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![]() Cleveland made the railroad people squirm.
—The Presidents by Jonathan Coulton.
Big deal! When I was a pup, we got spanked by Presidents till the cows came home. Grover Cleveland spanked me on two non-consecutive occasions.
Take care of the place (The White House), we'll be back.
Frances Folsom Cleveland
Grover Cleveland served another term.
Grover Cleveland (born Stephen Grover Cleveland) was the only American president to hold two non-consecutive terms, as the 22nd and 24th president (1885-89, 1893-97). Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd president, winning a bizarre race in 1888 in which Cleveland won the popular vote but Harrison prevailed in the Electoral College. Cleveland was also the second American president to get married while in office, and the only one to marry in the White House itself. He was also the only Democratic president in a period (1869-1913) of Republican executive dominance.
He was drafted during the American Civil War but paid $150 for a substitute (entirely legal at the time), making him America's first draft-dodger President. This, and his refusal to grant bonuses to Civil War veterans, probably helped him lose to the aforementioned Harrison.
Started his political career as the Sheriff of Erie County, New York, where he handled the execution of several prisoners himself.
At the start of his second term as president he discovered a tumor on the roof of his mouth; he had the tumor removed in a secret operation on the presidential yacht which was never revealed until well after his death.
Met Franklin D. Roosevelt when he was just five years old and reportedly said, "My little man, I am making a strange wish for you. It is that you may never be President of the United States."
He is considered by conservatives and libertarians to be a highly underrated President, as he mostly stayed within the Constitutional bounds of his office and of Federal power, and also because he generally opposed the growth of labor unions, and even called out federal troops to violently put down striking railroad workers (which the quote at the top of the page references). He fought against waste and corruption by using the veto more than any President before him and kept America on the Gold Standard at a time when it was politically unpopular, which is considered a big reason for the astounding economic growth in the late Nineteenth Century (with the exception of the Panic of 1893).
Some claim that the "Baby Ruth" candy bar is not named after baseball star Babe Ruth, but after first daughter Ruth Cleveland, born between her father's first and second terms. However, since the candy bar was named "Baby Ruth" in 1921—17 years after Ruth Cleveland's death at the age of 12 and 24 years after her father left the White House, but right at the time that Babe Ruth was rocketing to superstardom—it seems more likely that the Curtiss Candy Company was simply avoiding paying Babe Ruth royalties.
For a one-minute summary of his first term, check out this video.The Presidents, again.
Grover Cleveland in fiction:
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