Oval Office Oddities

by Bill Fawcett

  I DO

  The first president to be married while in office was John Tyler, his second marriage, in 1844. Two other presidents have tied the knot in the White House. These are Grover Cleveland in 1886 and Woodrow Wilson, who married his second wife in 1915.

  DOORMEN: THE START OF THE SECRET SERVICE

  Early in his term, John Tyler managed to alienate the Democrats in Congress. When he split with his party over the National Bank, he was disowned also by the only other major party of his time, the Whigs. Suddenly the tenth president, who had taken over after being Harrison’s vice president and was not elected to the office, became one of the most hated men in America. The bank, and other issues he still took strong stands on, more than angered many large groups of citizens. Those on the frontier were particularly upset over the central bank concept, which would have the ability to control the amount of money in circulation. Prior to this time, even local banks would issue their own currency and this made money easy to borrow. With money controlled by a distant central bank, the prosperity of the Western farmers was threatened by both higher interest rates and a scarcity of the physical money itself. All Americans, but especially those hardy frontier settlers, were rather used to grabbing a gun as the resolution to their disputes. (The dueling Andrew Jackson was only three presidents back.) Death threats and bombs threats were a daily event. Eventually, even the hostile Congress became worried that the nation’s leader might be killed, to the embarrassment of all. To assist with the president’s security, four men were assigned to act as presidential bodyguards. They wore plain clothes and never ran alongside Tyler’s carriage. Officially the four were listed on the government payroll as being “doormen” for the White House.

  LITTLE FIRST FAMILY FEET

  The first girl born in the White House was the granddaughter of John Tyler. Letitia Tyler was born to his son Robert’s wife, Priscilla.

  WASHINGTON OUTSIDER

  Abraham Lincoln was the first man elected president who was born outside the original thirteen colonies.

  TURKEY DAY

  Did you wonder how the president of the United States ever got into the business of pardoning a turkey on Thanksgiving? Well, it all started with Abraham Lincoln. A few weeks before Thanksgiving, a supporter sent the president a turkey to be used for Thanksgiving dinner. In a era when refrigeration was primitive, animals were kept alive until used. But Lincoln’s son, Tad, took a liking to the bird and often fed it. Within a week, the turkey was following the young boy around the White House like a house pet. But as Thanksgiving approached Tad began to realize the fate of his new pet. Reacting as only a young child can, he became quite upset over the impending fate of his new animal friend. This was during the Civil War, and President Lincoln was in a meeting when Tad burst in, able to wait no longer. The boy insisted that his father act immediately to save the turkey. Rather than leave the meeting, Lincoln scribbled an order giving the turkey a reprieve. His son happily rushed the note to the cook and the bird was spared. It remained a pet, among many others, living at the White House. Since then, other presidents have formalized the process created by the hurried note, turning it into one of the most popular White House traditions.

  LATE STARTER

  The first time Zachary Taylor ever voted was at the age of sixty-two. This can be attributed mostly to the fact that Taylor was a career military man who spent virtually all his life on various frontier posts. Most of these were so far out that an election would be settled before any record of their votes could arrive at the territorial capital, so why bother? He was asked by the Whigs to be their candidate for president because he commanded the army when the United States invaded Mexico. When they asked if he was a Whig, Taylor said he didn’t know. This bothered no one and he easily won the election.

  FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING

  The first time Zachary Taylor ever voted for anyone to be president, it was for himself. He won.

  FIRST SECRETARY, THEN PRESIDENT

  The distinction of being the first secretary of the United States has to go to James Madison. He used a form of shorthand he had developed for himself—modern shorthand dates from much later—to record the events of the Constitutional Convention. After actively participating in and also recording the discussions and debates, Madison spent much of each night transcribing in long hand his shorthand notes. Because of his efforts we have a near complete record of this historic gathering.

  LITERACY TEST?

  There was no library in the White House until Millard Fillmore finally had one installed in 1850. What makes this more than a bit surprising was that this president had never had a formal education and was self-taught. He didn’t even see a map of the United States until he was nineteen years old. Even so, he developed a lifelong interest in learning, even marrying a teacher named Abigail Powers.

  LOVE STORY

  There is a rather tragic and touching love story involving James Buchanan. As a young man, he feel deeply in love and was engaged to be married. But her family and other forces prevented the match and eventually the engagement was broken off. Not long after this, Buchanan’s one love died. There were rumors of suicide, but no investigation. James Buchanan sent a letter pleading to be allowed to view the body and attend the funeral. His letter was returned by her father unopened. Perhaps this left just too much unresolved for the young man. He lived another forty-four years, but is the only president never to marry. When Buchanan died, a packet of love letters from the young woman was found in his safe.

  HAIR RAISING

  Take a look at the pictures. Up until Abraham Lincoln and his famous beard, all the presidents were clean shaven. Not a permanent beard or mustache among them. After Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln upon his assassination, most of the next presidents had served as officers in the Civil War. In the war it had been the custom that officers had a beard, mustache, or both. So Grant, Hayes, Garfield, and Harrison all had full beards. After that, the trend ran to mustaches. Teddy Roosevelt and Taft had them. Then the clean shaven Wilson won, and all the Presidents since then have gone back to the old way and been themselves clean shaven.

  LICENSED

  The first saloon license ever granted a future president went to Abraham Lincoln in 1833. Liquor was served at the Lincoln and Berry store in Illinois. He sold out to his partner, William Berry, later that year.

  CHANGE OF HEART

  In 1865, the Congress of the United States impeached President Andrew Johnson. This is one of the two times in all of the nation’s history that a president has been impeached. He was acquitted (an impeachment is like an indictment, not a conviction) by just one vote. The story of this vote is brilliantly portrayed in John F. Kennedy’s book Profiles in Courage. But only a decade later, the Senate had a change of heart. Andrew Johnson was elected senator from Tennessee in 1875, and he was not only welcomed into the Senate with open arms, but was presented with a bouquet of flowers when he arrived. He lived only a few months after taking office. He was the first and only former president to later become a senator.

  TREATED LIKE ROYALTY

  The first time a queen ever met with a president was when Queen Emma of the Sandwich Isles met with Andrew Johnson in 1866. The Sandwich Isles are now called Hawaii. At the time, the islands were independent. In 1898, they were annexed by the United States, primarily at the request of the Dole company, and in 1900 they became a territory.

  DUBIOUS DISTINCTION

  The first president to die in office was William Henry Harrison in 1841. Thisled to the first state funeral for a serving national executive. In Europe, where kings ruled until they died, such funerals were resplendent and relatively common. The still-young nation was determined to give him as singular a sendoff. The result was a most impressive funeral, with twenty-six pallbearers and a two-mile-long funeral procession, in which an estimated ten thousand mourners marched.

  FLAG DAY

  In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison visited New York City to officiate at a reenactm
ent of Washington’s inauguration held there a century before. At this time Wall Street was the heart of the city and not just the financial district. While attending, President Harrison was greatly impressed by the multitude of American flags that graced the Federal Hall and buildings near it, so much so that when he returned to Washington he instituted the custom that all federal buildings fly the national colors.

  PRESSING QUESTION

  President William McKinley was one of the most open and personable men ever to hold the office. As a result, he was very popular with the press who covered the White House and who almost always wrote favorably of the president and his policies. It is a reflection of the cordial relationship between the president and the reporters that it was during McKinley’s administration that the now famous press room was added to the White House. This was not only more convenient for all concerned, but on another level, greatly aided the president in controlling the information released to the press. The location used then is not that of the current press room. The briefing room was moved by Richard Nixon to be located today over the pool (hopefully drained) that LBJ once liked to swim naked in.

  A LAST AND FIRST

  The twenty-fifth president, William McKinley, was the last president to be elected who was a Civil War veteran. He was also the first to have his inauguration recorded by the latest technology in mass communications: the movie camera.

  KIDS

  The youngest president at the time of his inauguration was Theodore Roosevelt. He succeeded to office when William McKinley was assassinated. He was just forty-two at that time. Kennedy was forty-three when he became president in 1960. The next youngest were William Clinton and U. S. Grant, both at forty-six. The oldest president at his inauguration was Ronald Reagan at sixty-nine. He just barely beat out William Henry Harrison, sixty-eight.

  WEAK BUT STRONG HEART

  Teddy Roosevelt was a sickly child and an aftereffect of his illnesses was to be left with a weak heart. This never slowed the adventurous war hero down. He is, so far as I can tell, the first and likely the only president to climb the Matterhorn in Switzerland, while honeymooning in 1881 with his first wife, Alice.

  EASY RIDER

  The first president to ride in a motorcar to his inauguration was Warren Harding in 1921.

  IN STYLE

  Times changed and so did transportation. By the time Taft was president, the automobile had become a practical, and stylish, means of travel. Congress, after refusing once and being embarrassed by the First Lady, gave the president $12,000 for the purpose of buying cars. While at least one of the vehicles, a monstrosity known as the White Steamer, seated seven and ran on steam, the others were the more normal gasoline-powered engines. The driver became a chauffeur and soon the president had four vehicles to choose from. President Taft’s favorite way to ride was alone in the back seat so he could catch a nap.

  PLAY BALL

  The venerable tradition of throwing out the first ball of the baseball season dates back to 1910, when William Howard Taft threw out the first pitch in a game between Washington and Philadelphia.

  OUT OF TOWN

  The first president to leave the United States while in office was Theodore Roosevelt, who was carried by the Navy to Panama on a battleship. He was there to inspect how far along the digging and construction on one of his pet projects, the Panama Canal, had got.

  STAYED BEHIND

  Of all the presidents, only one is actually buried in Washington, D.C. (Kennedy’s grave and the perpetual flame are at the National Cemetery in Bethesda, Maryland.) The one who stayed in Washington permanently is Woodrow Wilson. He is buried in the National Cathedral.

  YANKEE DOODLE DANDY

  The only president born on the Fourth of July was Calvin Coolidge.

  SILVER SCREEN

  Even before Reagan, presidents were intrigued by movies. It is thought that the first movie to be shown in the White House was projected about 1912. After that, movies were regularly shown to family and guests. This was the era of the silent picture, so politicians, who have always favored the sound of their own voices, rarely made use of the medium. The first president to appear on film was Calvin Coolidge, who read his 1928 Thanksgiving proclamation into a Newsreel microphone. On the other hand, Herbert Hoover appears never to have attended the theater during his entire four years as president.

  ABOUT TIME

  The only surprise in this presidential first was that it took so long to happen. Warren Harding was not one of the better presidents and his control of his cabinet was less than total. It was during Harding’s administration that the Tea Pot Dome scandal outraged the nation. This involved the leasing of oil reserves in Wyoming (a “dome” is an oil formation) to certain well-placed and overly generous businessmen. Some of their generosity went to Albert B. Fall, who was Harding’s secretary of the interior. He became the first serving presidential cabinet member to go to jail.

  GO WEST, YOUNG MAN

  The first president to have been born west of the Mississippi was Herbert Hoover, born in West Branch, Iowa.

  SCHEDULED EVENT

  When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn in for his second term as president on January 20, 1937, this was the first inauguration on the now set January 20 date. All presidents before that time was were inaugurated on March 4.

  THIRD TIME LUCKY

  The only president to serve more than two terms was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. No one had done so before him, and since the Twenty-second Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1951, no one can ever do it again. FDR broke with tradition due to America already being deeply involved in World War II, even though the nation was not yet at war. While the decision was overwhelmingly popular, the event also spurred action on the amendment to make a two-term limit as president into a law. There is, as voters are seeing now in 2007, no restriction on a former First Lady subsequently serving two terms as well. This loophole has been abused in South American nations to allow presidents of those nations to effectively have four terms. Though, considering just how forceful Eleanor was, had she been elected she might have been the one running the country. FDR served as president for a total of twelve years and forty days, a record that is unlikely ever to be broken.

  TWO BATHROOMS NOW

  The first woman to serve as a member of the cabinet was Frances Perkins. She was the secretary of labor for Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the trying years of the Depression. It was under her that child labor was finally abolished and both a minimum wage and standard work week (forty-four hours) were instituted. She was appointed in 1933 and held the position until FDR died in 1945.

  OVER THERE

  While today it is not uncommon for a sitting president to visit the troops in time of war, travel was much slower and riskier in the past and this discouraged the practice. It wasn’t until World War II and Franklin Roosevelt that an incumbent president traveled outside the United States during a war.

  TV NEWS

  While the first presidential debate on TV didn’t occur until the famous 1960 meeting between Nixon and Kennedy, other presidents have recognized television’s potential. The first TV broadcast from the White House was made in 1947 by Harry Truman. At that time few people actually had televisions, so there were not many viewers watching. But, then, there wasn’t much competition, since Milton Berle’s groundbreaking show hadn’t started yet. It’s a fair bet he would have come out on top in the ratings, if there were any.

  DIRTY FINGERNAILS

  Harry Truman was the first president since U.S. Grant to have been a farmer and later been elected president. He was much more successful than President Grant, who went bankrupt at agribusiness.

  DUBIOUS FIRST

  Not only was John Fitzgerald Kennedy the youngest man ever to be elected president (the youngest president, at forty-two, was Teddy Roosevelt, who succeeded to the office from vice president), JFK has the distinction of dying at the youngest age of any president as well.

  PRIZE WINNING PREZ
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  The first and only president to have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Literature was John F. Kennedy for Profiles in Courage. Wonder how much that cost old Joe Kennedy?

  SORRY FIRST

  In a first that he most likely would gladly have avoided, Lyndon Johnson has the dubious distinction of being the first and, so far, only vice president to be present at the assassination of his predecessor. JFK was in LBJ’s home state of Texas when shot. As his host and a popular local, Johnson was also in the motorcade through Dallas that ended in tragedy. Another first, a direct result of the assassination, was that LBJ became the first president to be sworn in by a woman: District Judge Sarah T. Hughes. The ceremony was performed on Air Force One.

  OVERACHIEVER

  Having been in the Senate and wise in its ways, Lyndon Johnson was quite successful in pushing through his massive social program called “The Great Society.” Because of his skill and political acumen, he has the distinction of signing more major bills during his first two years in office than any other president. The one who comes closest happened to be LBJ’s mentor, Franklin Roosevelt.

  BUT WAS SHE THE CENTERFOLD?

  The first and only child of a president to pose in the nude for a major magazine was Patti Reagan, whose revealing photos appeared in Playboy.

  SECOND TIMER

  Only two presidents have ever been impeached. The first was Andrew Johnson, impeached for disobeying new laws the Congress had passed to take away most of the office of the president’s power at the peak of emotions about post–American Civil War reconstruction and integration. The second was William Jefferson Clinton, for lying to cover up an affair he had with a presidential intern. Impeached means accused, not convicted, and Bill Clinton was “impeached” by the House of Representatives for lying under oath at their hearings. But the judges of an impeachment proceeding are the U.S. Senate. They did not find the president guilty. So Clinton was impeached, but found not guilty. It all comes down to the definition of impeachment.