Grover Cleveland: The American Presidents Series: The 22nd and 24th President, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897 by Henry F. Graff
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Yes, Grover Cleveland was not so flashy. His story is a story of a man who was the right honest joe for the right time. He didn’t shake things up, but he presented the right image for a time of scandal and corruption. He straddles the start of modern media, where modern reproduceable print can widely disseminate who people actually are, and what they look like.
While he didn’t want to be president so badly the first time, it was interesting to see how he took interest with the presidency of Benjamin Harrison. He was perhaps the only president to really speak out against his predecessor, winning the White House back after four years.
Graff presents Cleveland as a straight laced man, honest, ethical and a workaholic. He didn’t pursue glory for himself, nor riches, and remains a kind of solid bygone of a man who became president on reputation alone, in that brief twilight before modern media made the government and the public hyper-aware of each other, to the point where public opinion now sways government daily, and government likewise intrudes strongly in everyones lives.
With this biography we get a glimpse of the past. Not a past ruled by a flashy man, but here, a past where one man was conditioned by his surroundings, valorized by the time of day.
