A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland

It is the last Sunday of the month which means it is time for the next president, making this week’s book of the week A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland by Troy Senik.

Stephen Grover Cleveland was born March 18, 1837, in Caldwell, New Jersey to Richard and Ann Cleveland. His father was a minister and the family moved around quite a bit when he was a child as his father relocated to different parsonages. Cleveland was the fifth of nine children, with two older sisters, two older brothers, three younger sisters and one younger brother.  

 When Cleveland was 16 his father died, and Cleveland learned of his father’s death while he was helping his sister pick out a wedding dress. A passing news boy announced that Reverend Cleveland had died. This essentially ended Cleveland’s childhood, such as it was. With 9 kids and a reverend’s salary, the Cleveland’s needed all the financial assistance they could get so the Cleveland boys had pretty much always helped with the household expenses, Cleveland getting up as early as 4am to help with work on the docks.   

And when his father died, Cleveland stepped up his work, taking on clerkships in Manhattan to send money back to help his sisters. He was offered a chance to go to college; however, it came with the string attached that the person offering to pay his way wanted him to go to seminary and take over his father’s role as minister. Cleveland did not want to be a minister, so he passed on the offer, instead deciding to move to Cleveland, Ohio. On the way there, he stopped at an uncle’s house in Buffalo, New York. The uncle convinced him to become a clerk at a law office in Buffalo and Cleveland stayed in Buffalo for the next 25 years.  

 He did NOT serve in the Civil War and would become the first president to serve post-Civil War who had not served in that conflict. His reasoning was pretty sound though: Both his older brothers served, leaving care of his mother and remaining siblings entirely on his shoulders. If his brother’s had died and he had died, the rest of his family would have gone down in poverty. When his name was pulled for the draft, he paid someone to take his place, a practice which was fully legal back then, and then paid back the loan he’d had to take to make the payment.  

Now, from here, his story becomes truly...improbable, to use the author’s choice of adjective. He was NOT a political person. I mean, he knew people involved in politics. The most political post he held was as Sheriff of Buffalo, during which time he oversaw two executions, which he did not enjoy, but being a man of incredible principle, he believed that while the law allowed him to punt the duty to another, as the sheriff, it was literally his job, so he made sure the job was done right, and NOT with huge crowds of spectators, building walls around the scaffolding so that the hanging wasn’t on public display. And after his single term as sheriff, he returned to being a lawyer in Buffalo.   

And he was happily lawyering when the Democrats, of which he was nominally a member, approached him to be their candidate for mayor of buffalo. Now, him being picked as mayoral candidate was kind of a hail Mary pass the Democrats made, since he had fallen out of favor with the party due to his refusal of the patronage system when he was sheriff. He literally applied the law equally to all, regardless of party politics. The Democrats were not amused. But in the 8 years since his stint as Sheriff, the sting had been forgotten, and the Democrats needed a candidate for the election that was being held in 17 days.  

Yep, you heard that right. October 22, 1881, Cleveland went to one of his favorite restaurants and on entering, he joined a group of fellow Democrats who were there drinking. The reason the party had such a hard time filling the role of candidate is that the post of Mayor was widely known to be extremely corrupt. Regardless of which party held the position, Democrat or Republican, the post was corrupt. But then again, so had the Sheriff’s post, and Cleveland had managed to return some of the shine to that position. So, they asked him to stand for Mayor.   

Cleveland accepted with one provision—he had to have approval of the entire ticket if he was going to be heading it. Now, back then, there was no piece meal voting. You voted for the entire ticket. There was no I’m voting Democrat for mayor but Republican for sheriff. It was all straight ticket voting. However, at that time in Buffalo history, municipal posts were for only one year, so getting the rest of the ticket to step aside 16 days now before the election was not that big a deal. Those who were basically entrenched in local politics would get a year off the job and the Democrats would get a win with someone who had a local reputation for extreme honesty and principle. So, the Democrats agreed to this condition.  

They informed Cleveland of this on October 25, just thirteen days before the election. The story has it that Cleveland was arguing before the New York Supreme Court when the committee came in and got Cleveland’s attention. Cleveland then went to Justice Albert Haight’s desk and said “This is a committee from the Democratic city convention, and they want to nominate me for mayor. They’ve come over to see if I’ll accept. What shall I do about it?” “I think you better accept.” Was Judge Haight’s reply.  

 And 13 days later he was voted in as Mayor of Buffalo. And much as when he was sheriff, he did not feed into the patronage system, and for a brief year in Buffalo history, the Mayor’s office did not stink of corruption. This became a matter of great frustration to the other Buffalo Democrats.  

The only time off he took was in July 1882 when his mother was dying. He had missed his father’s death; he was sure to be present for his mother’s death. Ann Cleveland died on July 19, 1882.   

And when his term as mayor of Buffalo was over, he was immediately nominated for and won the post of Governor of New York, moving to Albany, NY for that work. Where he still refused to play the patronage game.   

Now, patronage had been a hot topic button for a while. Rutherford B. Hayes had been attempting to reform the patronage system, James Garfield was assassinated over patronage, which led to Chester Arthur signing the first Civil Service Reform act in 1883. So, when Cleveland refused to feed into the patronage system, the Democrats saw this as a possible entry to the White House, a position no Democrat had held since James Buchanan pre-Civil War. So, the Democrats nominated Cleveland for president in 1884, over the objections of Tammany Hall “Honest” John Kelly. And Cleveland won, becoming the 22nd president of the United States.  

It wasn’t easy, per se. The opposition ran a smear campaign, pulling from the woodwork a piece of Cleveland’s past, one Maria Halpin. Now, the author does a very good job deconstructing this scandal and providing the timeline of events. The story that unfolded was that in approximately 1874, Cleveland had been involved with Miss Halpin while he was Sheriff of Buffalo, eventually getting her pregnant, and refusing to marry her. When her son was born, he was christened Oscar Folson Cleveland. This is interesting in that Oscar Folsom was Cleveland’s best friend, who had died in an accident, leaving Cleveland as guardian of Folsom’s widow and daughter. More on that later.   

Cleveland did not marry Halpin but did provide financial support for her and her son. Maria lost her job as the result of being an unwed mother and fell into alcoholism. Because of her alcoholism, Cleveland had convinced her to put her son up for adoption, paying her $500 (about $12,000) in modern currency, to walk away. All of this was wildly scandalous in the 19th century, especially as Cleveland was a known bachelor, so there was no impediment to his marrying Halpin. So, refusal to do so was scandalous. When his friend Charles Goodyear asked how to respond, Cleveland said “Whatever you do, tell the truth.” Which was characteristically Cleveland.   

Cleveland never actually denied paternity, but his political allies were able to cast some reasonable doubt on the matter, namely that Halpin had not JUST been with Cleveland, and the child could have been someone else’s. Whose is unknown, but Cleveland was latched onto due to being the only bachelor, and so available for marriage.  One likely explanation is that the father of the child was actually Cleveland’s friend, Oscar Folsom, for whom the child was named. And Cleveland took the blame to protect the good name of his deceased friend as well as the feelings and moral sensibilities of Folsom’s widow and daughter.   

But the real reason doubt was eventually cast on the story was the source of the rumor. It was traced back to one George H Ball, a Baptist minister from Buffalo, who was trying to convince wavering Republicans not to jump the Republican ticket for Cleveland’s much vaunted honesty. Ball figured if he could hit the right dirty buttons, then Cleveland would lose the election. Now, Halpin is a real person, Cleveland was known to associate with her, and she absolutely had a child. Whether that child was Cleveland’s is something we will likely never know. Historically, Cleveland’s reputation for honesty and fair dealing worked in his favor.   

And when you dig deeper into the story, albeit from a remove of 140 years, Halpin was not a young woman when all this went down. She was a widow in her thirties, only a few years younger than Cleveland. She had moved to Buffalo after leaving two existing children with family in New Jersey. Cleveland DID in fact act quite honorably. He became concerned about her drinking and so referred the matter to a friend of his... a neutral party, given his own connection to the matter. Judge Roswell Burrows spoke with Halpin, and obtained HER consent to have her son placed in an orphanage while she got help for her drinking and started a new life in Niagara Falls. Halpin changed her mind and when she was unable to legally retrieve her child, attempted to kidnap him from the orphanage. Ultimately, the child was returned to the orphanage, but Cleveland had no part of that. The orphanage requested assistance from the authorities to get Oscar Folsom Cleveland back.   

Ultimately, Halpin allowed her child to be adopted and did start her new life. Now, when none of the above story managed to unseat Cleveland as the Democrat candidate and he seemed likely to win the presidency, the Republicans pulled out that he had, in fact, RAPED Maria Halpin. Now, I’m going to, at this point, explain why we’re going so far into old scandals. And it’s relevant, and this point in the story is exactly where Senik also explains. In 2011, Charles Lachman, who writes for the Daily Beast, wrote a smear book using all the bias and painting Cleveland as a child stealing rapist. If I had to guess, that’s probably around the time Libertarians started finding Cleveland an interesting historical figure, and so something had to be done to show why Libertarians are depraved and wrong. Fine whatever.  

Then about a decade later, when then President Trump named Cleveland as one of the best presidents or most influential, something like that, it was like chum in the water for Newsweek, Salon, and the Atlantic, who all trotted out Cleveland as child stealing rapist stories. The problem is, Halpin categorically denied ALL these stories, and said definitively that Cleveland was a decent man. But, to no one’s surprise, political hack rags in the 21st century completely ignored the voice of the “victim,” revictimizing her from the grave, in order to sell a political narrative. Yellow Journalism never changes.  

So with the Halpin scandal safely behind him, Cleveland is voted into office and sworn in on March 4, 1885. And immediately patronage seekers start contacting him. And he declined all, leaving anyone who was competent in office. He is not the first president to do so, John Qunicy Adams also left several positions in the hands of the opposition based on competence, and I believe there was at least one other president who kept positions status quo.   

But the overriding concerns of his first administration, and they stayed the same for his second, were the gold standard and tariffs. And here, incidentally, is why modern-day Libertarians have embraced Cleveland as a standard bearer of what a president should be. Or more like, there is a lot to like about the man, but his absolute faith in the value of gold backed currency is high on the list. He knew without the gold backing it, dollars were just paper. Historically, he knew that diluting the value of the currency with silver would result in devalued currency. So, he fought tooth and nail against adding silver as currency which could be used to pay out dollars. What does that mean? We’re 50 years removed from the last time the US had gold backed currency so let me explain. Dollars in the 19th century were an easy form of transport, paper currency weighing considerably less gold. But that paper currency could be taken to any bank in the United States and exchanged for actual gold in the amount of the gold. So, a $5 bill could be exchanged for $5 in gold, on a one for one exchange. When Congress started seriously considering a silver backing, this caused a panic, and a run on the banks. And the nations gold supply started dwindling. This is what Cleveland was fighting against. 

The other matter was the tariff. Congress loves tariffs. Cleveland knew nothing about tariffs when he was elected. And instead of outsourcing it to a think tank, like our modern politicians, he actually took the time to learn about tariffs himself. And reached the conclusion that the best way to help the working man was to lower tariffs. Be still my beating heart. That logic fell on deaf ears with congress, who was more worried about keeping their powerful moneyed allies happy, and those allies wanted high tariffs.  

Now, his stance on gold and on the tariff did not win him any friends, either in Congress or with the people. What did win him the love of the people was when the bachelor president married in the White House, becoming the first and I believe only president to actually marry IN the White House, meaning the ceremony was held there. His bride has also raised eye brows from 140 years later, as she was the daughter of Oscar Folsom, and legally Cleveland’s ward.   

And the same rags that trotted out the Cleveland as rapist stories trotted out the Cleveland as groomer stories. Except he wasn’t. His guardianship of Frances Folsom and her mother Emma was on paper only, essentially the laws in 19th century New York required an administrator for Oscar Folsom’s estate as he had died intestate, without a will. Cleveland being Folsom’s best friend was placed in that role, but he essentially left the Folsom’s alone to live their lives. The only real indication of any contact or assistance is when, as mayor of Buffalo, he wrote a letter of recommendation for Frances Folsom to attend Wells College. And when he decided he was interested in young Frances, he quite appropriately asked her mother for permission to write to her and court her. When they married, Frances was 21 to Cleveland’s 49, an age gap of 28 years. This is not, incidentally, the largest age gap between president and spouse, that honor falls to John Tyler and his second wife Julia Gardner Tyler. John Tyler was 54 and Gardner was 24, making their age gap 30 years. I suspect much was made in the 21st about a comment Cleveland once made to his sister, when she asked him if he was ever going to get married and he replied, “I’m just waiting for her to grow up.” But that comment was made to his sister before Frances was ever born, so the timeline would have to be really conflated to make that creepy. It was most likely meant as a never comment, which came back 100 years post mortem to be used against him. 100 years out of context should seriously be taken with a grain of salt. 

America LOVED Frances Folsom Cleveland. She became an immediate sensation and rose wonderfully to the challenge of being an icon. Cleveland, who had never forgotten nor forgiven the press for their treatment of him over the Halpin scandal, became outraged by their obsessive following of his young bride. And she basically laughed it off, answering questions, and defending her spouse when those same journalists tried to claim that he beat her. She is the youngest actual First Lady to date, and I say that because Andrew Jackson had his daughter act as White House hostess as his own spouse died between election and inauguration. Of the first ladies, only Dolly Madison and Jacqueline Kennedy rival Frances Folsom Cleveland in popularity with the people.  

And at the end of his first term, Cleveland won the popular vote but lost the election to Benjamin Harrison. On their way out, Frances told the White House steward to take care of the house for when the Cleveland’s came back. The Steward asked when they planned to visit, and Frances said something like “Oh we’ll be back on March 4, 1893.”   

During the four years out of office, Cleveland basically enjoyed retirement, working nominally for a law office in New York City, but spending a lot of time hunting and fishing. Frances gave birth to their first child, Ruth Cleveland, who also became a sensation by virtue of being Frances’s daughter. And Cleveland began to inadvertently lay the groundwork for his re-election. I don’t know that he intended to stand for president a third time. But one of the benefits of being president is post-presidency you are or were, not sure if this is still a thing, granted free franking for life. Free postage. So, when people started writing to Cleveland, he responded to every letter personally. Every single one. This created a groundswell of popular support for Cleveland that got him nominated and re-elected in 1892, becoming the 24th president of the United States.   

His second presidency was not quite as smooth as his first. The tariff and gold standard remained his overriding concerns, but a new concern raised itself: Cancer. Cleveland had been an avid cigar smoker and tobacco chewer all his life. On May 5, 1893, he noticed a rough spot on the roof of his mouth. He asked his wife to look at it and she said it looked like there was a lesion. Now, much as Arthur had hidden evidence of his Bright’s disease, Cleveland hid evidence of his cancer. However, he also knew that something had to be done. If he did nothing, the cancer would likely kill him before he finished his term, leaving his vice president, Adlai Stevenson, who was a proponent of the SILVER standard, to take over. Conversely, if he died on the operating table, the same thing would happen. But he had to take the risk. So, he very carefully assembled a team of very discrete surgeons to undertake the operation, which would take place at sea. Yep, on a boat. In the middle of the ocean. To avoid any scrutiny from someone who might notice the seven doctors and one president and reach the conclusion that the president was ill.   

And it worked. Like, fuck me, if I ever need surgery at sea, I want this team doing the procedure. They removed a rather large tumor from his soft palate, he lost a couple of teeth, but they got the whole thing. And since he did all this over the Congresses summer break when no one was expected to be in Washington, he was able to rest and heal at the family home at Grey Gables. While resting, a dentist created a rubber prosthetic for the roof of his mouth so that he was able to talk normally, and for twenty years, no one knew. Almost no one knew. There was one journalist who managed to run down the story off a rumor, and that poor bastard had his career ruined in the denial and cover up, only to be vindicated in the 1920’s when the principle surgeon admitted it was true and the story had been accurate. But while Cleveland was known to lie through omission of detail, this is the only outright lie he’s actively known to have told.  

 Ruining the reputation of one poor journalist is a mark against him, although national security could be argued. Not that I buy that as an excuse. The other thing he did that made me raise an eyebrow was make a deal with the devil. I mean, not literally, but damn near. As the panic and depression of 1890’s continued to strengthen its hold on the nation, the gold reserves the government had on hand were rapidly dwindling.   

And so, Cleveland and Treasury Secretary John Carlisle contacted richest man in America, financier John Pierpont Morgan, of modern-day JP Morgan-Chase fame, and asked him to purchase $100 million dollars in gold from Europe, then sell that gold to the US for treasury bonds. JP Morgan negotiated the deal to $50 million in gold and higher interests, with only half the gold coming from Europe. And with his knowledge of the markets, Morgan convinced them to take the deal as the US had less than $9 million in gold left on hand, and there was an incoming withdrawal of $12 million pending. Rough as it was, not accepting the deal would have forced the US government into bankruptcy.  

Now, Cleveland had no intention of running for a third term. He felt 8 years was plenty for a president. It was good enough for Washington, that was the standard. But this deal gave the Republicans enough ammunition to say the Democrats are working with big business. And to be fair, they have been ever since. It wasn’t Cleveland’s soul he was bartering with. It was the soul of America. But I understand Cleveland’s reasoning. He was elected by We the People. Letting America fall to bankruptcy would have betrayed that trust, at a time when America already had 18% unemployment.   

But this laid the groundwork for JP Morgan to repeat this hat trick in 1907, and the federal reserve was created in 1913, to the everlasting detriment of America.  

Now, other than that rather large blip, and the cover up of his surgery, Cleveland was an outstanding president. He, as far as I can tell, is the last president to believe that he actually worked for We the People, and not for the party that got him elected. During his first term, he issued more vetoes than any other president, vetoing 414 bills. This, incidentally, is more than double the number of vetoes issued by all the previous presidents combined. I would love him for that alone. But his absolute honesty, his iron clad belief that he worked for the people and not the party, his belief that Congress had a duty not to waste the money that came into the treasury, all make him stand out as a blazing beacon of what our president’s should strive to be, yet none since seem to have obtained. And I say that knowing I may be adjusting that assessment as I learn more about the next few presidents. I have high hopes for Calvin Coolidge. But after reading this book, I am ready to put a sign on my lawn that says “Grover Cleveland, 2024, Man of Iron Evermore.”  

Cleveland, on a personal note, ultimately had five children, three girls, Ruth, Esther, Marion, Francis and Richard. Ruth, sadly, died at 12 of diphtheria. The rest of the Cleveland children never entered politics. They seem to have inherited their father’s humility and never rode the Cleveland name to fame. When Cleveland left the White House for the last time, the family settled in Princton, NJ, and Cleveland taught a series of lectures on campus there, becoming I believe a trustee. He was very worried about how he would support his family, as he never invested when he was in the White House. He believed it would be improper to invest with his inside knowledge of what laws would affect the market. Further proof that we need more men and women of this honest caliber. And another reason I would totally vote for him if he ran today. Which he can’t. Because he died on June 24, 1908, in Princton, New Jersey, where he is buried, next to his daughter Ruth and his wife Frances, who died in 1947.   

This book was excellent and brought to life one of America’s most overlooked and amazing presidents. He was that rarest of all political birds: A Good Man. A Man who genuinely believed in the principles of the Constitution and lived by those principles. He genuinely believed that he was representative of ALL the people, not just those who voted for him. And he lived by that belief, did not just pay lip service to it. We seriously need another Grover Cleveland. Unfortunately, I think they broke the mold when he passed. Much to the sorrow of America.

This book was originally reviewed on YouTube on March 26, 2023, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.