Here are some of the traits of Presidents Garfield through Wilson and a look at how I personally see some of their traits.
Garfield is the only sitting member of the House of Representatives to ever be elected President. He was also elected to the Senate, but he declined that position once he was elected President. Garfield received the Republican nomination on the convention’s 36th ballot, after neither former President Grant nor James G. Blaine received enough votes to secure the nomination. So Garfield was a Representative, a Senator-elect and the President-elect all at the same time. Garfield was the third President to fall under the spell of the Curse of Tecumseh. Garfield was another one of our Presidents who was raised in poverty. He would gain entry into Hiram College by becoming a janitor. He would work his way up to being a teacher at this school. I, too, worked my way into college, although I wasn’t a janitor. I delivered newspapers and saved up the money I earned. I also enrolled in a scholarship program the newspaper had for its carriers. Under this program I could earn scholarships by getting new customers. I was able to pay my first two years of Community College with those efforts.
Arthur became the fourth Vice President to rise to the Presidency upon the death of a President. Like the three Vice Presidents who did this before him, Arthur would fail to win the Presidency on his own right. To everyone’s surprise, he became a staunch supporter of civil service reform and he continued to pursue Garfield’s initial steps. These were reforms to civil service called patronage. Basically, patronage stated that the winner of the White House race was able to determine all the main government employees, even the post masters of tiny little towns. Reformers believe merit, not party affiliation should determine government job security. When Arthur arrived at the White House he was saddened by its dilapidated condition. He would hire Louis Comfort Tiffany to remodel it. I’m constantly looking around my house, which I don’t consider dilapidated, and I always seem to be able to find projects that need to be worked on.
Cleveland holds the distinction of being the only person to be elected President in non-consecutive terms, even though he was the winner of the popular vote three consecutive times. Cleveland, at one time, was the Sheriff of Erie County. In that role he was in charge of the executions of capital offenses. There was a loophole in the system that allowed him to defer this task to a deputy for a payment of $10. On at least two occasions, on September 6, 1872 with murderer Patrick Morrissey and February 14, 1873 with murderer John Gaffney, Cleveland is known to have carried out the hangings himself. Grover Cleveland was born on March 18, 1837. That March 18th makes Cleveland the closest President to my own March 22nd birthday.
Harrison is the only President to be the grandson of a President. His Grandfather was William Henry Harrison, our ninth President. It was under the Benjamin Harrison administration that federal spending reached one billion dollars for the first time. Harrison’s single term sits in the middle of Grover Cleveland’s two non-consecutive terms. He was 5’6” tall, which was only slightly taller than our shortest President, James Madison. It was raining during his inauguration and the man he defeated for the White House, Grover Cleveland, held an umbrella over his head as he was sworn in. Harrison believed, much like I do, that the nation’s prosperity, which was rampant at the time, was due to our promotion of education and religion. I believe some of our biggest problems come when we forget God is the real reason for our success and I believe He gets very unhappy with us when we forget that. Education is a blessing we are given in our country and I believe we often take that gift for granted.
McKinley became the fourth President to fall to the Curse of Tecumseh. Six months into his second term, McKinley was assassinated by Leon Czolgosz. McKinley was the last President to have served in the Civil War. He started as a private and ended as a brevet major. He would cast his first Presidential ballot for Abraham Lincoln. His first child, Katherine, was born on Christmas Day in 1871. His family would expand as a second daughter was born in 1873, but she died that same year. Two years later, in 1875, their first child, Katherine, died of typhoid fever. His wife, Ida, was devastated and they would have no more children. Ida developed epilepsy about this time and McKinley was always very protective of her. When he was shot by Czolgosz he would say to a bystander, “My wife – be careful, Cortelyou, how you tell her – oh, be careful.” I, too, want my wife to always have a great life. I hope we live a long life together, but if my days pass before her, I want to make sure she is taken care of. It is perhaps my greatest concern about death.
Teddy Roosevelt became the first Vice President to ascend to the Presidency on the death of a President who was elected on his own right, too. He served out most of McKinley’s second term and was then elected on his own for a single term. He decided not to run for reelection. He thought he was leaving everything in good hands with his protege, William Howard Taft. Roosevelt thought Taft was just going to be a little Teddy Roosevelt. When Taft developed a mind of his own, Roosevelt jumped back into the Presidential race the next election. He would run as an independent against Taft and Woodrow Wilson. Since Roosevelt and Taft were basically from the same party, they split that vote. This basically handed the election to Wilson. Theodore Roosevelt, who disliked being called Teddy, loved to read and write. That sounds like a blogger I know.
William Howard Taft is the only President to ever serve on the Supreme Court. Almost eight years after he left the Presidency, President Warren G. Harding nominated him as Chief Justice. Taft easily won Senate confirmation 61-4. He was our tenth Chief Justice. He would serve almost nine years. In very poor health, he resigned and about a month after that resignation he died. But for all of Taft’s accomplishments and failures, Taft is probably best remembered as our heaviest President. He tipped the scales, by most accounts, at over 340 pounds. He was only 5’ 11” tall. After he left the Presidency it is reported that he would lose around 100 pounds. Taft goes into American Presidency folklore for a legend that he got stuck, because of his weight, in a bathtub in the White House. Whether the story is true or not, there are probably only three who actually know the truth: White House maid Lillian Rogers Parks, White House butler Ike Hoover, and Taft himself. Earlier in my life I was a plumber. I have installed many bathtubs in my day, but probably none as big as Taft had installed in the White House. It is said, and there are pictures, that it could hold four average size men.
Woodrow Wilson is the only President who is buried in Washington DC. He is buried inside the National Catheral. Wilson is one of three sitting US Presidents to win the Nobel Peace Prize (Theodore Roosevelt and Barack Obama were the two others; Jimmy Carter won it twenty-five years after he left the Presidency). Wilson had one wife die and married another wife while he was in the White House. He was President of Princeton University and is the first President to earn a Ph.D. Wilson was perhaps the smartest man to ever occupy the White House, although some might bestow that honor on Thomas Jefferson. But for all the brain, Wilson didn’t start reading until he was ten years old. It was detected that he had dyslexia. It order to “catch up” on his education he taught himself Graham shorthand. Like Wilson, I was a late lover of reading. Where Wilson was ten years old when he started, I was well into adulthood. I have also self-taught myself a lot of things, like how to do a lot of this website stuff.
So, there you have it. A little look at my life through the lives of Presidents Garfield through Wilson.
