Review of The President and the Assassin by Scott Miller

In The President and the Assassin, Scott Miller tells the tales of two Americans, one well-known and the other mostly forgotten, whose stories intersected in a moment that drastically altered American history.  Miller, a former journalist, narrates the lives and careers of President William McKinley and Leon Czolgosz, the man who ultimately assassinated him. Far from being a traditional biography, Miller’s work devotes very little space to McKinley’s early life and pre-presidential career.  Miller instead chooses to focus on McKinley’s presidency, while also relating the story of Czolgosz and the economic, social, and political forces that helped mold him into an anarchist and an assassin.

The President and the Assassin is written in an engaging, almost gripping style; at times, it is very difficult to put down.  The one significant flaw of the book is the time gap between the chapters on McKinley and those on Czolgosz; often one reads of McKinley’s actions in the 1890s in one chapter and then about events in the life of Czolgosz or other anarchists that occurred twenty years earlier. This constant going back and forth in time might prove confusing to a reader who knows little about Gilded Age America.  Despite this, the book is well worth reading.  Readers who seek an in-depth biography of McKinley will need to look elsewhere.  But for those seeking to learn about the major events of late nineteenth-century America, particularly the labor and anarchist movements, major strikes, and the Spanish-American War, Miller has presented an outstanding introduction.  

Review of Benjamin Harrison by Charles W. Calhoun

Among the small minority of Americans who can identify Benjamin Harrison, most tend to view him as the last of a long series of hirsute “do-nothing” Gilded Age American presidents.  In Benjamin Harrison, however, biographer and historian Charles W. Calhoun argues that Harrison does not at all fit this stereotype. Harrison, Calhoun writes, “governed energetically” and “was a legislative president far more than most other nineteenth-century chief executives” (3).  Calhoun further argues that if, as modern scholars often claim, William McKinley was the first modern president, “a careful review of Harrison’s performance demonstrates that McKinley and his successors owed much to the example set by Benjamin Harrison” (6).

After briefly outlining Harrison’s pre-presidential career, including distinguished service as an attorney, a Union officer during the Civil War, and a United States Senator, Calhoun begins his “careful review of Harrison’s performance” as president.  Unlike his more passive predecessors, Harrison had a planned program of legislation that he wanted enacted as quickly as possible. In fact, he was so eager to begin that he seriously considered calling the Congress into an early special session.  Because newly-elected Congresses at that time did not convene until several months after the president was inaugurated, Harrison’s domestic agenda had to wait.

In the meantime, Harrison was confronted with a dangerous dispute with Germany over the island of Samoa.  Harrison and his Secretary of State James Blaine negotiated a settlement which essentially created a three-nation (Britain, Germany, and the U. S.) protectorate over the island. This diplomatic victory was, in Calhoun’s words, “a momentous step,” for it marked the first time the United States “accepted responsibility for the government of a people beyond its own continent” (79).  Harrison made other significant contributions to the growth of American global power, including vastly expanding the U. S. Navy and championing a trans-isthmian canal across Nicaragua.

Harrison’s domestic agenda was bold.  He championed increased pensions to veterans, sought increased government regulation of big business, promoted a bill to protect black voting rights in the South, injected 50 million dollars into the economy to prevent a financial panic, set aside 13 million acres of federal land as forest reserves, and gave federal assistance to provide relief for a Pennsylvania flood (a new practice at the time).  Harrison also was the first president to attack lynchings.  Under Harrison’s prompting, Congress passed several key pieces of legislation, including the McKinley Tariff Act, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and the Forest Reserve Act.  In all, the 51^st Congress passed 531 public laws, the most in history to that point, and an amount that would not be equaled until Theodore Roosevelt’s second term.

Although he is largely forgotten today, Harrison’s presidency was widely praised during his lifetime.  Henry Adams called him the greatest president since Lincoln.  Frederick Douglass went still further, writing that “To my mind, we never had a greater president.”  Despite this acclaim, Harrison served in a time of great political polarization and fickleness, and as a result, he was defeated after serving one term and returned to private life.

In Benjamin Harrison, Charles Calhoun has presented an engaging and surprisingly comprehensive (given the book’s brevity) account of Harrison’s life and, especially, his presidency.  He succeeds admirably in demonstrating that Harrison should receive more credit not only for being an effective chief executive, but also for setting a key precedent for future progressive presidents like Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson.  Anyone wanting to learn more about this generally forgotten president would do well to begin their study with this outstanding introduction.

Review of Grover Cleveland by Henry F. Graff

Grover Cleveland, writes biographer Henry F. Graff, “lives in the national memory almost exclusively as the president who had two nonconsecutive terms of office.  He deserves a better fate, for he was once revered by millions of his contemporaries for genuine merits, especially integrity” (137).  In Grover Cleveland, part of the “American Presidents” series of brief presidential biographies, Graff attempts to paint a more favorable portrait of the man who is counted as both the 22^nd and 24^th U. S. president.

Graff demonstrates that all throughout his political career, Cleveland showed no penchant for shirking the unpleasant duties of his offices.  For example, as sheriff of Buffalo, New York, Cleveland was not above personally pulling the lever that sent prisoners on the gallows to their death.  He worked hard, so much so that in Graff’s words, “today he would be considered a workaholic” (37).  Most significantly, as sheriff and later mayor of Buffalo, and then as Governor of New York, Cleveland impressed members of all political parties by being “true to his commitment that integrity in public office was a worthy requirement of those entrusted with responsibility and authority” (39).  As governor, Cleveland railed against dishonest big businesses and also became one of the first state governors to set aside state lands (including the Adirondacks) for protection.

At the 1884 Democratic National Convention, Cleveland’s integrity made him a natural choice for Democrats seeking to end the Republicans’ long domination of the presidency.  Cleveland defeated Republican James Blaine, who, like many politicians of the time, carried the stain of rumored corruption.  As president, Cleveland earned a mixed record.  He refused to depart from the increasingly unpopular “Spoils System,” firing thousands of federal employees merely because they were Republicans and replacing them with Democrats.  He also vetoed hundreds of bills, mostly pensions for Union soldiers, often doing so with sarcastic language.  He seemed to be generally ignorant of public sentiment, often showing callousness and insensitivity in his words and actions. He was also largely passive, seeing the president’s job as merely to execute or veto Congressional laws rather than to initiate a legislative agenda.-On the other hand, Cleveland made a few positive contributions, such as signing into law the Interstate Commerce Act, which regulated railroad rates and created the Interstate Commerce Commission.

After losing the presidency to Benjamin Harrison in 1888 (due mostly to “a disjoined campaign and its lifeless leadership, including his own”), Cleveland was again elected in 1892.  During his second term, Cleveland pursued a largely pro-business policy, including (among other actions) sending in federal troops in to put down the 1894 Pullman Strike.  In foreign affairs, Cleveland followed the largely isolationist policies of his predecessors. He resisted the increasing pressure to intervene in the unrest in Hawaii and Cuba, although he did not shrink from boldly supporting Venezuela in its 1895 boundary dispute with Great Britain.

Grover Cleveland is an engaging and solid biography that covers the highlights of Cleveland’s life and career.  Although Cleveland’s achievements as president are few, they were not nonexistent, and he must certainly be remembered as one of the most honest and internally consistent chief executives in our nation’s history.