A Presidents Story Too and the 2024 Election

As I’ve mentioned before, A Presidents Story Too was written very much with an eye on the coming election. So, you may want to buy a copy before the election for that relative or friend who is laboring under the belief that the issues, events, personalities or behaviors of today are novel or unique to our time in history. The book may or may not help, but it might buy you some peace while they are reading it.

Some excerpts from A Presidents Story Too will illustrate the point: 

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“Johnson refused to attend Grant’s inauguration. He also refused to give a reason but Grant knew it was because of Grant’s failure to clearly side with Johnson in the impeachment battle. A man more concerned with precedent and tradition than Grant would have been bothered that he was the first President since Andrew Jackson to not have his predecessor attend his inauguration. Grant was not that man and was, frankly, relieved to not start his time as President in a carriage with the petulant Andy Johnson.”

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“In early 1876, Grant’s Secretary of War William Belknap was impeached by the House of Representatives. Belknap was accused of accepting bribes and the Senate prepared for a trial, just as it had with Andrew Johnson eight years earlier. Unlike Andrew Johnson, William Belknap was not inclined to fight. He quickly resigned before the Senate trial commenced. The Senate carried on with the trial but failed to convict Belknap, just as it had failed to convict Andrew Johnson. When Johnson was acquitted, there were not enough senators who thought he did anything wrong. That was not the case with William Belknap. All senators were quite sure that Belknap took bribes. But twenty-five senators believed that the Senate did not have the power to try an official once he was no longer in office.”

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“The tariff was complex but it was the perfect political lodestar. His colleagues in the House would come to value his opinion on a critical issue. More importantly, the voters may not understand the precise meaning of tariff policy but they would understand when a congressman with expertise told them that a high tariff on imported goods was the only way to keep their jobs from being taken to other countries. The wealthy captains of industry would not care for high tariffs, but there were a lot more voters who worried about keeping their jobs than there were captains of industry.”

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“Unlike most national conventions, however, when Taft was declared the nominee, the floor did not erupt in support, but in protest. In a momentary lull, a delegate yelled, “We want Teddy! No more stealing!”

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“After Wilson’s stroke, Colonel House realized that the President was fighting not just for the League, but for his own sanity…

‘Ma’am, the President is in my prayers. I am at your service and will obviously see that the President’s work is uninterrupted as much as possible.’

Edith Wilson paused and gazed at House. “That will not be necessary Colonel. The President is resting but fully able to discharge his duties. I will see that he gets everything he needs.”

House was wary. “Members of the cabinet are asking whether it would be best for Vice President Marshall to take over temporarily.”

Edith’s eyes flashed before she reverted to serenity. “You may tell members of the cabinet what I said, ‘He is resting but fully able to discharge his duties.’ Now, if you will excuse me I need to get back to my husband.”

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“Franklin Roosevelt was going to win the election. Prudently, he spoke in platitudes, assiduously avoiding any promised course of action. Instead, he focused on President Hoover and the government’s reckless spending and new programs that were doing nothing to help the ‘Common Man.’ It was this ‘Common Man’ that Roosevelt pandered to, promising a ‘New Deal’ at every campaign stop without explicitly stating the terms of the ‘Deal.’”

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“Calvin Coolidge started slowly, dissecting the Democratic platform and its lack of a real plan. Wisely, he largely stayed away from mentioning Roosevelt. But, eventually, he could not resist:

‘The charge is made that the Republican Party and its candidates do not have any  solicitude for the general welfare of the common run of people. Their nominee attacks the rich. This is odd, coming as it does from a man born to wealth.’”

If none of this seems familiar to you, I admit to being somewhat envious.

Confessions of a Presidents Nerd

Since A Presidents Story Too was published earlier this year, I have been asked the same question I was asked after the publication of A Presidents Story five years ago: “What possessed you to write a book about a bunch of unknown Presidents?” The answer harkens back to the simplest of gestures.

When I was seven years old I was spending time with my grandparents in southeast New Mexico as I did every summer of my youth—sometimes for a couple weeks, sometimes for a couple months. It was 1968 and Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey would square off in the presidential election that Fall. Being seven years old, I did not know who Richard Nixon or Hubert Humphrey were. I did have a vague understanding that President Lyndon Johnson had a big job.

My grandmother stopped at the Shell gas station in Carlsbad to fill up. This was in the days before you pumped your own gas. The station attendant “filled ‘er up” and then handed my grandmother a pamphlet about the Presidents and elections. In those days, gas stations and banks and other businesses were always giving away little odds and ends knowing that the world is filled with seven year olds who love getting free stuff. My grandmother passed the pamphlet to me and asked “Do you want that?” I, of course, said “Sure!”

We drove back out to my grandparents’ ranch and I spent the next few days poring over that little pamphlet. By the time my parents retrieved me and I returned to California, I could name all of the Presidents in order in less than a minute (a party trick my wife still makes me perform from time to time) along with knowing where each President was from, their political parties and their Vice Presidents. Since Nixon was Eisenhower’s Vice President and Humphrey was Johnson’s, I was now familiar with the two men who would be vying for the Presidency in the coming months.

Back home, my mother noted my new obsession. She was grocery shopping at Lucky Market shortly after my return and saw another election year promotion in the form of a set of books published by American Heritage. A new volume would come out each week so Mom’s weekly grocery store runs became the focal point of my young existence.

By the time I was eight years old I was devouring everything I could find on the Presidents, from our home encyclopedias to the Book of Knowledge to the biography section of the public library. While my friends played imaginary games with GI Joes, Hot Wheels or their sports heroes, I wrote little stories or drew pictures of U.S. Presidents. I collected miniature statues and other trinkets bearing the images of various Presidents. I am amazed that I never got beat up by my less historically inclined friends.

In fifth grade we studied American History and my teacher, Miss Brown, freely consulted with me on any and all President-related facts and figures. By eighth grade I was the recognized expert on the Presidents among the students and faculty of Hickory Elementary School. I routinely found ways to, uh, avoid being in class in high school so I could sit outside in the Southern California sun and read my latest President biography.  In short, I was (and am) the consummate Presidents nerd.

As a result of my years of independent study, I developed an almost proprietary sense about the lives of these men, particularly the more obscure Presidents. As I was exposed to judgments about modern Presidents and their eventual place in history, I realized that most of those judgments were usually being made without any meaningful working knowledge of most of the Presidents. That was when the idea began to germinate to write about the lesser known Presidents in a style intended to inform and entertain. The advent of personal computers in the 1990s gave me the tool I needed to get started writing.

A Presidents Story and A Presidents Story Too did not result from a conviction that learning arcane details of the men who served as President and then writing about them would do something beyond allowing me to continue to do one of the things that gave me joy as a child. The books are the product of a journey of curiosity and exploration that my grandmother and mother unwittingly laid out for me. To some degree, I know part of my purpose was to honor those who blessed me, along with enjoying recounting what I absorbed in a unique way.

Like all legacies, my grandmother’s and mother’s legacies to me were unplanned and hardly seemed likely to spawn a “legacy” when they started. Similarly, I have no idea what form my legacy to my grandchildren will take. I’ve seen little evidence that there is much margin in trying to craft a legacy after the fact. Indeed, time spent attempting to construct a legacy runs the risk of missing that unplanned, perfectly-timed-random-moment that leads someone else to a career, or a passion, or a disposition to kindness, or even a song or a book. If that happens, it will be more than enough. If not, I will be none the wiser.