A Secret Life: The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland

by Charles Lachman

  State of New York, County of Westchester, Maria B. Halpin, being duly sworn, says: In addition and supplemental to the statement made by me yesterday, I further state that on the evening of December 15, 1873 while on my way to call upon an acquaintance by the name of Mrs. Johnson at the Tiff House in the city of Buffalo, I met Grover Cleveland whose acquaintance I had formed months previous to that time. The said Cleveland asked me to go with him to take dinner—which invitation I declined because of my prior engagement but by persistent requests and urging he induced me to accompany him to the restaurant of the Ocean House where we dined.

  After dinner he accompanied me to my rooms at Randall’s boarding house on Swan Street as he had quite frequently done from other times and where my son lived with me. While in my rooms he accomplished my ruin by the use of force and violence and without my consent. After he had accomplished his purpose he told me that he was determined to ruin me if it cost him ten thousand dollars, if he was hanged by the neck for it. I then and there told him that I never wanted to see him again and would never see him and commanded him to leave my rooms which he did. I never saw him after this until my condition became such that it was necessary for me to send for him some six weeks later to inform him of the consequences of his actions. He came to my rooms in response to my note which I sent him and when I told him of my condition and despair by reason of it, he pretended to make light of it and told me that he would do everything which was honorable and right towards me and promised that he would marry me which promises he has never kept.

  Charles Banks’s law partner, Henry C. Henderson, notarized the affidavit. Frederick Halpin was the witness.

  Now Maria and her uncle really had it out. James Seacord was livid at Maria for going behind his back and told her she had to “leave his house.” Seacord was fed up with the attention the scandal was bringing to his household. Angry words were exchanged, and Seacord said he hoped he would never see Maria or Frederick again. A few days later, Seacord went to the village of Mount Vernon for a carpentry job, saying he would be out of town the entire day. Maria used the occasion to call in a reporter from the Chicago Tribune. The first question he asked was why she had decided to come forward and make her affidavits public.

  “Well,” Maria said, “I did not intend to say anything about the affair, for I have suffered enough already. But my father, who is aged and blind, and my two unmarried sisters, who live in Williamsburg, have urged me to do so since Mr. Cleveland and the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher had attempted to pile up mud upon me. My uncle, Mr. Seacord, is at Mount Vernon, and when he hears of these statements, he will surely send me away.”

  Maria suddenly burst into tears. “But I don’t care, because the excitement of the last three months has broken my health and spirits, and today I am ill. I do not expect any reward from any political party, and I shall make those statements at all hazards, be the consequences what they may.”

  The Tribune reporter posed a touchy question in the most delicate manner he could muster. “It is charged that you were compromised by Mr. Oscar Folsom in Buffalo.”

  “I never spoke a word to that man in my life. I know his wife because she traded with me in Buffalo. The statement I made last night is true, and nothing on earth could make me sign the one offered me by Grover Cleveland, which is false in every particular.”

  “Where is your son?”

  “God knows.” Maria refused to be diverted off the subject of Grover Cleveland. “Allow me to tell you the meanness of the man. When I sent for him and informed him of my condition, he said, ‘What the devil are you blubbering about? You act like a baby without teeth. What do you want me to do?’ I got no satisfaction from him and never saw him again to speak to him. How he acted toward me after that the world well knows.”

  “So you can’t tell me anything about the boy?”

  “Only this: A friend of mine wrote to me from Buffalo the other day, telling me that he is there.”

  “Has anyone induced you to make these statements?”

  “No one. I never go out of the house. I do not know any politicians and would not make a statement for any one. I don’t want a penny from anybody. If the statements I have made will do any party any good, they may have them as freely as the air.”

  Grover Cleveland never uttered a single word to challenge the allegations made in Maria Halpin’s affidavits, right to the end of the 1884 campaign, and beyond.

  14

  PRESIDENT-ELECT

  IT WAS WEDNESDAY, October 29, less than a week to go before the election. Senator Arthur Pue Gorman breathed in the crisp fall air as his carriage trotted up 5th Avenue. With him was political aide William Hudson. The forty-five-year-old national chairman of the Democratic Party was not his usual upbeat self; Hudson thought he looked despondent. Gorman sighed; he was reflecting on the state of the campaign. Things were not looking promising. Maria Halpin’s affidavit, which stated that Cleveland had raped her, had been the fitting wrap-up to the nastiest presidential campaign in American history.

  Hudson listened as Gorman surveyed the political landscape: New England, with the possible exception of Connecticut, was solid for Blaine; out West, Kansas, Ohio, and Iowa were also likely for Blaine; the Democrats could count on Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana; Illinois was a toss-up. So was Colorado. The sixteen Southern states were solidly behind Cleveland. The country was evenly split. It all came down to New York, as had been prophesized since July. Gorman spoke of the Blaine campaign with the admiration of a professional in awe of his opponent’s know-how. He marveled at the efficiency of the Republican machine and extolled the energy of the fifty-four-year-old Blaine, crisscrossing America, while Cleveland sat in Albany, immobile and morose. Blaine was leading an “almost perfect organization,” Blaine told Hudson, while Cleveland’s efforts had been marked by a kind of artless “spontaneity.”

  “And spontaneity will win?” Hudson asked hopefully.

  With a shrewd grin, Gorman said, “Usually organization wins.”

  That very day, Gorman had received some disturbing canvas reports about where things stood in New York State. Manhattan would go for Cleveland with a 40,000 plurality. It would have been 60,000 had Tammany Hall’s mischief-makers not sabotaged the campaign. Brooklyn was expected to deliver a 20,000 plurality in Cleveland’s corner—thank you, Henry Ward Beecher. Outside of those downstate counties, however, Blaine was expected to take the rest of New York by 63,000 votes.

  Hudson made his own mental calculations: “That means that Cleveland will be at least 5,000 votes behind in the whole state.”

  “It means that Cleveland will be beaten in the nation,” said Gorman. “I regret exceedingly that I permitted myself to be persuaded to take charge of this campaign. I yielded against all my instinct.” It was, Gorman said bitterly, “the mistake of my life.” Hudson was distressed to hear the professed leader of the national party sulk this way, yet he could not find fault with Gorman’s election-night forecast, and it plunged him into his own state of despair. Gorman continued. “It has been a scandalous campaign, with credit to nobody on either side. Cleveland has not been an easy man to handle, and I think I see that he would not be easy if he were put in the presidential office.”

  Gorman ordered the carriage to return to party headquarters at the Hoffman House, thinking that he should not have spoken so frankly. “Of course, what I have said is confidential,” he told Hudson. “I shall keep whistling until I have passed the graveyard.” That was it, Hudson thought. Blaine was going to win.

  Gorman invited Hudson up to his room, where they continued their conversation. They heard some commotion in the hallway, then suddenly, John Tracy, who was in charge of the Democratic Party’s press information bureau, “plunged” into the room. Tracy was out of breath and so excited, he was almost unhinged. He showed Gorman a report which had just been filed by the stenographer who had taken down the speech made by James Blaine that morning at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. (As a rule, a Democratic Party stenogr
apher attended all Republican Party events that were open to the public on the theory that you never knew when something might happen.) Now the stenographer’s account was in Gorman’s hands. He looked up.

  “Is this a verbatim report?”

  “Every word uttered is there,” Tracy assured the party boss.

  Their eyes met; both men realized the great historical impact of what had occurred this morning. When Gorman spoke, his voice cracked like a whip.

  “This sentence must be in every daily newspaper in the country tomorrow, no matter how, no matter what it costs. Organize for that immediately.”

  Tracy had his orders. He spun on his heels and left the room. Now Gorman turned to Hudson. “If anything will elect Cleveland, these words will do it. The advantages are now with us.” The winds of fate had suddenly shifted in their direction.

  The Fifth Avenue Hotel was the social and cultural heart of New York. The palazzo building was five stories tall and made of white marble and brick. It was the first hotel in America with a passenger elevator, powered by a steam engine in the basement and operated by a giant screw in the center of the passenger cab. All the rooms were richly appointed, with rosewood furniture, a fireplace, gilt wood, and crimson and green curtains. The hotel came with a rich history. Abraham Lincoln stayed there when he arrived in New York in 1860 to deliver the triumphant oration at Cooper Union that had set him on the path to the presidency. It was the Prince of Wales’s favorite hotel in America. Stored in the cellar was a dwindling supply of bottled brandy from the vintage year 1799.

  James Blaine had awakened that morning in a suite usually reserved for President Arthur and ordered breakfast. He did not want to be there. He had just completed a grueling swing through the battleground state of Ohio. His personal magnetism and statesmanlike command of the issues on the campaign trail had worked magic in the Buckeye State. All signs pointed to an upset Blaine win in Ohio, but the tour had left him exhausted. He just wanted to return to Maine and spend the final days of this epic election at home with his family, but the national committee was imploring him to make one final road trip through New York. It would be his last hurrah before election night, and could be just what was needed to ensure victory on November 4.

  In his room, Blaine could hear applause. Five hundred clergymen who had been invited to meet Blaine had gathered in the hotel parlor. Invitations had been extended to all denominations, but only two Catholic priests and one rabbi had shown up. The bulk of the guests were Presbyterians and Methodists. Resolutions were passed, calling Cleveland’s nomination an “insult to Christian civilization,” and declaring that, for the sake of “virtue in the home,” he had to be defeated.

  With his wife at his side, Blaine descended the staircase. Wearing a long black coat, Blaine looked like one of the assembled preachers cheering him on; the only thing that distinguished him from the clerics was his jaunty polka-dot necktie. Blaine folded his hands and waited to be introduced.

  Standing next to Blaine was the master of ceremonies, Dr. Samuel D. Burchard, a Presbyterian minister from New York. He was a last-minute replacement for a minister from Philadelphia who was supposed to introduce Blaine but had been delayed. Burchard had been given the duty because, at age seventy-two, he was the oldest minister present, and deemed to be a nonthreatening compromise with the clergy of other denominations who were angling for the role. Not much was known about Burchard. He came from an obscure redbrick church in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan. He was bald, with a long pair of side-whiskers, and weighed about two hundred pounds.

  When Burchard took the podium, everyone quieted down.

  Burchard spoke directly to Blaine. “We are Republicans, and don’t propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion. We are loyal to our flag. We are loyal to you.” The remark didn’t register with most people in the crowd. Supposedly, just one fellow hissed. Associated Press correspondent Frank Mack, apparently the only reporter present, wasn’t sure he’d heard what he thought he heard. He turned to the Democratic Party stenographer who was at his side and asked in a whisper, “Did you get that?”

  “Bet your life—the old fool.”

  Blaine later claimed that he never heard the phrase, “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion,” explaining that Burchard was an old man with a shaky voice and he, Blaine, had been focused on thinking about the remarks he had been about to make, not on what Burchard was saying. Blaine must have known he was facing a political calamity because right after the event, he sought out Frank Mack to get the AP reporter to confirm the contents of Burchard’s speech. When Mack said that a stenographer had already left, a “flicker of annoyance” passed over the candidate’s face. All Blaine could do then was hope for the best.

  “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion” spread like a virus across the nation. Burchard was denounced as a Know-Nothing bigot while Blaine was assailed for failing to immediately disassociate himself from Burchard’s anti-Catholic sentiments. Disregarded in the abuse heaped on Blaine were these relevant facts about his personal history: Blaine’s mother was a devout Catholic, his father had converted to Catholicism on his deathbed, and his sister was the mother superior at a Catholic convent. Blaine didn’t speak out about the controversy until seventy-two hours later, at a speech in New Haven. By then, there was very little that he could do to stem the damage.

  “I am the last man in the United States who would make a disrespectful allusion to another man’s religion.” He called Catholicism an “ancient faith in which my revered mother lived and died.”

  Until the morning of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion,” Blaine had been steadily chipping away at the half million voters of Irish descent who appreciated Blaine’s Catholic heritage and his anti-British foreign policy sentiments. All that was now in the past. Wavering Irish Catholic voters stampeded back to the Democratic fold. Tammany Hall’s Boss Kelly also came around, decreeing that he must “now swallow the Cleveland pill” and urged his Tammany braves to go all out for the Democratic ticket.

  At Wells College in Aurora, New York, Frances Folsom was giddy with anticipation as she diligently followed the final days of the 1884 election. Her friendship with the Democratic presidential candidate was the talk of the campus.

  “I must tell you about one girl here, a Ms. Folsom (not to be at all conceited, she is ‘gone’ on me, to use a common expression), who is awfully nice,” a gossipy Wells student wrote her friend on October 23, 1884. “She is very handsome and, my dear, I want you to understand Governor Cleveland is perfectly devoted to her. Sends her flowers all the time and writes her regularly every week. Of course, she is very much excited to know how the election is coming off, as it will in one case be slightly agreeable to her.”

  Sometimes, Cleveland stopped in Aurora to visit Frances on his way to Buffalo. One recent evening, Frances had been caught in a downpour. She had gotten out of her wet clothes, dried off, and snuggled into bed for a good night’s sleep when she got word that the governor had unexpectedly shown up and was waiting for her in the parlor. Frances quickly put on a frock and made herself presentable, but it wasn’t quick enough for Cleveland. When she finally descended the staircase, she found him impatiently pacing the floor. He was pretty peeved to have been kept waiting, and Frances had come down just in time. Years later, Cleveland was able to laugh off the incident. “Five minutes more that time and we should never have been married.”

  Frances herself could only wonder at the attention Cleveland showered on her and what it all meant. Her dorm room was still fragrant with roses sent weekly from the governor’s greenhouse. Cleveland also sent fruits and mailed her campaign pamphlets that he thought she might find interesting. For now, she accepted everything and glowed in the aura of his attentions. A framed photograph of Cleveland hung in her dorm room. When another student asked her if it was her father, No, Frances responded, it was Grover Cleveland. Did anyone suspect a romance? Perhaps not. On the surface, Clevela
nd seemed like a devoted stepfather or caring uncle.

  Frances followed every new lurid development in the Maria Halpin scandal. The only daily newspaper available on campus was a Republican sheet published in Auburn that aggressively covered the Halpin case in a way that Frances found deeply offensive. She considered the reporting so one-sided she couldn’t look at the paper without throwing a fit. She said it “disgusted” her. When another student got up the nerve to ask her about the scandal, Frances bristled, but handled the query like a lady. If “you” only knew Grover Cleveland like she did, she said, the man was, in her opinion, “more sinned against than sinning.”

  Frances asked around and found somebody on campus who subscribed to the rival Auburn Bulletin newspaper and was willing to share it with her. At least the Bulletin slanted its news Democratic, the way Frances liked it. One can only imagine her distress when Cleveland’s own people planted the story that so conveniently linked her much-loved dead father to Maria Halpin. Many Americans were now of the opinion that Oscar Folsom had had an extramarital affair with the Halpin woman and was Baby Oscar’s biological father. And yet, right through the drama, neither Frances nor her mother Emma wavered in their affection for Cleveland.

  As Election Day neared, at Wells, Frances became the center of attention. At that time the campus was a stronghold of Republican activism, and even though Frances and her roommate Katherine “Pussy” Willard were the only Democrats there, the other girls were encouraging Frances and, even if their hearts weren’t in it, rooting for Blaine. One night, as November 4 loomed, Frances gathered her friends around her.