Oval Office Oddities

by Bill Fawcett

  PROFILE IN COURAGE

  While Andrew Johnson, who became president upon Lincoln’s assassination, was a bigot, made a less than competent president, and managed to antagonize nearly everyone, he also demonstrated great personal courage. When the Southern states, including his own Tennessee, were deciding to secede, he was just about the only major Southern politician to publicly oppose the popular action. Because of this, he was often at risk of attack or worse. While traveling by train through Virginia, which lies between Tennessee and Washington, D.C., Johnson once had to force a mob of irate secessionists off the train with a loaded pistol. This didn’t work twice and a more determined mob of Virginians did manage to drag Andrew Johnson off a train and beat him badly. There appears also to have been a serious debate as to whether or not to hang him as a traitor as well. The most likely reason that this did not happen was that the mob did not want to take the fun away from the secessionists in Tennessee, who had first call on hanging their former governor. After these incidents, Johnson felt it was necessary to keep a gun near him while delivering his anti-secession speeches.

  Abraham Lincoln appreciated his brave pro-Union stand and made Johnson his vice president in hopes of gaining credibility among the Southern, or at least border, states.

  329

  There was a major scandal that outraged the nation while Grant was president. Okay, actually there were several scandals while Grant was president, but this one was a doozy and included many congressmen and senators among the guilty. The scandal was named after the company involved, the Crédit Mobilier, and involved government contracts, stock manipulation, kickbacks, and insider trading on a grand scale. When the dust settled, it appeared that, out of the tens of millions involved, James Garfield had received stock dividends from the Crédit Mobilier to the total of a paltry $329. There was really nothing to show Garfield was actually involved, but that did not stop his opponents in the 1880 election from scrawling the number 329 in every wall and barn roof they could find. They were hoping to label the twentieth president as corrupt. Though I have to suspect (perhaps it is my Chicago upbringing) that there was also an element of disdain. People stole millions of dollars in the railroad scandals, and all Garfield got was a lousy $329.

  SUBSTITUTE

  At this time there is great debate over how honorably George W. Bush or John Kerry served in the military. It appears that such service a hundred years ago was less important to being elected. During the Civil War, the Union Army was concerned with filling its ranks and not at all with who filled them. With a war on, being a soldier was not only inconvenient but dangerous. Civil War casualties totaled in the hundreds of thousands. A common practice during the American Civil War was the purchase of a substitute. If someone who had money was drafted, it was perfectly legal to pay another person to serve instead of you. Think of it as the ultimate student deferment. This is what Grover Cleveland did. When he got the notice he was going to have to report to the army, he had very little desire to go. This was likely less a question of courage or patriotism than a reflection of his attitude that all exercise was at best unfortunate and to be avoided. Certainly being part of an army that marched hundreds of miles carrying heavy packs was out. The twenty-second (and twenty-fourth) president hired a Polish immigrant to serve in his place. This cost him the sum of $150, less than $5,000 in today’s money.

  FRONT-PORCH CAMPAIGN

  It took eight ballots for the Republicans to nominate Benjamin Harrison at their 1888 convention. He then sat for office rather than ran for it. Harrison conducted what became known as his “front-porch campaign” by spending most of the election in Indiana on his front porch, where he gave speeches and met with those who came to see him. He was the grandson of President William Henry Harrison of the battle of Tippecanoe fame.

  BONAFIDES

  Because of her ill health, Ida McKinley rarely campaigned or appeared with her husband. This was fairly well known around Washington, but if you think things are vicious today, around the turn of the century everything was fair game with any lie that could be passed. Those opposing McKinley in 1896 began to spread the rumor first that Ida was some sort of freak, then that she was reported to be a spy, and eventually that she was hiding bruises from spousal abuse. None of the stories were true and eventually the Republican Party published her biography to show the voters what Ida was really like. It was the first time that information on a future First Lady became part of the official campaign.

  WILSON’S FLIP

  The campaign motto that helped reelect Woodrow Wilson in 1916 was “He Kept Us Out of War.” Two years later there were almost a million American doughboys in the trenches of France. But since we won that war, all was forgiven. Pity he lost the peace afterward by conceding the vindictive terms on the Treaty of Versailles in exchange for support for the stillborn League of Nations.

  THE LOSER WINNER

  You may think the poll numbers reached an all-time low in Bill Clinton’s or George W’s second term, but those are percentages in the mid-thirties. In the 1912 election the incumbent president, William Howard Taft, got a pitiful twenty-three percent of the vote, losing to both McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.

  SILENT CAL

  Calvin Coolidge seemed to value every word and hold them to himself like a miser. His nickname of “Silent Cal” was well earned. Normally when a candidate holds a press conference they say a lot, even if they do not have a lot to say. This is not how it was with Calvin Coolidge. A few lines from a press conference he held in 1924 shows this better than any of my words.

  Reporter: Have you any statement from the campaign?

  Silent Cal: No.

  Reporter: Can you tell us something about the world situation?

  Silent Cal: No.

  Reporter: Any information about Prohibition?

  Silent Cal: No.

  To add insult to injury, as the reporters left, likely wondering just what they could write to justify their pay for that day, the candidate also reminded them not to quote him. It seems likely they didn’t.

  One quote about Calvin Coolidge comes from the famous author Dorothy Parker, a regular among the famous wits of the Algonquin Roundtable: when it was announced that the somniferous and silent former president had died, her comment was “How could they tell?”

  AS PROMISED

  Although Calvin Coolidge fulfilled the promise he made when taking office as president to rid the government of the graft and corruption that had marked the Harding presidency, there was a lot he didn’t tell John Q. Public about his own people that came back and bit him later. It seems Silent Cal was a fan of big money and big business. He introduced a massive tax cut for the very rich, but vetoed any legislation meant to help the poorer segments of the population. The result was that wealth became concentrated more than ever and the economy began the slide into what was later known as the Great Depression. Much more than Hoover, who was mostly guilty of inaction, this economic disaster can be attributed to Calvin Coolidge’s policies. This is a time when government was not supposed to get involved in the business of America, but the thirtieth president raised that policy to an indolent, but eventually disastrous, extreme.

  FIRST TIME LUCKY

  Herbert Hoover had not only never run for national office when he became the Republican candidate for the presidency in 1928, but he had never run for any office in his life, except class treasurer when attending Stanford University. He defeated the Democrat Al Smith decisively in what turned out to be the only time Hoover ever campaigned for any office.

  ACADEMICALLY AVERAGE

  Dwight D. Eisenhower, who command the Allied armies in Europe during World War II and spent two terms as president, just barely graduated in the top half of his class at West Point. He finished eighty-first out of 164.

  NEVER, WELL HARDLY EVER

  When both parties first approached General Eisenhower to be their candidate for president, he was less than receptive. His exact words were, “I cannot conceive of any
circumstance that could drag out of me permission to consider me for any political post from dogcatcher to grand high king of the universe.” The World War II war hero later changed his mind and became the thirty-fourth president.

  SECOND TIME LUCKY

  John Kennedy was only the second Catholic to ever run for the presidency.

  The first Catholic candidate was Al Smith, who lost badly in 1928. JFK was also the first man to hold the office who was born in the twentieth century.

  OWN FAULT

  There is no question that JFK acted heroically after his boat, PT109, was struck and sunk by a Japanese destroyer. One of the reasons he had to do what he did to save an injured crew member was because, against regulations, there was no lifeboat on PT109. Like many of the courageous commanders of the Patrol Boat Torpedo, JFK modified his boat to improve its combat ability. In this case, he replaced the PT boat’s only lifeboat with a.50-caliber machine gun. Such changes on the crew’s initiative were both common and illegal during World War II. Many smaller ships and planes, including freighters and even bombers, had guns added by those who manned them. As commander of the modified PT boat, JFK could have been found by the navy to be partially at fault for the very problem of his men being in the water, in addition to being a hero for how he handled the disaster. Though, as the son of the highly connected Joseph P. Kennedy, it was most unlikely the Navy Board would find against him. And he did save the crew, personally carrying one man to safety, so if at fault, he was also a true hero.

  A DEAL HE COULD NOT REFUSE

  At least some of the stories about JFK and the mob have substance in fact. Before the 1960 election, Joseph P. Kennedy, JFK’s father, not only met with the notoriously corrupt Judge Touhy, but attending the same meeting making sure Jack Kennedy was elected was Sam Giancana, the head of the Mafia in Chicago. At this time many of the unions were controlled by the mob (some say many still are) and Giancana promised and delivered the union vote and thousands of union member workers for the JFK campaign. Of course there is no record of what the rest of the deal made with the mob was. After the election, the attorney general chose not to investigate the rumors. The new attorney general was Bobby Kennedy.

  MOBBED UP

  Jack Kennedy was a womanizer at a level almost bordering on addiction. This caused him to have another up close and personal connection to Mob boss Sam Giancana. It seems that both men were intimately involved with the same very attractive woman, divorcee Judith Exner. Now it is likely one of the few men who could play around with the Chicago don’s girl and get away with it would be the president of the United States. Then again, maybe JFK wasn’t so sure of that himself. When informed by the FBI of her other relationship, he ended the affair.

  TRICKY DICK

  Richard Nixon didn’t begin playing dirty with Watergate. He won his first two elections as representative, and then senator, from California by wrongly accusing his opponents of being communists. He described one as “pink down to her panties.” Okay, he was a sexist, too. These tactics worked because he was good at making allies that could help spread any message he chose, some being in the mob. His ability to smear others is what, early in his political career, earned him the nickname “Tricky Dick.”

  AT WHOSE EXPENSE?

  Most people forget that what raised Richard Nixon above the crowd and earned him the VP spot with Dwight Eisenhower were his actions on the now discredited and downright embarrassing House Un-American Activities Committee, working closely with, and just as rabidly as, the now discredited Senator Joe McCarthy. More than anything else, it was Nixon’s determined and dogged pursuit of Alger Hiss, a government official who had held several important positions under FDR and was accused of being a Communist, that got him the job.

  BUSH OR DOLE IN 2008?

  Since 1976, there has not been a Republican presidential ticket that did not have on it someone named Bush or Dole. Here is how that breaks down:

  1976

  Dole for vice president

  1980

  George H. W. Bush for vice president

  1984

  George H. W. Bush for vice president

  1988

  George H. W. Bush for vice president

  1992

  George H. W. Bush for president

  1996

  Dole for president

  2000

  George W. Bush for president

  2004

  George W. Bush for president

  UNKNOWN

  When the mother of then dark horse and nationally unknown candidate Jimmy Carter heard he was running for president, her first response was to ask, “President of what?”

  A WHAT?

  For most of his life Ronald Reagan was not only a Democrat but a serious New Deal–loving Roosevelt Democrat at that. In 1938, the future president played with the idea of joining the American Communist Party and may even have been turned down for not being one of the party’s true believers. When head of the Screen Actors Guild from 1947 to 1954, he supported Democratic candidates. But by the 1960s he had become a Republican. Reagan’s speech at the 1964 Republican convention in support of nominee Barry Goldwater was so well received that it instantly elevated him to the attention of that party’s leaders. (You have to wonder why they were surprised that a man who had acted in fifty-one movies, made an ape look good in one of them, and been “the dying Gipper” in another could deliver a speech well.) Ronald Reagan was soon elected governor of California and was considered a likely alternative to the incumbent Gerald Ford in 1976. Jimmy Carter beat Ford, mostly due to his unpopular pardon of Richard Nixon. Reagan was the nominee in 1980 and got revenge, trouncing Carter. You have to wonder what the young Reagan’s hero, FDR, would have thought about it.

  UPSTAGED

  After the Nixon-Kennedy debates, where Kennedy’s appearance and poise won over the TV audience and had a decisive effect on the election, the events have been considered make or break for any candidate. They are preceded by rehearsals and even posture and speech lessons. An overemphatic sigh on one debate that was caught on camera may well have lost Al Gore the election. Bush was speaking and the camera panned to Gore who theatrically and audibly sighed. The air of superiority this gave Gore was thought to have cost him support in many states where he lost by only a few thousand votes. Then again, the debates didn’t intimidate every candidate. When Ronald Reagan was asked if he was nervous about debating the current president, Jimmy Carter, he answered, “No, not at all. I’ve been on the same stage with John Wayne.”

  3

  PRESIDENTIAL FIRSTS

  To the memory of the Man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.

  Henry Lee (1756–1818), referring to George Washington

  DAY OFF

  It was the first president, George Washington, who created the Thanksgiving holiday in 1789.

  DUBIOUS DISTINCTION

  The first president to die in office was William Henry Harrison. In an age when 50 was considered old, Harrison was sixty-eight when he took office. He died within a month of taking his oath, leaving Vice President John Tyler to take over the office. For several decades, the short-termed president’s grave went unmarked after a very impressive Washington, D.C., funeral.

  THREE CAPITALS

  In its history, the United States has had three capital cities. The first was New York City. This was soon changed to Philadelphia. Philly was replaced by the new city created specifically just to be the nation’s capital: Washington, in the District of Columbia. George Washington lived to see the creation of Washington, D.C., but not to serve there. The first president inaugurated in Washington, D.C., was Thomas Jefferson.

  CITIZENSHIP REQUIREMENT

  The first president to be born an American citizen, not a British subject, was Martin Van Buren. All those born before the American Revolution began life as subjects of the king.

  SHIPPED OUT

  The age of steam was just beginning when James Monroe took a ride
on the Savannah and became the first president ever to ride on a steamship. Not long after hosting Monroe, the Savannah became the first American steamship to sail across the Atlantic.

  RAILROADED

  The first time a president rode on one of those dangerous new railroad machines was in 1833, when Andrew Jackson took a ride. At the time it was speculated that the human body could not survive speeds over 60 mph.

  OKAY?

  When Martin Van Buren ran for president, this nickname was derived from the town he had been born and raised in: Kinder-hook, New York. His nickname was OK, which stood for Old Kinderhook, and this OK was used as his political slogan as well, being spread across the country. Some scholars feel this was the start of the slang phrase “okay” used so frequently today. Next time you say it, think of our eighth, and often otherwise ignored, president.

  UNOPPOSED

  The first and only time a president ran for reelection and had no opponent was James Monroe in 1820.

  SMILE

  The first president to have his photo taken was William Henry Harrison in 1841. In those days you often had to sit perfectly still for several minutes for the image to come out. By the age of Lincoln, twenty years later, great strides had been made and photos could even be taken on the battlefield, if everything stood still for several seconds.

  EFFIGY

  It is a dubious distinction at best, but John Tyler was the first president to be burned in effigy on the White House lawn. It was all over money. There was an economic crisis in 1842 and, being against federal intervention into economic affairs, the president had refused to sign a series of bank bills meant to clean up the economy and make money easier to obtain. Most of his own cabinet and the Congress were also upset, but not as much as the angry mob that appeared when word got out. The large crowd hissed the president and then burned him in effigy.