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DDH -The First, But No Longer The Last · Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast

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History is strange, it's alien, and it won't give us what we
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would like to have distracted governments.
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The headline at billmick.com and if you open that link, it will
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show you links to Dave Bowman, his Dave Does History, What the
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Frock Podcast, The Dave Bowman Show and the like.
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And of course, you can find all of those on the iHeartRadio app,
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and we would ask you to make those along with Bill, Mick Live
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and WMNB, your initial precepts there on the iHeartRadio app.
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So we're right there at your fingertips, ready to go whenever
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you are. Dave, we're taking a look at a
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little presidential history that is being remade for the first
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time in this administration. Tell us where we're going this
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morning, buddy. You know, Speaking of
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distractions, governmental distractions can.
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You hang on. I got a button that's sticking
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again. There we go.
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Now you're back. Well, Speaking of governmental
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distractions like buttons and stuff, Grover Cleveland is one
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of the, I think he's one of the most interesting presidents in
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our country's history primarily because of the distractions that
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went on around him, many of which we still don't even know
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all the story of today. He holds the distinction, by the
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way, today is his birthday, Grover Cleveland's birthday, and
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he holds the distinction of being the 1st president to serve
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2 non consecutive terms. He was both the 22nd and the
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24th president. So up until up until recent days
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he was the subject of my favorite joke on the TV show
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Archer. Grover Cleveland called left two
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non consecutive messages, so I made him a great trivia
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question. He won the presidency in 1884,
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was lost in 1888, and then came storming back for a second round
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in 1892. Until recent days, no one had
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ever done that, not even Teddy Roosevelt.
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And there's some debate about whether Donald Trump lost in
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2020 or not. I mean, we could leave that for
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another day though before we had.
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Enough days already. We we fought that battle.
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It's over. Before all that, though, the
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scandals, the political fights, the relentless vetoes, Cleveland
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was just a guy from New Jersey. He was not from Cleveland, OH.
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He was born this day, as I said, March 18th, 1837, grew up in a
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modest household and was forced to leave school when his father
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died. He took a bunch of odd jobs to
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support his family. He was not some rich aristocrat.
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He worked his way up, eventually found his way to Buffalo, NY,
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which is a fascinating story of how he got to there and why he
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got to there. He studied law, got involved in
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politics not as a flashy big talking politician, but as a no
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nonsense reformer who actually meant what he said.
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But here's what makes him really stand out.
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He was the first and only president to actually carry out
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an execution. Yes, you heard that right.
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During his time as sheriff of Erie County, New York, he didn't
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just oversee justice, he enforced it.
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He was responsible for the hangings of two convicted
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murderers. And instead of passing the grim
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duty off to some, you know, flunky, as most sheriffs did, he
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pulled the lever himself because he believed that if he was, if
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you were going to order it, he needed to take the
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responsibility for it. That's a level of accountability
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you don't often see in politics. So how does this tough, no
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nonsense sheriff become a reform mayor, a reform governor, and
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eventually A2 time president? Why did people love him, then
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hate him, then love him, and then hate him again?
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Buckle up. Grover Cleveland's story is far
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more interesting than you've LED been LED before.
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And we'll talk about it in 60 seconds on Bill Maher Live they
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Bowman with Dave does history on Bill Mick live talking about
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Grover Cleveland so popular, not popular, popular again.
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The the thing Donald Trump's going to have over Cleveland
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when this is all said and done is that he was vilified every
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day of of his political life. Well, in many ways, so was
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Donald. So has been Donald Trump.
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I mean, that's. What I'm talking about Trump is
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yeah. So was Cleveland in many ways.
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And, and again, Grover Cleveland's one of those people.
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We know, many of us know that he was president.
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We know the name, but we don't really know much about him.
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There's a fantastic book called A Secret Life by Charles
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Lachman, who was the same guy that wrote the book.
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We talked about the U5O5 last summer.
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One of his earlier books was about Grover Cleveland to see A
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Secret Life. It's a very good book.
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And I found myself as I was reading it, very surprised
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because if you know how I read books, I I read a sentence and
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then I start pulling on those strings.
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I chase that thing down. And so it takes me a while to
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get through some things. And there are some fascinating
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stories about Cleveland and his family and that that have
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nothing to do with his presidency.
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Grover Cleveland went to Buffalo, NY as a young man.
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Because in that era, I know this sounds strange to us, Bill, but
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in that era, Buffalo, NY was the frontier of New York.
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I mean, it was, it was the equivalent of going to the Wild
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West. It was a town that was just
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beginning. It was beginning to grow the
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Erie Canal the whole night. It was really just starting to
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become important to New York. And it was a place where a young
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man could go, a young single man who really liked beer and eating
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could go and make a name for himself.
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And so he ended up there and, and through a long process, he
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becomes the the mayor of that town.
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He's not a flashy speaker. He's not, you know, a political
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elite. He didn't have the charm of a
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Lincoln or the charisma of a Roosevelt, but he had an
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obsessive commitment, talk to honesty and to reform.
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He becomes mayor of Buffalo in 1882.
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The city is just drowning in corruption.
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The local government, they're just essentially a marketplace
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of political favoritism. They're bought.
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They're sold like bottles of beer.
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He doesn't just promise reform, he delivers it.
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He vetoes a crooked street cleaning contract.
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You know, some of the stuff that's going on in New York
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right now with, with Governor Hochul and the, the, the home
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care stuff, Cleveland would have killed that.
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He would have called it a barefaced, impudent and
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shameless scheme to RIP off taxpayers.
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That's the kind of blunt honesty you want.
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And we haven't seen a lot of until the Department of
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Government Affairs. He he became known as the veto
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mayor, and that reputation would follow him all the way to Albany
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when he became the governor of New York.
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There he kept up his relentless veto streak, blocking shady
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spending bills, refusing to play patronage games with Tammany
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Hall, which was of course New York's powerful Democrat
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machine. This made him very popular with
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ordinary voters and more importantly, reform minded
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Republicans. But it made him a lot of enemies
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in his own party, which would seem like the kind of thing that
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would kill a political career, right?
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But until you. Get recent history, yeah.
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But he will eventually take this the same approach as president.
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He vetoes more than 400 bills in his first term alone.
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Wow. That's more than all the
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previous presidents up to that point combined.
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Why? Because he believed government
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should be frugal and limited. Kind of like this guy.
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He despised wasteful spending. You know, like USAID.
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Reanimate him. Well, again, keep in mind that
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he was loved, then hated, then loved, then hated.
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So anyway, he vetoed a bill to provide the relief form for
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Texas farmers who are suffering from a drought.
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He argued that quote, though the people support the government,
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the government should not support the people, UN quote.
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I like it. He got himself embroiled along
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the way, though, in a little bit of a scandal.
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Now, I'm not going to go into all the salacious details of
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this, but the important thing to remember is that Grover
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Cleveland was a single male and he was very much a, what's the
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term, dude, bro, whatever. Liked his beer, liked to eat,
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liked to party. And along the way, there was a
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child. And what the status of that
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child is or was is still debatable even today.
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But as he began his run up to the 1884 presidential campaign,
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the chant began to to come from Republicans.
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Because remember that Cleveland is a Democrat.
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And so whenever he would show up to give a speech, whenever he
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would appear in public, there were a group of people who would
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out stand out in the the audience and they would chant,
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Are you ready? Ma, Ma, where's my paw?
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Because he was accused of not not only producing a child, but
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abandoning this child. Now today, would that be a big
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deal? Would would anybody even care?
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Would anybody even notice? Probably not.
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But in 1884. He's a Republican.
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Yeah, yeah. In 1884, this is a different
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deal. This is a different country.
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It's a different, I don't want to say moral standard, but but
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things are a little bit different.
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And so Cleveland bristles at this.
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He doesn't. He doesn't like this, but he
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can't really acknowledge it because if he does, then he's
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giving them what they want, you know, kind of like Schumer.
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And so this chant continues. But the problem the Republicans
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have is that this veto mayor, this veto governor, this anti
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corruption governor who's running for president is very
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popular. And of course in 1884 he will
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win the election and he'll start his first term in 1885.
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It goes good. For a while, for a little while.
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We'll see where it goes. What happens after that, as Dave
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does. History continues right here on
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Bill Mick, live on WMNB. This is Dave Does history on
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Bill Nick live. Dave Bowman with us throughout
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the day, The hour brought to you by the McPherson Financial
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Group. We're taking a look at Grover
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Cleveland, the 1st president to win an election, serve, lose the
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election when his term was up, and then find his way back into
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the White House again. If it sounds familiar, it kind
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of is, at least according to the current presidency.
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Dave, he won that first term and you said he was successful, at
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least for a while. Well, again, he comes in as very
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anti corruption. So just to kind of wrap up, you
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know, going into the election thing there, ma, ma, where is
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Pennsylvania? That's the kind of thing that
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today would be devastating to a politician.
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But in 1880. It wasn't Gary Hart.
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Yeah, in 1884, the campaign was being run against a guy by the
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name of James G Blaine, who was from the state of Maine.
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Now, Blaine's one of those guys that we know from history
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because he was actually one of the leading candidates when in
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1860, when when Lincoln won, Blaine was kind of rejected by
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the Republicans because he was known for being extremely
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corrupt, even to the Republicans.
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And so you've got this anti corruption Cleveland, this well
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known corrupt guy from Maine. And in fact, that's what the
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Democrats started chanting in reply to Ma.
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Ma, Where's Pennsylvania? They would chant Blaine, Blaine,
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James G Blaine, the Continental Liar from the state of Maine.
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Oh wow, I like it. Yeah, it's it's a different
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world. We should bring back political
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chanting. Anyway, Cleveland never denied
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that the kid was his, but he never admitted it either.
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He just sort of said it might be, but this was in an era
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before blood tests and paternity tests and all that kind of
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thing. And somehow or another that
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played off as being very honest. So you had this honest guy, this
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corrupt guy, and America went for the honest guy to become
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president of the United States. In 1885, Grover Cleveland
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becomes president of the United States.
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He comes in with the same attitude that he's had as mayor
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of Buffalo and as mayor of governor of New York.
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He is going to fight corruption. He believes that the federal
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government should be small, efficiently efficient, and
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absolutely not in the business of handing out favors.
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He becomes known as the veto president, as I said, 400 vetoes
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in his first term, some of which, as you can imagine, kind
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of made people mad. One thing that he vetoed were
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massive land grants to railroads.
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Again, this is a different era. Remember, railroads were kind of
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a monopoly almost kind of thing, but they were taking over land
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all across the country. But where were they getting this
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land? Well, the government was giving
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it to him. And remember that West of the
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Mississippi River, most of the land, or much of the land
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anyway, is owned by the federal government.
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So the federal government just started giving land to
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railroads. Well, Cleveland put a stop to
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that. He said no, you can pay for it
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like everyone else. He stopped wasteful spending
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bills that he believed were being written just to reward his
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political allies. He didn't like that he vetoed a
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private pension bill for Civil War veterans who did not
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actively serve in combat. So in other words, if you had
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been in the Civil War but not in combat, he believed you did not
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deserve a pension, and so he vetoed that bill.
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That was not exactly a popular stance, and nor was it a popular
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stance to veto a bill that should have helped some Texas
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farmers who were suffering from a drought and these kind of
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things. There was being, there was a
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shift in what is known as the Progressive Era, the gold, the
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gilded era, where this idea that the government was supposed to
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help people as opposed to not helping people.
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Well, Cleveland might have been a bit of an anachronism and that
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he still felt that the government wasn't supposed to do
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that. And so when he vetoed these
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bills, it became, well, controversial.
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Back to Dave Bowman, and Dave does history with a look at
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Grover Cleveland. Now for all of these
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controversial vetoes that he performed, the biggest issue
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that got him well hated was when he said in 1887 at his State of
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the State of the Union address. These words quote when we
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consider that the theory of our institutions guarantees to every
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citizen the full enjoyment of all the fruits of his industry,
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it is plain that the exaction of more than this is indefensible
16:14
extortion and a culpable betrayal of American fairness
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and justice. UN quote.
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Politicians don't talk like that anymore.
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And so if I translate this into 2025 English, the government
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should only take from the citizens what it absolutely
16:33
needs, not hoard cash to be used for political favors, is what he
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was saying. And the biggest issue he saw,
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Cleveland believed, was the tariff issue At the time.
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In 1887, tariffs on imported goods were the primary way the
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federal government raised revenue.
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Remember, they did not have an income tax then.
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High tariffs have been in place since the Civil War to protect
17:00
American industries, but by the 1880s, they were bringing in so
17:04
much money that the government was running a massive budget
17:07
surplus. And of course, when the
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government has money, what does it do with that money?
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Spends it spends. It on crap wastes.
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It uses it to buy more power. Cleveland believed that this was
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an unfair taxation and that the government was taking far more
17:27
from the people than it needed to, and so he made that
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statement during his 1887 State of the Union address.
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He began to push very hard for lowering tariffs, which of
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course put him at odds with big businesses and industrialists
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who loved high tariffs because they protected American
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manufacturers from foreign competition.
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The more things change, Bill, the more they stay the same.
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In 1888, this will become probably the issue in the
18:04
political campaign. Benjamin Harrison, the
18:07
Republican candidate for the White House, The tariff issue
18:12
becomes very important. And of course, the people are
18:21
unhappy right now because he has vetoed this Civil War pension.
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How many Civil War veterans were there that didn't actually serve
18:29
in combat? Probably three to four more
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times more than there were who actually served in combat.
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So now all those people are being told, well, you don't get
18:39
a pension. There is no government
18:41
assistance in the face of disasters.
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These are the kind of things that, while they seem popular,
18:48
have become problematic. The Republicans push the tariff
18:53
issue, there's anger from the veterans over the the the
18:57
pension issues, and there's a bunch of corrupt Republicans.
19:00
They basically buy the state of Indiana for the for the
19:04
Harrison. And while Cleveland will
19:07
actually win the popular vote by 90,000 votes, he gets crushed in
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the Electoral College, losing even New York, his home state.
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And so he is defeated, clearly defeated, unlike other people
19:22
who may have been defeated, but it's still arguable.
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But but the point is he's out of the White House by this time.
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He's married and his wife tells the staff don't change anything.
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We'll be back in four years. Oh, you got to love the
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confidence of the wife. And apparently it played out.
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We find out as Dave does. History continues as we close a
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Tuesday here. When we come back on Bill Mick
19:44
live, don't forget with the Florida Round Table this
19:47
weekend, we're going to be taking a look at jobs in the
19:49
trades for you, your kids, your grandkids and making a living
19:53
without having the burden of the college alone.
19:56
That would be a good idea. Anyway, that's ahead this
19:59
weekend on the Florida Round Table podcast for our show and
20:01
the Round table at the top of the page at billmick.com.
20:05
Bring in Dave does history to a close at your opportunity to
20:08
weigh in with questions or comments for Dave a little bit
20:10
later in the segment. So Dave misses Cleveland says,
20:16
yeah, don't change the curtains. We'll be back in four years.
20:19
Misses Cleveland, that, that's part of the story we didn't
20:22
really get into. Grover Cleveland is also the 1st
20:25
president to get married in the White House, so there's that.
20:29
And she was quite young and by that point he was much older.
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So another political scandal, Who knows?
20:38
But you're right, she was pretty.
20:40
Confident, he maintained his reputation even in marriage.
20:45
Yeah, yeah, he was quite the quite the dude, quite the bro.
20:49
OK, so you'd think you get beat. He did win the popular vote by
20:55
90,000 votes, got crushed in the Electoral College.
20:59
You would think that in that era, you just kind of fade away
21:03
and go, go away. Seems like that's what should
21:07
have happened. But Cleveland never really
21:09
thought of himself as defeated. He never looked at that election
21:12
as I lost. He kind of looked at it as I
21:15
won. And it's unfair that I'm not
21:17
still president of the United States.
21:21
And so he continued to not necessarily campaign, but
21:27
circumstances kind of change. Benjamin Harrison, not one of
21:31
our better known presidents, not one of our well noted
21:35
presidents. The economy really started to to
21:39
tank. They raised the tariffs that we
21:41
talked about and that kind of caused higher consumer prices
21:45
and and crashed the economy. It angered farmers and working
21:48
class people. The treasury surplus that that
21:52
Cleveland had worked so hard for got spent on crap.
21:58
So all of a sudden the government didn't have any
21:59
money. They needed more money.
22:00
It had to raise taxes. The Republican Party ends up
22:03
divided. That that guy we talked about,
22:07
James Blaine, he tries to run again.
22:10
He tries to run for the nomination again against against
22:13
Harrison. He splits the Republican Party.
22:16
Meanwhile, Cleveland is working hard on uniting the Democrat
22:20
Party on his side, getting them back, getting back to a platform
22:24
of economic conservatism, lower tariffs, anti corruption, which
22:30
he's still all about. And he really appeals to
22:34
mugwumps, which are Republicans who are more reform minded.
22:42
And so they begin to say, well, you know, maybe that maybe that
22:44
Cleveland guy wasn't so bad, right?
22:49
And when the next election comes about, he crushes Harrison.
22:53
2/22/77 to 1:45 and so becomes becomes the 1st president to win
23:01
new non consecutive terms. He will not be the last.
23:06
But the second term does not go well.
23:09
The economy continues to struggle.
23:11
You have the panic of 1893 which causes a lot of bankruptcies,
23:16
bank failures, massive unemployment.
23:18
But think you know, we, we always hear about the Great
23:21
Depression. The Great Depression was the
23:23
worst thing that ever happened. And then 2008 was the worst,
23:26
worst economy since 1893 was probably worse.
23:33
Because he was such a believer in limited government, he
23:38
refused to intervene. He stuck to the gold standard,
23:42
which again, we debate this even today, the gold standard issues
23:46
there. But there are there are
23:48
advantages and disadvantages to the gold standard.
23:51
There are advantages and disadvantages to Fiat currency
23:54
versus specie currency. People tend to get in one camp
23:57
or the other and they won't acknowledge that there are
24:00
disadvantages and advantages. Well, Cleveland was the same
24:03
way. He got into that camp.
24:05
He stuck to his guns, man. It didn't work.
24:09
He vetoed relief efforts. He had a laissez faire approach.
24:13
It kind of made him look cold and out of touch, especially to
24:17
struggling farmers, factory workers, and eventually in 1894,
24:22
the Pullman strike. Cleveland sent federal troops to
24:27
break up strikes. And that was pretty much the
24:30
final straw that made him deeply unpopular.
24:33
And by the time the the next election rolled around, he was
24:37
so unpopular that he didn't even bother to try to get the
24:43
nomination again, thus leaving office as the well to this point
24:51
only president to leave office. Deeply unpopular twice.
25:00
I had an argument with with my AI thing about that earlier.
25:03
But here's the thing, I guess Cleveland's honesty was his
25:06
greatest strength, but it was also a weakness.
25:10
He, he wouldn't play the game of politics.
25:12
And this is what we were talking about earlier about the
25:15
incremental wins and, and things like that.
25:18
He thought if something was wrong, whether it was wasteful
25:20
pensions, corrupt political machines, government handouts,
25:23
he vetoed it, regardless of how unpopular that would make him
25:28
and cost him the election, which means he wasn't in a position to
25:31
be able to do anything about it. That kind of integrity is rare
25:35
in politics. But the question is, did it make
25:39
him too rigid for his own good? The legacy is very complicated.
25:44
He did reform the civil service, but for how long?
25:49
He fought corruption, he fought patronage, he stood against
25:51
imperialism. He refused to annex Hawaii when
25:55
many in Congress wanted to. But his rigid economic policies,
25:59
particularly in 1893, made him deeply unpopular.
26:04
He was a fiscal conservative, which I think most of us today
26:07
would like. He believed in limited
26:08
government, which I certainly do.
26:11
He was against pork barrel spending.
26:14
Would how would that play today? Is there anybody on the
26:17
political scene that maybe resembles Cleveland?
26:23
What do you think? In any case, Grover Cleveland,
26:27
born this day, March 18th, became the 1st president to
26:32
serve non consecutive terms, but he wasn't the last.
26:38
You want in here it's 3217681240 and we pick it up in a minute on
26:42
92.7 FM WMMB. Wrapping up Dave, does history
26:47
with Bill Mick live on a Tuesday morning.
26:49
Dave, does he remind us of anybody?
26:51
I'm thinking there's kind of a reversal of of fortunes here
26:55
with the second guy to do this with other consecutive terms,
26:58
Donald Trump. And I realize we're early in
27:00
Trump's second term, but he seems hugely more popular
27:07
potentially, but better suited to doing the job the second time
27:10
around and moving with the Department of Government
27:14
efficiency and these other things he's been doing at a
27:17
rapid pace. He learned the lessons of his
27:19
first administration and seems to be applying him better here
27:22
in the second one, at least to me.
27:23
It certainly seems that he came back to the White House with a
27:26
plan. This is what I'm going to do,
27:29
and we can discuss and debate that plan on another day.
27:32
I don't think Cleveland did. I think Cleveland came back into
27:34
the White House with the same ideas.
27:37
He never really seemed to learn the lessons of why he lost in
27:39
the 1st place, which you know, that plays into the whole thing.
27:46
Could he have won a third I. Told you so moment.
27:49
I told you my policies were better.
27:50
I told you my policies were working, put me back in.
27:53
So did the voters kind of know what they were getting when they
27:56
put him back in there? They thought they did.
27:58
They they were tired of the corruption then that came back
28:01
with Harrison. They were tired of the wasteful
28:02
spending. They were tired of those things.
28:04
What they didn't realize was that his policies, because they
28:06
were so rigid, because they were so, you know, personal would
28:10
lead to to bigger problems down the road.
28:13
And I don't think that he was flexible enough to change that
28:17
to. The phones, we go line one.
28:19
You're up with Dave Bowman on Bill Make Live.
28:21
Good morning. Good morning.
28:23
I love these discussions. Say awesome.
28:26
Anyway, we're about $37 trillion in debt more or less here in
28:30
this country. And I'm wondering if we were had
28:32
been on the gold standard, would that make a difference?
28:35
Would we, would we not have gotten into $37 trillion in
28:39
debt? Interesting question, Mario.
28:42
I don't have a clue, Davey. Any idea there?
28:44
Well, again, it's not really a discussion about gold standard
28:47
is as I said on many occasions, there are advantages and
28:50
disadvantages to both. And one of the disadvantages of
28:54
the gold standard specie currency is that it does not
28:57
absorb shocks. Well, when you combine that with
29:02
the progressive mentality, the mindset, the change in American
29:06
mindset, which was that the government is supposed to help
29:09
and support people, I It doesn't matter how much gold you have,
29:14
if you spend it all, you're still going to be a dead.
29:19
Isn't that the truth? Line one you're up on, Bill make
29:21
live. Good morning.
29:23
Hey, Bill, how are you? I'm good, darling.
29:25
Linda, what's the? Great benefit of President Trump
29:29
this time was he's more prepared.
29:33
He he was not from Washington. He didn't know the insurance and
29:38
outs of politics. And during these four years of
29:40
the Biden, he has had eyes and ears on the inside and it is
29:46
better prepared him. And he came in so prepared, so
29:49
focused, so organized, and all of us were tired of the
29:55
corruption. And his mega movement is huge.
29:58
Yeah. I think you hit on something
30:00
there, Jeannie, that he is focused on those things that we
30:05
believe should be corrected and he's taking steps to doing that.
30:08
So Dave may be a difference there in how Trump came in
30:12
versus how Cleveland came in in that second term.
30:14
Yeah, I, I didn't get much of her call on my end.
30:16
It kind of broke up. But I, I think that's the
30:19
biggest difference between Cleveland and Trump is that
30:21
Trump came back with a distinct plan.
30:25
This is what we're going to. And I, I think he spent four
30:28
years developing that plan and, and implementing.
30:32
I don't think Cleveland had a plan for a second term at all.
30:34
He just, he just thought he would pick it up and keep going
30:38
where he was. There was no flexibility.
30:40
There was no willingness to change.
30:42
And that I think that cost him some some ideology there and.
30:49
It's a question, as your notes close here, does Cleveland
30:54
stance on limited government resonate today?
30:59
I think it does. Does outside of those people who
31:02
are inside and dependent upon and thriving inside a
31:06
government? Outside of the people that are
31:08
protesting the top doge cuts, yeah.
31:11
Yeah, exactly. And, and I think that's playing
31:14
well with the American public right now.
31:16
It could be. And again, it's that
31:17
flexibility. Of course, we'd be remiss, Bill,
31:20
if we got out of here without discussing the biggest overhyped
31:24
myth about Grover Cleveland. We've got 40 seconds for you to
31:28
do it fired off. The Baby Ruth Bar was not named
31:31
after his daughter Ruth. It was actually named after Babe
31:34
Ruth. The company just didn't want to
31:35
pay royalties to him, so so they said it was named after
31:39
Cleveland's daughter. How terrible.
31:42
The Babe should have made some money off it.
31:43
Should have. I mean, they wanted his
31:47
endorsements in some places, right?
31:48
Didn't he make some endorsement money as a basketball?
31:50
Player. Yeah, he did.
31:52
Yeah, but not enough. Interesting.
31:54
Dave does history and I appreciate it.
31:57
And we'll get back on it next Tuesday, my friend.
31:59
Medal of Honor, Death. Hey, that'll be good.
32:06
Check out more stories from history@davedoeshistory.org.