The next year, after Roosevelt entered the White House, the Bonus Army reassembled in Washington to confront FDR with the same demand. He sent his wife Eleanor, who frequently acted as her disabled husband's representative, to speak with the leaders and urge them to have their followers apply for work with the Works Progress Administration. As she left his office, FDR told his wife, "Make sure they all have lots of coffee!" Eleanor commandeered as many coffee urns as she could get her hands on for this purpose.
The Bonus Army ended up building the Florida Keys Highway connecting the Florida mainland to Key West, and their bonus was eventually paid ten years early. But the presidential leadership difference was best encapsulated in the press, one of whose headlines read:
HOOVER SENT TROOPS
ROOSEVELT SENT ELEANOR
ELEANOR BROUGHT COFFEE
Anastasio Somoza was "president" of Nicaragua from 1930 until his assassination in 1950 and, like many Central American and Caribbean dictators, was both a brutal oppressor of his own people and a faithful client of the United States. When Franklin Roosevelt was discussing Somoza with his cabinet, one member objected to giving him our support. When Roosevelt asked why, the reply was, "Because I think he's a son of a bitch."
"Of course he's a son of a bitch," FDR replied. "But he's our son of a bitch."
Most people are aware of the fact that JFK's speech in Berlin in 1961 contained the phrase "Ich bin ein Berliner" which is in the context of the speech means "I am a Berliner," but which can also be translated as "I am a jelly donut." (Proper German: Ich bin Berliner, without the indefinite article. Ein Berliner is a confectionary.) Less well known is the potentially lethal translation error that occurred in the White House early in 1947.
The wartime alliance of the United States and the Soviet Union had begun to deteriorate almost before the war itself ended, and negotiations between the two governments had grown acrimonious and heated. President Harry Truman arranged a meeting the Soviet foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, in an attempt reach some modus vivendi. Present at the meeting were only four people: Truman, Molotov, and two translators, in keeping with standard diplomatic practice. Truman's American translator told Truman what Molotov was saying, and Molotov's Soviet translator told Molotov what Truman was saying.
The translation problem arose from the Soviet translator's lack of familiarity with certain American idioms.
If we are going to restore amicable relations, Truman meant to say, we are going to have to discuss serious matters frankly. What he actually said, in his customary rural American idiom, was, "If we're going to bury the hatchet, we've got to talk turkey."
Apparently, the Soviet translator had no idea what Truman was talking about, so he translated the president's words as, "If there is to be war, let it be with the Turks."
The American translator quickly corrected the error, fortunately for everyone concerned (especially the Turks.)
Truman had a well-documented temper and no compunction about expressing it. Three examples follow.
One: At the 1944 Democratic convention, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy (father of the later president) was working against the renomination of FDR. Kennedy had been an isolationist before Pearl Harbor, and he blamed FDR for using the Japanese attack as an excuse to ally ourselves with Britain and Russia against Germany. When his eldest son Joseph Jr. joined the army and was shot down and killed by the Germans, his dislike of Roosevelt turned to hatred.
Kennedy was bad-mouthing FDR incessantly behind closed doors, which was beginning to make Truman's blood boil. At last Kennedy confronted Truman and demanded, "Why the hell are you supporting the son of a bitch that killed my boy Joe?"
Senator Truman thereupon grabbed Ambassador Kennedy by the lapels, pushed him up against a wall, and said, "If you say one more word against the president, I'm gonna throw you out the goddamned window!" Kennedy quieted down.
Two: The removal of General MacArthur for insubordination during the Korean War is well known. Less well known is that before removing him, when an aide asked Truman if he was going to ask for MacArthur's resignation, the president replied testily, "No, I'm not gonna ask for his resignation! I'm gonna fire the son of a bitch!"
Three: Truman's daughter Margaret (later a very successful author of murder mysteries set in Washington) was taking voice lessons during her father's presidency, and she gave a concert for charity. A newspaper critic chose to review the concert as if it were a professional performance instead of what it actually was, an amateur performing to raise money for a good cause, and in his review he absolutely savaged her, criticizing everything from her voice to her demeanor to her comportment. An outraged Truman sent the critic a handwritten letter telling him exactly what he thought of him. The letter ended with the words, "If I ever meet you face to face, you're going to need a bridge and a supporter." Truman later explained that he intended at first to threaten to punch him the mouth and kick him in the balls, but his wife Bess talked him into phrasing it more delicately. (When someone once suggested to Bess that she get Harry to clean up his language, she replied, "It's taken me twenty years to get him to say manure.")
Bess Truman hated politics and had absolutely no desire to be First Lady. (In fact, she spent much of Truman's presidency back home in Independence, Missouri.) But when FDR died and Truman succeeded him, Bess found herself thrust unwillingly into the unwanted role.
She was told that as First Lady she should meet with what was then called the Ladies' Press Corps, and she grudgingly agreed. She answered all of the reporters' questions with monosyllables or noncommittal gestures and an occasional harrumph. At last one of the reporters said, "Mrs. Roosevelt used to meet with us every Monday morning. When will you be holding your press conferences?"
"This is it," replied Bess. And it was!
Anyone who has ever gone through the ordeal of giving up cigarettes will appreciate President Eisenhower's comment on the experience. Ike was a four-pack-a-day smoker, but when he had a heart attack in the middle of his first term he of course had to stop cold turkey. When asked if he would ever start smoking again, he answered, "I don't know about that, but one thing's for damned sure: I'll never stop smoking again!"
Most political figures are to some degree egotists, but Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) raised egotism to new heights. He was fascinated, for example, by his own initials. His wife's given name was Claudia, but he had her change it to Lady Bird, so that her initials would be LBJ also. He named his daughters Lynda Bird and Lucy Baines. His dog was named Little Beagle Johnson, for Pete's sake!
Anyone with so dominant an ego would of course love the power of the presidency. The story goes that when President Johnson was visiting South Vietnam a nervous young soldier on the U.S. airbase was given the task of directing him to the correct helicopter. When the young man said to him, "Mr. President, that's your helicopter over there," LBJ put his huge, bearlike arm around him and said, "Son, they're all my helicopters!"
Many men have a very hard time uttering the two simple words, "I'm sorry." (Many women will agree with this comment.) This quality was particularly true of Lyndon Johnson.
When Detroit's inner city erupted in race riots in the summer of 1966, Johnson sent troops to quell the disturbance. He also appointed a task force to go to Detroit to investigate. Roger Wilkens, a black member of the task force, recalled that in a closed meeting before they left for Michigan a very agitated president said of his troops, "I don't want any bullets in those guns. I don't want any bullets in those guns! I don't want any bullets in those gunsl I don't want any of my men to go and shoot a pregnant nig—" Then, remembering Wilkins' presence, he stopped speaking for a moment before returning to the issue at hand.
When the meeting was over, LBJ asked Wilkens to stay behind. He obviously wanted to say something conciliatory, to somehow apologize for his truncated words, but could not bring himself to do so. He led Wilkens out to the edge of the Rose Garden, where President Eisenhower had installed a putting green a de
cade earlier. Looking down at the floor, he drew Wilkens's attention to the still visible pock marks that had been left by Ike's golf shoes, and then said, "Look what that son of a bitch Eisenhower did to my floor!" He then smiled and slapped Wilkens on the back. This was the closest he could come to an apology.
Two slight scientific errors led Ronald Reagan to make a silly comment during the 1980 presidential campaign. First, he confused carbon dioxide with carbon monoxide, and second, he reversed the process of photosynthesis. Put these two errors together and we end up with plants absorbing oxygen and emitting carbon monoxide.
This is why Reagan said that trees were the biggest source of air pollution. This is also why college students at a school where he was going to give a speech put signs up on the trees along the route of his motorcade saying STOP ME BEFORE I KILL AGAIN.
Slogans have a long and venerable history in American political campaigns. (This writer's personal favorite from the 19th century: in Lincoln's 1864 reelection bid, referring to his height, LONG ABE LINCOLN A LITTLE LONGER.) But the automobile bumper sticker provided a new and effective method of communicating partisan notions, often in amusing ways. The first bumper stickers appeared in the 1952 campaign, which saw Republican General Dwight D. Eisenhower pitted against Democratic Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson. General Eisenhower's nickname, "Ike," inspired a very simple but effective bumper sticker: I LIKE IKE. The Democrats' attempts to match this were, to say the least, uninspiring. The best they could come up with was a grammatically preposterous sticker proclaiming I'M MADLY FOR ADLAI.
In any event, what follows are some bumper stickers from presidential elections, some funny, some stupid, some just mean:
1960: In reference to Kennedy's religion: POPE JOHN FOR PRESIDENT. ELIMINATE THE MIDDLE MAN.
1964: ALL THE WAY WITH LBJ. A subsequent poster was seen around the country showing a photograph of a very unhappy girl who was very, very pregnant, above the words I WENT ALL THE WAY WITH LBJ.
1964: A sticker supporting the Republican candidate Barry Goldwater: IN YOUR HEART YOU KNOW HE'S RIGHT. A Democratic sticker in response: IN YOUR GUTS YOU KNOW HE'S NUTS.
1968: An anti-Hubert Humphrey sticker during the Democratic primaries: DUMP THE HUMP.
1968 and 1972: NIXON’S THE ONE. A popular sticker after Nixon's resignation amid the Watergate scandal: THEY WERE RIGHT! NIXON WAS THE ONE!
1972: Democratic candidate George McGovern's nomination acceptance contained the recurring phrase, "Come home, America." Republican sticker during the campaign: GO HOME GEORGE.
1972: A Republican sticker in reference to McGovern's supposed support of pardoning Vietnam War draft-dodgers, abortion on demand, and a liberal stance on recreational drugs: ACID, ABORTION, AND AMNESTY: McGOVERN IN '72!
1976: Referring to the fact that Gerald Ford granted Richard Nixon a full pardon for any crimes he committed during his presidency, a Democrats sticker read DON'T PARDON FORD.
1980: At the end of the 1979-1980 TV season, the final episode of the popular CBS show Dallas concluded with the main character, J.R. Ewing, being shot by an unidentified assailant. This led to a CBS advertising campaign over the summer with the catch phrase, "Who shot J.R.?", and a Republican bumper sticker proclaiming JIMMY CARTER SHOT J.R.
1984: (Warning: misogynistic humor alert) The Democrats nominated the first female vice-presidential candidate, Geraldine Ferraro, as Walter Mondale's running mate. It is hard to say exactly who was responsible for the bumper sticker that, referring to a popular TV show of the late '50s and early '60s, read VOTE FOR WALLY AND THE BEAVER.
1988: can't think of one.
1992: Sarcastic Republican anti-Clinton sticker: DRAFT-DODGING PHILANDERING POT-HEADS FOR CLINTON.
1996: Democratic sticker: HILLARY'S HUSBAND FOR PRESIDENT
2000: Democratic sticker: DIDN'T VOTE FOR THE BUSH IN 1988. WON'T VOTE FOR THE SHRUB IN 2000.
2004: Pro-Al Gore sticker during the Democratic primaries, referring to the disputed election of 2000: RE-ELECT PRESIDENT GORE.
2008: Democratic sticker: YES WE CAN.
2010: referring to the unfortunate condition of the country: NO YOU COULDN'T.
Another sticker: DON'T BLAME ME. I VOTED FOR THE OLD WHITE GUY.
Two final comments, the first from Henry Adams, the great-grandson of John Adams, writing in the 1870s: "Any study of the American presidency from George Washington to Ulysses Simpson Grant disproves the theory of evolution."
The second is from Mark Twain, who, surveying the dismal procession of politicians, congressmen, senators, presidential candidates, and presidents during the Gilded Age, commented that, "The Government of the United States was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots."
VICE-PRESIDENTS
Contemplate, dear reader, the following question: which of the following people were vice-presidents of the United States? Elbridge Gerry, Hannibal Hamlin, Garrett Hobart, John Breckenridge, Charles Fairbanks, Schuyler Colfax, Garret Hobart, John Nance "Cactus Jack" Garner, or Alban Barkley.
Answer: all of them, which is why you have probably never heard of any of them. The vice-president (or, as our first VP named it in 1789, "His Superfluous Excellency") is only important if the president dies, which has indeed happened eight times (Harrison, Taylor, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, F. Roosevelt, Kennedy), elevating eight VPs to the presidency (Tyler, Fillmore, A. Johnson, Arthur, T. Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, L.B. Johnson.) And four vice-presidents (Van Buren, Nixon, LBJ, and G.H. W. Bush) were actually elected president on their own. But otherwise, the VP’s only constitutional role is to preside over meetings of the Senate, in which he has no vote unless there is a tie. (And you can imagine how often that happens!) FDR's first VP (Cactus Jack Garner) put it this way: "The vice-presidency isn't worth a bucket of warm piss." (The delicate and sensitive media of the age bowdlerized this into "spit.") And one journalist observed that “Being vice-president isn’t exactly a crime; it’s more like a disgrace, like reading other people’s mail.”
Thomas Marshall, Woodrow Wilson's VP, used to tell this joke: There were once two brothers. One went to sea and the other became vice-president. Neither of them was ever heard from again. The point, of course, is that the vice-presidency is usually a shortcut to obscurity. When, for example, the dynamic, reforming young governor of New York, Theodore Roosevelt, butted heads with the Republican political machine in his state, party leaders helped arrange his nomination for vice-president primarily as a way to get rid of him. Mark Hannah’s reaction when the assassination of McKinley elevated TR to the White House has been noted above.
Though this is not generally known to most Americans, the Capitol building in Washington contains busts of all the vice-presidents, placed in niches in the Senate Chamber. (The vice-president, remember, is also the presiding officer of the Senate.) When Alban Barkley, Truman's VP, saw his newly placed image, he was upset by it. "They've carved me without my glasses!" he exclaimed. "I always wear my glasses. No one will recognize me, no one will know who I am!" His entourage was too polite and deferential to point out that, after his generation passed away, no one would know who he had been anyway, glasses or not.
Upon learning of his election, our first vice-president, John Adams, lamented to his wife Abigail that, "The people, in their wisdom, have devised for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." He also said (using the Latin infinitive verb forms esse, to be, and posse, to have potential), "In posse, I am everything. In esse, I am nothing."
Probably the most famous, or infamous, story about a vice-president involves Jefferson's first VP, Aaron Burr.
The election of 1800 yielded no winner, for no one gained a majority of votes in the Electoral College. Jefferson received 73 votes, Burr 73 votes, and the incumbent president, John Adams, 68. In accordance with the Constitution, it was up to the House of Representatives to elect a president from these three men. Also in accordance with the Constitution as then written
, whoever came in second would become vice-president.
Ex-Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton was a New Yorker like Burr, and the two men detested each other. Hamilton lobbied actively for the House to elect Jefferson, which it did, and Burr thus became vice-president. Burr, angry at Hamilton, then challenged him to a duel.
The etiquette of dueling back then allowed for a peaceful resolution to the argument, if both participants desired it. The challenger presumably had at least a plausible justification for issuing the challenge, and his opponent presumably owed him at least some sort of an apology. Thus if the person challenged wished to apologize without actually saying the words, he would not aim at his challenger, but would intentionally and dramatically miss. (The person challenged got the first shot, the challenger the second.)
Burr and Hamilton and their seconds met at dawn on the Palisades on the coast of New Jersey. The two contestants then retired to a nearby bluff, leaving their seconds behind. A few moments later a shot rang out, followed shortly thereafter by a second shot, and a scream of pain. The seconds ran to the bluff to find Burr standing, a severed tree branch beside him, while Hamilton lay writhing in agony on the ground.
Hamilton died the next day, having said nothing about the duel, and Burr never discussed it. But the sequence of shots and the severed branch tell the story. What had happened, presumably, was that Hamilton had deliberately missed Burr by shooting up at a tree and severing the branch. By dueling custom, this constituted an apology. Burr apparently would not accept it, because he then took aim and shot Hamilton in the chest.
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