36 Reasons Grover Cleveland is my Favorite President

What’s so great about Grover Cleveland, a president so nice we elected him twice? Here’s my short list:



  1. His name:  Stephen Grover Cleveland.
  2. His reputation for honesty.
  3. His commitment to personal responsibility.
  4. He was the second and last bachelor elected president.
  5. A beer drinker, he opposed the temperance movement.
  6. He’s part of the cover story for the naming of the Baby Ruth Candy Bar.
  7. He’s (still) pictured on the $1000 bill.
  8. His forlorn quote: “Someday I will be better remembered.”
  9. Grover was an anti-imperialist and opposed American imperialism.  Amen.
  10. John Phillip Sousa led the band at his wedding
  11. He’s our only non-consecutive executive! 
  12. He was the Veto King! He vetoed more bills than the first 21 presidents combined, often to stop special interests’ wasteful spending.
  13. He opposed high tariffs and federal subsidies for corporations and farmers. Still a good idea.
  14. He was anti-patronage: Tammany Hall hated Grover Cleveland.
  15. He was so big he had three nicknames:  Big Steve,  Uncle Jumbo, and the Veto King.
  16. He was the anti-Arron Burr: “What is the use of being elected or re-elected, unless you stand for something?”
  17. He was a cancer survivor! 
  18. He was an avid fisherman and outdoorsman his entire life.
  19. He was a politcal centrist, which is especially important model for today’s world.
  20. He’s the only president to have a White House Wedding!
  21. He was the only Democrat elected president during a 56-year stretch between 1856 and 1912.
  22. He believed in the Gold Standard and opposed free silver.
  23. Grover won the popular vote for presisent three times. Only FDR won more times.
  24. He’s in the small club of people who won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College
  25. He had a secret surgery to remove a tumor ... from his head ... at sea... in the 1890s  ...and survived!
  26. He was dedicated: “A cause worth fighting for is worth fighting for to the end,” he said.
  27. He had more executive experience than any other president and is the only one to serve as a mayor, a governor and as president. 
  28. He wanted to end patronage Grover believed in professional, career federal workers instead of filling the jobs with friends, family, donors or cronies. 
  29. He was honest when Republicans tried to stop him with a sex scandal. No excuses, no cover-up! 
  30. The Mugwumps supported Grover, the honest man, and I like the Mugwumps.
  31. His amazing walrus mustache made him one of only four presidents to serve with only a mustache. 
  32. He’s famously unhealthy! At 250 pounds, only William Taft and Donald Trump were heavier and more unfit for office.
  33. He personally hanged two men because as Sheriff he believed it was his own responsibility to carry out the death sentence himself rather than delegate it to another man.
  34. He dodged the Civil War, legally paying another man to serve in his place.
  35. He was perfectly average (say presidential historians) and I say average presidents deserve to be appreciated too (especially when the 45th president [when this was written] was the worst ever).
  36. He relentlessly fought political corruption, patronage and bossism: “I have tried so hard to do right.”

Comments

  1. Bob the BunterFebruary 11, 2019 at 9:14 PM

    What is his nationality? Were his parents born in USA? Any brothers or sisters? Did he have a dog? Thanks, Bob Hedges. Ames, Iowa

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ebaFebruary 16, 2019 at 2:59 PM

      Well, he was American of course, born in New Jersey, raised in New York and he lived in Buffalo for 30 years, then Washington D.C. and Princeton, N.J. His parents were both American, too, and he was the middle child of 9. And he had several dogs over the years as he was an avid outsdoorsman, a hunter and fisherman.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Always seeking to acquire Grover Cleveland themed art!

Hi Artists! My name is Eric and I’m the “founder and curator” of the Grover Cleveland Art Appreciation Society (and Occassional Pop-up Museum). It lives virtually on Instagram and, very occasionally, out in public view at a Fourth of July picnic or other community event in Colorado.  If you’re reading this, I probably sent you a link because I like your work and/or you wanted more info when I asked if you’d consider making a picture of Grover Cleveland. The Grover Cleveland Art Appreciation Society was created to 1) support young and/or developing artists and 2) to keep alive the memory of America’s Most Average President.  As a result of his averageness, I’m perhaps the world’s only collector of original Grover Cleveland Themed Art.  We started 2019 with about 10 pieces and we’re always (casually) looking for more. We like to add 5-6 new pieces per year.  We know it’s kind of weirdly charming, but we also believe this is part of its oddball appeal and exact...
Read more

Grover Cleveland, Authenticity and Trust

I’ve been thinking about honesty, truth and trust a bit in recent days.  For starters, I’m fond of ol’ Grover Cleveland, partially because he has a strong reputation for honesty. Key word: “reputation.” And of course we have a current president who can’t tell the truth. And then there’s this: For a recent work meeting about creating better relationships with our clients, I found and shared with my team a Ted Talk about building and rebuilding trust by  Harvard professor Frances Frei. Here’s the link if you want to take 16 minutes to go watch it: https://www.ted.com/talks/frances_frei_how_to_build_and_rebuild_trust Go ahead. I’ll wait.  So, as you saw, she says t rust is the foundation for everything we do.  But what do we do when trust is broken? "If we can learn to trust one another more, we can have unprecedented human progress," Frei says.  It’s a great sentiment, yeah? Is it possible? On an individual basis, sure! Collectively, a...
Read more

Happy birthday Grover Cleveland!

Is it weird to celebrate the birthday of a long dead president? Is it weirder when at best he’s America’s Most Average President? Well... here we are: Happy Birthday to Grover Cleveland, born 182 years ago today, March 18, 1837. Why should Washington and Lincoln and Jefferson get all the glory? That’s why we celebrate. Stephen Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, New Jersey. He was the fifth child born to Ann (Neal) Cleveland, and her husband Richard. Four more children would come later, making Stephen the middle child, fifth of the nine kids in the Cleveland household.  His mother was from Baltimore, the daughter of a bookseller, and the descendant of Anglo-Irish Protestants and German Quakers from the Philadelphia area.  His father was a Congregational and Presbyterian minister from Connecticut, whose family came from England in 1635 and whose grandfather fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill during the Revolutionary War. Go home redcoats! The baby C...
Read more