Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Grover Cleveland

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore why Grover Cleveland is secretly incredibly fascinating.Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources and for this week's bonus episode.Come hang out with us on the SIF Discord: https://discord.gg/wbR96nsGg5

Grover Cleveland, known for being a president, famous for non-consecutive president. Nobody thinks much about him, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why Grover Cleveland is secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone because I'm joined by my co-host, Katie Golden. Katie, what is your relationship to or opinion of Grover Cleveland? We're tight, man. We're close. He's my boy. He's my home buddy, old Grovey. Old Grovey. We're going to talk about his real nickname later, so I'm pretty excited to get there.

Super Grover. No, I was very studious as a kid, except when it came to presidents. I could not will myself to care about old presidents. And, you know, you say Grover Cleveland, you say Howard Taft. They all blended together. And I just kind of like, okay, mutton chops, jowls, mutton chops, jowls. I don't know where one mutton chop ends and another jowl begins. I like know the main ones.

Like I can distinguish. I understand that there's two Roosevelts. One is the Teddy and one is the main ones. I can distinguish. I understand that there's two Roosevelts. One is the Teddy and one is the FDR. I get that. Abraham Lincoln, cool president. I'll learn about him all day. He's got that hat. It's really tall.

It's great. Andrew Jackson, hate him. We had to do a report on a president and our teacher was like, pick a president and read a book about him. And I picked Andrew Jackson because I was like, look at this fun guy with his wild hair. Wow, I was not ready for that. I was in seventh grade and I learned about war crimes. It's like the one time I made a serious attempt to really learn about a president, I had to read about war crimes.

And I was like, all right, I'm out. I'm out. I'm out. So I am excited because I feel like it's been roughly 20 years since I've tried to learn about a president. And I think it's time. It's time for me to learn about Grover Cleveland. I also feel like you were blessed by getting the Andrew Jackson full boat of terrible things early and not investing further time and further crimes against humanity by other presidents, you know? Because some kids try to learn all the presidents and memorize the order and then read history and find out that, oh, a lot of these guys are not entirely moral.

Okay, great. Whoops. You're not entirely moral. Okay, great. Whoops. Somehow in seventh grade, I read both this book on Andrew Jackson's war crimes and also parts of Howard Zinn's People's History. So I had my little mind exploded by learning. Yeah.

And yeah, and Grover Cleveland's, I have like a lot of relationship to him in my reading of history. I went from like thinking of him as a factoid to getting enthusiastic about him, to getting disillusioned about him, and then kind of back and forth again. And this episode is a portrait of a person with a lot of negatives. It's extraordinarily fascinating the way it's negative. But yeah, it's a person with negatives, for sure. The one fact that's probably most famous for him is that he served non-consecutive terms as president. He had two terms, but there was another guy in between. Who was the guy in between? A guy named Benjamin Harrison, who is the grandson of William Henry Harrison. who is the grandson of William Henry Harrison. So Benjamin Harrison didn't die, did he?

No. I mean, obviously he died, but he didn't die in office. Immortal. Immortal. He's still around. Yeah, he did one whole term and lived through it, yeah. Okay. By the way, folks, there's two past sifts about the obscure President Franklin Pierce and the not understood President Jimmy Carter. And so

if you want to hear those, you can hear those. And this is Grover Cleveland. Thank you to Da Coop Bears for suggesting it on the Discord. This roared to victory in the polls. And this is a guy that I'm excited to talk about. Yeah, I'm sorry if I'm being like a little rain cloud for people who are like just very much like president president fans. Our president heads out there who have posters of the presidents up in their rooms, boy band style posters of presidents. Right. There's two posters of Cleveland,

but they're apart from each other at the wall. There's Pikachu in the middle or something. Right. BTS, I don't know. President Pikachu. And our first fascinating thing about this topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. And this week that's in a segment called

numbers and stats, numbers and stats, numbers and stats with the best ball bat. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Whoa. Very good. Thank you. That name was submitted by Anthony, who is friends with James Amaz on the Discord.

So thank you, Anthony and James. We have a new segment every week. Please make a Massillion Wacky and Bad as possible, the names of it, and submit through Discord or to sifpod at gmail.com. The first number this week is three, because that is the number of times Grover Cleveland won a popular vote for president in a row. Three popular votes in a row he won. Mr. Popular. But so wait, you can win a popular vote and yet lose the presidency? I don't understand. Yeah, that is only a thing that's happened most of my life and in bad ways. But it happened once to Grover Cleveland. He lost the electoral college the second time he ran.

Was it Michigan? They lose Michigan. Florida? The key state was New York, which was the largest state at the time in terms of population. But did he win New York or lose New York? In his first election, the election of 1884, he barely defeated Republican candidate James G. Blaine. Cleveland is a Democrat all three times. Cleveland's victory hinged on winning New York. Then he lost the election of 1888 because he lost New York. He was against Benjamin Harrison, who became president.

And then he won the election of 1892 in a rematch with Harrison, plus a significant third party. Three races, he had two close wins and then a third bigger win, and then lost one electoral college. That's how you get non-consecutive terms with him. Now we say like Democrat, Republican, but that doesn't really track onto today's sort of political alignment, does it? Or is this post sort of like whip and swap? Good question. It mostly doesn't track with today's alignment. And it was still an era in particular when Republicans could somewhat accurately run as the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. They had just been presidents pretty recently, and that was a lot of their deal. And so Grover Cleveland was also the first Democrat elected

since before the Civil War, because Republicans did a strategy nicknamed waving the bloody shirt. They basically said, we're the union, Democrats are the Confederacy, don't vote for the Confederacy. But Cleveland was a Northern Democrat and a centrist in a way where he could win. During all his campaigns, he had a pretty consistent brand and set of policies. His brand was that he was considered an honest person and an anti-corruption person. His really guiding political thing, other than believing money should be backed with gold rather than silver. This was a big issue of gold or silver backing US currency. He was a hardcore gold guy. His true guiding principle as a president

is conservatism in the most general sense of not doing anything. Grover Cleveland resisted change, resisted spending money, resisted the government doing anything at all. And he famously told the public, quote, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people, end quote. How did that sound to the ears of the time? Because that sounds like very unappealing, right? Where it's like, oh, like, you support me, I'm not going to support you. But like, was it understood in a different way? and elected just a few decades later. But this is before we understood either of the parties to be a party of government should spend money and do things and have programs besides military, basically. And Grover Cleveland, more than even the presidents of his time, though, was a stick in the mud. He believed his job was to watch Congress pass bills and then veto them if they were unconstitutional looking to him or just too much money. He thought he was just a backstop

against the excesses of Congress. Yeah. Okay. Well, you know. Yeah. And so people kind of respected that on the level of like, at least it's what he really believes. Right. The government doing nothing I can kind of get on board with was a lot of people's take on Grover Cleveland. Right, right. Democrat or Republican at the time. Yeah, throughout his runs, he tended to draw some votes from the Republican opposing party because people said, well, at least he's not actively doing very much stuff.

Right. He's the, nah, don't want a president. And the, the wild number there, the number here is 414. 414. That is the number of laws vetoed by Grover Cleveland in just his first term. Wow, man,

his vetoing arm must've been sore. I got carpal tunnel from all the stamping, the big no stamp that he has, the presidential no. Just big banging sounds coming from the White House. Thump, thump, thump. The other wild number with that is 414 vetoes by Grover Cleveland just in term number one was more vetoes than all of the previous 21 American presidents put together. Wow. It was not that weird at the time that his belief was government shouldn't do anything for anybody, but it was weird how aggressively he was shooting down stuff. What was the philosophy then of what the government was there for just to maintain the

military? Was that the idea or was there any notion of what his function is other than being sort of a beaver dam to the flow of bills? Yeah, it was like military diplomacy and then big broad economic policy. The government was not there to subsidize things or to help humans financially, but it was there to adjust the trade tariff with other countries and support industries indirectly in those kind of ways, especially earlier on in American history, just to kind of manage imperialism. I see. The one thing the government would give you is Western land that used to belong to a native

person. I see. So it was like, nah, I don't want to until it came to like expansionism. That's, you know. Yeah. I feel like I'd be much more into a nah, I don't want a president if they literally did nothing. Right.

What is it? Manifest destiny was the idea? Yeah. And Cleveland also, again, his timing is he's president in 1884, again, 1892. So what's now the 48 US states was kind of mostly mapped out. And one of the forms his do-nothing sense of conservatism took is not annexing Hawaii. Oh, okay. Like in between his terms, a white American coup dethrones Hawaii's queen. And then under that, in between President Benjamin Harrison, they try to rush through an annexation treaty, but Cleveland gets inaugurated a second time fast enough to block the treaty. But at the same time, he also does nothing to put Hawaii's queen back on the throne. He

opposes that. He just lets the white American coup run Hawaii and get annexed later. Okay. So he's a really, I don't do anything. I don't annex them. I don't stop them. My job is to sit in an office and wait for Congress to spend money and then say no. So then what did he even do other than saying no to stuff? Did he do diplomacy and junk or did he just kind of sit there and eat a lot of what? What would be his drink of choice? Sarsaparilla or mead? Beer. Beer, cigars. Beer and cigars. I know that's not a drink, but it goes with it.

Well, it can be. He nominated Supreme Court justices. And in his second term, there was a massive financial panic. And that was the one time he tried to do some active laws. And then the Supreme Court justices he picked, who felt the same, don't do anything way, made his laws unconstitutional and stopped him, you know, which is a good bit. And he solved the diplomatic crisis with Great Britain involving territory in South America. He also did get a law through that made it so the president can fire anyone appointed by the executive branch. He's the reason presidents are in charge of removing their own cabinet member if they want to.

I see. Okay. He did some things, but he was basically the dominant centrist stick-in-the-mud guy of two decades, the 1880s and the 1890s. He should have been named Garfield. Oh, wow. Or Garfield should have been called Cleveland. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't know which happened first, Garfield the cartoon or Garfield the president or Cleveland the president. Oh, Garfield the president was first. Garfield the president was first, Garfield the president was first,

then the comic, and then Cleveland is what you're saying. 1800s Garfield strips about Hawaiian annexation and stuff. Like they're so dated now. Yeah, and Grover Cleveland, he was seen as above all else, kind of above all policy, being considered an honest man. Okay.

And we'll spend a lot of the show talking about him being a dishonest person. But his vibe was, it's like, whatever I think of this guy's policies, he is what he says he is. And he sticks to what he thinks. I've always thought that's like a strange kind of like thing. Because if someone honestly tells you like i'm gonna be the i'm gonna be the president that makes it a law that you have to eat turds and then he makes that law and then you have to eat turds it's like well at least he's honest but he just made us all

eat turds so that's not good i don't care that he's honest about his policy of making us eat turds. I get wanting an honest president, but really only an honest president who doesn't make you by law eat a big old doo-doo. And people were probably torn because Cleveland wins three popular votes, but most of them are really close. But either way, he and FDR are the only people ever to win more than two popular votes for president. FDR won four votes and elections in a row. But, you know, Grover Cleveland is the other one ever. And in this week's bonus show, we'll talk about other presidents who tried to win a non-consecutive term. It turns out that's hard to do, and a lot of guys have tried. I don't see how that has any relevance right now, but, you know, cool.

I'm really excited to talk about Cleveland's third run versus the third run happening now. It's so different. Anyway, the next number here is 1837. So well before his presidency. 1837, that's when Richard Cleveland and his wife, Anne, welcomed their fifth child, a son. Was it Grovey? It is. But the thing is, Richard, for work, he was the new minister at the time of a Presbyterian church in Caldwell, New Jersey. And Richard and Anne already had four children. I sort of assumed they'd done their favorite name ideas already. And when child number five comes along, they decide, hey, let's ingratiate ourselves with the parishioners of the church. And so they named

their son after the previous minister of the Presbyterian church in Caldwell, New Jersey. And the previous minister was a guy named Stephen Grover. Okay. Well, I mean, at least it's like, is that a relatively normal name at the time? As a first name, like Grover as a first name, it's not like it wasn't obviously a last name. So the thing is, this guy's full name on his, if he had a birth certificate, but in records or whatever, was Stephen Grover Cleveland. President Grover Cleveland's full name is Stephen Grover Cleveland. Yeah. Oh, okay.

And that's the start of a little takeaway number one. And that's the start of a little takeaway number one. Grover Cleveland's other name and personality was Big Steve. Ah, yeah, Big Steve. Friends and family called him Steve for really his whole life. And his drinking buddies called him Big Steve because of his size and his wild personality. Right. You can always count on Big Steve to do a mead stand. Pretty much, yeah. I don't think they were drinking mead at this time. We're at near the turn of the century. I

don't know that this is mead era. No. He hung out in especially German beer halls and Irish pubs and drank copious amounts of beer most nights for his whole 20s and 30s and kind of after. He was basically two people at the same time. He was an upstanding public figure and lawyer who went by his middle name Grover and was Grover Cleveland. And then he was a carousing lowlife named Big Steve at the same time. Was this like a Jekyll and Hyde situation where he would go by Big Steve when he's doing the tomfoolery and then go by Grover when he's doing the upright citizen stuff and then talk about himself in the third person where it's like, he's like drinking.

He's like, Grover's not here right now. And then it's like, oh, no, what crimes will Steve do? And he just has a lot of bratwurst. Like, that's it. There's no, it's fine. Have you ever seen someone slam down five bratwurst in five minutes? It is a crime. Yeah. I've eaten in front of a mirror. Sure. Yeah. A crime for the eyes.

and the party animal, Big Steve. He's a minister's kid in New Jersey, but at age four, his dad gets a new job at a new church and they move to Fayetteville, New York, which is near Syracuse in central New York state. It's like a party church or something? I'm getting there. And Steve is a relatively not notable kid, according to accounts. Apparently, he was a good student in school just by brute force working long hours and considered not smart as a kid. I have a problem with that because I feel like we have this idea of you're either smart or you're not, right? And it's not about hard work. But I think that the ability to study and work hard and do well in school is a definite form of intelligence. And it's like, you know, I think people love the sort of like innate genius story, like the Sherlock Holmes, kind of like they're just people who are born

and they're just like, there's numbers flying around their head and stuff. But yeah, just someone who works really hard and learns and is able to figure out things that don't just come naturally to them. It requires a lot of intelligence and developed skill. Yeah. And that's Grover Cleveland's whole life and career is he becomes known for long hours and diligence and is not considered brilliant, even though there's brilliance there. Until he became president, at which point he's like, well, that's it. I'm done doing work. Weirdly, even then, he would work long hours to just veto stuff. I think he felt like he was a

diligent goalie, just blocking shots. Yeah. He invented a veto machine like it was basically like a wheel that had a bunch of like mechanical hands that were holding stamps and you would like turn the wheel and be like stamp stamp stamp stamp stamp just no no no no no somehow it pollutes a lot too just because you know it's a it's a big smokestack yeah yeah run on coal yeah yeah and so steve is the fifth of nine kids not considered remarkable even though that's mean but then at age 16 his father dies oh dear in this era if you're you know a maleyear-old and you have a bunch of younger siblings, you need to quit school and go to work. That was the idea. Yeah, you're Papa now.

Exactly, yeah. His older siblings were okay, and he needed to support mom and the younger siblings. He tries going down to New York City to work as a school teacher. Then he quits and says, I'm going to move to the Western new boomtown of the 1850s. It's called Cleveland, Ohio. I'm going there move to the Western new boomtown of the 1850s. It's called Cleveland, Ohio. I'm going there. Oh, well, his name's already Cleveland. And it also turns out a distant ancestor named Moses Cleveland surveyed the future city and is the namesake of Cleveland, Ohio. Whoa. And his distant ancestor, Moses,

And his distant ancestor, Moses, parted the Red Sea and allowed the original Clevelands to walk from the Middle East to Egypt to Cleveland. The funny thing to me is Moses Cleveland only surveyed it, never stayed there. None of the family lived there. And then Grover Cleveland attempts to go find work in Cleveland, Ohio, but he gets a better offer on a stop part way. And so he stays in Buffalo, New York and doesn't go on to make his life in Cleveland, Ohio. He keeps almost being part of Cleveland, Ohio, Grover Cleveland. So yeah, that's cool. So he goes to Buffalo. He invents Buffalo wings. So that's the end of the story. Yeah, he's that winged bison on Buffalo. He invents Buffalo wings. So that's the end of the story. Yeah, he's that winged bison on the Buffalo Wild Wings logo.

You've seen sports commercials, folks. You get it. He turned into Big Steve, did genetic experiments on bison, gave him like sewed chicken wings onto them. And, you know, there you go. He was like going to go to Cleveland, but he has an uncle in Buffalo. His uncle offers him room and board and $10 per month. Hot dog. To help compile a book about breeds of cattle.

Yes. And he does a whole year of working on a cow book for his uncle and lives in Buffalo and proceeds to make a life and career there and rise to the presidency. We've all dreamed of creating a cow book for our uncle and then becoming president. It's the cows to riches story. And then Grover adopts a pattern that really dominates his adult life until he is all the way the president, which is that he is a bachelor lawyer who either works an incredibly long day at the law, and he became a lawyer by clerking at a firm and teaching himself law from the books there, and he's self-taught. It's very impressive. But he either spends the day working extraordinarily hard till two or three in the morning or working

a normal day and then binge drinking and eating the entire night until like two or three in the morning. He's all work or all party all of the time. Right. Does he take like an elixir that He transitions from Grover to Big Steve? Or is it like, you know, kind of... It really feels Jekyll and Hyde, and it will also be darker at one point later in the show, too. Uh-oh. The other thing that happens is he's just a big guy. He's almost six feet tall, and by his mid-20s, he's over 200 pounds. He's around 275 as president. He was our second largest president to Taft physically. He's what is known as a galoot,

which I think is actually like a big galoot, a galoot. I think the galoot community does say that it's okay to use the word galoot. It's simply so fun. Is I think generally accepted terminology. There's such good old-timey words for just a big fella, like a palooka or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But and so, you know, Grover Cleveland entered professional life at age 16. So by the young age of 22, he has now passed the bar and has been working and being basically an adult for many years.

Well, he's passed many bars. Why is this one special? It's true. And so in 1859, at the age of 22, Steve, which is what everybody calls him, he starts signing his name S. Grover Cleveland on legal paperwork because it just sounds smarter and more prestigious. Yeah. Who do you trust courtroom? Steve or Grover? Yeah. And then eventually he drops the S. Maybe it's just quicker to write. And so he sort of invents this person Grover Cleveland as he becomes a prominent Buffalo lawyer. Right. sort of invents this person, Grover Cleveland, as he becomes a prominent Buffalo lawyer, while also inventing the party animal in Buffalo's German beer halls of Big Steve, and is those two people for his whole adulthood.

Who's the mask in this situation, right? Because with Batman, we know that for Batman, like his Bruce Wayne persona is the mask and the real Batman is the real one. But like, is like he is Steve the real, the real, the real one? Is it Steve? Is he like where is Grover wearing a Steve mask or is Steve wearing a Grover mask? And it's just kind of both people. He really only slows down the big Steve personality when he is elected to major offices later in life. It takes decades. That we know of.

And kind of that too, yeah. Because, yeah, the next thing here about his life is takeaway number two. Grover Cleveland's rise to the presidency was extremely slow and then extremely fast with a few executions in the middle. Oh, geez. Yeah, this is his, we'll do his entire journey here now that we know the foundation of the Grover and Big Steve split personality. Man, I mean, most presidents just rise to the presidency through mergers and acquisitions, not murders and executions. That's from American Psycho, the movie book. Oh, man.

If it was a movie about Grover Cleveland, I'd be pretty excited. Man, can you? Yeah, just like an American Psycho-style movie, but about Grover Cleveland and Big Steve. Instead of him talking about records of the 80s, he's talking about a weird harpsichord player of the 1880s.

Like, this guy's amazing, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's Camptown Races. Anyway. Yeah, and there's a lot of sources for this episode. And some of the books are From Bloody Shirt to Full Dinner Pale by Professor Charles W. Calhoun of East Carolina University, The Forgotten Presidents by constitutional law professor Michael J. Gerhardt of UNC Chapel Hill, and especially a book called The President is a Sick Man by journalist Matthew Algeo. The journey of Grover Cleveland here, he will make an extremely sudden leap from total obscurity

to being the president. But there's a lot of weird decades before that. And it starts in 1862. He accepts a huge pay cut. It'll be half the income he had as a lawyer in order to become the assistant district attorney of Buffalo, New York. It's his first political position. And why did he accept this big pay cut? Was he really excited about the position? Was he promised he'd get to execute some people like Hunter style, where he could just like sort of hunt them down and rip them to shreds? We didn't say what his bratwursts were made out of.

Oh, no. But yeah, he was excited about it as a stepping stone to political office. And really early on in his life, he starts organizing for the Democratic Party in New York State and then doing a lot of Democratic Party stuff. He has designs on the presidency, which is interesting because it seems like he doesn't think a president should do anything. So he's like, I really want to be the guy that doesn't do anything. I really want to be the guy that doesn't do anything. Yeah.

And he also cannot get anywhere near that office for a very long time. Like he really seemed to be aiming lower and can't get there either. I see. So maybe he wanted local, maybe he felt like local government is supposed to do stuff and he did want to do that. And then like, he like basically stumbled his way up into the presidency. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The long weird years are he's assistant district attorney in 1862. He should have an easy run to replace his boss as the full district attorney in the next election. He's heavily favored and he loses. Then he returns to practicing law and partying.

And then in 1870, he runs for the lower profile office of Erie County Sheriff, Erie County in New York. And- Yeah, not just like an Erie Sheriff, not like a sheriff who sort of steps out of the shadows and is like, do you have a permit for that? Like, I don't hear sirens, but what do I hear? Da-da-da-da, snap, snap, da-da-da-da. Yeah. And so he barely wins the election for sheriff.

He serves one term. And he also weirds people out because there's a lot of sheriff duties that were considered ceremonial or like it's on paper, but you just delegate it. He insisted on doing every letter of the rules of being sheriff. And one of the duties was executing condemned criminals. Oh, so he did want to rip people up by hand. There are two separate occasions where he personally pulled the trapdoor lever for a hanging. Wow. Grow in Cleveland.

Yeah. Was he like excited to do it? Was this something like, you know, did he take this on with some kind of like sober, like, I should be the one to do it? Or was it like, cool? He was like publicly never excited was his deal. It was like people were like, I really admire this man who sternly sadly does what is correct. Right. Was his deal. Yeah. He was not fun. Even though he was called Big Steve in private. I mean, I'll preface this by saying like, I'm against the death

penalty. I don't like it. I've heard like this, like stuff about like oh if you if you uh are the one responsible for sentencing someone to death then you should be the one to have to do the execution right like have that on your conscience but then you would just have like then it would just be like serial killers would be judges and just be like yeah that guy's guilty let me kill him now I guess there is sort of something admirable about someone like not being afraid to do sort of like the dirty business of your job, right? The less glamorous aspects of one's job. But it is also super creepy. Like it is very disconcerting about just like a taciturn gal galoot who's like i would be the one to pull

the death trigger yeah sure like wwe's the undertaker he's kind of like that i mean but you know the undertaker is flamboyant in his own way right like in a kind of gothy way i feel like that there is a flamboyance there yeah big hat um hat. But yeah, his schtick is sort of like playing up that aspect of the sober galoot is an upsetting combination. And I apologize to the goth galoots out there. I know you exist. I see you. I hear you.

The goth galoots. Yeah. I see you and I hear you and you are valid. That's different because that's like a lifestyle choice. That's like a fashion way. I mean, like someone who's, but someone who's like genuinely taciturn, like Grover Cleveland, but he's also a galoot. And he also has control over life and death legally. That is spooky. It's a little spooky. Legally. That is spooky. It's a little spooky. That's right on. And the other thing people found spooky about him, more so than now, men were just expected to marry somebody and make a family if they had anything going on professionally. Like if you're not totally broke, you're supposed to get married, you're supposed to make a family. and really into his 40s he is a unmarried workaholic probably alcoholic lawyer in a small apartment in downtown buffalo new york like kind of a weird bachelor to people right but a respected weird bachelor was his deal right and people are like yeah you looking to

settle down i'm looking to settle down with the law it's like no i mean like you want to settle down? I'm looking to settle down with the law. It's like, no, I mean, you want to shack up with someone? I'm going to shack up with the law. Yeah. And so he wraps up as sheriff in 1873. And all the way to 1881, he's that person, just a bachelor lawyer. And also he has one huge scandal we'll talk about later in those years. Oh. Also, he has one huge scandal we'll talk about later in those years. Oh. 1881, he is an obscure Buffalo lawyer with a shady scandal. Three years later, he is president of the United States.

Oh. Three years later. And here's how that giant leap happens. In 1880, Republicans, the opposing party to Cleveland, they're dominating national politics. They're dominating Buffalo politics. And at the city level, the Republican Party is full of corrupt guys taking kickbacks and bribes. And they re-nominate those guys for the next election and for Buffalo mayor. And so the Democrats have been losing all the time and decide that they should run a, quote, aggressively honest candidate for Buffalo city mayor. Aggressively honest.

They have no other ideas. Let's run a guy who just seems honest and we lose every election these days. So I don't know. Just what about that? Punches you in the face with his honesty. Yeah. And they make a list of basically just who is a Democrat who lives in Buffalo and doesn't seem to take bribes. And they come up with local lawyer Grover Cleveland. Right. And Democratic officials interrupt a courtroom trial to ask this attorney Cleveland, who

is busy doing a trial, if he wants to run for mayor. And Cleveland's reaction is stick in the mud. He doesn't know. And he's like eating this still beating heart. And he's like, I have so many serious lawyer things to do. I don't know. Like that, but inert. He's just like, someone asked me if I want to run for mayor. Nope. Don't want to. A judge seems like an authority figure. I will turn to the judge and ask him. And the judge's response is,

you're an old bachelor with no family and you might as well run. On the basis of asking the authority figure in the room, he runs. Please get out of my courtroom. You are upsetting the vibes. You are a vibes killer. Yeah.

That twin brother of yours, Big Steve, now that's a guy I could have a beer with. Oh, wow. That question. Yeah. And so Grover Cleveland is just being a lawyer who barely wants to be in politics, but then they draft him to run for mayor and he wins the weird off-year 1881 election he spends less than one year as mayor of buffalo because basically the exact same pattern happens for the race for governor of new york state i see and he's elected governor in the fall of 1882 this is the it's like he is the only democrat at the time who is not taking bribes. And they don't have anyone else. It's like the Republicans are considered super bribe heavy, especially in New York State and in Buffalo.

And there are no prominent Democrats. So they just keep grabbing this guy who seems like he's honest. Yeah, that's it. He seems like he's more or less. What's his name? The Frankenstein, not the big Frankenstein from the Addams Family. Oh, Lurch. Yeah, he's kind of a Lurch.

Lurch. Yeah, yeah. He seems like Lurch, where he's just kind of looming ominously. Seems like he could swiftly kill you, and yet he has some kind of code he lives by that is keeping him from just devouring his fellow lawyers. But then it's like, you seem like a good politician. Yeah. And that pattern happens a third time in the next presidential election in 1884. Like when Grover Cleveland suddenly becomes governor of New York State, in his private letters, he says he hopes he can manage one successful term. He feels totally unqualified.

And he barely serves one term because he's drafted to run for president. The Democrats pick him as a compromise candidate instead of two more popular guys who are deadlocked at the convention. And then we'll talk about how weird that election is, but it's basically the pattern a third time in a row. So from random lawyer in 1881 to president in 1884, and also partly because he had New York State as his home state and was able to barely win it. So if he had settled down in Cleveland, Ohio instead of Buffalo, New York, he also might never have been president. So he really did need to ignore his name, this destiny of being in Cleveland. Right.

In order to- It seems faded. Yeah, it seems faded. And yet, I mean, did he have much charisma? I don't know really how important that was in terms of campaigning at this time. This was like before television and stuff. But my impression is they still gave like public speeches. He was not particularly charismatic and it didn't matter that much yet.

I see. In American politics. Like it could help if you were exciting, but he got away with it. Okay. So he could be lurch and it was okay. Yeah. Because like it seems like if he tried shaking hands and kissing babies, he'd just rip people's arms off on accident and be like, oops, sorry.

And then like try to kiss a baby. Just like, you know, that font. I'm just saying a baby's fontanelle is very delicate. And so Grover Cleveland becomes this like president of honesty reputation. That's two big takeaways about that. We're going to take a quick break, then come back with him lying a whole bunch for his whole career. Okay. Sweet.

I mean, God, really? A president lying? What? Yeah. A president lying? Tricks and frauds. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess.

This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year.

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Yay. Because takeaway number three. Grover Cleveland had two creepy interlocking romantic relationships and a lot of the public approved of it. Was it cousin stuff? No, it was one having a baby with a lady and possibly sexual violence. Oh, no. And then it was his friend's daughter becoming his wife. Oh, no. This is worse than cousin stuff.

Yeah. Because I feel like cousin Stuff at the time was relatively normal. I'm not saying Cousin Stuff is good. It's bad. I'm just saying at the time... Yeah, if any golf galoot cousins are listening, again, we... Look, I'm just saying at the time, Cousin Stuff was a little more normal. But as far as I understand it, but no, that sounds bad. That goes a step beyond Cousin Stuff. Yeah. And these two things were also well known at the time and celebrated in many corners. How? I know that stuff was messed up, but I guess marrying a friend's daughter is... We'll get into it. We'll get into it. I'm struggling.

So the first creepy one is a national scandal and probably the biggest presidential election political scandal to date when it breaks. And it was Grover Cleveland's relationship with a woman named Maria Halpin was an attractive widow about Grover's age who moved to Buffalo after he did. And she was the closest he came to a consistent romantic relationship with anybody. And she seems to have mainly had a relationship with Big Steve, not the lawyer Grover. Okay. Not with Grover. All right. She also allegedly had multiple romantic relationships at the same time, including with Grover's best friend, a fellow lawyer named Oscar Folsom. Okay.

I thought you were going to say she had multiple relationships. She was in a relationship with Big Steve and Grover Cleveland. Oh, yeah. That's how the novel would go, for sure. And she's confused and he changes at a phone booth. I'm making him Jekyll and Hyde and Superman, but it's okay. It's like the Pina Colada song, but with Jekyll and Hyde. But it's Grover Cleveland and Big Steve. Does that track? Pina Colada song, but Jekyll and Hyde, but it's Grover Cleveland and his alter ego,

Big Steve. If you like potion coladas. Solution coladas. Doot doot. The thing is, in 1874, it's one year after Grover Cleveland was the sheriff of the county. Maria Halpin has a baby boy and she names the baby Oscar Folsom Cleveland. Which is the names of Grover Cleveland and his best friend Oscar Folsom put together. I mean, hey, look, you know, I don't want to tell throuples what to do, but if you are in a throuple, that does seem the fairest thing to do when you have a throuple baby. Yeah, it's like plausible that there was some level of throuple, but then that was, you

know, not socially permitted. So the guys kind of buried her on it. Right. But it was plausible that they both knew and were cool with it, both the guys. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I'm not a polycule police officer, so I don't know what was going on. I'm just saying that would be – although, I mean, yeah, it's an interesting choice of hers, right?

Because she is basically implicating both of her lovers in the baby happening. Yeah, yeah. And by the standards of the time, she is outing herself as being non-monogamous, which is the worst for a woman, right? Like, she's being public about the idea that either of these guys could be the father. This was the perception, not that it was a rad lady with a harem of eligible galutes, eligible lawyer galutes, which sounds rad, right? She's got a harem- It's pretty cool. Of sensual lawyer galutes., no, at the time,

believe it or not, that was considered somehow bad for the woman. Just something funny about assembling a harem in Buffalo, New York. It's not the tropical locale that you think of with a harem, you know? It's great. They're all wearing Sabres hats, you know?

So I was thinking maybe I could join your harem there, ma'am. Right, right. Real good. I love making in a good chicken rub. Rub your chicken if you know what I mean. Shout out to our buddy Chet Wild. Buffalo's great.

Anyway. I don't know if that's a Buffalo accent. I've got to come clean. It felt pretty good. It's very Great Lakes, Buffalo. It's very Midwest Great Lakes, but it's in New York. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That was good. Yeah. Thank you. And so the thing about this baby is there was a lot of pretty horrible stuff probably in the background of it. Mainly that Halpin talks to the authorities and says, Grover is probably the father and there

was at least one instance of non-consensual sex. Oh, no, that's not good. Law enforcement does nothing with this accusation. And what happens also is Grover Cleveland and Oscar Folsom gang up on Maria Halpin. Okay. Yeah. And they get her committed to a mental asylum. I just would like one fun story of a polycule that does not, you know, involve, you know, women being assaulted and then thrown in an asylum to shut them up. But we did talk about, I felt like when we had the episode on frankenstein there there now there was a polycule that although there was drama i they no one got thrown in an asylum during that

one yeah this is sadder for sure yeah there's violence too yeah yeah there's violence she was wronged um yeah and i mean it takes a lot of uh chutzpah to like even just go to the police at the time and say like, hey, this man assaulted me. And of course, reward for her bravery is getting thrown into an asylum because that was like the way one could shut up a woman at the time legally. legally. And at this time, Grover Cleveland is a former county sheriff and local lawyer. So he has pull, especially with Democratic Party officials, but he's not powerful. It's just that the misogyny was that strong that he could just work that out. So did the accusation come out before he was president or after he was running for president? Perfect question. So this happens in 1874, and it's well-known to a lot of people in Buffalo, New York. And it's also partly well-known because Grover Cleveland does what is perceived by some people as the right thing. What happens is Grover Cleveland is a single man, and he says, I do not admit paternity, but I will provide for the child financially.

And people are like, wow, what a generous dude that he would step up in this way. They don't know the other horrible stuff when they're saying this. Right, right. And the message of that arrangement was that Grover's friend, Oscar Folsom, is married. And so it would ruin Oscar Folsom's life if Grover Cleveland does not bail the two of them out of this situation. So wow, Grover is saving his buddy and protecting this child and that lady's out of her mind. So Grover's an amazing guy was a lot of people's take on this story. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's an interesting way to conceive of the situation.

It's horrible. Yeah. And then the other thing is this is known to a lot of local people in Buffalo, especially because Grover's kind of promoting himself on it or something or like trying to look good. Right. something or like try to look good. But it doesn't become well-known newspaper news until the summer of 1884. So Grover Cleveland becomes mayor of Buffalo and governor of New York without this being an issue in the press. It's not an issue until the summer of his first presidential campaign. Okay. So it kind of comes out because he is becoming such a big figure in the press. It kind of comes out because he is becoming such a big figure in the press. Exactly. Yeah, like his rise was kind of so fast, the papers didn't catch up to it until he's fully running for president.

And then it becomes one of the biggest scandals of all time in American history to that point. There's newspapers recounting it. There's a political cartoon that becomes famous of a baby crying, Ma, Ma, where's my pa? While Grover kind of cowers. And there's a little ironic label on him reading Grover the Good. But no, he's not good. He did this thing.

Right, right. Yeah, no, I think I remember that cartoon. Yeah, it's in history books. It's like, this is big. Yeah. Yeah. And then what happens is you would think, especially in the 1800s, that would end Grover Cleveland's campaign, but he spins it perfectly by doing

what people perceive to be the right thing, which is that his campaigns are all sort of through surrogates and newspapers. And the story that gets out is that people asked Grover Cleveland what they should do about this scandal, like, oh, should we cover it up? And the story is that Grover just very simply and honorably says, tell the truth. That's the narrative about how Grover Cleveland handles this scandal. And people say, wow, what an honest and forthright guy. And then also Suri gets spread that cover story that he's not the father, but he's saving his buddy and he paid for the kid. Yeah, that's the thing. He's like, tell the truth, which is very flattering to me. So how is that? How is that seen as like, wow, how honest and also convenient that the truth is

very flattering to him. Exactly. So that's his very brilliant spin that either he or somebody else thought of, which is let's do a brand of honesty to my own personal harm and my huge embarrassment. But the story they're putting out is at best misleading, if not fake. But the story they're putting out is at best misleading, if not fake. I mean, to be fair, it is true that Grover did not have a baby with this woman. It was Big Steve. He drank a potion.

Yeah, yeah. I feel like the Jekyll Hyde joke is becoming less funny now that there's like a real like assault that may have occurred. Yeah. There's this messed up element of his real life. And then in like a lot of history books, you'll read about Grover Cleveland was mainly an honest guy is like the take on him. And he just super wasn't. He was pretty monstrous in this way. Yeah. I mean, I think it's propaganda of the time, right? Like this is like propaganda and campaigning stuff. And it's like, it's a really sticky, like you would think that history would sort of correct these things, right? Go back and be, you know, kind of say like, look, this was actually not exactly the case.

And, you know, like sort of, you know, like, oh, this person was such a humanitarian. It's like, actually, this person was terrible. But it doesn't actually just naturally happen. Right. Especially because I feel like Grover Cleveland is not so famous a president that like he does maybe like he avoids some of the scrutiny of modern historians or at least like popular history. Yeah, people don't really know. They kind of know the one thing that he had to

non-consecutive terms. The reality is so much more interesting. That's really kind of boring that he had two terms that weren't next to each other. It's not important. Right. And yeah, when he wins this presidential election in spite of a lurid love child story, Democrats almost kind of take pride in it. The Republicans had begun chanting a taunt of, Ma, Ma, where's my pa? And then Democrats co-opted and expanded to, Ma, Ma, where's my pa? Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha. It's like the celebratory chants. They're chants. They make a meal out of it.

They're like, yeah, it's awesome that Grover did this. It's cool. We all know. It's great. The other interlocking relationship is Grover Cleveland has a relationship with a woman named Frances Folsom. One year after the Love Child scandal, Grover's best friend Oscar Folsom is killed in a horse and buggy crash. Wow, yeah. I guess, you know, you don't think about it, but horses and buggies, they also had accidents, which could be deadly. You know, like a car accident. Yeah, it was like that violent. And so there was that. And what happens is Grover says, yeah, I should really take care of my buddy's widow named Emma Folsom and more time with the daughter of his buddy. Uh-oh. But then he's also still a bachelor, and he's the second and last person to be elected president as an unmarried person. Two of the first people he invites to visit him in the White House are Emma Folsom and Frances Folsom.

The papers say, I'll bet he's going to marry the age-appropriate widow, Emma Folsom. This is so exciting. And then he proposes by letter to 21-year-old Frances Folsom. He's 49 at the time. And it's the one and only presidential wedding in the White House. They get married in the blue room while he's the new president of the United States. Yeah. And she is basically all the charisma of the rest of his political life. She's beloved. She's seen as like a Jackie Kennedy, Princess Di, wonderful figure.

Right. But she was 10 when he met her. Yeah. He kind of took her under his wing. That's, yeah. So it's just like bad vibes of that. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit of the old Woody Allen thing of like, well, we didn't get married until she was an adult, but it's like, yeah, but you've known, you've had her as sort of a daughter figure since she was very young. So that's weird. Exactly. And at the time, the country was like,

this is a fairytale wedding. The president married a beautiful young woman in the White House. They thought it was like the Michael Douglas movie where he's a president who falls in love. They really were blown away by how great it was. There was not much. I think the concept of like childhood, especially for women where it's like, you know, hey, maybe like if you have a parental relationship with this child, like having it turn into like a marriage is weird. That like I think that was, you know, less of a concept at the time because there was also just like this very much more of a paternalistic aspect to marriage too, where it's like, well, you know, the father like hands over the daughter to the husband from being the father's property to the husband's property. So why not just skip the middleman? Exactly. Like, yeah, the Maria Halpin story, there were people who objected to it and there were far fewer objections to Francis Folsom becoming First Lady Frances Cleveland. People were like, great. Oh, he didn't marry the age-appropriate widow? Even better, he got a young lady. Cool. This is so neat. Really great.

Again, the historiography on Grover Cleveland until recently was, wow, what an honest guy. Yeah. Real quick, we have a final big takeaway number four. honest guy. And real quick, we have a final big takeaway number four. Grover Cleveland had secret surgery on a tumor in his head while president. Huh. Okay. I was going to call him Groomer Cleveland, but I guess we could also call him Tumor Cleveland. Wow. So many names for Big Steve in this episode. Wow.

So many fun names like Groomer and Tumor. Yeah. I like that he's not even the most famous Grover anymore. It's Grover from Sesame Street, you know? But yeah, anyway. Man, Grover from Sesame Street. I really hope he's a stand-up guy in real life. You know what I mean? Like, I hope that nothing... He's got to be. Got to be. Like, I hope nothing comes out about old Grover, because he taught me about adverbs. So I'd be devastated if there was an expose about Grover from Sesame Street.

Like, I just hope he's kept his red little nose clean. Purple nose? It's purpley red? I don't remember. Adverbs are ruined for me. I can't use them anymore. And then your writing gets so much better because of that rule, you know? Yeah. Yeah, Grover Cleveland, it's one of the weirdest US historical stories. And I have also seen a specimen of this tumor. It's held at the Mutter Museum of basically medical curiosities in Philadelphia. Did you get to smell it? No, it's in a little jar. Yeah.

Oh. Yeah. So I've seen a piece of Grover Cleveland. You know, like how bags of coffee have like the squeeze and smell little thing, like a little button on it where you can like press on it, give you a little whiff of the coffee. I feel like the Muttner Museum should have that, but only with Grover Cleveland's tumor. That's Cleveland. Say as if it's a fresh cup of coffee.

Anyways, I'm sorry. The morning I wake up. Anyway, all right. The best part of waking up is Cleveland in your cup. That is very like, remember the Folgers commercial where it was like the brother and sister? Anyways, we've come full circle to the weird Cleveland marrying his friend's daughter stuff. But so where were we? Tumors.

He got a secret tumor secretly removed. He got a secret tumor secretly removed. Yeah. And the particularly amazing account of this is the book, The President is a Sick Man by Matthew LGO. Oh, nice. And that title means he's a liar and ill all at once. He's a liar. He's ill.

He groomed a 10-year-old. Yeah. Because the quick version is, this is in 1893. The quick version is, this is in 1893. So Grover Cleveland won his second election in 1892, takes office at the start of 1893. And a bunch of stuff is happening all at once because Grover's inaugurated as president. His political opponent is his vice president. That happened back in the day.

It was like this weird compromise thing that happened. Yeah, it was a fellow Democrat, but the party was split on gold or silver to back money. So they picked a silver Democrat named Adlai Stevenson, who's the ancestor of a guy who runs for president against Eisenhower twice, also named Adlai Stevenson. So Grover Cleveland's vice president is his political opponent on economics. And right as Grover takes office, the United States experiences its worst ever economic crisis, which is later called the Panic of 1893. And this was the point at which Grover was like, oh, maybe I should do something. And then his own Supreme Court was like, but you said not to do anything. Right?

Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's the one time he tried to do stuff, but he had laid too much of a foundation of not doing stuff. So, well. I didn't think the leopards not doing stuff party would not do stuff to me. Wait, that doesn't really. Oh, just a cute leopard being very polite.

It's just Garfield. That's a feature. It always comes back to Garfield. Yeah, this crash is only not famous because of the Great Depression a few decades later. Right, kind of overshadowed it, stoltz thunder. It was a few bank failures and crop failures caused other dominoes to fall. It's thunder. It was a few bank failures and crop failures caused other dominoes to fall.

Soon, 500 banks closed with no deposit insurance. Yikes. About 15,000 businesses fail. Unemployment reaches 25% in Pennsylvania, 35% in New York, 43% in Michigan. And so the entire national economy is collapsing. Grover Cleveland can't trust his vice president, and he feels a rough spot on the roof of his mouth when his tongue touches the roof of his mouth. Was it peanut butter, Alex? Was it peanut butter? He had doctors check.

They tasted it. No, they didn't taste it. But so basically immediately after starting his second term, the country's falling apart and Grover is having doctors come by secretly to check on his mouth. They think it's probably a malignant tumor. Secretly incredibly malignant. Oh, it's sim. Also, most doctors in this era are quacks. It's a very bad time.

But what Grover decides to do is lie to everybody and have secret surgery on a fake vacation. So they exploit the Fourth of July weekend, and Grover says, I'm going to do a fishing trip like I often do. But what they do is they put him on a yacht in Long Island Sound very publicly. He's waving at the press. They had secretly brought a six-person surgical team onto the boat when no one was looking. And then they remove a tumor from the inside of his head on a boat in Long Island Sound with 1893 medical technology. Oh my God. Where was this tumor? Was it a brain tumor? Was it a brain tumor? Was it like a sinus tumor? Because you were saying there was like a

rough patch on the roof of his mouth that seems like not quite brain area. We partly kind of don't know because understanding of cancer was not great, but this is the vibe of like a throat cancer or a you smoked a lot cancer. All those cigars. It was the whole left side of the roof of his mouth and his palate, you know, the palate in there. Oh, okay, yeah. He described it to people as his cigar chomping side of his head.

Okay. So it might have been tobacco related, yeah. We don't know for sure, though. Well, that makes sense. And the surgeons just luckily do an amazing job. They remove most of his upper jaw and palate. He had ordered them to do it a harder way that doesn't leave any visible scars because he's going to lie to people about this ever happening. And then they do a second whole surgery to put a rubber prosthesis where there used to be tumor. So his like head will look like it looked before more or less. Right. Yeah. I mean, this was like, this was a time where a president having any kind of physical ailment was seen as super taboo. Yeah. Because like, didn't that, like FDR spent a really long time trying to hide his physical disability from the public. And it was a huge deal that time where

he was like photographed with that little girl, I think, where he was in his wheelchair. Exactly. And this ends up being part of a trend of presidents lying about illness. Woodrow Wilson had a major stroke and they just kind of didn't tell people. And so Cleveland's not the only one, for sure. And yeah, and Cleveland proceeds to do fake fake i'm still on a vacation stuff like they bring him to cape cod to a mansion to recover and they let the press look at him from a very far distance and he like goes on the beach and waves sometimes it's comedy stuff so weird like here would you like to see the president uh yes i would like. Oh, well, you will have to use this telescope. It's a presidential viewing telescope.

Also, don't use that telescope. You'll see the marks from the surface. Take it away. Unfortunately, one reporter finds out about all this and reports it. Matthew Algeo's book details how Cleveland and his surrogates ruined the reporter's life rather than admitting it. Did they like throw him in an asylum or something? They accused him of just massive fraud and got him like fired and ruined. Yeah. Right.

And bad reporting. And they only started telling people about this in 1917. One of the doctors wrote an article admitting they did the secret surgery. So about 25 years later. So is this reporter like, did they apologize to this guy? Like, hey, sorry, Doctors wrote an article admitting they did the secret surgery. So about 25 years later. So is this reporter like, did they apologize to this guy? Like, hey, sorry, you did tell the truth about this? Or was he just ruined forever? It was like too late. There was some level of apology, but it didn't matter. Yeah.

And the logic for a short-term secret, there was one sort of honorable reason, which was Cleveland and his people basically thought that if people learned the president had cancer, which was considered simply fatal, like if people learn the president has cancer on top of the worst economic crisis of all time, the country might like disintegrate. Right? Like that was their thinking in the short term. But then after that, they were selfish. They decided Grover Cleveland is famously honest. Honesty is kind of his only accomplishment. We're just going to keep lying. Right. Yeah. Well, you know, that's the thing about a lie. Once you start lying, fool me once, a fooled man just can't stop. Right? Like, I'm not really good at aphorisms. I thought you were going to say you're not good at lying. Like, I'm too honest.

I can't do sayings about lying. Ah, nuts. Curse my morals. Curse my honesty. We love a story of an honest president, though. Like, it was like George Washington was so honest. He was like, yeah, I chopped down that cherry tree. What's up, man? What's up? What you going to do about it? And then Honest Abe, Honest Cleveland, I guess. Yeah. This happens so much where it's like, well, I disagree with some things about him, but at least he's honest about it. And it's like reiterating that for basically every president. Yeah. And Cleveland is such a dusty 1800s black and white photo president to so many people, but he's this liar, criminal, cheap,

sneaky party guy too. It's astounding. And also almost accidentally ever the president. He was just arguing a case in Buffalo and somebody else encouraged him to maybe run for local office. That's how he became the president. Yeah, man. I mean, I wonder if he was happy as president or if he'd be happier just like executing criminals and assaulting people. We'll almost talk about that in the bonus show. Stick around. It's kind of a thing. Man, this is dark. That's presidents for you. hey folks that's the main episode for this week welcome to the outro with fun features for you such as help remembering this episode with a run back through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, Grover Cleveland's other name and personality was Big Steve. Takeaway number two, Grover Cleveland's rise to the presidency was extremely

slow and then extremely fast with a few executions in the middle. Takeaway number three, Grover Cleveland had two creepy interlocking romantic relationships, and a lot of the public approved of that. Takeaway number four, Grover Cleveland got secret surgery on a tumor in his head while president. Plus a ton of numbers about Grover Cleveland's timeline, size, veto machine, and more. Those are the takeaways. Also, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now if you support this show at MaximumFun.org. Members are the reason this podcast exists. So members get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is every president who tried to do a Grover Cleveland electorally and win a next non-consecutive term.

Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of almost 16 dozen other secretly incredibly fascinating bonus shows, and a catalog of all sorts of MaxFun bonus shows. It is special audio. It is just for members. Thank you to everybody who backs this podcast operation. Additional fun things, check out our research sources on this episode's page at MaximumFun.org. Key sources this week include the book The President is a Sick Man by journalist Matthew Algeo, the book From Bloody Shirt to Full Dinner Pale by Professor Charles Delvio Calhoun of East Carolina University, and the book The Forgotten Presidents by constitutional law professor Michael J. Gerhardt of UNC Chapel Hill. And tons of digital resources from Smithsonian Magazine,

the University of Virginia Miller Center, and more. That page also features resources such as native-land.ca. I'm using those to acknowledge that I recorded this in Lenapehoking, the traditional land of the Munsee Lenape people and the Wappinger people, as well as the Mohican people, Skadigok people, and others. Also, Katie taped this in the country of Italy, and I want to acknowledge that in my location,, Katie taped this in the country of Italy, and I want to acknowledge that in my location, in many other locations in the Americas and elsewhere,

Native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode, and join the free SIF Discord, where we're sharing stories and resources about Native people and life. There is a link in this episode's description to join that Discord. We're also talking about this episode on the Discord. And hey, would you like a tip on another episode? Because each week I'm finding you something randomly incredibly fascinating by running all the past episode numbers through a random number generator. This week's pick is a joy.

It's episode 44. That is about the topic of pigeons, where me and Katie explore all sorts of features of a pigeon, in particular crop milk. So I recommend that episode. And speaking of Katie and talking about animals, she has an amazing weekly podcast called Creature Feature about animals and science and more. Our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Special thanks to the Beacon Music Factory for taping support. Extra, extra special thanks go to our members, and thank you to all our listeners. I am thrilled to

say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then. Maximum Fun A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you