An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland

Grover Cleveland made a name for himself as the fearless mayor of Buffalo, won New York's State House in a landslide, then overcame fierce opposition to become the first Democrat elected president after the Civil War. The road ahead, however, would be harder than any other be had traveled. The office was still overshadowed by Abraham Lincoln, diminished by the corruption of the Grant administration, and faced with the huge challenge of Reconstruction. Cleveland proved he could meet the challenge, and he did so with unwavering integrity.

Today Grover Cleveland is mainly remembered as the only president to be elected to two nonconsecutive terms. But in his day, Cleveland was a renowned reformer-an enemy of political machines who joined forces with Theodore Roosevelt to fight powerful party bosses, a moralist who vetoed bills he considered blatant raids on the Treasury, a vigorous defender of the Monroe Doctrine who resisted American imperialism, and a president who stood his ground against Wall Street robber barons in an era of big business.

His real legacy, however, is his statesmanship. His term in office was plagued by scandal and a gossipmongering press, but Grover Cleveland was a president of principle who never flinched from taking the high road.

During his first presidential bid, when he was a bachelor, his scheming opponents accused him of fathering a child out of wedlock-a charge Cleveland readily admitted to be true. The country forgot the charge and remembered Cleveland's candidness. At the age of forty-nine, he married his ward, the beautiful twenty-one-year-old daughter of an old friend. After the nation's initial surprise, she became the most popular first lady ofthe day-a nineteenth-century Jacqueline Kennedy-and the mother of the first child born in the White House. Even when his administration became bogged down in controversy, Cleveland continued to do the unthinkable: he confronted every scandal with openness and honesty, while diligently protecting the private lives of his family members.

On his deathbed, Cleveland would sum up his career simply: I have tried so hard to do right. And that he did, always acting according to the dictates of his conscience, taking responsibility for his actions, and refusing to explain, excuse, or aggrandize himself through autobiography, library, or museum. Thus, Grover the Good, as he was called, ever remained ... an honest president.

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