Poll Question: Which of these living Presidents would you most like to have dinner with?

The poll has closed for the question "Which of these living Presidents would you most like to have dinner with?" The winner was Bill Clinton with 50% of the vote. George W. Bush got second with 24%. Jimmy Carter came in third with 14%. The first President Bush came in last with 10%.

Thanks to all who voted in this unscientific poll. Also, thanks to Jennie for suggesting this question.

Mamie Doud Eisenhower: The General’s First Lady by Marilyn Holt

I just finished the new biography of Mamie Eisenhower by Marilyn Holt and I was very impressed! Mamie Eisenhower often gets written off as just a housewife (most biographies up to this point have not been very useful), but this book really highlights her contributions and her perfect fit for the American people of the 1950s. It also discusses her early life as a military wife and how that prepared her for her role of First Lady.

I especially liked how the author brought out the ways that Mamie is typically stereotyped and then talked about how she cultivated some of that image and what she was really doing in the background. Mamie was a huge influence on Ike, but she was a big believer in stepping back and staying in her own sphere, although she certainly had opinions and could often be very strong-willed! Mamie in the 50s was a huge change for the White House as entertainment had been very subdued under the Roosevelts and the Trumans (and it makes sense for subdued entertainments during depression and war). She went back to a full schedule of entertainment and strove to serve the people – to the extent that she responded to all letters to her personally (at least signing them herself although she wrote or dictated many personally as well).

This book relies on almost all primary sources – the huge amount of letters that Mamie Eisenhower wrote over the years is the mainstay. The letters give this book a really personal feel of Mamie – you can really hear and see her in the pages. You can also really feel the devotion the Eisenhowers felt for each other throughout their marriage. I feel like I got to know Mamie as I read this book.

Now I want to point out some fun excerpts/facts from the book:

• Mamie loved card games and one of her favorite one was canasta.
• Mamie hated flying. Ike wrote that "Mamie...never completely convinced herself that an airplane flies." (95)
• Mamie was devoted to As the World Turns and White House staff, like J.B. West, learned to avoid her room when it was on or they'd be stuck watching it with her. As West said, "You can't just say, 'I'm sorry, I have more important things to do,' to a First Lady - especially Mrs. Eisenhower." (119)
• Mamie got along really well with Pat Nixon (although there are stories to the contrary), but she wasn't that impressed with Jackie Kennedy's work on the White House. Jackie, of course, did a huge restoration of the White House, and she gilded what was a silver chandelier in the State Dining Room. Whenever Mamie visited the Johnson or Nixon White House, she always asked, "How did you ever let that woman [Mrs. Kennedy] ruin that beautiful chandelier?" (132)

Holt ends with this great quote about Mamie from Marian Christy. I think the quote really sums up Mamie, so I'm including as my end as well:
There are very few originals in the world. And when one leaves it there is a void. Mamie Eisenhower was an original. She had the courage to define herself rather than have outsiders tell her who she was and what she should be...She set an image for the role of the classic wife, the classic mother, the classic non-political President's wife. She had the guts to be her classic self. She was 'Mamie.' (143)

Grover Cleveland and the Million Dollar Bill

USAToday.com has an amusing story about a bogus million dollar bill that Grover Cleveland appears on. The story is John Doe accused of trying to pass $1 million bill at grocer. I wonder if the guy was expecting change?

From the article:

Guess what happened when John Doe tried to pass a million-dollar bill on Saturday at the Giant Eagle in Pittsburgh?

The man, who refused to give his name, freaked out before he was arrested and was taken to the Allegheny County Jail. Police tell the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review they expect to identify the man by his fingerprints.

The bill featured a portrait of Grover Cleveland. It was phony, police said, noting that since 1969 the $100 bill has been the largest one in circulation. They say the bill may have come from a religious group that used the bills to disguise religious tracts. (Here's a story about that group, and it's eventual confrontation with the Secret Service.)

Whiskey Ring Scandal

I was looking at the results of our last opinion poll and I have to admit I had guessed that Watergate would win. Why? Because it is within living memory (although I must admit not mine - I was born yet...actually my parents weren't even married yet) and so it stands out more clearly. In any case, it definitely was a major scandal and will stay in the history books as it resulted in the only resignation of a US President thus far.

But for today, I decided to highlight the lowest ranked scandal - Grant's Whiskey Ring. The American Presidency has a nice summary of this event:


Whiskey Ring, The, in American history, a national internal revenue scandal, which was exposed in 1875 through the efforts of Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow. Statistics showed that for some years prior to 1875 the United States had, in St. Louis, Mo., alone, lost at least $1,200,000 of tax revenue which it should have received from whiskey, yet special agents of the Treasury set to work from time to time had failed to do more than cause an occasional flurry among the thieves. The Whiskey Ring was organized in St. Louis when the Liberal Republicans there achieved their first success. It occurred to certain politicians to have revenue officers raise a campaign fund among the distillers. This idea the officers modified later, raising money in the same way for themselves, and in return conniving at the grossest thievery. As it became necessary to hide the frauds, newspapers and higher officials were hushed, till the ring assumed national dimensions. Its headquarters were at St. Louis, but it had branches at Milwaukee, Chicago, Peoria, Cincinnati, and New Orleans, and an agent at Washington, D.C. A huge corruption fund was distributed among gagers, storekeepers, collectors, and other officials, according to a fixed schedule of prices. As a result of the investigation by Secretary Bristow arrests were made in nearly every leading city. Indictments were found against 152 liquor men and other private parties, and against 86 government officials, notably the chief clerk in the Treasury Department, and President Ulysses S. Grant's private secretary, Gen. Orville E. Babcock.

The cartoon is by Thomas Nast and is from March of 1876 in Harper's Weekly.


For more information, check out our earlier blog on this topic as well.

Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln's Journey to Emancipation

If you live within driving distance of Lansing, Michigan, you may wish to check out this exhibit at the Cooley law School. It is titled Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln's Journey to Emancipation. Even if you do not visit, you can find a lot of good information online.

A press release notes:

The Hon. Thomas E. Brennan Law Library at The Thomas M. Cooley Law School is pleased to announce an upcoming special event. The library will host an exhibit entitled "Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln's Journey to Emancipation."

You are invited to attend the opening event, Friday, Oct. 19, 2007 from 6-9 p.m. in the Cooley Center lobby, 300 S. Capitol Ave., downtown Lansing. Dr. William Anderson, director of the Michigan Department of History, Arts and Libraries, will speak, and Cooley Professor Kathleen Butler will narrate composer Aaron Copland's musical tribute "A Lincoln Portrait."

The exhibit has been organized by the Huntington Library and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, in cooperation with the American Library Association. Major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission made this exhibit possible.

The exhibit will be on display at the Brennan Law Library in the Strosacker Room from Oct. 18 to Nov. 30, 2007. For more information regarding the exhibit, visit cooley.edu, call Tim Innes at (517) 371-5140, ext. 3303, or e-mail foreverfree@cooley.edu.