![]() When the Republicans nominated for governor a candidate handpicked by President Chester A. Being an upstater, he was independent of the notorious Tammany Hall Democratic machine in New York City. Soon Buffalo's "Veto Mayor" was a candidate for governor of New York. This was enough to bring him statewide fame. He did this principally by vetoing measures that misappropriated and wasted city funds, such as a bill giving a street-cleaning contract to a company whose bid was more than $100,000 higher than those of two others. In office he devoted himself almost entirely to keeping the fingers of local spoilsmen out of the public till. The reformers sought no more than honesty and efficiency Cleveland shared their desire, promised to satisfy it, and made good on his promise. He was not eager for the office but responded to the call to perform his civic duty. Cleveland was a Democrat, though unconnected with the then-current Democratic organization. The current administration was Republican. In 1881 a group of substantial Buffalonians, seeking a candidate for mayor who was both honest and efficient, hit upon Cleveland, whose record as sheriff was unbesmirched. He had the right qualities (and they were not common) for the situations and opportunities that came to him by chance.įor years the city government of Buffalo had been corrupt and badly managed, and it seemed to make no difference whether it was run by Democrats or Republicans. And his good luck was not merely the kind that comes to the person with a winning lottery ticket. One of Cleveland's biographers, Horace Samuel Merrill, has explained his political rise simply: "He was lucky -almost unbelievably lucky!" This is true enough, but scarcely an explanation no one gets to be president without being more than ordinarily favored by Dame Fortune. Yet three years later he was elected president of the United States. He had provided for the support of the child, but in those Victorian times knowledge of his transgression, should it become widely known, seemed sure to cost him heavily at the polls. ![]() More serious still, Cleveland was the father of an illegitimate child. This was perfectly legal but certainly a disadvantage at a time when most successful northern politicians made much of their military achievements in defense of the Union. During the Civil War he had hired a substitute when drafted into the army. There were also two skeletons in Grover Cleveland's closet that might have been expected to prevent his achieving important public office. He was without important intellectual interests. Although of only medium height, he weighed more than 250 pounds. ![]() Physically he was a squat, bull-like man with a thick neck and a great chest and belly. He spent weekends and holidays hunting and fishing. He spent most of his free time with what was known at the time as a "coarse crowd" -men who frequented saloons and racetracks. Outside Buffalo he was unknown.Ĭleveland was a bachelor and at forty-four showed no sign of marrying. But it was eight years since he had last held office. As for politics, he had been an assistant district attorney for a brief period during the Civil War and had served a three-year term as sheriff in the early 1870s. "No amount of money would tempt me to add to or increase my present work," he explained. When offered a substantial retainer by a railroad official, he refused on the ground that he already had a comfortable income. He was a diligent worker and modestly successful, but he did not appear to be particularly ambitious. Cleveland also has the distinction of having won a presidential contest by the smallest popular margin in history -about 30,000 votes in 1884.Ĭleveland was unusual, if not unique, in the rapidity of his rise from obscurity to the White House. Actually, he "won" all three of the presidential elections in which he was a candidate, for while Benjamin Harrison carried the Electoral College in 1888, Cleveland had a popular plurality of about 100,000 votes. Only he, having been defeated in a bid for reelection, again won the highest office in the land thus, he was both the twenty-second president and the twenty-fourth. OF all the presidents, Grover Cleveland is unique in several ways.
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