eisenhower, it began to look like they'd have to settle for

the President after all. But they couldn't resist humiliating him.

The 1948 conventions were the first to be broadcast on television,

and the Democrats decided to take advantage of the exposure, even though

limited, to boom the possible candidacy of Senate Majority Leader Alben

Barkley of Kentucky. They also used up prime air time with a fight over

the platform's stand on civil rights, a very new issue back then. By the

time they got around to giving their nomination to Truman, it was two

o'clock in the morning. But for those who stayed up to hear him, he

delivered a political masterstroke by announcing that he was going to

call the "do-nothing Congress" into session in the middle of their summer

vacation and would keep them sweating until they paid off their campaign

promises. They had no choice but to appear, and when they accomplished

nothing, as he had predicted, he had a perfect issue. It set the stage

for a campaign full of surprises that ended with the biggest surprise of

all, Harry S. Truman's reelection.

In his whistlestop campaign that year, Truman picked up the

nickname of "Give 'em Hell Harry" as he toured the country hitting hard

against Republicans in general and the Republican-dominated Congress in

particular. The opposition called it "cheap politics," but Truman knew

instinctively it was the very best kind of politics. He was candid,

sometimes to a fault. In an era when the political pros were beginning to

think that the way to win an election was to learn how to "use"

television, President Truman stuck to his belief that meeting voters face

to face was still the best policy. "When you get on the television," he

said, "you're wearing a lot of powder and paint that somebody else has

put on your face. And you haven't even combed your own hair. But when

you're standing right in front of them ... the people can tell whether

you're telling them the facts or not." He estimated that he stood in

front of about twenty million people in '48. When he went to Dallas,

Texas, he told his audience that he believed black citizens had the same

rights as whites, and later the same day he shook hands with a black

woman in Waco. Party professionals winced and the crowds hissed. But

Harry had a secret none of them quite understood. He wanted to win, of

course, but not deceitfully. "Win, lose or draw," he said, "people will

know where I stand and a record will be made for future action by the

Democratic Party."

There was never any doubt about where Harry Truman stood, and if people

didn't like it, he never lost any sleep worrying about it. He was a man

who believed in the simple values of the l9th-century Midwest. He had

grown up in Independence, Missouri, where such things as hard work and

uncompromising honesty were a way of life.

He said that by the time he was eleven he had read the entire

Bible twice, and then he read it twice more before finishing grade

school. He also said that he had read every book in the Independence

Library before the end of his high school career. No one in town argued

the point, but the cynics among them said he'd have had to have read a

book a day to have accomplished such a feat. And those who allowed it was

possible wondered where, then, he found time read all the books in his

father's house, a collection that included all of Shakespeare's works,

Plutarch's Lives and every book written up until that time by Mark Twain.

But if there were people who couldn't believe young Harry read every book

at his disposal~ others wondered if he hadn't been sneaking off to St.

Louis in search of a bigger library. His head was filled with facts,

trivial and otherwise, and as an adult, few men he met could match his

understanding of world history.

He also found time during his school days for serious study of the piano,

but he fit it into his day by starting at 5:30 in the morning. He found

romance, too, in his fashion, through almost single-minded devotion to

Bess Wallace from the day he met her in fifth grade. Whether Bess herself

ever noticed is completely unknown, but she finally succumbed by marrying

Harry in 1919. The wedding date had been postponed by World War I, but

the long engagement that preceded it had been postponed, everyone said,

by Bess's doubts that he'd be able to support her. There was never any

doubt that he was willing to try, but he seemed to be on a collision

course with failure, and when she turned down his first proposal of

marriage, he pleaded in a letter to her, "Say, Bessie, you'll at least

let me keep on being good friends, won't you?"

When he graduated from high school, his heart was set on entering West

Point, but when he tested his eligibility to serve in the military and

was rejected because of poor eyesight, he set his sights on a career in

business. He enrolled in a business college, but was forced to drop out

when his father'slivestockbusiness failed and he took a job in the

mailroom at the Kansas City Star. From there he went to work as a

timekeeper for a railroad, and eventually became a bank clerk. He made

$100 a month, which he recalled was "a magnificent salary in Kansas City

in 1905." At about the same time he joined a newly-forming National Guard

unit. It satisfied part of his overall plan to get some military

training, and it also put him in contact with the Pendergast brothers,

who controlled the local Democratic Party.

He left the bank, and Kansas City, when his father leased a farm nearby,

and he became enthusiastic about scientific farming as well as livestock

breeding. But even though the work was hard and the hours long, he

managed to make a name for himself in political circles and became the

local postmaster, though he turned the job, and the salary, over to the

widow who held the post before him. He also became Road Overseer, an

important job that put him in personal contact with every voter in the

district, all of whom were required either to pay a tax or work for the

improvement of local roads. And he became a member of the town's school

board. At the same time, he became an active Freemason, which put him in

close contact with the business community and gave him a new spiritual

outlook which he took very seriously all his life.

Through it all, the farm thrived, and it looked like Harry's future was

assured. Butwhen his grandmother died in 1909, leaving a contested will

the family lost the farm and acquired a staggering debt in the bargain.

Harry did what he could, trying to make money by selling real estate,

moving on to a soon-to-fail mining scheme and finally as treasurer of a

company selling dubious oil leases. By the time World War I began, he was

sick of the people he had been forced to associate with, but now he had

an opportunity to break the cycle.

His National Guard outfit was mobilized early in the war, and Harry was

elected a first lieutenant. After his training, he was selected to be

part of an advance party headed for France ahead of his regiment. He was

promoted to captain soon after and saw action as commander of artillery

Battery D, which had lost four commanders before him. Harry not only

survived, but was credited with transforming an unruly bunch of soldiers,

who had earned the name of "Dizzy D," into what was regarded as the best

battery in the regiment.

He was thirty-five years old when he went back to Independence,

and more than ready to start a new life. He began by marrying Bess

Wallace, and then he invested in a St. Louis haberdashery store. The

business failed in two years and Harry, as they say, lost his shirt. But

he had cultivated his former political connections and the blow of the

failure was softened when the Pendergasts made him a candidate for judge

of the county court. He lost his bid for a second term on the bench, and

took a job with the Kansas City Automobile Association, which tided him

over until 1926 when he became presiding judge of the county court, a

post he held for the next eight years. He became a United States Senator

in 1934, a job he seemed to enjoy more than any other in his entire life.

During his ten years in the Senate, he earned some notoriety as

chairman of a special committee to investigate war contracts. He

uncovered billions of dollars worth of fraud and in one instance found

enough olive drab paint in Government warehouses to cover every mailbox

in the United States for the

nextthirtyyears,nottomentiontheArmy'sequipment during the Second World

War.

As President, Harry Truman never flinched over tough decisions. He

said that his political career was centered around a bit of advice from

Mark Twain, "Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish

the rest." He had a sign on his desk that read "The buck stops here," andanother nearby that stated "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the

kitchen." And there were plenty of people in Washington who wished Harry

Truman would get out of the kitchen. He had taken plenty of heat over his

decision to drop the first atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, and there were

many who never forgave him for bringing us into the nuclear age, even

though the development of the bomb was already accomplished by the time

he became President. But it wasn't until 1950 that the heat was turned up

full blast. It was the result of what Truman called the most important

decision he ever made.

At the end of World War II, the Japanese surrendered

simultaneously to the Americans and the Russians, with the latter

retaining its influence north of the 38th parallel in Korea. Five years

later,communist troops began moving south of that line, and Harry Truman

said that it was time to "stop the sons of bitches no matter what." The

result was a United Nations action to stop them, and when American troops

were sent to Korea, President Truman was accused of starting an illegal

war.

He was still weathering that storm when he started another by firing the

commander in the field, General Douglas MacArthur, for insubordination.

It was possibly the most unpopular thing any president has ever done. The

General came home and made a speech before a joint session of Congress

and then began a tour of the country drumming up sympathy and, many

thought, support to run for the presidency. Except to note that it had

been inappropriate for a five star general to visit Washington without

reporting to his Commander-in-Chief, Truman said nothing. He predicted

that everybody would forget MacArthur in six weeks. He was right, almost

exactly to the day. MacArthur himself had unwittingly predicted it when

he told Congress that "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away."

When Truman retired and went home to Independence, he said that he

wanted to live just like everyone else there. It was frustrating that he

couldn't and his neighbors decided it wasn't because he had changed, but

because Independence had. They may have been right. A story about him you

still hear among old-timers is of the day he was out on the highway and

spotted a woman struggling to recover a herd of loose hogs. He stopped

his car and helped her round them up, and when he was asked later if that

had been a dignified thing for a former president to do, he said, "I was

a farmer long before I got to be President."

Andhedidn'twantanyspecialtreatment, either. When fax machines came into

use in the late '50s, the local manager of Western Union thought it would

be a nice gesture to install one in Truman's office. But the ex-President

wasn't impressed. "Please come and take this crazy receiver you have set

up in my office," he wrote. "It is nothing but a nuisance.When messages

are sent to me they are supposed to be delivered by you. I am not your

delivery agent. I have other things to do."

He lived to see his decisions as President exonerated and even praised by

former critics. Toward the end of his life a newspaper columnist sent him

an apology for having underrated him, to which Mr. Truman replied:

"ItistruethatIdidnotalwaysreactpleasantly to criticism - or derisive

comments - but I never for a moment questioned the right of anyone to do

so. But I warmly welcome your reassessment of 'the period' and dare hope

that it might be sustained by the ultimate judgement."

The 34th President

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

(1953-1961 )

When DwightD.Eisenhower was finally convinced to run for the presidency

in 1952, the whole country seemed to be shouting "I Like Ike!" He liked

hearing it, but it took a while to get used to the "Ike" part. It was the

nickname attached to him as a boy, but he had long since outgrown it.

During World War II, the guys in the foxholes referred to him by that

name, but never when he was within earshot. His friends called him

"Dwight," his associates "General." But neither had the right folksy ring

to it, and there was no denying that to know him was to like him.

So "Ike" it was for the rest of his life. It was all part of the

image, based on fact, that in spite of his impressive military

accomplishments, he was still a regular guy. A guy like your father, many

people said. And they were right, too. He had a warm, inviting manner

that either reminded you of your father or made you wish your father had

been like him. His smile defied description, though many tried. It was

boyish, but it was more than that. It was infectious, but that word

didn't quite describe it, either. If the like of it ever comes along

again, it will probably be described, simply, as an "Eisenhower" smile.

When he came back from the war, not many Americans knew much about him

except that they adored him, and wherever he went they turned out by the

thousands to honor the conquering hero. In New York, where the tonnage of

tickertape topped even the amount poured down on Charles A. Lindbergh, a

new measuring device rated the cheer that went up as he climbed the steps

of City Hall as the equal of three-thousand thunderclaps. But even though

he would later become a New Yorker for a time, he left town with the

thought that it was a nice place to visit, but he wouldn't want to live

there. A few days later, when he arrived back in his hometown of Abilene,

Kansas, he told his former neighbors that "When I get out of this

uniform, this is the country I'm coming back to." That same day, he told

reporters, Im a soldier, and I'm positive that no one thinks of me as a

politician. In the strongest language you can command, you can state that

I have no political ambitions at all." He hadn't planned to become a

soldier, either.

His family was poor when Ike was growing up in Abilene, and he and

his brothers were often called upon to defend themselves against the

taunts of other kids over their hand-me-down clothes. It wasn't as though

the others didn't wear recycled shoes and shirts, but the Eisenhower boys

occasionally appeared in their mother's made-over clothes. A thing like

that can make a kid real scrappy.

At one point during his high school career, Ike was forced to drop

out to go to work. But he went back and finished, and the family had

developed a scheme to help him go on to college. His brother, Edgar, went

off to the University of Michigan, and Ike worked to pay his expenses.

The plan was for the two boys to switch places after two years and to

continue the cycle until both had eamed their diplomas. It seemed like a

good idea until Ike stumbled on a better one. A neighbor had won an

appointment to Annapolis and told him how easy it had been. All he had to

do, he said, was write to his Senator asking for an appointment and nen

pass an entrance exam. The best part was that it as free. He wouldn't

even have to buy his own lothes. Ike took the suggestion and in 1911

became a _adet at the United States Military Academy. He ~rould have

preferred the Naval Academy, but by the me he got around to writing to

his Senator he was venty years old, and Annapolis wouldn't accept myone

past their twentieth birthday.

Because he was older than the average cadet, and bigger - he was six feet

tall and weighed 175 pounds he was tapped for the Army football team

right ~way, and by his third or fourth game national ~ortswriters were

telling their readers that he was .the most promising halfback in college

football. Infortunately the promise was never fulfilled. A few days

before the last game of his first season, he was sidelined with a knee

injury and never played again.

But football was an important part of his army areer. When he

reported for his first assignment as a second lieutenant at Fort Sam

Houston in Texas, his commanding officer suggested that it would be a

,ood idea if he accepted an offer to coach the team at . nearby military

academy, and throughout his career .le was met with similar suggestions

every time he ras assigned to a new post. In fact, more than once ..

ansfers were held up until the end of football season.

He met and married Mamie Dowd while he was at Fort Sam Houston, too. And

the new responsibility ,ave him a new resolve to put his career in the

hands f the Army and "to do the best I could to make a reditable record,

no matter what the nature of the duty." The English translation of that

decision is close o the advice soldiers have been passing on to each ther

from the days of the Roman legions: "Don't volunteer for anything." But

if making the best of a ad thing is good advice for foot soldiers, it's

not ~lways the best way for officers to advance their .dreers. In

Eisenhower's case, he spent World War I noving from one stateside post to

another, training nen about to go to the front where he himself would .ke

to have been. True to his resolve, he had become 7ery good at the job

even though it wasn't what he wanted to do. He finally managed to

convince the Army to send him into the fight and he had orders to sail

for France at the end of November, 1918. But before the ship was loaded,

it was over over there, and the order was cancelled.

After the war he came to the attention of the top brass with some

revolutionary theories about tank warfare, and Brigadier General Fox

Connor, one of the most influential men in the Army, took him under nis

wing. In 1922, he made Major Eisenhower his ~xecutive officer, and during

the next three years, when they were together in Panama, he gave him a

liberal education on how to succeed in "This Man's Army".

Connor sent him on to the Army's Command and Jeneral Staff School,

and when he finished he was ~ccepted at the Army War College. Both were

critical teps toward success for any of ficer. After graduation, e

finally got to France as a member of the Battle Monuments Commission. And

when he came back after a year abroad, he settled down behind a desk at

the office of the Assistant Secretary of War in Washington. The chief job

of the office at the time was dealing with a commission charged with

making rules for the mobilization of industry in time of war. The Army's

interest in protecting its sources made the work quite important,

especially to Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur, who was pleased

with Major Eisenhower's efforts at keeping the "pacifists" at arm's

length. No one was surprised when he was promoted to colonel and became

the general's aide.

In 1935, when MacArthur went to the Philippines as adviser to the new

government there, Eisenhower went along as his assistant. He was there

when war broke out in Europe, and requested a transfer so that he

wouldn't miss another chance to go into combat as hehadin 1918.

HehadbeenintheArmyformorethan eighteen years by then, but had only served

as part of a fighting unit for six months, and even then he hadn't seen

any action. He was put in command of an infantry brigade and seemed on

his way at last. But the War Department wasn't finished with him yet. He

had no sooner become used to the idea of commanding actual troops than he

was made Chief of Staff of the 3rd Division, and soon after that Chief of

Staff of the IX Army Corps. The ink was hardly dry on those orders when

he became Chief of Staff of the Third Army, and finally made a name for

himself in combat, even though it was just a war game, by routing the

Second Army in the largest peacetime maneuver in American history. It

earned him a promotion to brigadier general, and newspaper copy desks

began posting memos on the proper spelling of his name.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 his years of

service in the Philippines made him valuable to the War Department, and

he spent the next several months in Washington devising plans for waging

war in the Pacific. Among the problems he dealt with was cooperation

among the allies. The Dutch and the British were fighting in the Pacific,

too, and it was obvious that their efforts needed to be orchestrated.

After several false starts, the countries involved finally agreed to

establish a committee to be called the Combined Chiefs of Staff, which

allowed for the selection of a single commander of the allied armies.

They also agreed that their best strategy was a land attack in Europe to

try to end the war against Germany as quickly as possible and then

concentrate on the Pacific theater.

Soldiers often scratch their heads about the wisdom of the top brass, and

the next turn in Eisenhower's career was one of the things that mystify

them. He was an acknowledged expert on the Pacific, and had spent his

time drafting plans for the movement of men and material in the area. The

plans were sound and well thought out, and it seemed logical that, if

Eisenhower was actually going to get into the war, he'd rejoin his old

boss, MacArthur, in the fight against the Japanese. But the logic was

flawed . General Eisenhower would soon wind up in North Africa.

He had become Chief of the War Plans Division and it really seemed

as though he was doomed to spend another war in the states. But General

George Marshall the Army Chief of Staff, had other plans fc him. In 1942

he shipped him to London, where he an the British could get to know each

other better, anl planning began for a cross-Channel invasion c Europe.

By midsummer he had been namel commander of Operation Torch, an invasion

of Nort Africa that would be the first step toward Europe. ] was a touchy

assignment that involved coordinatin British and French forces, neither

of whom had muc respect for the other, and required political skills a

well as military. General Eisenhower had plenty c both. The North African

operation was successf~ and the allies were soon fighting their way up th

Italian peninsula.

At the end of 1943, having been tested in battle an~ in the political

arena, Eisenhower turned his attentio] away from the Italian campaign

when he wa appointed Supreme Commander of Operatio~ Overlord, the coming

invasion of France, and went to London to put the complex operation

together. Si months later, the troops he commanded were inchin their way

across France and Belgium, taking the wl to Germany itself. By fall,

Eisenhower had been mad commander of all Allied ground forces, and when

th war ended, the victorious hero became commandl of the American forces

in Europe. Many years later, h wrote that his wartime achievement was his

greatest accomplishment, transcending even his election to e presidency.

He had been given a command that

er officers with more experience and seniority ght have killed for; and

he had proven that it had been the right choice.

Soon after, he was brought home to become the rmy's Chief of

Staff, but his heart wasn't in the job, d he retired in 1947 to become

President of Columbia University. Meanwhile, what the majority of

lericans wanted was for him to become President the United States. But he

had another stop to make st. In February 1951, he left New York for

Brussels become Supreme Commander of NATO. Back in iform, he seemed out

of the running for the presidency.

But the bandwagon was already rolling. In the summer of 1952, the

Republicans nominated the stillotesting General to be their standard-

bearer. Harry Truman, who campaigned for the Democratic Lndidate, Adlai

Stevenson, gleefully predicted that enhower would get his comeuppance at

the polls. e doesn't know any more about politics than a pig ~ows about

Sunday," he said. But he was wrong. Ike's victory was a landslide of

historic proportions. It only that, but after a first term plagued with

the -ertainty of the cold war, the red scares, the witchLnting tactics of

Senator McCarthy, and severe racial sion, not to mention the well-

publicized poor state his health, nearly sixty percent of the voters gave

him a vote of confidence and a second term.

He was seventy years old when he eventually retired to his farm at

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, but though he would like to have spent the rest

of his days painting and playing golf, he was still very much in demand

as an elder statesman. It was a paradox. He kept the country at peace

during a time when the whole world seemed on the verge of exploding, but

his critics didn't have to dig very hard to find fault with his

Administration. Harry Truman had been partly right, General Eisenhower

understood politics, but the politicians around him were almost too much

for him to handle. But if he was criticized, the people themselves

weren't listening. Until the day he died, even until this day, the man in

the street still liked Ike. They respected his decency and they saw him

as a man they could trust. Even in the worst of times, the Eisenhower

smile was reassuring. He had explained it himself in a London speech on

the day the Germans surrendered in 1945: "I come from the heart of

America."

When he died at the age of 78 he was given a simple military funeral and

was taken back to Abilene, with only slightly more ceremony than had been

given to the men he led. Of all the tributes that poured in, one of the

most touching was one that would have made him proud. Bill Mauldin, the

cartoonist who had created the character known as "G.I. Joe" all those

years before, drew a representation of a battlefield cemetery with its

endless rows of white crosses. The caption was, "It's Ike himself. Pass

the word."

The 35th President

TOHN F. KENNEDY

(1961-1963)

Not long after his assassination, President Kennedy's widow, Jacqueline,

was interviewedforLifeMagazinebyTheodore H. White. What she told him

summed up perfectly how most Americans felt about the thousand days that

had changed their world.

"All I keep thinking of is this line from a musical comedy," she said.

"At night before we went to sleep, Jack liked to play some records, and

the song he loved most came at the very end of this record. The lines he

loved to hear were, 'Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot,

for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot."'

Life Magazine had given some clues about what to expect from the

Kennedy White House ten years earlier with a feature story they called,

"Life Goes Courting With a U.S. Senator." The more serious Saturday

Evening Post had recently said that "Kennedy seems to be at once

preoccupied, disorganized and utterly casual - alarmingly so. For

example, when he addresses the House with his shirt tail out and clearly

visible from the galleries, many women have hopefully concluded that he

needs looking after. In their opinion, he is, as a young millionaire

Senator, just about the most eligible bachelor in the United States, and

the least justifiable one. Kennedy lives up to that role when he drives

his long convertible, hatless and with the car's top down, in Washington,

or accidentally gets photographed with a glamor girl in a nightclub."

Life's "courting" story was obviously a PR man's effort to polish up the

Kennedy image after that, but it also parted the curtain on the Camelot

to come.

The magazine said, "The handsomest member ol the U.S. Senate was acting

last week like any young man in love." A Life photographer just happened

to be there when Senator Kennedy took his new fiancee to the family's

summer home on Cape Cod. The future President was caught in the act of

skipping stones across the water, as catcher in a softball game and

having his hair tousled by his bride-to-be. Two months later, Life took

its readers to Newport, R.I., for the wedding of "Washington's best-

looking young Senator to Washington's prettiest inquiring photographer"

at the bride's mother's 300-acre Hammersmith farm. The magazine reported

that the marriage of John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier had been

attended by "diplomats, senators and social figures," and said that the

reception for 900 good friends was "just like the coronation." King

Arthur and his Guenevere would have been envious.

Back then, it was easy to dismiss Jack Kennedy as the playboy son of a

millionaire playing at politics. But he was an expert at the game. It was

in his blood. Both his grandfathers had been forces to be reckoned with

in the rough and tumble politics of the "Boston ish." P.J. Kennedy, his

father's father, had served in oth houses of the Massachusetts

Legislature, and his mother's father, John F. Fitzgerald, went from the '

gislature to the United States Congress, ran twice for the Senate and was

the first son of Irish immigrants to become Mayor of Boston.

Along with Fitzgerald, Pat Kennedy was one of Boston's most

influential men, part of an inner circle that decided who was elected to

of fice and who got all the best municipal and state jobs. P.J. also had

a flair for business, and when he went to the legislature, he sold the

saloon that had established his political base andbecame a

liquorwholesaler. He also owned a coal company, and two banks, all of

which thrived with the support of the same people who gave him his

political power.

By the time his son, Joseph P. Kennedy, was born he was a wealthy

man, and the boy could easily have lived a life of leisure. But kom the

beginning, Joe liked making money for its own sake, and before he was a

teenager he was already an entrepreneur. During his years at Harvard he

owned a sightseeing bus, and two years after he graduated he became

president of his own bank. A year after that he married the Mayor's

daughter, Rose, and moved to Brookline, a suburb that was considered off-

limits to the Irish. But, then, so was a Harvard diploma, and Joe Kennedy

had one of those, too.

On the day his second son, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was born he became a

board member of the Massachusetts Electric Company, and if the likes of

the Saltonstalls and Cabots still snubbed him, they were forced to rub

elbows with this man they preferred to keep at arm's length. When the

First World War broke out he became assistant manager of a shipyard, and

when the war was over he joined the investment firm of Hayden Stone,

where he learned how to make money work for him instead of the other way

around. At the same time, he formed a partnership to buy control of a

movie theater chain, which eventually led to the business of producing

movies. In the meantime, convinced that proper Bostonians would never

accept an Irishman into their society no matter how rich he became, he

moved his wife and five children to New York, where nothing mattered

except how rich he was.

When talking pictures arrived on the scene, Joe Kennedy joined forces

with David Sarnoff's Radio Corporation of America and began producing

talkies under the RKO name. He was also an active stock speculator, but

by the time the market crashed in 1929 he had already taken his money and

run from Wall Street. It was then that he decided to get into politics.

He had plenty of money and valuable business contacts, and believed that

the road to real power was in supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt's

presidential hopes and getting a Cabinet post in return. The new

President turned his back on him, but his political contacts gave him

inside information that Roosevelt was going to push for repeal of the

Prohibition Amendment, and Joe Kennedy took advantage of the opportunity

by arranging to become an importer of Scotch whisky. When repeal became a

reality, he was ready with warehouses full of booze and was, for a while

at least, the only game in town.

But the liquor business was only a waiting game. He was still hungry for

a political appointment. He got his opportunity when Roosevelt

established the Securities and Exchange Commission and made Kennedy its

first chairman. Cynics said it was like putting the fox in charge of the

henhouse, but this fox turned out to be a dedicated public servant and

everyone was grudgingly impressed, especially the President. Other

Government jobs followed, but Joe Kennedy got his big reward in 1937 when

he was made U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain.

The Kennedy children matured during the famil London years. And though

the head of the fam often hinted in various feuds with Roosevelt that was

planning to run for President himself, it was obvious he had his eye on

the job for his oldest s~ Joe. But fate stepped in when Joe was killed

flying unusually dangerous mission as a World War bomber pilot. His

second son, Jack, who had dropF out of Harvard to join the Navy, was

seriously h when the PT boat he commanded was rammed a sunk in the

Pacific. But at least he was alive, and n~ he was the heir to his

father's dream.

After he got out of the Navy, Jack went in entirely different direction.

At the beginning of war, he had turned his Harvard thesis, Why Engl~

Slept, into a published book and decided he wantec be a journalist. He

drew some dream assignmen from the Hearst newspapers and covered such

even as the creation of the United Nations and tl establishment of

England's postwar government, b less than a year after taking the job he

drifted back Boston to take up the family tradition of politics. ~ hadn't

lived in the city for most of his life, but his roo were there, and he

had made it a point never to lc his distinctive Boston accent.

In 1945, he announced his candidacy for Congre and then he

discovered that getting there was tough than pounding a typewriter had

been. It was general agreed that any man with the names of both Fitzgera

and Kennedy wouldn't have to campaign very har But there was just one

problem. Or rather, nine. It w a ten-man race. Worse, Jack Kennedy had

probab never seen a tenement in his life, and that was tl battleground.

But if he found it distasteful to clirr dingy stairs and shake dirty

hands, he never let show. In fact, the famous Kennedy smile never left h

face, and the crowds couldn't help smiling back. Th~ found him a fine

broth of a lad, this grandson of tl great Honey Fitz, and lest they

forget, former Mayl Fitzgerald was on hand to tell them so. But it wasr

all fond memories. Kennedy recruited his collej~ friends, his Navy

buddies and his brothers and siste to add fresh young faces and a new

kind of enthusias to the job athand. They all did their job well. Kennec

took forty percent of the primary vote, double tl number of the next

nearest contender. And in November he took the congressional seat by a

two-t one margin. He was twenty-nine years old and on h way.

He was reelected to congress twice and then decid~ to become a Senator.

It wasn't a sudden move. He hi been planning it from the time he shook

his first har on his grandfather's turf. But still, it was a bold mov His

opponent was young Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., wealthy member of the Boston

Establishment, veteran Senator and a war hero himself. Lodge w better-

known around the state, and for an add~ handicap Dwight D. Eisenhower was

running f president in the same election, and his coattails we considered

broad enough to get even medioc Republicans elected along with him. To

make matte worse, Kennedy and Lodge seemed to share the same views on the

issues. But Kennedy had an edge. He was a fighter. And he had a new

secret weapon, his brother Bobby, who had just graduated from law school

and had signed on as campaign manager. He was a fighter, too. When it was

all over and Lodge lost in spite of big Republican wins everywhere else,

the former senator had probably predicted the outcome during the campaign

when he said, "I don't have to worry about Jack Kennedy. I don't have to

worry about the Kennedy money. But I do worry about that family of his.

They're all over the state!"

"That family of his" was with him every step of the way to the

presidency, and together they revolutionized American politics. He began

marching toward the White House in 1956 with a bid for the second spot on

the Democratic ticket. He didn't make it, but he made a good enough

showing that party leaders began taking him more seriously. And it gave

him four more years to look like a winner. He didn't waste a day. He used

the time to build a professional staff, including several Ivy League

professors, of young, fresh, eager and bright people. They put it to the

test in his 1958 campaign for reelection to the Senate and passed with

flying colors. He won the election by the biggest margin in the state's

history.

Once he made it clear he wanted to be president, and that he could

deliver the votes, only one thing stood in his way. No Roman Catholic had

ever been elected President of the United States. And it was no accident

of fate. Hardly a story was written about Kennedy in any newspaper or

magazine that didn't mention his religion, though most agreed with a

profile in The Economist that said, "Mr. Kennedy, like most of his rivals

in both parties, is close to being a spiritually rootless modern man."

But he still attended mass regularly, and even halfway into the twentieth

century, Americans were still vaguely uneasy about the power of the Pope.

Jack Kennedy had proven he could deal with handicaps, but this one was

formidable. And when he formally announced his candidacy at the beginning

of 1960, party leaders were visibly nervous. They relaxed a little when

he beat the popular Senator Hubert Humphrey in the primary in heavily

Protestant Wisconsin . But it wasn' t enough for them. The political pros

decided they'd wait to see if he could win in West Virginia, which they

considered a hotbed of anti-Catholic sentiment. The Kennedy bandwagon

fanned out all over the state, and when the trick was turned, it rolled

on to win in five other states and very nearly gave him enough votes to

clinch the nomination. The pros were convinced. And impressed. The

victories were impressive enough in themselves, but how he accomplished

them made the old-timers sit up and take notice. Kennedy had taught them

how to use television, how to take advantage of polling, and even though

the candidate had nearly unlimited funds, he showed them how to get the

most mileage out of their money. Things we take for granted in modern

elections were developed and refined by the Kennedys in their primary

fights, and their techniques set the pace for the national campaign that

followed. From that moment on, the politicians forgot their old-time

religion. John F. Kennedy had taken politics into the twentieth century.

More people voted in the 1960 presidential election than in any other

before it, but it wasn't a Kennedy landslide. He won by a slim two-tenths

of a percent of the total, but it didn't cramp his style. He bounced into

the White House with a verve the country hadn't seen sinceTheodore

Roosevelt, and a cultured outlook that rivalled Thomas Jefferson. He was

the youngest president in the country's history, and young people

responded to his enthusiasm and his wit. Younger congressional candidates

appeared on the scene and managed to get elected. Life in Washington

changed and America's view of itself changed along with it. In the late

1950s, people had taken to wearing little buttons imprinted with smiling

faces to remind them that they ought to be happy. With Kennedy, the

smiles shifted to their own faces.

When he took the oath of office, Kennedy had said, "Let the word

go forth from this time and place that the torch has been passed to a newgeneration of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war,

disciplined by a hard and bitter peace ...." The torch burned brightly

through good times and bad until November 22,1963, when the President was

suddenly gunned down at the very height of his popularity. But the torch

had, indeed, been passed to a new generation.

36th

to find out who shared their dislike of the Black Stars. 't take long to

find out that it was nearly the student body. They resented that most of

the -- earmarked for student activities went into and Johnson was able to

use his position in the .ent's outer office to back up their suspicions

ctual figures. White Star membership grew ~tically, and they began

holding office in the nt government. Then he used his influence in

esident's office to distribute campus jobs. The ' them went to loyal

White Star members, and ce his former post as trash collector went to

Stars. By the time Johnson was a senior, a White ~came class president,

and he owed every vote ~donJohnson, who personally talked with every nt

with a plea to vote for his man. Lyndon had md other ways to talk to

people. He was editor ~chool paper and an award-winning member of ebating

team. He was also, in spite of all his curricular energy, an honor

student.

no wonder the college president encouraged ~ get into politics. Even the

college janitor could recognized the talent.

~ring the summer of 1930, Johnson found the tunity to run the campaign of

a candidate for :ate Senate, and the following year the new .vr repaid

the favor by recommending him to on the staff of Congressman Dick

Kleberg. he arrived in Washington to begin his new job berg's secretary

he said later, "You just had to uound and it was very exciting to me to

me to ~ that the people, many of them that you were ng, were probably

Congressmen at least, maybe rs or members of the Cabinet. And there was

ell of power. It's got an odor, you know, power ~." He never was able to

get it out of his nostrils. rst, he knew he had a lot to learn.

began by cultivating people he knew would be to teach him how Washington

ticked. He ~holed anyone who looked like they had any nce at all and

though it seemed to everyone he at he never stopped talking, Lyndon

Johnson lot of intense listening. In a few months, one old ~id that he

had learned more about what makes ~ington tick than some people who had

been on cene for twenty years.

~rtunately, Congressman Kleberg didn't take his !S very seriously, and

was pleased to let Johnson ~are of the details. Among the details he took

care IS dispensing patronage jobs in Washington, and son put a new spin

on the practice by requiring le he helped to help him in the

Congressman's . after hours - not just in the evening but in the ling,

too. It made Kleberg's office uncommonly uctive, and it also freed

Johnson to pursue his ical education. The amazing thing was that none

dragooned office help resented the long hours e hard work. Lyndon Johnson

w'as enjoying elf and the joy was contagious.

ut of the education process was a part-time job as keeper at the House of

Representatives. It was a ~nsidered a cut or two below that of page, but

to Johnson it was a golden opportunity to get to spend time on the House

floor, and to meet and mingle with Congressmen. Among the men he

cultivated were Sam Rayburn and Wright Patman, fellow Texans who had

known his father and who became impressed by Lyndon's eagerness.

He was a busy young man on the way up, but not so busy that he didn't

find time for a whirlwind courtship of Claudia Taylor, known to everyone

as "Lady Bird," whom he married in November 1934. A few months later they

moved back to Texas for the next step in Lyndon's political career. He

had been named Texas Director of the National Youth Administration, one

of the agencies of Roosevelt's New Deal. He handled the job like he did

everything else, and before long became known as the best administrator

in the agency. And in his spare time he cultivated the friendship of

important Texans who could help him later on. "Later on" came less than a

year later when a Texas Congressman died, and Lyndon Johnson decided to

run for his seat. He won by a two-to-one margin.

Before he left for Washington, though, he was invited to meet President

Roosevelt, who was aboard the presidential yacht in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Congressman impressed the President with a professed love of the sea,

and Roosevelt responded by putting him in line for a spot on the House

Committee on Naval Affairs, a juicy plum for a freshman Congressman. It

also marked Johnson as a Roosevelt insider, which paid off in delivering

Federal dollars to his home district. Within three years Congressman

Johnson was ready to go on to bigger things. He ran for the Senate in

1941 and lost by a narrow margin, ironically because of his ties to

Roosevelt, who had fallen out of favor in Texas. He was still a

Congressman, though, but the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl

Harbor, he joined the Navy. He was the first member of Congress to join

up, and before he was returned to Capitol Hill by a special Presidential

order a year later, he had earned a Silver Star for duty in the Pacific.

His life as a Congressman had become routine, and he used his spare time

to start building a personal fortune, beginning with his purchase of a

bankrupt

A seasoned politician, Johnson steered legislation through Congress using

his own style of arm-twisting.

125

In November 1963, Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as President aboard the

plane that had taken his predecessor to Dallas, Texas.

The 36th President

LYNDON B . JOHNSON

(1963-1 969)

In 1928, when the Democrats met in Houston, Texas, to pick their

presidential candidate, a young college senior sat transfixed in the

press gallery as Franklin D. Roosevelt put the name of New York Governor

Al Smith into contention. Lyndon Johnson didn't belong there. He was

editor of the Sarl Marcos College Star, but none of his readers had the

right to vote. He had talked his way into the convention hall, and when

he got back to school and was on the carpet for having violated a rule

that restricted students tO tne campus, he talked his way out of that,

too. Lyndon B. Johnson was good at that sort of thing.

When he enrolled at the Southwest Texas State Teachers College at San

Marcos, he had every intention of becoming a teacher and, in fact, he did

become one. He taught in aMexican-American community during a break in

his college career to earn enough money to continue; and when he

graduated, he taught high school in Houston. But it was obvious from his

first day at San Marcos that Lyndon would be something more.

His trip to Houston to watch the Democrats at work wasn't the only time

he slipped away. His father had been a member of the Texas State

Legislature, and one of the joys of Lyndon's boyhood was sitting in the

gallery watching the lawmakers at work. At college, he went up to Austin

as often as he could sneak away just for the fun of it. But he was having

fun on campus, too, developing his political skills with slightly more

enthusiasm than he brought to his studies.

He needed to work to pay for his education, and he began his college

career on the campus trash detail. But he was able to talk his way out of

it, and became assistant to the secretary of the school's president. It

wasn't much of a job - he was a messenger really -but he managed to puff

it up into something that at least seemed important. When he delivered a

memo, he created the impression that a response sent back through him

would get faster attention; and to reinforce the impression, he stationed

himself at the door to the president's outer office so that anyone who

visited there had to pass his desk. In a very few weeks, most of the

faculty was convinced thatJohnson had become assistant to the president.

Even the president himself seems to have believed it. He began letting

Johnson handle correspondence for him, and when he asked the boy to drive

him to the State Capitol one day, he was impressed by the way he handled

himself among the legislators, many of whom were old family friends. From

that day until the day he graduated, Johnson served as the unofficial

political adviser to the president of his college. The man had some

advice for the student, too. "Don't become a teacher,n he said, "become a

politician." Lyndon Johnson had probably already come to the same

conclusion.

He had used his political skills with the student body, too. Before he

arrived there, campus life had been dominated by a faction of athletes

organized in a fraternity called the Black Stars. When Johnson tried to

join the club, they rejected him, but they eventually wished they hadn't.

He was a new kid on campus, but that didn't stop him from organizing a

new fraternity, which he called the White Stars, whose sole purpose was

to end the dominance of the jocks. He made it a secret society and never

allowed more than two members to be seen together at any one time, a rule

that allowed them to infiltrate all the student groups

, find out who shared their dislike of the Black Stars. didn't take long

to find out that it was nearly the ~tire student body. They resented that

most of the oney earmarked for student activities went into ~orts, and

Johnson was able to use his position in the resident's outer office to

back up their suspicions ~ith actual figures. White Star membership grew

ramatically, and they began holding office in the tudent government. Then

he used his influence in ..e president's office to distribute campus

jobs. The est of them went to loyal White Star members, and bs like his

former post as trash collector went to ' ack Stars. By the time Johnson

was a senior, a White

~r became class president, and he owed every vote

LyndonJohnson who personally talked with every udent with a ple87 to vote

for his man. Lyndon had so found other ways to talk to people. He was

editor ~r the school paper and an award-winning member of ~e debating

team. He was also, in spite of all his

A5xtra-curricular energy, an honor student.

It's no wonder the college president encouraged im to get into politics.

Even the college janitor could ave recognized the talent.

During the summer of 1930, Johnson found the pportunity to run the

campaign of a candidate for ne State Senate, and the following year the

new enator repaid the favor by recommending him to ~rve on the staff of

Congressman Dick Kleberg. Then he arrived in Washington to begin his new

job

Kleberg's secretary he said later, "You just had to ~ok around and it was

very exciting to me to me to ealize that the people, many of them that

you were ~assing, were probably Congressmen at least, maybe ienators or

members of the Cabinet. And there was le smell of power. It's got an

odor, you know, power r mean." He never was able to get it out of his

nostrils. ut first, he knew he had a lot to learn.

He began by cultivating people he knew would be ble to teach him how

Washington ticked. He uttonholed anyone who looked like they had any

Ifluence at all and though it seemed to everyone he net that he never

stopped talking, Lyndon Johnson ~id a lot of intense listening. In a few

months, one old Iro said that he had learned more about what makes

.~lashington tick than some people who had been on :he scene for twenty

years.

Fortunately, Congressman Kleberg didn't take his duties very seriously,

and was pleased to let Johnson ke care of the details. Among the details

he took care ~f was dispensing patronage jobs in Washington, and -ohnson

put a new spin on the practice by requiring people he helped to help him

in the Congressman's office after hours - not just in the evening but inthe moming, too. It made Kleberg's office uncommonly productive, and it

also freed Johnson to pursue his political education. The amazing thing

was that none ~f the dragooned office help resented the long hours

the hard work. Lyndon Johnson w'as enjoying imself and the joy was

contagious.

Part of the education process was a part-time job as loorkeeper at the

House of Representatives. It was a ~b considered a cut or two below that

of page, but to Johnson it was a golden opportunity to get to spend time

on the House floor, and to meet and mingle with Congressmen. Among the

men he cultivated were Sam Rayburn and Wright Patman, fellow Texans who

had known his father and who became impressed by Lyndon's eagerness.

He was a busy young man on the way up, but not so busy that he didn't

find time for a whirlwind courtship of Claudia Taylor, known to everyone

as "Lady Bird," whom he married in November 1934. A few months later they

moved back to Texas for the next step in Lyndon's political career. He

had been named Texas Director of the National Youth Administration, one

of the agencies of Roosevelt's New Deal. He handled the job like he did

everything else, and before long became known as the best administrator

in the agency. And in his spare time he cultivated the friendship of

important Texans who could help him later on. "Later on" came less than a

year later when a Texas Congressman died, and Lyndon Johnson decided to

run for his seat. He won by a two-to-one margin.

Before he left for Washington, though, he was invited to meet President

Roosevelt, who was aboard the presidential yacht in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Congressman impressed the President with a professed love of the sea,

and Roosevelt responded by putting him in line for a spot on the House

Committee on Naval Affairs, a juicy plum for a freshman Congressman. It

also marked Johnson as a Roosevelt insider, which paid off in delivering

Federal dollars to his home district. Within three years Congressman

Johnson was ready to go on to bigger things. He ran for the Senate in

1941 and lost by a narrow margin, ironically because of his ties to

Roosevelt, who had fallen out of favor in Texas . He was still a

Congressman, though, but the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl

Harbor, he joined the Navy. He was the first member of Congress to join

up, and before he was returned to Capitol Hill by a special Presidential

order a year later, he had earned a Silver Star for duty in the Pacific.

His life as a Congressman had become routine, and he used his spare time

to start building a personal fortune, beginning with his purchase of a

bankrupt Austin radio station. It earned him a profit of eighteen dollars

the first year he owned it, but within twenty years it was paying him a

half million dollars a year, and he was investing the profits in Texas

real estate, which made him one of the richest men ever to become

President of the United States.

In 1948 he had another opportunity to run for the Senate and won by a

margin of just 87 votes. His opponent challenged the result, of course,

and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which refused to get

involved in a local election, and the count was accepted as valid. They

began calling him "Landslide Lyndon" after that, but he didn't care. He

had his seat and he was going to make the best of it.

Within three years he was Senate Minority Leader, a man to be reckoned

with. Two years after that, in 1954, when the Democrats took control of

Congress, Johnson became the youngest Majority Leader in the history of

the Senate. The man who had mastered the inner workings of the House of

Representatives was in a position to dispense favors and earn the

gratitude of a much more august body. He had the talent for it, and the

will. His largesse extended all the way down the line to secretaries and

janitors. No birthday went unmarked, no achievement unnoticed. He was a

Dutch uncle to his colleagues and Big Daddy to their staffs. Everyone, it

seemed, was indebted to SenatorJohnson in one way or another. Meanwhile,

his old mentor, Sam Raybum, had become Speaker of the House of

Representatives.

It was commonly accepted that Senator Johnson was the most

powerful man in the United States in the 1950s, and Washington insiders

agreed that the second most powerful was not President Eisenhower, but

Sam Rayburn. Together, Johnson and Rayburn controlled the Democrats in

Congress and made it look like their Republican colleagues were opposing

the President of their own party.

In 1960, Johnson decided that it was time to push his power a bit

further. He had served twelve years in the House and another twelve in

the Senate. He toyed with the idea of announcing for the presidency, but

he knew that the Party would never accept a Southerner, even though he

plaintively argued that he was a Texan and not a Southerner at all. When

John F. Kennedy took the nomination and offered him the second spot on

the ticket, he accepted immediately. When he was asked by an astounded

friend why he's traded the job of Majority Leader for the relatively

toothless position of Vice President, he answered, "Power is where power

goes." Other Vice Presidents may have been toothless, but other Vice

Presidents hadn't been Lyndon B. Johnson.

His instincts had been wrong, of course. President Kennedy wasn't

a Senator any longer, and he didn't have to depend on Lyndon Johnson to

get things done. "Every time I came into John Kennedy's presence,"

Johnson said later,"I felt like a goddamn raven hovering over his

shoulder .... I detested every minute of it."

Power would fall on his shoulders again after the Kennedy assassination.

He accepted it with the highest ideals. "I don't want to be remembered as

a President who built empires or sought grandeur," he said. "I want to be

the President who educated young children, who helped feed the hungry,

who helped the poor to find their own way." He called his program "The

Great Society." It was the program that gave the elderly Medicare and

expanded their Social Security benefits. It gave minorities new pride and

greater opportunities. It made industry accountable for what it was doing

to the environment. It made the arts a beneficiary of Federal aid. It

should have made L.B.J. one of our most revered Presidents.

But L.B.J. went to the White House with an albatross around his neck: the

Vietnam War. No matter what he did, its spectre was always there, like a

raven on his shoulder. He also suffered from a personal style that many

people found charming, but others found offensive. He was a real "Down

Home" Texan, big, brash, vulgar, informal to a fault. He had a passion

for hard work, and he expected everyone around him to share it. If they

didn't, he could be cruelly insulting. He once defended it by saying, "If

I don't bawl you out once in a while, you ain't part of the family." But

there were some who didn't want to be part of the family and,

unfortunately for L.B.J., many of them were in the press corps. He wasn't

a man who could take criticism gracefully, though he knew very well how

how to use it constructively.

When he decided not to run for another term in 1968, he felt his efforts

had been wasted. "How is it possible," he asked," that all these people

could be so ungrateful to me after I have given them so much?"

In his years of retirement in the Texas hill country, he found the

affection and gratitude he had craved and worked so hard for. Some people

did care after all. And when he died, a black man who said he remembered

a time when he couldn' t go to the movies in his own home town until

President Johnson had made it possible, said, "I don't care what anybody

else says. When it comes to presidents, he was my 'main man"'

The 3 7th President

RICHARD M. NIXON

(1969-1974)

When he was mustered out of the Navy after World War II, former

Lieutenant CommanderRichard Nixonwenthome to Whittier, California, to

pick up the pieces and reestablish the law practice he had left a few

days after the war began. At about the same time an ad appeared in a

local newspaper that said:

WANTED: Congressman candidate with no previous experience to defeat a man

who has represented a district in the House for ten years.

The Representative the ad's sponsors were trying to unseat was Jerry

Voorhis of California's Twelfth Congressional District, a man the

Washington press corps had voted the "best Congressman west of the

Mississippi." He was popular with the voters, too, but clearly not among

the conservative businessmen who had written the want-ad.

One of them who knew Nixon approached him with two questions: "Are you a

Republican?" and "Would you like to run for Congress?" The answer to both

questions was "yes!" and the young lawyer with a pregnant wife and a good

war record entered the world of politics as a candidate for Congress.

The campaign, one of the first to package and merchandise a candidate,

began with six months of intensive schooling. Nixon learned his lessons

well and began hinting, but never saying, that the incumbent was

supported by people with Communist principles. Voorhis proved otherwise,

but the principle of guilt by association worked against him. The

deciding factor, which gave Nixon a comfortable margin, was a series of

debates, prompted by the fact that Nixon couldn't draw crowds but his

opponent could. By appearing on the same stage with Voorhis, the underdog

was assured of listeners, and he had plenty to say. The master blend of

innuendo and halftruth added up to doubt about Voorhis, and when it was

all over he said it was "the bitterest campaign I have ever seen." Nixon

ran unopposed for the seat two years later.

Nixon became a national figure as chairman of the House Un-American

Activities Special Subcommittee investigating charges by Whittaker

Chambers, an editor of Time Magazine and a confessed Communist Party

functionary, that there were Communist spies in the Government. Among the

accused was forme. State Department official Alger Hiss. (~hamber~

eventually produced microfilmed documents he saic had been concealed in a

hollowed-out pumpkin or his farm, and Hiss was convicted of perjury.

Nixon had found his niche. "The Hiss case," h~ said, "for the first time,

forcibly demonstrated to the American people that domestic Communism was

a real and present danger." From then on, Nixon wa~ never far from the

issue. When he challenge~ Democratic Representative Helen Gahagan Dougla~

for the Senate, he defeated her by calling her "Th~ Pink Lady," and

printing all his anti-Douglas handbill~ on pink paper. The campaign had

hardly begun wher a local newspaper editorialized, "Tricky Dick Nixor is

falsely accusing her ... of being a Communist." Years after the campaign

was relegated to history and the name of Helen Gahagan Douglas forgotten,

the name "Tricky Dick" was still with him.

Senator Nixon became a spokesman for th~ Republican Party and toured the

countny attackin~ Communists in general and the Truman administration in

particular. He scor8Ed a coup when he was sent to Europe for a conference

and made; side trip to Paris to have a chat with NATO chiei Dwight D.

Eisenhower. It put him in the forefront among Republicans trying to

convince the General tc become their Presidential candidate, and by the

tim~ Eisenhower agreed to run, Richard Nixon was in a position to become

his running mate.

When the campaign began, a Gallup Poll notea that only 45 percent of

Americans could name th~ GOP Vice Presidential candidate. Within a week,

there was hardly a man, woman or child in the country who didn't know the

name of Richard Milhous Nixon And most of them had an opinion about him.

The New York Post had revealed that a group o. California businessmen

were contributing money tc help cover Nixon's personal expenses that

weren' paid by the Government. Nixon countered by sayin;~ that the

contributions actually saved the taxpayers' money. But his own tactic,

guilt by association, had caught up with him. Newspapers across the

country began calling for his removal from the ticket, and before long

the candidate himself volunteered tc resign. But Eisenhower stayed cool

and announced that he was convinced his running mate was "clean as a

hound's tooth." Then he called on Nixon to prove it.

The suspense gave Nixon an audience for his televised speech of more than

58 million people. The speech they heard has often been criticized as

something bordering on soap opera, and Nixon himself said it was "a flop"

until the telegrams and phone calls began coming in. The Republican

National Committee estimated that more than 300,000 "Keep Nixon" messages

were sent to its Washington headquarters alone. General Eisenhower was

impressed. "I'd rather have one courageous, honest man," he said, "than a

whole boxcar full of pussyfooters."

After the election it was apparent that Vice President Nixon wasn't going

to follow in the nearly invisible footsteps of his predecessors. He

became the Administration's spokesman on political matters and campaigned

for Congressional candidates, making as many as three speeches a day to

elect an "Eisenhower Congress." His efforts, in which he accused the

Democrats of treason or worse, failed, and after they took control of the

84th Congress in 1954, he was faced with the first defeat in his

political career.

He was dealt another blow in September, 1955, when President Eisenhower

was hospitalized following a heart attack. "I went dead inside," Nixon

said. But the Vice President's grace under pressure impressed even his

most hardened critics. It defused many of their objections to his

becoming the President's running mate again in 1956, and when Eisenhower

announced that he would run for a second term, he said he had left it up

to the Vice President to "chart his own course." In spite of tough

opposition, the course Nixon chose was to be part of the ticket and "set

the record straight."

The campaign was subdued, even dignified, and there was talk that a "New

Nixon" had emerged. According to one source, when the Republican high

command asked him to "engage in verbal street fighting," on behalf of

nervous Congressional candidates, the Vice President responded, "I have

no intention of becoming a political Jack the Ripper." Richard Nixon was

working hard at appearing "presidential."

At the beginning of the second Eisenhower term, the President said that

"no one in the history of America has had such careful preparation" as

Nixon had for assuming the presidency. And Nixon's preparation was

further enhanced by the state of the president's health. Eisenhower's

1955 coronary had thrust the Vice President into the center of White

House activity. In 1957, after suffering a stroke, Eisenhower drafted a

historic document that gave Nixon the power to assume complete

presidential powers if necessary. No other Vice President had ever been

given as much responsibility and power.

Nixon scored a political coup in 1959 when he was sent to Moscow. At one

point during his tour of a trade exhibition with Soviet Premier Nikita

Khrushchev, he managed to maneuver the crusty Communist leader into a

debate on the merits of American kitchens compared to those found in

Russia. The debate ended in a draw, but to a man like Nixon, anxious to

establish himself as a fearless statesman, it was a stunning victory.

He came home a hero on an inside track toward the presidential

nomination. And by the time the campaign began, polls put him well ahead

of John F. Kennedy, the Democratic candidate. But when it ended he had

lost the election, and for the first time in thirteen years Richard Nixon

was a private citizen. It was an uncomfortable role for a man who had

tasted the powers of the presidency, and in 1962 he ran for the

governorship of California. He expected an easy victory and apparently

planned to use the office to keep himself in the public eye. What he got

was an embarrassing defeat, and in conceding the election he made it a

point to blame his troubles on the press who, he said, "won't have Nixonto kick around anymore." His political career had, apparently, come to an

end.

Keeping his word, the former Vice President moved to New York and became

a Wall Street lawyer. Though he kept his political contacts, it seemed

obvious to every observer that Richard Nixon's political career was,

indeed, past history.

But history intervened in 1963 with the assassination of President John

F. Kennedy. Though Nixon had repeatedly denied any presidential ambitions

of his own, he became a campaigner again, and in the 1964 election he

warmly supported the candidacy of Barry Goldwater. When Goldwater lost,

Republican conservatives rallied around Nixon, and by the time they met

to choose their candidate in 1967 he was nominated on the first ballot.

He and his running mate, Spiro T. Agnew, began the campaign far ahead in

the polls and never lost their lead in the three-way race against

Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey and Independent George Wallace. During the

campaign, Nixon carefully avoided offering specific solutions to the

problems the country was facing. He said he had a "secret plan" to end

the war in Vietnam, and as President he quickly began to reduce U.S.

involvement. At the same time he also expanded the fighting beyond

Vietnam's border into Laos and Cambodia.

When Nixon had said that his first priority was to assume the role of

peacemaker, he was thinking of more than Vietnam. America's European

alliances were faltering. The Soviet Union represented a growing threat.

There were severe problems in the Middle East, including a civil war in

Jordan. Another war broke out between India and Pakistan, and Communist

China seemed headed for superpower ~tatus, creating a new threat to

peace. At home, the ~conomy was in serious trouble with prices and

interest rates rising and income stagnating. Crime had increased nearly

70 percent in a decade and the ountry was divided by fear. The mood of

the Great 7ociety had shifted to a call for law and order.

Nixon won approval for three major crime bills. He mposed wage-price

controls and created a program o redistribute billions of tax dollars to

state and local ,overnments. In 1972, he became the first American

'resident to visit Russia when he went to Moscow for summit meeting with

Leonid Brezhnev. But three nonths before, he had electrified the world by

xtending the hand of friendship to Chinese Premier _hou En-Lai and Party

Chairman Mao Tse-Tung.

On February 21, 1972, Air Force One, the presidential jet, touched down

in Peking and the hostility that had existed between the U.S. and China

for a quarter century evaporated as President Nixon stepped out to be

ushered to the home of Chairman Mao. Nixon had put aside his old

hostility to Communist China when he supported its admission to the

United Nations. He said he had no illusions about China's total

dedication to Communism. "There will continue to be differences," he

said, "the question is whether we are going to live with them or die for

them."

By the time he retumed from the Moscow summit, the 1972 presidential

election campaign was warming up. Nixon faced little opposition, and the

field of Democratic hopefuls was narrowed to Senator G eorge S. McGovern.

Nixon was far ahead in the polls and conducted a low-key campaign. But

before it began, a burglary attempt at the Democratic National

Headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. began a chain

of events that became one of the most serious political scandals in

American history.

In the aftermath, it was revealed that what the White House dismissed as

a "third-rate burglary" was really just the tip of the iceberg. A special

Senate Committee concluded that White House of ficials had authorized

payment of hush money to defendants in the case. It also discovered that

Nixon campaign officials had installed listening devices at the

Democratic headquarters, that they had established a "dirty tricks squad"

to keep the Democrats off balance, and that the White House had

authorized a "plumbers" unit to pIug leaks of damaging information. It

was also revealed that the Administration had intended to use "Federal

machinery to screw our political enemies."

The most damaging testimony came from White House counsel John Dean, who

charged that the President himself had directed the cover-up. Meanwhile,

more than a dozen Administration officials were sentenced to prison terms

and the President was named an unindicted co-conspirator. The House

Judiciary Committee approved impeachment proceedings against President

Nixon, and on August 9,1974, he became the first American President to

resign kom of fice. It was almost exactly ten months since his Vice

President, Spiro T. Agnew, had become the first to resign from that of

fice after a plea of no contest to a charge of income tax evasion. The

presidency would pass to Gerald R. Ford, who had been appointed Vice

President by Richard Nixon.

Nixon retired to San Clemente, California, where he maintained a low

profile until September 8, when he once again made headlines with the

news that he had been given a presidential pardon for "all offenses

against the United States" during his tenure in office.

At the same time, former domestic affairs adviser John Ehrlichman went on

trial for his role in the Watergate affair and angrily charged that the

former Presidentwas responsible for all his troubles and had left him

"twisting slowly in the wind." Judge J Sirica requested that Nixon take

the stand to tell side of the story but was rebuffed by a doct affidavit

that it would "pose a serious risk to health." The judge challenged the

statement bu became a moot point when Nixon was hospitalizec remove a

life-threatening blood clot. By the time was released the trial was over,

and Ehrlichm, along with former presidential chief of staff H

HaldemanandformerattorneygeneralJohnMitch~ had been found guilty and were

on their way pnson.

Though the former president had been spar telling his story in court, he

was hard at work writi: his memoirs, which eventually dominated t:

bestseller lists. And he agreed to a series of televisi~ interviews,

during which he said "I let the Americ. people down. And I have to carry

that burden wi me for the rest of my life."

Some time later he began receiving invitations f speaking engagements.

Then in early 1980 the NixoI left San Clemente and moved back to New York

Cit' where he quietly reentered the political mainstrea~ as an elder

statesman. As for the possibility of hi making a comeback as a candidate,

he explained: ' am the only native American citizen over the age c

thirty-five who can't run for the presidency."

The 38th Presid ent

GERALD R. FORD

(1974-1977)

When Richard Nixon was reelected to the Presidency in 1972, he carried

every state except Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. He didn't,

however, carry a Republican majority into Congress, which prompted House

Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford to abandon his dream of becoming Speaker

of the House. He decided to run once more for the seat he had held since

1949 as Representative of Michigan's Fifth Congressional District, and

then leave Washington to practice law. His plan would change

dramatically.

Jerry Ford had originally gone to Washington more as the result of a dare

than a plan. As a young lawyer in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he had been

interested in politics, but the machinery was in the iron grip of a power

broker who had little regard for idealistic young Republicans. Among his

lieutenants was Congressman Barney Jonkman, whose strength was legendary,

in spite of what many considered an appalling record in Washington. But

everywhere Jerry Ford went, it seemed, the subject of what to do about

Congressman Jonkman came up . He finally responded by announcing his own

candidacy. The incumbent didn't seem to care a bit, and when Congress was

called into special session just before the election, Jonkman cheerfully

went back to Washington, confident that a campaign wasn't necessary.

It left the field wide open for Ford. By the time Congressman Jonkman

came home again, it was too late. Ford won the primary by a two-to-one

margin, and went on to win the election easily. Ford said luck had taken

him to Washington, but until then he hadn't seemed like a man born under

a lucky star. He was born Leslie L. King, Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska in 1913.

When his parents were divorced, his mother took him to Grand Rapids,

where she married Gerald Rudolf Ford, who adopted the boy and renamed him

Gerald R. Ford, Jr. The family was poor, but not destitute, and young

Jerry had an "average" childhood. His grades at school were called

"average," too, but he had other interests. He played center on the city

championship football team and was captain of the team that won the state

championship.

He played football at the University of Michigan, too, and before he

graduated he had offers to play professionally from both the Green Bay

Packers and the Detroit Lions. They were tempting offers, but he decided

he'd rather study law. When he was offered the jobs of boxing coach and

assistant football coach at Yale University, he thought he had found a

way. He enrolled in Yale's law school and kept the coaching jobs at the

same time. When he graduated in 1941, in the top quarter of his class, hewent home to establish a law firm. But before the firm was a year old,

the United States entered World War II, and counselor Ford entered the

Navy.

Almost from his first day in the House of Representatives, Jerry Ford

dreamed of becoming House Speaker and concentrated on learning the

workings of Congress and getting to know the people who served there. He

became well-known as a "Congressman's Congressman," and became active in

the national Republican Party. In 1963, President Lyndon Johnson

appointed him to the Commission investigating the Kennedy assassination.

It gave Ford more national recognition and strengthened his already high

standing among his colleagues.

When President Johnson won the 1964 election he pulled in a strongly

Democratic Congress along with him, and the GOP began looking for new

leadership. When the Eighty-ninth Congress convened inJanuary, 1965,

Gerald Ford had been elected Minority Leader. With a little luck, if the

Republicans could get a majority in the next Congress, he would become

Speaker. They gained forty-seven seats in the next election, but were

still short of a majority. Three years later, when the GOP came up short

again, Congressman Ford decided to retire.

His chief reason for the decision was his wife, Betty, who was in almost

constant pain from a pinched nerve compounded by arthritis, which wasn't

helped by the damp Washington climate. Ford was devoted to her and his

four children, and he often said they made him "as happy as a man can

be." But he didn't become a family man until he was 35 years old. He said

he had been too busy for such things. And he claimed he may not have

married at all if his mother hadn't been so persistent in her suggestion

that he "settle down".

He began dating Betty Warren, a former dancer and model, who was a

fashion coordinator in a local department store. He decided to marry her

at about the same time he made his decision to run for Congress, and when

they were married just two weeks before election day, Jerry arrived for

the ceremony directly from a campaign speech. Their honeymoon lasted one

weekend, during which time he took her to a football game and then on to

a rally to hear a speech by Presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey. They

never really "settled down."

In October,1973, when Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned, Ford was

called to the Oval Office, where President Nixon offered him the job.

Ford later wrote: "The Vice President didn't have much to do .... On the

other hand, the Vice Presidency would be a splendid cap to my career." He

also said that he felt he could be valuable to the President, whose

policies he had consistently supported. Since he had no designs on the

Presidency, he would be able to keep his promise to Betty that they'd

retire in 1977.

But even before confirmation hearings could begin, the Watergate scandal

boiled over, and as Ford's name was submitted to Congress, no less than

twentytwo bills in the House were calling for the impeachment of

President Nixon. The hearings took on a special importance as a result,

and Ford's life was scrutinized more than any other candidate in the

history of the country. Confirmation was overwhelmingly approved and on

December 6,1973, the man who wanted to be Speaker of the House became

President of the Senate and the Vice Preside_ of the United States.

Eight months later, President Nixon hims~ resigned, and on August 9,1974,

Gerald R. Ford wc sworn in as President. "Our long national nightma is

over," he said. But the job of healing the wounds that nightmare had

fallen squarely on his shoulder One of his first acts was to tell the

members of t~ Nixon Cabinet that he wouldn't accept thei resignations. He

also told them that he was going t give them more control over their

departments an would to leave the details of management to them, policy

that broke completely from the previou Administration. Then he went to

the Capitol to addre~ a joint session of Congress. "I don't want a

honeymoo with you," he told them, "I want a good marriage. And then he

went back to the White House to look the realities. Among the most

pressing was that l needed to appoint a new Vice President.

The man he eventually chose, former Govern~ Nelson Rockefeller of New

York,.was a man with liberal record, which would anger some of Ford'

constituency. Even though Rockefeller had rejected Republican offer to

run for Vice President in 1960 an Democrat offer in 1968, he accepted

Ford's offer, an the Congressional confirmation process began. It too

four months before the Senate finally gave its approva

In the meantime, in spite of the dismal state of th economy, and of the

world, everyone was askin~ "What will Ford do about Nixon?" The new

Presider said he felt the issue should be left up to the Court~ But no

one was going to let him off the hook th~ easily. Part of the controversy

was over the issue ~ Nixon's papers and tapes, which he claimed were hi

personal property. President Ford was expected t rule on it, but found

himself in a morass of conflictin legal opinion. The legal question of

whether he coul~ pardon Mr. Nixon was clear enough, but if he dic would

there be a backlash of public opinion?

And Ford had another opinion to consider. Th Special Prosecutor estimated

that if Nixon were eve brought to trial, it would be at least a year

before jur selection could begin, and that the trial itself coul~ take

years longer. Faced with that prospect, Presiden Ford decided to give

Richard Nixon a full pardon When he did, his Gallup Poll rating dropped

from 7 to 49 in less than a week, thousands of letters ~ protest arrived

at the White House, and newspaper that had been friendly began turning on

him. His ow] press secretary resigned rather than make th announcement.

Ford never fully recovered.

Before the month was over, Soviet Foreign Ministe Andrei Gromyko arrived

at the White House for talk on the Middle East and indicated that the

Soviet were ready to talk about other matters as well. Th~ machinery for

domestic talks on the economy wen into gear and Ford completed assembling

his ow White House staff. But the furore over the Nixo pardon refused to

die. The HouseJudiciary Committe~ asked Ford if any deals had been made.

"There was n~ deal period, under no circumstances," he told them

Ford'sproblemsincreasedatthebeginningofl975, when Republican losses

prompted the Democrats to boast that they had accomplished a "veto-proof

Congress. " The state of the economy was deteriorating at a faster rate,

the automobile industry was closing plants and laying off workers by the

thousands, and the Administration was forced to admit that the country

was in the grip of a recession. And Ford soon discovered that the problem

had a twin. The cost of foreign oil had skyrocketed but production of

domestic energy, not just oil but coal and natural gas as well, had

dropped almost as dramatically. It was clear that demand needed to be

curbed and production increased, but the Administration and Congress

disagreed on how to do it.

Ford asked for a $16 billion tax cut to stimulate the economy, and higher

taxes on oil and gas to encourage conservation. He also called for d

rastic cuts in spending and caps on pay raises. Congress called the

President "misguided," and its leaders went to work bottling up his

proposals. Ford, who had been so proud of having been called "a

Congressman's Congressman," was clearly not a Congressman's President.

The following month, a different kind of problem presented itself when an

American merchant ship, the Mayaquez was captured in international waters

by the Cambodians. Ford ordered a naval squadron into the area, then

airlifted marines into Thailand. Two days later they attacked, and in a

daring rescue recovered the ship and her crew. Although more than 40

Americans were killed in the operation, it was a needed morale booster

for the country as well as for the President.

The economy was improving by then, too. And in July Ford had another

opportunity to shine on the world stage. The occasion was a summit

meeting at Helsinki, Finland. The resultwas a perceptible easing of East-

West tensions that had existed for thirty years. The trip gave world

leaders a chance to know each other, and it gave Ford an opportunity to

make progress with the Soviets on a Strategic Arms Limitation agreement

that had been stalemated.

Ford was jubilant as he set out for the West Coast in September for some

political speechmaking on the subject of crime. He had sent a proposal to

Congress calling for strong handgun legislation. But the laws hadn't been

passed. On the morning after his speech, he noticed a woman in a red

dress in a crowd of wellwishers. Her hand was extended toward him and as

he reached out to shake it, he saw she was pointing a handgun at him.

The would-be assassin was Lynette Alice "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of

the infamous murdererCharlesManson. Shewas latersentenced to life

imprisonment for the crime. Because of her Manson connection, the

incident was considered isolated. But two weeks later Ford went to the

West Coast again, and as he was leaving his hotel a shot rang out from

across the street. It was fired by a radical named Sara Jane Moore. Her

bullet missed Ford by a few feet. The President refused to alter his

public schedule after the assassination attempts, saying that "I think

it's important that we as a people don't capitulate to the wrong

element." Personally, he seemed determined not to capitulate to any

element he didn't believe had the best interest of the country in mind.

He went on television to sell his idea that tax cuts needed to be tied to

spending cuts, a proposal that infuriated Congress. He put an embargo on

grain sales to Russia, which angered farmers. Then he took on the big

cities, refusing to consider saving New York from a fiscal crisis unless

it would try to help itself.

In spite of his original plan to retire in 1977, he decided to try for

another presidential term. He encountered unexpected opposition when

former California Governor Ronald Reagan also announced his candidacy.

Ford was forced to head off the challenge in the primaries, starting with

New Hampshire. When he won there, it was the first time he had ever won

an election outside his home Congressional District. He won again in

several primaries, but when Reagan finally beat him in North Carolina, it

was the first time Ford had lost an election since the day he decided to

become a Congressman. He hired new speech writers, changed his style of

dressing, and assumed a more relaxed approach that contrasted with what

had been a ponderous personal style.

But in November it was all over. Jerry Ford's original plan of retiring

in 1977 came about after all, in spite of an enormously unpredictable

detour along the way. His Presidency had covered an important era in

American history, but what could be described as the most historic day of

all in that period was related to an event that had taken place more than

two centuries before.

"Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that I would be President of

the United States on its 200th birthday," he wrote. And on the Fourth of

July in 1976, Jerry Ford was a kid again, celebrating what had always

been his favorite holiday. In '76 the celebrations lasted five days, and

President Ford was in the center of it all the way. He was in New York

for the festivities there and to review the parade of tall ships that

thirty countries had sent to say "Happy Birthday, America." In the crowd

that gathered in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty that day, no one was

happier than Gerald R. Ford, the 38th President of the United States.

The 39th President

JIMMY CARTER

(1977-1981)

IsnABt it time we had a President without an accent?"

WheneverJimmy Carter drawled that question anywhere on the 1976 campaign

trail between the Mississippi Delta and the Mason-Dixon Line, the South

stood more solidly behind the man who had seemingly come from nowhere to

ask them for their vote. And while voters up North were still asking

"President of what?" the South virtually guaranteed him nearly half the

electoral votes he would need to become President of the United States.

James Earl Carter Jr.'s family had been in Georgia for more than 200

years. Nevertheless, when he announced he would run for Governor of the

state in 1970, only 25 percent of the electorate recalled ever having

heard his name, even though as a state Senator he had been voted one of

the most effective legislators by his colleagues. By the time the

campaign was over and he had been elected in a landslide, voters all over

the state had not only heard of him, but felt they knew him personally.

Even some Georgians who did know him were surprised to hear that their

Governor had decided he'd like to be President. According to many polls

he couldn't get reelected to the office he already held even if Georgia

law would allow it. But Carter's timing was exactly right. He had planned

it that way more than two years before, and from the moment he announced

his candidacy until the day he took the oath of office as the 39th

President, he never strayed from his plan.

Carter had worked hard for national recognition, and if he wasn't known

to the voters, leaders of the Democratic Party knew who he was. During

their 1972 National Convention, he made the nominating speech for Senator

HenryJackson and two years later he became chairman of a special

committee to train candidates. It gave him a chance to travel outside his

own state and establish himself with party insiders throughout the

country.

When he took his message to the voters themselves, it was simplicity

itself. In an age of television candidacies, he took an old-fashioned

approach by getting out and meeting as many people as he could. He made

it a point to rely on his personality rather than his position on issues.

He perceived that voterc didn't trust politicians, and presented them

with a candidate who was more like a friend than an officeseeker. By the

time the Democrats met to select their candidate, Jimmy Carter was their

choice on the first ballot.

Just plain Jimmy. It was a political asset and voters noted that he

wasn't "one of those high society types." He was often pleased to be told

he had the same smile and appeal as President John F. Kennedy. But in

reality he was closer to Tom Sawyer than any man who ever lived in the

White House.

When the nomination was announced, the Reverend Martin Luther King Sr.

told the assembled Democrats that they had given the American people "a

man sent from God." A born-again Christian, Carter found an enthusiastic

constituency among members of the evangelical movement. His passionate

calls for an end to racial discrimination and his record as Governor of

Georgia eventually gave him more than 90 percent of the black vote. But

in some circles those factors, along with his Southem accent, were a

strong liability. Carter, on the other hand, thought his main liability

was that no one had ever heard of him. But he turned that into an asset.

The man who came out of the South to save the Republic from what he told

them would be another bad marriage said, "I am an ordinary man, just like

all of you, who has worked and learned and loved his family and made

mistakes and tried to correct them without always succeeding."

His roots were in Plains, Georgia - not the smallest town in the state,

but a strong contender with a population of 650. It has a dry goods

store, a train depot and a gas station that doubles as the town gathering

place. It has a bank, a post office, two grocery stores and five

churches. The Carter family arrived there by mule train from the northern

part of the state in 1904, and by the time James Earl Carter, Jr. was

born 20 years later, his father ran a general store and owned much of the

surrounding countryside farmed by sharecroppers.

By the time he was five, young Jimmy was in business for himself, selling

bags of peanuts door-todoor, earning about a dollar a day. He expandedhis little business when he was a teenager, and eventuallyABsaved enough

to buy four houses to rent. He sold them in 1946 to buy a diamond ring

for Rosalynn Smith, who became Mrs. Carter not long after he graduated

from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. Two years later, they

moved to the submarine base at New London, Connecticut. In 1951 he was

reassigned to the nuclear submarine program and his future seemed

assured. It was only a matter of time, he was certain, before he would

become commander of one of the new atomic submarines. The Carters had

come a long way and the future looked bright.

But in July 1953 James Earl Carter, Sr. died. He left his widow, Lillian,

and her four children more than a thousand acres of land, but almost no

cash. Jimmy resigned his commission and went home to take over the family

business. In addition to running their own farms, they sold seed and

fertilizer to other farmers and bought their crops - mostly peanuts. It

was a business that depended on the weather, and as a result of a major

drought in their first year back home, Jimmy and Rosalynn netted $200 for

a year of 15-hour workdays. But the following year more than made up for

it and they began expanding. Before long, the Carter holdings extended to

some 3,000 acres of farm and timberland with an annual gross income of

more than $2.5 million.

As hisbusiness grew, so didJimmyCarter's status. He began as a deacon of

one of the local churches and then became active in the state Lion's

Club. He was elected to the local school board not long after the Supreme

Court ruled that schools should be integrated, and he began making

speeches throughout the county in favor of building a model high school

open to everyone. It was an unpopular stance in Southwest Georgia and he

lost when it came to a vote. Carter decided then to run for the State

Senate. Though it was 1962, long after such practices were considered a

thing of the past, he lost in an election he later proved had been

weighted against him with the votes of people long dead and others who

were serving prison sentences. When the fraud was revealed, a judge

ordered a new election and Jimmy Carter was an easy winner. It was his

first step on the road to the White House.

On the way, he often said, "The American dream endures." And as the new

President and his family left their of ficial car to walk the last steps

to the White House, they seemed to be living proof. But there were

nightmares ahead. Within a few days of his inauguration, a blizzard

roared across the Central States into the Northeast. Combined with bitter

cold, it created a shortage of natural gas that closed schools and

businesses and put more than two million out of work. The new President

told Congress that their decisions on solving the energy crisis

constituted "the moral equivalent of war." It was the beginning of a

battle that would dog him for the rest of his Presidency. With the

exception of adding an Energy Department to the Cabinet, the first

session of the 95th Congress adjourned without approving any energy

legislation at all.

During his first summer in the White House, Carter was accused by black

leaders of not carirlg about the needs of minorities. Congress had

rebuffed him on tax reform, on welfare reform and on a national health

program. Carter later reflected, "There was really very little in the

list to attract constituents, but much to alienate special interest

groups." He was learning the hard way about the world of Washington and,

as some other Presidents before him had done, he turned to the

international scene as a means of finding his place in the sun. He worked

on new initiatives in Africa and the Middle East, the Far East and

Russia. But the Soviets rejected his initial ideas on Strategic Arms

Limitation and the Chinese at first refused to send a delegation to

Washington to talk with him.

Against that background, he was faced with the problem of resolving a

dispute with Panama over the treaty that had been signed in 1903 to make

the Panama Canal possible. Presidents Johnson, Nixon and Ford had all

wrestled with the problem without success, but during the 1976 Republican

Primaries, Ronald Reagan hit hard on the issue, saying as often as he

could that the Ford Administration was giving in to "blackmail" from

Panama. "We built the Canal, we paid for it," he said, "and we are going

to keep it."

He said it so often that-the issue was very much alive when Carter took

office. His negotiating team came up with a compromise that suited the

Panamanians, but getting Congress to agree was quite another matter.

Debate dragged on for more than two years before legislation was finally

in place to make the treaties effective. Carter later said that the

debate over Panama was "the most difficult political battle I have ever

faced, including my long campaign for President."

The day after the first Panama treaty was approved, an event on the other

side of the world set the President on a course toward another battle.

When the Palestinian Liberation Organization attacked an Israeli bus,

killing more than 30 civilians, Israel responded with a full-scale

invasion of Lebanon, killing more than a thousand civilians and leaving

more than one hundred thousand without homes. In an attempt to defuse the

situation, Carter invited Egypt's President Anwar el Sadat and Israeli

Premier Menachem Begin too meet with him in the neutral ground of the

~residential retreat at Camp David, Maryland.

Carter said that he thought they would be secluded here for "one week at

most." The Egyptian foreign ninister predicted that the talks would break

down 'after a few days." Begin had indicated he could walk ut at any time

without losing politically. The meetings asted thirteen days, and they

all left together. On 7eptember 17, they announced an agreement that

vould lead to an Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.

Carter went to Vienna in 1979 to sign an agreement ~n Strategic Arms

Limitation with Soviet Premier eonid Brezhnev. When he came home to push

atification through Congress, he ran into opposition :hat made his battle

over Panama pale by comparison. [n the midst of it, the Soviets attacked

Afghanistan, md any question of the SALT pact becoming of ficial

vanished.

By then, Jimmy Carter was already well into what t~e would call "the most

difficult period of my life." rhe Shah of Iran, faced with dissension

marked by bloody demonstrations and strikes, went into exile. It was a

signal to the Ayatollah Khomeini to end his own Eifteen years of exile

and return to Teheran. The militant Moslem leader had kept in touch with

his Eollowers and had never missed an opportunity to condemn the Shah and

the American "foreign devils" who supported him. But, surprisingly, in

spite of the ~utpouring of hate Khomeini's supporters didn't at that time

seem interested in harming Americans. In fact, when a mob held the United

States Embassy under siege the rioters were dispersed by the Ayatollah's

f97llowers. A month later, Khomeini sent a pledge of friendship and

cooperation to Washington.

But the message didn't reach the mobs in the streets of Teheran, and

Khomeini didn't miss any opportunity to tell his followers that the U.S.

was to b~ame for everything that was wrong with their country.

On November 4,1979, the American embassy was overrun and hostages taken.

The religious leaders hailed the demonstrators as heroes, and though they

didn't seem to have any clear purpose in seizing the embassy in the first

place, they clearly enjoyed the limelight and showed no signs of wanting

to leave, demanding the return of the Shah and all his money as ransom.

By the end of the month their demands included an apology by the United

States for crimes against the Iranian people and, in addition to the

Shah's assets, the Ayatollah said the U.S. should pay financial damages.

The hostages had been imprisoned for more than six weeks when the 1980

presidential election campaign opened. President Carter announced that he

would seek a second term, but he also pledged not to make political

appearances while hostages were held in Iran. But there seemed to be

almost no hope that the crisis could end any time soon.

Carter retaliated by threatening stronger sanctions against the Iranians

and they responded by saying they were ready to transfer control of the

hostages from the militants to the government. Days went by, and when

nothing happened Carter decided to take them by force. Three days after

it began, the elaborate operation was aborted after a series of

unpredictable mishaps and the loss of six men.

After the rescue attempt was made public, the Iranians moved the hostages

from the embassy and kept moving them from place to place to make future

rescue attempts impossible. Then Iran moved on to its own election,

announcing that there could be no decisions until it had a new

government. It was a signal to Carter that he was free to leave

Washington and take part in the election campaign he hoped wouldn't

result in a new government for the United States.

His campaign began in Alabama, a source of his strength four years

before. When it was over, he lost its nine electoral votes to Republican

Ronald Reagan. In fact, Carter lost all but three states south of the

Mason-Dixon Line, including his home state of Georgia. His conservative

Christian constituency abandoned him as well, amid accusations that he

had been soft on Communism, that he had given away the Panama Canal and

that he was trying to destroy the American family by supporting the Equal

Rights Amendment. And blacks, who had voted so heavily for him, also

abandoned him, as they felt he had abandoned them.

Just after losing the election, Carter noted that he was still President

until January 20, and he began the final desperate round of negotiations

that would result in freedom for the hostages on the last day of his

presidency. He wrote of that day, "I was overwhelmed withhappiness-

butbecauseofthehostages'freedom, not mine."

The 40th Presid ent

RONALD REAGAN

(1981-1989)

When former actor Ronald Reagan announced that he was seriously

considering running for President, he said:

"I remember the movie Santa Fe Trail. I played George Custer as a young

lieutenant. The captain said, 'you've got to take over.' My line was 'I

can't.' And the captain said, 'but it's your duty.' And that's how I feel

about this. I'm going to run."

Many people began deriding his acting career as poor experience for the

nation's highest of fice, but his critics didn't take into account that

he had served two terms as Governor of California and had been elected

President of the Screen Actors Guild eight times. He appeared in morethan fifty movies and as many television episodes in his career, but his

work with the Guild was a full-time job as well.

By the time he became Guild President in 1947, the industry had been

rocked by a series of sometimesviolent strikes. One of Reagan's first

assignments was to help negotiate its first new contract in a decade. It

gave him new insight into what he called "highaltitude bargaining."

Before the smoke cleared, an industry committee had been formed to look

into accusations that Communists had infiltrated the Hollywood community.

It led to a special hearing by the House Sub-Committee on Un-American

Activities, at which Reagan was characterized as a friendly witness.

Though Reagan was accused of "red-baiting" by some, his appearance

provided him with a national forum to present himself as something more

than a glamorous movie star, and with an introduction to the Washington

scene, which fascinated him from then on.

In 1954 Reagan was one of the first Hollywood stars to become a

television personality as the host of a series for the General Electric

Company. His experience as a spokesman for the Guild was GE's primary

reason for choosing him. In addition to a TV host, the company was

looking for someone to tour its plants and make personal appearances as

part of its employee and community relations programs. During the next

eight years, Reagan visited 135 different GE plants in 40 states as

corporate ambassador. The company also frequently arranged for him to be

the principal speaker at dinner meetings of chambers of commerce and

other civic groups. He averaged fourteen 20-minute speeches a day and

learned how to keep each one of them fresh. But in addition to making

speeches, he signed autographs, toured assembly lines, and learned a

great deal about a segment of America he believed was underestimated by

the country's leaders.

What those GE employees discovered about Ronald Reagan was that he was

one of them. He was born on February 6, 1911, in Tampico, Illinois, a

lusty tenpound baby his father, Jack, immediately began calling a "fat

little Dutchman." He was nicknamed "Dutch," a name that has followed him

all his life.

The family arrived in Dixon, Illinois, when Dutch was nine. It was a

small ts-wn with a half-dozen factories surrounded by farms. It wasn't

much different from hundreds of other prairie towns that lured farmers

for Saturday night shopping, where the circus visited once a year and

where Chautauqua ~itched its tents for two weeks every summer roviding

lectures and seminars and other forms of ultural uplift.

Downtown Dixon consisted of a hotel, a couple of mcheonettes, a

drugstore, a movie theater, and a ow of retail stores including the

Fashion Boot Shop, ~wned by Jack Reagan. It was probably the least

uccessful business in town. In the 1 920s, ~idwesterners felt that owning

more than two pairs ~f shoes was an extravagance. Jack's own son, Dutch,

Lidn't have much to wear that hadn't been handed lown by his brother,

Neil. The boys' mother, Nelle, oped with hard times and turned to the

~undamentalist beliefs of the Christian Church of )ixon for inspirational

help, and both her sons were lso active in the church. She gave her

younger son peech lessons, and he followed in her footsteps as ~ne of the

most dynamic speakers in the congregation.

When he was fifteen Dutch convinced the oncessionaires at a local park

that they needed a ifeguard and that he was the man for the job. He was

igned on at $15, and all he could eat, for seven 12lour days a week. He

had already earned a reputation Dr charm as a Sunday School teacher, but

this was a lifferent stage. He worked at the park for seven ummers and

not one person drowned. He admitted hat he "saved" a great many who

weren't in any langer, but if they weren't overcome with gratitude, hey

were pleased with the attention of this handsome oung man who seemed to

like everybody and enjoyed aving the affection returned.

Swimming was clearly his sport, but he dreamed ~f being a football

player. Even though he couldn't ee very far without glasses, his

enthusiasm utweighed his nearsightedness, and the football oach at nearby

Eureka College got him an athletic cholarship for half his tuition. The

money he had aved from summer jobs covered the rest of his xpenses, at

least for the keshman year. Later he got a job washing dishes at the Tau

Kappa Epsilon raternity.

Eureka College was established by the Christian hurch and nearly all its

students, like Reagan, were hurch members. But it was 1928 and campus

life was hanging all over the country. Change hit Eureka, too, n the form

of a student protest calling for the esignation of the school's

president, and freshman )utch Reagan was selected to make the speech

nnouncing a student strike. It was his first political peech and he

admitted it was "heady wine."

He graduated in 1932 in the midst of the Great )epression, in debt and

with no prospects. He ~itchhiked to Chicago, where he didn't know a soul,

ntent on becoming a radio sportscaster. A few days ~ter he was riding his

thumb back to Dixon. He inally struck paydirt at WOC in Davenport, Iowa,

vhere the station owner, like the Eureka football oach, was impressed by

Reagan's enthusiasm. He hallenged the young man to recreate a football

game n words "that will make me see it. " It got Reagan a job nnouncing a

real game the following week and an assignment to do three more. By the

time the season was over, he had a full-time job.

The station was later consolidated with the larger WHO in Des Moines and

Dutch Reagan became its chief sports announcer, making him a celebrity

all over the Midwest. But he had his eye on a bigger prize. In 1937, he

convinced WHO to send him to Los Angeles to cover the Chicago Cubs'

spring training. While he was there he went for a screen test at Warner

Brothers, secured a seven-year contract and went back to Des Moines to

say good-bye.

He worked regularly after that, and appeared in an average of five films

a year for the next five years. He became a certified star in 1942 in

King's Row. Among the people who granted such certification was Louel 1 a

Parsons, movie columnist for the Hearst newspapers. She, like Reagan, was

from Dixon, Illinois, and took him under her wing. In addition to

promoting his career, she engaged in marital matchmaking when she signed

Reagan to acccompany her on a national vaudeville tour. Among the others

who went along was actress Jane Wyman. She and Reagan were married in

1940. But their careers and interests went separate ways, their

relationship deteriorated and they were divorced eight years later.

About the same time, a young actress named Nancy Davis appeared in

Hollywood. She was looking for a career in movies, but didn't mind saying

that she was also looking for a husband. After meeting Ronald Reagan, his

name led her list of eligibles, even though he had other things on his

mind. He managed to stay single for some time, but no one was surprised

when they were married in 1952.

In 1960 the problem of television reached showdown proportions. Reagan

was appointed head of a delegation to negotiate with the movie-makers at

a meeting that ended in stalemate. The union responded with a six-month

strike. In the end the producers won the right to sell TV rights in

return for a contribution to the union. Reagan's membership, though happy

to see the long strike over, felt they had been sold out. He resigned as

the Guild's president and Nancy resigned from its Board.

He had a different kind of politics on his mind by then. In his corporate

tours for General Electric he had developed an electrifying speech

against the evils of Communism. He ended it with a call to action:

"Freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction. We didn't

pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for,

protected, and handed on to them to do the same, or one day we will spend

our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it

once was like in the United States when men were free."

Reagan's speeches inspired many to think of him in political terms, but

he denied that he had political ambitions. He said, "One serves where he

feels he can make the greatest contribution. For me, I think that service

is to continue accepting speaking engagements, in an effort to make

people aware of the danger to freedom in a vast permanent government

structure so big and complex it virtually entraps Presidents and

legislators." Two years later he announced he was running for Governor of

California.

In his campaign he told the voters that he was "sick of the sit-ins, the

teach-ins and the walk-outs," that were taking place on California's

college campuses. "When I am elected governor," he said, "I will organize

a throw-out." And when he was elected, he kept the promise. He shunned

professional politicians, seeking instead the advice of businessmen "who

have to show a profit," and accountants to "keep an eye on the

bureaucrats."

When he ran again in 1970, he won in a landslide. His critics said he was

only interested in Sacramento as a stepping-stone to the White House, and

they may have been right. He spent his first term building a staff and an

organization that would eventually follow him to Washington. But while

they were getting organized, a former California Governor, Richard Nixon,

won the 1968 presidential election. There seemed no doubt that he would

remain in the White House until 1976, by which time Governor Reagan would

have been a private citizen for two years.

But by 1976 the incumbent President was Gerald Ford and not Richard

Nixon. Reagan decided to fight him for the nomination and kept his

campaign alive until the Republican National Convention. When it was all

over, Ford had the nomination and the loyal support of Ronald Reagan, who

had his eye on the 1980 election, even though he would be sixty-nine

years old by then.

The most critical issue in that election was inflation. The country was

experiencing its worst economic crisis since the 1930s, and Reagan's

message was simple: "Are you better off today than you were four years

ago?" The program he presented, which became known as "Reaganomics,"

grew, in part, out of a theory known as supply-side economics, based on

the time-honored principles of supply and demand, but concentrating on

the idea that supply creates demand rather than the other way around.

In the first two years of his Administration, the country went through

its worst recession in four decades. But the recovery was dramatic. By

the 1984 election, the economy was booming and Reagan swept into a second

term, in part because the electorate felt they were better off than they

had been four years before.

The problem of international terrorism put Reagan to the test in June,

1985, when Lebanese Shiite Moslems hijacked an American plane. Seventeen

days later, all the hostages were released without any of the terrorists'

demands having been met. Reagan had often promised "swift retribution" in

such crises, but met this one with cool patience instead.

After the Israeli assault on Beirut in 1982, American marines were sent

to Lebanon to act as peacekeepers. But when 241 of them were killed, the

survivors were quickly withdrawn. Two days later another U.S. armed force

attacked the Caribbean island of Grenada in reponse to a threat from what

the President called "a brutal group of leftist thugs.n But

Admininistration critics charged it was sabre-rattling at best, and at

worst a public relations ploy to distract attention from events in

Beirut.

Reagan had been cool to the idea of a face-to-face meeting with the

Soviets, but in November 1985 he arranged a meeting in Geneva with

Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. It

was the first superpower summit in six years. They met again a year later

in Reykjavik, Iceland. The general feeling after the Reykjavik talks was

negative, but Gorbachev finally went to Washington in December 1987 for

another round of meetings, which were considered the friendliest ever

held between the leaders of America and the Soviet Union.

At the end of his presidency, Ronald Reagan's popularity had hardly

changed. His opponents often called him the "Teflon President" because

neither negative fallout from his policies nor the sometimes less than

honorable actions of his appointees ever stuck to him personally. The

most serious challenge to his credibility came when it was announced that

the United States had sold missiles-to Iran in return for a hoped-for

release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon. Then it was disclosed that the money

had gone to support the anti-Communist efforts in Nicaragua, and the

Administration became embroiled in a scandal known as the "Iran-Contra

Affair." When public hearings ended, President Reagan said, "I let my

preoccupation with the hostages intrude into areas where it didn't belong

.... I was stubborn in my pursuit of a policy that went astray." He

retired to a new home in California provided by his supporters in the

business community there without having accepted any responsibility, or

even knowledge, of the events that led to the scandal that shadowed his

last days in the White House.

But as his Administration drew to a close, most Americans agreed that

they were better off than they had been when it started. And in spite of

the unanswered questions he left behind, his ratings in opinion polls

indicated that Ronald Reagan was still an extremely popular President.

One of Reagan's favorite roles as a movie actor was that of George Gipp

in the film, Knute Rockne - All American. On the hundredth anniversary of

Rockne's birth, President Reagan took a sentimental journey to the

University of Notre Dame, where he told an enthusiastic audience, "There

is a will to succeed evident in our land. I happen to have always

believed in the American people. Don't ever sell them short."

The 41st Pres92dent

GEORGE BUSH

(1989- )

If you were to ask George Bush where home is, he would answer without the

blink of an eye, "Texas!" But in a country where image is often

considered as important as substance, most people usually think of men

like Lyndon Johnson and say, "Funny, you don't look like a Texan."

Even if President Bush was never successful in cultivating the image of a

'good ole boy,' he is as much a Texan as any of them. He called the Lone

Star State home for more than forty years. And if that doesn't qualify

him as a son of Texas, remember that Sam Houston was Governor of

Tennessee before he got the Texas spirit, and that Moses Austin, who led

the first American families into the territory, was born in Connecticut.

And though he himself was born in Massachusetts, Connecticut is where

George Bush came from, too. His father, Prescott Bush, served as a United

States Senator from Connecticut for ten years, in fact, though he grew up

in Columbus, Ohio.

The five Bush children, including the second eldest, the future

president, grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, but their favorite place

during those growing-up years was the family's summer home in

Kennebunkport, Maine, which had been owned by Mrs. Bush's father, George

Herbert Walker, a St. Louis businessman. Even as President, the house

remains one of Bush's favorite places. It is filled with memories of his

boyhood days when he explored the rocks, hunted for starfish and

collected treasures from tidal pools; and of the wonderful long summer

days when he was allowed, at the age of nine, to handle his grandfather's

lobster boat all by himself, even if it was under the watchful eye of his

eleven year-old brother.

Six months after theJapanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, young George

graduated from the prestigious Phillips Academy in Andover,

Massachusetts, and it was expected he would follow in his father's

footsteps by going on to Yale University. But when he announced that he

had decided to join the Navy instead, his family backed his decision, and

not long after his eighteenth birthday, George Bush was learning to fly.

When he got his wings, he was the youngest pilot, not to mention the

youngest-looking officer, a mere boy in 'This Man's Navy.' To make

matters worse, his girlfriend, Barbara Pierce, wa even younger. To

upgrade his image, he asked her t lie about her age.

George met Barbara, whose father was publishe of McCall's Magazine, at a

dance while he was in flig~ school. Her family lived in Rye, New York,

not fa from his family's home, and she was a student i South Carolina,

not far from his Navy base. But they were attracted to each other by more

than just the convenience of geography. He was in advanced flight

training when they decided to become engaged in 1943, but at the same

time he was assigned to a carrierbased torpedo squadron scheduled for

active duty in the Pacific, and the wedding date was postponed fo~ the

duration of the war.

Weddings were the farthest thing from Lieutenant j.g. George Bush's mind

on the morning of Septembe~ 24, 1944. The target for the day was a

Japanese communications center on Chichi Jima, part of the island chain

that includes Iwo Jima, where the Marines landed six months later. As his

TBM Avenger, a threeman torpedo bomber, began its dive over the Chichi

Jima radio tower, it was hit by anti-aircraft fire. His cockpit filled

with smoke and flames licked the wings of his dive bomber, but Bush kept

on diving. He released all four of his 500-pound bombs and destroyed his

target before heading for the open sea. Then, after his crew bailed out,

Bush jumped. He was slightly injured when his parachute ripped on the way

down, but he was still intact when he hit the water, where he floundered

in a rubber raft for nearly two hours without a paddle and drifting

slowly in the direction of the enemy-held island. Finally, an American

submarine broke the surface and the ordeal was over. The only bad news

that day was the discovery that his two crewmates had been killed Bush

was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross foI his efforts to save them,

and for succeeding in his mission in spite of the smoke and flames.

He was badk in action again after a few weeks, and after completing

fifty-eight combat missions he was finally ordered home. He arrived back

in Connecticut on Christmas Eve, 1944, and he and Barbara were married

two weeks later. Their plan to wait until the war was over was scrapped

and Barbara dropped out of Smith College to become Mrs. Bush. During the

lext few months, his squadron was being readied for :he anticipated

invasion of Japan, but the Japanese ;urrender came before he was

scheduled to leave, and Jeorge and Barbara Bush were more than ready to

get on with their lives.

He enrolled at Yale and, like so many students in :he 1940s, lived off

campus with his wife and their ,on, George, who had been born in 1946.

Every couple n the house's thirteen apartments had at least one child,

and one had twins. It was a far cry from the ypical Yale life his father

had known. But family obligations notwithstanding, George Bush still

found :ime to follow in his father's footsteps as captain of the

University's baseball team and then did even better as its star first

base man at the College World Series two years in a row. He also earned a

degree in economics in just two-and-a-half years, and a Phi Beta Kappa

key in the bargain. And before leaving New Haven, he became a member of

the elite Skull and Bones, an ~onor reserved for the brightest and best

Yale undergraduates.

It was expected that his next logical step would be to join Brown

Brothers, Harriman, the New York investment banking firm where his father

was managing partner. But George Bush is fond of the unexpected. When the

job was offered, he turned it down. He wanted to be his own man. A family

friend suggested that the best place for an ambitious young man to make

his mark was in the oil fields of Texas. When he backed up the advice

with a job offer, George and Barbara packed the baby into an old red

Studebaker and headed for West Texas and his new job as a clerk with a

company selling oil rig equipment.

They settled down in a one-bedroom "shotgun house," whose rooms were

connected to each other with no hallway, in Odessa. They learned the

lingo there, developed a taste for chicken-fried steak, and beer from

long-necked bottles, and followed local football as passionately as any

native-born Texans.

In a little less than a year, Bush was promoted to salesman and

transferred to California, but when they eventually went back to Texas,

he knew he had come "home." There was an oil boom there in 1950, and the

Bushes waded right into the center of it, buying a tract house in Midland

in a neighborhood that was filling fast with young people who were all,

like George, ambitious to make money. The subject even came up atbackyard

barbecues, and after one of them George teamed up with John Overby to

form an independent oil company. Overby, the Bush's neighbor across the

street, was as enthusiastic as he was bright, and it seemed like a

perfect opportunity for twenty-six year-old George Bush. It was.

Together, they developed oil fields as far from Texas as Montana, and

Bush's financial contacts back East, combined with an unusual amount of

luck, made them highlysuccessfulwildcatters. They sunk 128 wells and

never once hit a dry hole. The company operated in the black for the

entire three years of its existence, a rarity among independents in the

rough and tumble oil business.

In 1953, Bush and Overby joined forces with two other neighbors to form

an even bigger company, which they named Zapata Petroleum for a Mexican

rebel played by Marlon Brando in a movie they all had just seen. The

company was split into two separate entities five years later and the

Bushes moved to Houston, where he took charge of Zapata Off-Shore, the

new subsidiary they had created, and pioneered a radical new type of

three-legged off-shore oil drilling rig that eventually became the

industry standard.

After Zapata's first off-shore rig began pumping crude, George Bush

seemed destined to join the pantheon of self-made Texas oil millionaires.

But something new had entered his life. Of all the things Texans get

passionate about, politics is among the highest on the list, and in 1962,

Texan George Bush got passionate about politics himself. The

traditionally Democratic state had begun to show Republican leanings

during the 1950s, and Bush was approached by GOP leaders in the Houston

area to take advantage of the trend and help them build a new

organization. It was an opportunity as important to him as the new oil

rig design he had gambled on a few years earlier. He agreed to become

their county chairman right away, and two years later he became their

candidate for the United States Senate. He lost the election, but not the

fever. On the theory that his campaign had suffered because his business

interests were taking away some of his energies, he sold his stake and

severed his connection with the company in 1966. Zapata kept growing even

without him, and later became part of the highly-successful Pennzoil

Company. If he had kept his interest in Zapata, he could easily have

become a billionaire. But George Bush had found a new interest that

seemed more important than money, and he never looked back.

The same year he got out of the oil business he was elected to Congress

from Houston's newly-created Seventh District, and his new career

officially began.

After serving four years in the House of representatives, where he was

regarded as something of a rising star and was made a member of the

powerful House Ways and Means Committee, Bush followed the advice of

President Nixon, and an avuncular hint from President Lyndon Johnson that

it might be a good idea, and ran for the senate again in 1970. He lost

the election, not because he had been given bad advice, but because rural

Democrats turned out in record numbers to vote down a referendum to sell

liquor by the drink. The loss was hard for him to take, but before the

year ended Bush was named Ambassador to the United Nations, where he

served until 1973, a period that included the admission of the People's

Republic of China to the organization.

WhenhewentbacktoWashington,PresidentNixon offered him the chairmanship of

the Republican National Committee, explaining that after his recent

landslide victory in 1972 the Party needed a strongman to build a new

coalition. Bush accepted the challenge, but no one knew at the time what

a tough assignment it would be. The Watergate scandal broke a few months

later and the challenge for the committee members was less to build a new

coalition than to keep the old one from crashing down on their heads. And

Chairman Bush was given the job of asking President Nixon to resign for

the good of the Party.

During the Ford Administration, Bush was offered his choice of posts as

Ambassador to Great Britain or to France, but he turned down both and

held out instead for the job as head of the newly-created U.S. Liaison

Office in China. As though he hadn't been challenged enough in recent

months, he said that he wanted the job because he and Barbara were

looking for "a challenge, a joumey into the unknown," as they had all

those years before when they headed for Texas in an old Studebaker.

George and Barbara and the family dog set off on their journey into the

unknown in 1974. They lived and worked in Beijing for fifteen months,

during which time "the Bushers," as the Chinese called them, became part

of the local scene. They rode around the city on bicycles as the natives

do, even though they had a car and driver at their disposal. As the

unknown became familiar, they were reluctant to leave, but in 1975 duty

called them home again when President Ford designated George Bush the new

head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The CIA was under investigation at the time by two Congressional

committees for alleged abuse of power, and the job of restoring its image

seemed to Bush, and everyone else, to be as thankless as his chairmanship

of the republican National Committee had been. But he rose to the

occasion, and by the time Jimmy Carter was elected President, agency

personnel had regained their self-respect and the image of the CIA had

been restored again. On the other hand, George Bush was out of a job. But

he had his sights on a better one. On May 1,1979, he announced he was

going to run for president.

He last his bid, but made a strong enough impression on Ronald Reagan,

his opponent in the primaries, to be offered the vice presidential

nomination. He accepted the offer. His duties in the Reagan

Administration went well beyond those normally assigned to a vice

president. He headed the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, a

key agency in Reagan's economic recovery program; and he was made the

Administration's chief spokesman on the entire recovery effort. Later he

was put in charge of a task force to find remedies to the problems of

crime and rampant drug smuggling in South Florida, which later expanded

to include all of the country's borders. As Vice president, Bush traveled

to 74 different countries as Reagan's personal representative. He said he

was treated "almost as an equal" to the president himself, and he became

one of the most loyal members of the Reagan team. His service was

rewarded with the vice presidential nomination again in 1984, and finally

with the presidential nomination and his election to the highest office

itself in 1988.

When they moved into the White House, George and Barbara Bush noted that

it was the twenty-ninth time they had moved in four decades. Over those

years, from his days of building a business to serving in Congress, at

the UN, in China, at the CIA, in the Reagan Administration and into his

own presidency, he has accomplished enough to make any man proud. But

when he was asked what single accomplishment made him proudest of all,

George Bush responded, without the blink of an eye, "the fact that our

children still come home." And when they all get together, it adds up to

quite a crowd. The Bush family includes four sons and a daughter and ten

grand children.